Passionate Choice

Chapter 6.4

   "But just because Ben knows about us, doesn't mean to say we should behave as if we're still intimate," Selena remonstrated when Keith lifter his lips from hers. "Until you pointed it out to me, I didn't realize I was cheating on Ben when we were on the beach. You see, I was so glad to be with you, away from the others, away from being watched, that I forgot about my promise to marry him."

   His arms fell away from her and his upper lip curled in a sneer. "You're really something else, Selena. You're going to marry him yet you forgot about him yesterday afternoon. You kiss me, offer me the freedom of your body but you're still going to marry him." Every word he spoke seemed to sting like a hailstone. "I've heard about women like you," he continued. "You can't find everything you want in one man so you have to have two: one for the entertainment of your mind, the other for gratification of your senses..."

   "No. That isn't true. I'm not like that," she began to argue when her attention was caught by a movement behind him. Heather was coming down the companionway from the wheelhouse. "I can't discuss this with you any longer," she went on in a lower voice. "Heather is coming this way. When will you dive with me?"

   "You and Gary go down together to the crevasse. When you come up for your second tank of air, I'll go over the side from the bow while Heather is busy talking to you and Gary on the afterdeck. I'll meet you at the crevasse. Gary will stay on board," he said, coolly authoritative now.

   "But won't Heather give him a bad time if he doesn't dive with me?"

   "He knows what to do if she does," he relied tersely. "Go and get ready to dive now. I'll deal with Heather. She looks as if she might burst a blood vessel at any minute."

   He strolled towards Heather, hands in the pockets of his shorts, and as she made her escape along the side deck, Selena could hear him speaking pleasantly to the other woman, soothing her. The engines were slowing down. They were entering the cove so she buried into one of the small cabins to change into a one-piece swimsuit, deciding that it would be too warm for a wetsuit.

   She and Gary had no problems getting into the water. As always, under the surface—unless there was a surge—it was peaceful and far away from the turbulence of personal relationships, thought Selena as she drifted downwards into a world of blue light among shoals of indifferent fish. For an hour, as long as they had air in their tanks, she and Gary worked, each of them clearing away debris and sand from the section of the old buried timbers allotted to them by Ben, sifting through the sand and coral carefully, hoping to find a shard of pottery or a piece of metal that might give them information about the wreck beneath them.

   She had just checked her air-meter when she heard Gary give a muffled shout. Turning, she saw him waving to her excitedly and pointing to a cavity in the timbers he had cleared. In his other hand, he held an oval iron ball that fitted comfortably into the palm of his hand. Looking into the hole at which he was pointing, she saw several other oval shapes. She picked one out and indicated that she was going up. He nodded and they made their ascent together. Both Heather and Max were on the afterdeck, waiting to help them change their tanks.

   "But whatever are they?" asked Heather when they showed her their finds.

   "Weapons of some sort," said Gary who was excited by the find. "Now we're beginning to get somewhere. I don't know about you guys but I'd nearly given up, thinking we'd never find anything that might be Spanish. Those are Spanish, aren't they, Selena?"

   "Yes, I believe so. They're the wrong shape for musket shot and too big, but too small for cannon," she replied thoughtfully. "They're probably have grenades. This piece of wood attached to the end would be the fuse. The Spaniards invented them you know and they take their name from granadas, Spanish for pomegranate fruit which they resemble. I'm going down again to get some more."