Yeah, yeah, Leo thought, quietly chuckling. So, I pulled the Roger Murtaugh, I’m-gettin’-too-old-for-this-shit bit. And you think I screwed up royally when I turned down what she was offerin’? So, go ahead. Rub it in, you big corn-fed douche-canoe.
“Why do you need to find that old treasure anyway?” the blond asked. “You have a private island.” She motioned with her beer toward the rippling waters of the lagoon, tipsily splashing suds into the fire and making it hiss. “Aren’t you r—” She hiccuped, then covered her mouth with her fingers, giggling. “Rich?” she finished.
“Ha! Hardly.” Leo rested his sweating beer bottle against the fabric of his swim trunks. Here in the Keys, shorts and swim trunks were interchangeable—unlike his possible bed partners, apparently.
Come on, now! Why can’t you get Olivia Mortier out of your head?
And that was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Or more like the question of the last frickin’ eighteen months. Ever since that assignment in Syria…
“But if you’re not rich,” the blond insisted, “then how can you”—hiccup—“afford to own this place?”
No joke, Romeo had better double-time her up to the house and into his bed. One or two more brewskies and she’d be too many sheets to the wind for what the self-styled lothario had in mind for her. Romeo may be a horndog extraordinaire, with more notches on his bedpost than Leo had sorties on his SEAL résumé, but like all the guys, Romeo was nothing if not honorable. If Tracy/Stacy/Lacy was too incapacitated, Romeo would do no more than tuck her under the covers with a chaste kiss on the forehead. And as their SEAL Team motto stated: Where’s the fun in that?
On cue, Romeo turned to Leo, snapping his fingers, a worried frown pulling his black eyebrows into a V. Leo hid a smile as he reopened the cooler and dug around inside until he found a bottle of water. He tossed it over the fire, and Romeo caught it one-handed. Then Mr. Slam-dunk-ovich made quick work of exchanging the blond’s beer with the H2O. “Try this, m’ija,” he crooned, really laying his accent on thick before leaning over to whisper something no doubt highly suggestive into her ear.
The blond giggled, obediently twisting the cap off the water bottle to take a deep slug.
“We don’t own the island, darlin’,” a deep voice called from up the beach. Leo turned to see his uncle coming toward them. The man was dressed in his usual uniform of baggy cargo shorts and an eye-bleeding hula shirt. His thick mop of Hemingway hair and matching beard glowed in the light of the moon, contrasting sharply with skin that had been tanned to leather by the endless subtropical sun.
Bran Pallidino, Leo’s best friend and BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training—swim partner, had once described Leo’s uncle as “one part crusty sea dog and two parts slack-ass hippie.” Leo figured that pretty much summed up the ol’ coot in one succinct sentence. “My great-great-I’ve-forgotten-how-many-greats-grandfather leased the island for one hundred and fifty years from Ulysses S. Grant.”
“President Grant?” the brunette squeaked, coughing on beer.
“The one and only,” Uncle John said, plunking himself into an empty plastic deck chair, stretching his bare feet toward the fire, and lifting a tumbler—filled with Salty Dog, John’s standard grapefruit, vodka, and salted-rim cocktail—to his lips. Ice clinked against the side of the glass when he took a healthy swig. “You may not know this, Tracy,” he said—Tracy. Leo snapped imaginary fingers and endeavored to commit the name to memory—“but ol’ Ulysses smoked ’bout ten cigars a day. And my great-great”—Uncle John made a rolling motion with his hand—“however-many-greats-grandpappy happened to be the premier cigar-maker of the time. In exchange for a lifetime supply of high-quality Cubans, Great-Grandpappy secured the rights to make a vacation home for himself and his descendants on this here little bit of paradise for a century and a half.” Uncle John’s familiar Louisiana drawl—the same one Leo shared, though to a lesser extent—drifted lazily on the warm breeze.