Treasure in the Sand Read online

  Table of Contents

  Welcome to Barefoot Bay Kindle World

  Hello from Jill Monroe

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  The Brecon Orange Margarita

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  From Roxanne St. Claire

  Text copyright ©2016 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Roxanne St. Claire. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Barefoot Bay remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Roxanne St. Claire, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Treasure in the Sand

  Barefoot Bay Kindle World

  Jill Monroe

  Table of Contents

  Welcome to Barefoot Bay Kindle World

  Hello from Jill Monroe

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  The Brecon Orange Margarita

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  From Roxanne St. Claire

  Welcome to Barefoot Bay Kindle World, a place for authors to write their own stories set in the tropical paradise that I created! For these books, I have only provided the setting of Mimosa Key and a cast of characters from my popular Barefoot Bay series. That’s it! I haven’t contributed to the plotting, writing, or editing of Treasure in the Sand. This book is entirely the work of Jill Monroe, a talented author I handpicked to help launch this new program.

  Jill and I have been friends for years, sharing lives as Harlequin authors and many mutual acquaintances. She is as vivacious in person as she is on the page, and always delivers a love story that makes you smile as you race to the finish. I’m thrilled to have her bring her lively brand of romance to the sands of Barefoot Bay and even more excited that Treasure in the Sand includes my absolute favorite storyline: the treasure map! Throw in a modern day buccaneer and a two hundred year old family curse and I’m all in. I know you will be, too, so kick off your shoes and start digging for love in the sands of Barefoot Bay!

  Roxanne St. Claire

  PS. If you’re interested in the rest of the Barefoot Bay Kindle World novels, or would like to explore the possibility of writing your own in my world, visit www.roxannestclaire.com for details!

  Hello!

  I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing in the world of Barefoot Bay! It’s truly an honor for me.

  Roxanne St. Claire is not only a dear friend, but she’s also one of my favorite writers. It’s been so much fun to meet the other amazing authors Roxanne chose to launch the Barefoot Bay Kindle World. I can’t wait to read their stories.

  Treasure in the Sand was a blast to write. For this book, I wrote the ending before I completed the beginning. I worked my way backwards and that’s a first for me. I hope you enjoy reading about Cooper Overton and Molly Waiter as much as I did writing their story.

  I love hearing from readers. You can check me out on my website: jillmonroe.com

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillMonroe

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillMonroeAuthorPage/

  I hope Treasure in the Sand transports you to a sunny beach, let’s you smell the surf, taste the zest of an orange margarita, feel the waves as they lap at your feet…and the burn of a new and passionate romance!

  All my best,

  Jill Monroe

  Dedication

  For my grandma.

  Acknowledgments

  I wouldn’t have Molly and Cooper’s story if it weren’t for the amazing Roxanne St. Claire. Thank you, dear friend. If it weren’t for the talented Gena Showalter and the sharp eyes of Sheila Fields, my characters would just be staring at the walls, so thank you ladies—you’re amazing. I’d also like to thank Gena for Peeps. I’ll always save a box for you. You’ve earned them.

  To my family—thank you! You all are amazing!

  The Brecon Orange Margarita

  (aka The BOM)

  2 ounces of tequila

  1 ½ ounces of Triple Sec

  1 ounce from a Brecon Orange*

  Salt (optional)

  Add all ingredients into the blender, fill with ices cubes and blend. Then wait for your taste buds to say thank you.

  If you wish, you can dip the rim of your glass into the orange juice and then into salt.

  Please drink responsibly.

  * Or an orange from your favorite grove

  Chapter One

  “Check out that guy.”

  Molly Waiter’s hands fell from the ancient blender that had survived not one but two Florida hurricanes. She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze following the direction in which her best friend, Deanna, pointed. When you lived on beautiful Mimosa Key, scoping a guy usually meant viewing a gorgeous set of sun-warmed shoulders and swim trunks riding low on a toned waist.

  Today it involved… “What’s in his hand? Dowsing rods?” Molly asked, squinting against the light.

  Today it involved holding two parallel copper wires over the ground to find buried treasure.

  “You’ve got some strange ones today,” Deanna said, kicking off her flip-flops and stretching her legs to rest on the one piece of intact railing that surrounded the wrap around porch of Molly’s girlhood home, Brecon. Two years ago, Brecon was situated within a magnificent orange tree filled oasis. A testament to her grandma’s environmental research and her grandpa’s hard work. Now ramshackle was the nicest possible adjective to describe Gram’s beloved cottage. The once thriving grove was now a broken graveyard of twisted limbs and trunks.

  “I still can’t believe you’re allowing treasure hunters on the property.”

  “The hurricane churned up a lot of debris from the ocean floor. Whenever a single Spanish doubloons washes up on shore, it stirs up interest in what might be buried here all over again,” Molly said with a shrug.

