"Or you?" he asked, the words barely audible above the crash of the waves.
"Of course not. Look, I don't know who started that story about me breaking Cruz's heart, but I'm sure it was intended originally as a joke."
"We don't joke about true love in this family. We take it seriously. You broke my grandson's heart, and that really pisses me off."
"Yeah, well he stole that amethyst chamber from me. If it hadn't been for him and Amber Inc. I'd have been rich by now."
"You'd have been plenty rich if you'd just taken the damned settlement our lawyers offered you."
"That money came with way too many strings attached."
"What strings, damn it?" Jake's voice rose to a roar.
Vincent abruptly responded to the escalating tension in the atmosphere. He didn't go all sleek and predatory, but he abandoned his fishing and fluttered across the rocks toward Lyra. She picked him up and tucked him under her arm, grateful, as usual, for the comfort of his furry little body.
"If I had taken the money, I would have had to give up my claim on the chamber," she said.
Jake whacked a nearby rock with his cane. "That was the general idea."
"I'll never do that. As far as I'm concerned, that ruin was my discovery, and it belongs to me. In addition to giving up my claim, your lawyers actually demanded that I sign a nondisclosure clause and stop doing interviews with the media. I wasn't about to agree to that, either. Bad press was the only weapon I had to use against you."
"Why the devil did you care so much about that ruin in the first place?"
"Ask Cruz."
"He gave me some ghost crap about you probably being worried that the amethyst relics inside the chamber might prove to be weapons. Said you didn't trust Amber Inc. or the Guilds with them."
She nodded once. "You've got that right. And now your lab has gone and lost one of the artifacts. Which only goes to prove that my concerns were justified."
"And you claim you're not a romantic. Only a romantic fool would turn down the kind of money we offered you just to keep those relics out of what you thought were the wrong hands."
"That wasn't a romantic act," she shot back. "It was my insider knowledge of how things operate at Amber Inc. that made me do it."
"Next you're going to tell me you got that so-called insider knowledge from your grandfather."
She raised her chin. "That's right."
Jake studied her in silence for a moment. Then he exhaled heavily.
"Arthur Dore raised you on poison," he said. "He was the one who challenged me to that game of poker. We each owned claims. Both deeds went into the pot. Winner take all."
"He was drunk. You took advantage of him."
"He'd had a few drinks, but he knew what he was doing." Jake's voice softened a little. "But I'm willing to allow that his memory of events wasn't real clear."
"Cruz told me that there was a woman involved," she said.
"There was. Madeline. My wife. Dore challenged me to that game because he had some crazy notion that if he won and wound up owning both mines, Madeline would marry him instead of me. But that was never even a remote possibility."
"What makes you so sure of that? Oh, wait." She held up a hand, palm out. "Cruz said that when it comes to love, you Sweetwaters have some kind of special intuition."
"It's part of our talent. The first time I met Madeline, I knew she was the one. She and your grandfather had been seeing each other, but there was nothing serious on either side. At least not until Dore realized that Madeline was going out with me. He was furious but only because it was just one more thing he had lost to me, not because his heart was broken."
"You're sure of that, are you?"
"Damn sure. I knew your grandfather better than you did, at least back in those days. Hell, you weren't even born yet. I'm damn sorry you lost your parents, and I'm glad you had Arthur Dore to take you in, but it sounds like he gave you a somewhat revised version of history."
She gave him a bright, shiny smile. "Well, one thing's for sure, there's no way to prove his version now, is there? History is written by the winners, and you were the winner."
"What the hell did you expect me to do? Give him back the deed to the mine?"
"Yes," she said. "That would have been the right thing to do."
Big Jake's hard face darkened with outrage. "Like hell. I won that claim off Dore fair and square. He knew it, and I knew it. If I'd turned around and tried to give it back to him, he would have refused it."
"Why would he have done that?"
"For the same reason you wouldn't take the settlement money Cruz offered you as compensation for that amethyst ruin. Pride. Arthur Dore would have seen any attempt to return the deed as an act of pity."
She felt the familiar shiver of awareness and turned to look at the path that led up the bluff. Cruz was making his way down to the cove, moving with his characteristic sure-footedness. Dark glasses veiled his eyes, but even from here she could see the grim set of his jaw.
She switched her attention back to Jake.
"You know, I never gave it much thought, because there wasn't any point to imagining how things might have been different," she said. "But you're right. Granddad would have turned down your offer."
"I did not cheat him out of that claim," Jake said quietly. "And even if I had, it still wouldn't give you the right to break my grandson's heart. If you had a problem with me, you should have come to me about it."
"Ah, but I didn't have a problem with you," she said politely. "I was doing just fine without any Sweetwaters in my life. My problem is with Cruz. And if anyone calls me a heartbreaker one more time, I swear I'm going to swim back to the mainland."
The corner of his mouth edged upward slightly. "That would be a very long swim," he said.
"So, I'll steal one of your boats. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going back to the house for breakfast."
"I'm hungry, too. I'll come with you."
"Your island. Suit yourself."
"Thanks, I'll do that." He fell into step beside her, driving his cane into the sand with each step. He looked toward the path. "Looks like the rescue mission has arrived."
"I don't need rescuing from you."
"Nope, you sure as hell don't. You can take care of yourself. So what's with the dust bunny?"
"His name is Vincent."
"I hear they bite."
"Oh, yeah."
Jake chuckled. "Like you."
It was not a question, so Lyra saw no need to respond.
Cruz came to a halt in front of them.
His dark glasses glinted in the sun. He looked at Lyra and then at Jake.
"Is there a problem here?" he asked in his dangerously neutral voice.
"Yes," Jake said. "But I'm told the problem is with you, not me, so we're going to have breakfast. You can join us if you like."
Cruz smiled at Lyra. "Thanks, I'll do that."
Chapter 27
THEY ATE BREAKFAST OUTDOORS ON THE VERANDA THAT overlooked the spectacular cove. The cook came down from what everyone on the island referred to as the Big House, a large, airy mansion about a mile from Cruz's cottage. There were platters of succulent fruits and berries, fluffy cheese-and-vegetable omelets, and endless piles of toast and pots of coffee.
Vincent went into full cute mode and charmed the cook into providing him with his own plate heaped with samples of everything on the table. He crouched on the foot-wide railing with his hoard and, like every other male in the vicinity, went to work on his breakfast with gusto.
"Here's what we've got," Cruz said, forking up a bite of omelet. "Valentine Fairstead was murdered last night, and the murder is probably linked to the missing relic, which we know was in his vault as of yesterday afternoon."