The Vision by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

can’t mean to tell me you didn’t hear anything?”
    “I’m sorry. I must have been sleeping,” she murmured.
    “Or swimming.”
    “Pardon?”
    “Swimming. You’re all wet, and you’re wearing…seaweed.”
    “Oh. Well, I like a morning dip now and then.”
    “Right,” he murmured, staring at her flatly. “You just wake up, feel the urge and plunge
    right in? In the dark?”
    “Now and then,” she said lightly. I am losing my mind, she thought. But he was the last
    person in the world with whom she would ever share that information.
    “Interesting,” he said. “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’m going back to bed.”
    She wasn’t all right at all. But there was no way in hell she was going to tell him so. “I’m fine.” She smiled. “Are you all right? It sounds as if you’re hearing things. You know. I
    see them, you hear them.”
    “Something was making a racket,” he told her flatly.
    She shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t me.”
    “Couldn’t have been. You were swimming.”
    “I was about to make coffee. If you’d like some…?” she added, praying her words were
    perfectly casual. Indifferent.
    Hands on his hips, he looked at her as if she’d just made another entirely insane
    suggestion, but then he shrugged. “Hell, I guess I’m up for the day.”
    He followed her in. She went straight for the coffeemaker and then the sink, filling the
    pot with water, then setting the premeasured bag into place to brew. He’d taken a seat on
    the futon that served as the sofa—or guest bed. She realized he was studying her, and she
    was pretty sure she made an absurd picture, dressed in the long, soaked T-shirt, seaweed
    still in her hair.
    Act like it’s perfectly normal, she warned herself.
    “How do you like your coffee?”
    “Black.”
    “Macho, huh?” she murmured.
    “Nope. Best way to learn to drink it when you might be out for a while with milk that
    goes sour and a crew member who forgot to buy sugar or creamer.”
    “Right. Perfectly sensible.”
    She sensed his shrug.
    “We crazy people like it light,” she murmured.
    “Hey, it’s a new day,” he said politely.
    The coffeemaker chimed. She poured two cups, handed him one, fixed hers the way she
    liked it and sat across from him on one of the two wicker chairs that faced the futon.
    “I saw something down there,” she said flatly. “Today I’ll figure out for myself what it
    was—while discovering the first relic.”
    “You’re not just going to find it, you’re going to find it today?”
    She shrugged nonchalantly.
    “And you think I’m arrogant,” he murmured.
    She lifted a hand. “When the shoe fits…”
    He looked as if he was going to rise. To her deep annoyance, she realized she didn’t want
    to be alone. “What are they going to talk to us about this morning?” she demanded
    quickly.
    “The usual, I imagine. Stuff we’ve already heard about preserving the reef while we
    excavate.”
    “We’re working as carefully as we can,” she said.
    He grinned. “They just want to keep putting in their two cents, that’s all. And I have to
    hand it to Preston—his research was top-notch, and his logic appears to be the same.”
    “I know. I read the letters written by Antoine D’Mas, the pirate who watched the Marie
    Josephine go down. It all makes sense to me, too.”
    “There you go. We agree on something,” he murmured.
    They both heard the sound of footsteps pounding on the sand and the knock at the door.
    “Hey, you up in there?” Bethany called.
    Genevieve stood and opened the door. Bethany was ready for the day, it appeared. She
    was wearing cutoffs over her one-piece Speedo. Her hair was tied back, out of the way.
    “Good, you’re up early!” she announced. “I didn’t want to sit around alone any longer.
    There’s nothing on the TV—hey!” she said suddenly, seeing Thor on the futon.
    “Hey yourself,” he greeted her, standing politely.
    Bethany suddenly stared at Genevieve,