  Deanna waved her fingers. “Ahhh, the priceless jewel. Still, don’t you find it creepy? These strangers crawling all over the property?”

  “They have to be gone in thirty minutes, so they’re not combing the place all night. They’re actually pretty friendly. Mostly hobbyists. Besides, they are paying for the privilege of creeping around here. Each one adds a little more to the till. Another quarter to my bottomless bucket for the renovations,” Molly said, unplugging the blender and pouring two glasses of her family’s signature drink, The Brecon Orange Margarita. Trendy bars in Naples referred to it as The BOM, but after tonight, it would only be a memory.

  “Mmmm. This is good,” Deanna said after taking a slow sip. “How many more of these quarters do you need?”

  “About forty-eight hundred…thousand.”

  Danna choked on her drink.

  “Hey, don’t waste the greatest thing you’ll ever have in your mouth.” Molly told her with a wink, and tapped the stem of her chilled and salted glass. “What you have in your hand is a margarita made from the juice of the last Brecon orange courtesy of Hurricane Damien, which from now on I’ll only call The Demon.”

  Molly couldn’t even scrape together enough money to remove the twisted and mangled remains of the orange grove that once covered this stretch of land. A shambles of branches and leaves was all that was left of the once b
eautiful orchard—a testament to the power and destruction of the violent hurricane.

  Insurance had helped make the cottage livable; restoring the electricity and running water, but every leftover cent went to cover the cost of her grandmother’s care in a rehabilitation facility in nearby Naples. When The Demon tore through Mimosa Key, he left one final gift as the murky floodwaters receded. A debilitating stroke, brought on from the stress, robbed Abigail Waiter, Molly’s grandmother, of speech.

  “To Brecon,” Deanna said and raised her glass, her tone gloomy and sad.

  “To Brecon,” Molly echoed. Good friends knew sometimes the best thing to say was as little as possible. “Oh! A bit of good news. Tomorrow a geologist is doing a flyover with a small biplane. I charged him a very pretty penny. I increased my rates.”

  Deanna gave her a fist pump. “Good for you. It’s about time you started charging more.”

  “I always feel guilty making people pay something for nothing. I mean they’re never going to find Le Cœur Surveillé. Believe me, if a priceless necklace was any where on Brecon, one of my ancestor’s would have found it by now. But if the geologist wants a turn to use his telemetry device here, more power to him. I charged him enough to square up Gram’s hospital bills, and he never balked.”

  “That’s great. How’s she doing?”

  Molly licked the salt from around her lips. “Better than I ever hoped, but then she’s a fighter. She’s responded to the physical therapy really well. She’s getting stronger, and even took a few steps yesterday without her walker. Gram might even be able to walk up this porch by Thanksgiving.” Her gaze fell across the broken limbs and shoveled dirt where once rows of vibrant orange trees reached toward the sun. “I just don’t want her to see the grove like this. It would break her heart.”

  Some of the treasure seekers had stacked the branches and washed up debris in a pile so they could more easily run metal detectors across the ground, but for the most part, there’d been little cleanup to the property that had been Molly’s home since she was seven. “We had the best hide and seek games here when we were kids.”

  Deanna chuckled. “I bet. And probably the best make out session with the guys when you got older. With the breeze from the ocean and the citrus scented air—”

  “Ha. You forget I was raised by my grandparents. Permissive they were not. Watchful, yes.”

  Deanna’s eyes narrowed as she watched a man stab the earth with a large metal prong. Wires, curling like rigatoni noodles, attached the prong to a monitor on the ground at his feet. “What’s he doing?”

  Molly propped her hip against water-warped railing. “He is listening to the earth.”

  “We do that now?”

  Molly nodded. “Apparently different minerals and elements buried deep in the ground emit varied frequencies. Gold for instance. Or silver. He’s sending down a pulse through that prong and if it hits anything other than dirt, he’ll be able to detect the wave and figure out where and what it is.”

  “Sounds legit.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not,” Molly said, studying her best friend.

  Deanna laughed. “Maybe a little bit of both. I mean, don’t men have better things to do with their prongs?”

  “Shhh, someone will hear.”

  “They’re too far away. So if a treasure seeker does find something, you are getting a cut, right?”

  “Absolutely. I did spring for a lawyer to devise a contract. Felt kind of stupid about it at first, but it’s paying off. Everyone who searches the grove and my beach has to sign it.”

  “Why don’t you try to find the treasure yourself?” Deanna asked.

  “Yeah, like no one in my family has ever thought of that before.”

  “I’m serious. In a month school will be out, and you’ll have the whole summer to look. Surely you have some kind of insider information.”

  “My friends and I traipsed all over this place when we were kids. Zilch.”

  “Yeah. Pretty much everyone else on Mimosa Key chalks it down to one of those island myths, but gave us something to talk about on a muggy Florida Saturday night. Still, maybe it would be worth your time to poke around this summer, now that you don’t have to worry about the trees.”

