CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sa Calobra, Mallorca
December 9
Evan followed the now-familiar path through the caves. Anticipation eclipsed her fear. She moved with ease and ducked to avoid a low rock shelf she had passed the day before. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and bees were buzzing in her belly. She didn’t even pretend to lie to herself and claim it was the thought of finding something exciting in the cave they had pinpointed. While that certainly excited her, it was the man she was meeting who fired her blood.
She huffed. Half the women on the island probably wanted Miguel Ramirez. He was beautiful and sexy and emanated a raw masculinity. And while all of those qualities certainly flipped her switch, it was something else that pulled her. Behind that facade of callous indulgence, there was something else. She saw it in his golden gaze—a battle. A war was waging within this man, some deeply troubling conflict. Whatever it was, she wanted to comfort him, ease his pain. She sighed. Before she gave herself too much credit for her selflessness, she admitted she also wanted to feel him between her legs. To touch her in a way she had been deprived of for so long. He was the only man she had ever met who doused her panic. She didn’t just want Miguel. She needed him.
She climbed through the final opening into the storage room. A large, calloused hand appeared before her face, and she instinctively took it. Her eyes followed the enticing path from powerful forearm to rounded bicep to broad shoulder and finally to that arrogant, charming face. With his help, she pulled herself to standing.
“I’d never accuse you of being a gentleman, but thank you,” she said.
He grunted in response.
She stared at their clasped hands, her fingers nestled in the crook of his thumb, his long thick one wrapped around her palm. Why did the simplest thing seem to have so much meaning? Before she could study it further, he released her from his grasp.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, mute.
Miguel brought the steel cabinet away from the wall, revealing the sealed-off entrance and the marker he had discovered. Evan knelt and extracted the gold links, bagging them and making a note of the location.
Miguel grabbed a sledgehammer from the row of tools with the ease of a baseball player selecting a bat, and in one, two, three swings, there was a hole resembling the one she had crawled through earlier.
“As much as I want to watch that little ass, I better go first.” He turned to the opening and began clearing away rocks by hand. Evan watched him work. There was something off about this man. The words out of his mouth were disgusting and offensive, yet his actions were… thoughtful.
She had dated a man in grad school, well, tried to date anyway. After knee surgery, she had been on crutches; he never once held a door for her or helped her down the stairs. That was a person who supposedly liked her, who wanted more with her. Yet here was this—she used his own descriptor—predator, a man that if he had any feelings toward her, they strayed toward the dislike end of the spectrum, clearing away rocks to ease her passage. Then, once again, he blanketed his kind gesture with harsh words.
“Let's go. You look good on your knees, but I want to find treasure.”
Evan ignored the remark and followed him through the opening; she was the one who would be doing the ass-staring.
Once inside the small chamber, Cam stood and bumped his head on the low ceiling. He could hear her stifled chuckle in the dark. She came up beside him, turned on the flashlight, and scanned the space. There, in the corner, were two large, unremarkable mounds. Evan hurried to them with an excitement that belied their appearance.
“That doesn’t look like treasure to me,” Cam grumbled.
“Just wait.” She walked around the formations but didn’t touch them. “These may have been crates centuries ago. As the wood decayed, silt and limestone deposits formed around them.”
Cam took a step forward, his boot landing in a deep puddle. “This cave takes on water, chica.” His voice echoed in the darkness.
“We’re near the shore. This cave may have even opened to the bay at one point,” Evan replied.
He heard rustling and clanking from her corner, and moments later, two battery-operated LED lanterns illuminated the space. Cam watched as she unfurled a set of tools and rubbed her hands together with undisguised glee.
He couldn’t resist goading her. “I’ll get the hammer.”
“No!” she shrieked. Then, “No,” in a calmer tone.
“This time, we do the tap, tap, tap,” she continued. “You’re about to be promoted to junior archaeologist, Miguel.”
Working together, they removed a good section of the sediment and rock that had formed over their find. Evan switched out her tools and began sifting through the top layer of earth and rocky sand.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Fifteenth-Century packing peanuts. I think whoever filled the crate used sand and rock to protect the contents, or maybe weigh it down,” she replied without diverting her attention.
Cam watched, fascinated as she continued the next stage in the process. With a tool that resembled a small gardening fork, Evan dug into the mound. Minutes later, she struck gold, or most likely, bronze. A stream of small coins came spilling from the opening. She grabbed a small tray from her kit and quickly collected the items. Cam rushed to help.