  Molly scooped up her hair and ran the side of the chilled margarita glass on the back of her neck. “It feels like we’ve been friends forever so sometimes I forget you didn’t grow up here and never heard of the curse.”

  Deanna’s light brown brows lifted. “The curse?”

  “According to legend, no one who possesses Le Cœur Surveillé will ever find happiness.”

  “Ohhh, cue the intriguing spooky music. So you won’t possess the jewel, not really. You’ll sell it. Problem solved,” Deanna said with a snap and a wink.

  “Not sure generational curses understand technicalities. Besides, apparently the whammy extends for those who chase it, too.” Like Molly’s parents, who were only ever connected when chasing that stupid jewel that eventually took their life.

  “Le Cœur Surveillé. My French isn’t what it used to be. What does it mean?”

  “The Guarded Heart. Legend has it the first Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley, gave the jewel to Queen Elizabeth I—rubies to match the fire in her hair. Some say he asked for her hand in marriage dozens of times, but she always said no because she never really trusted him.”

  “Was he a flirt?” Deanna asked.

  “The biggest. He finally gave up and asked another woman, but after the Queen died, they found a stash of secret letters he’d written to her over the years.”

  “Kind of romantic. And sad.”

  “Like how all romances end.”

  “Ahhh, there’s my cynic,” Deanna said with a poke to Molly’s shoulder. “You’ve been hiding her.”

  Molly made a scoffing sound. “I’ve been too busy to date, so she’s been quiet. And it’s not cynicism if it’s true. Besides, cynicism is in my blood. According to legend, my family is destined to chase after something called The Guarded Heart after all.”

  Deanna tilted her margarita glass toward Molly. “I’ll give you that, but maybe it’s time you saw a few men. You know, married ladies like me want to have all our friends—”

  “Miserable?”

  “I was going to say settled,” Deanna said with a snort.

  She waved her hand to the treasure hunters in the back part of the grove. “I see plenty of men. And don’t forget the Internet.”

  “Pinning pictures of that hottie from TV on your board, and then staring at it doesn’t count as actually seeing a man.”

  “Pinned men never disappoint you.”

  “When was the last time you had some fun?”

  Molly lifted her glass. “Well, I was having fun until about thirty second ago.”

  “And of course spending time with me is a good start, but other than our few nights with the blender, it’s been nothing but work, your grandma and this place since the hurricane. You need to do something fun. Wild. Oh! Like skinny dip. Or dance real filthy with a stranger at a club. Get off with something that doesn’t require batteries.”

  Molly choked on her drink.

  Deanna snapped her fingers. “That show you watch. The one you had me DVR when you didn’t have electricity out here yet. That babilicious host, uh…what’s his name again?”

  “Cooper Overton.” Just his name made her heart flutter.

  “That’s it. He says something when he’s about to strike out on a new adventure. You had it on a shirt…”

  “Call It Out,” Molly supplied.

  “Yes. Perfect. Think of something wild to do, and call it out. So you’re not finding a buried treasure, but I bet plenty of your ancestors have called stuff out.”

  “And died.”

  “So, call out not dying. Problem solved,” she said with a smile. “So, how did a jewel connected to a long dead queen and an ocean away get linked with your family?”

  “Short version or long?”
>
  “Start with the long, with the option to go short.”

  “Done. So, it’s believed a servant in Queen Elizabeth’s household pocketed the necklace and made her way to France and to Margaret Valois, Queen of Navarre.”

  “Another Virgin Queen?”

  Molly shook her head. “The exact opposite. Lots of affairs. In fact, her husband divorced her and her brother, King Henry III, forced her to leave court because of her indecent behavior. Although she was probably only acting the same as the men.”

  “Scandalous,” she said, leaning forward. “Now tell me more.”

  “Well it gets weird. Margaret Valois befriended Marie de’ Medici, who just so happened to be the new wife of her ex husband.”

  “Befriended befriended?”

  “That I wouldn’t know, but when Margaret died in 1615, she left the jewel to her. As far as I can tell no hearts were broken until Marie gifted the jewel to her daughter, Elizabeth, who became Queen Consort of Spain after marrying Philip IV. But the marriage wasn’t a happy one.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.”

  “I’m telling you there’s a reason to be a cynic about love. Elizabeth tried, she really did. She even took on the Spanish form of her name for the guy.”

  “Isabel?” Deanna asked.

  Molly winked. “Got it in one. You can take the Spanish teacher out of the high school, but not the Spanish out of the teacher.” Feeling in a rut, Deanna had switched to teaching second graders at the elementary school where Molly worked as the speech pathologist.

  “The King took on many lovers, so Isabel turned to a man in court. A poet.”

  “Did he know it?”

  Molly laughed in spite of her friend’s bad rhyme joke. “Stop it. Their affair probably would have been fine except a fire broke out in the palace and the poet tore through the castle until he found her and carried her to safety.”