Chapter 3: Schooled

A female's lyrical voice penetrated the thick hazy fog of his slumbering brain. He winced and groaned, becoming aware of a silky slender arm around his shoulder and neck. It stirred briefly but didn't remove its weight.

"Hello-o-o-o-! Anyone awake aboard?! Wakee, wakee, all hands off snakies!"

His dark head shot up from his pillow when he heard that pleasant feminine voice say the strangest thing. Had he heard her right? He wasn't sure. He squinted sleepy eyes as he fought to clear his groggy brain. Then he looked down at his bare chest and noticed that the slender arm around his neck had shifted and was now lying across it. He shook his head like a dog as he frowned.

"All hands off ... snakies?" he mumbled in groggy disbelief.

Sharon mumbled something in her sleep beside him, but he had already removed her arm and was in the process of getting out of bed. She didn't even wake up as she nestled under the shimmering black satin sheets while he pulled on a pair of boxers. As he walked out the air-conditioned cabin, he pulled on his short black satin robe and entered the short passageway, yawning widely. He was running a hand back through his tousled black hair just when the door to another cabin opened and Ryan stepped out, barely awake himself.

"You heard it, too, Royce?"

"Yes."

"What the hell is this at this godforsaken early hour? Who could that be?" Ryan mumbled with a grouchy face as he tied his robe and followed his older brother down the carpeted passageway and into the round and luxurious galley before they headed through another short passageway and into the luxurious main cabin.

"I have an idea who it can be," Royce said with a deep frown.

Moments later they climbed the short ladder to the deck. When his older brother opened the hatch, letting in the sharp early morning sun, Ryan's hand flew up to shield his eyes from the stinging light just as the chilly sea breeze gave him goose bumps.

Sauntering over to the railing, Royce pulled out a box of Davidoffs from his robe pocket. He shook one up before he took it with his lips before slipping the box back into his pocket and took out his gold Zippo. He snapped it open, but then he seemed to freeze as his squinting eyes narrowed when he saw someone on the dock. It was a slender woman in a pair of loose-fitting denims and a navy-blue hoodie smiling up at him as she stood on sturdy black rubber sole boots on the pier.

He recognized her immediately.

"Mornin'!" Charly greeted, clearly taking both brothers aback when they realized she was the owner of the voice who woke them, and that she most definitely had been calling for them.

Ryan looked at his brother who snapped on his lighter and cupped his hand around it against the breeze before he tilted his head and lit his cigarette. He didn't appear to be in any hurry to return a greeting to Miss Charly Meeren below.

As the more charming between the two brothers, Ryan smiled and put up a hand. "Good morning to you too, Miss Meeren!"

"You can just call me Charly. Everyone does," she offered kindly, showing a completely different Charly Meeren that morning. She let her admiring gaze run along the eighty-five foot white length of the yacht. "Nice boat. Big."

"Thank you."

She smiled up at him. "I need to ask you both something if it's okay with ya?" she said with the kindest smile as she shielded her eyes with a hand.

"Sure. Come aboard."

"Don't mind if I do! Thanks!"

Ryan popped eyebrows with a surprised look as he looked at his brother. "Well isn't she chipper this morning," he mumbled beneath his breath.

Royce was silent as he watched Charly as she headed for the ladder, and with athletic ease, climbed it. Her heavy rubber-soled boots didn't hamper her movements one bit, and within a few moments, she landed on the polished wooden deck before she clapped imaginary dust off her hands and walked over to them.

"So, how do you two like our modest little island so far?" she asked amiably.

Ryan still couldn't believe this was the same Charly Meeren from the day before. It was as if there were two of them: one aloof and unfriendly, one very friendly.

"Well," he said, "we've only been here a couple of days, but it's really nice."

"Eight days, to be precise. More than just a couple."

"Keeping count?" Royce said.

She didn't answer. She only smiled as she stopped in front of them before she set slender hands on her hips. "Just off the top of my head," she finally answered as she nodded with truly sparkling turquoise eyes. "And during these eight days, haven't you noticed just how pristine and litter-free it is around here? I mean, have a good look around you. You can't find so much as a candy wrapper anywhere in the water or on the pier." She narrowed eyes and smiled. "Didn't notice?"

"Yes, of course!" Ryan said, although he hadn't really noticed before since he rarely bothered checking for litter anywhere. It just wasn't a priority of his.

"Yep. Yep. Clean as a whistle." She nodded, pulling her upper lip between teeth for a moment as she ran her gaze around. Then, with a smile, she looked at him. "And we islanders would really like to keep it that way, if you know what I mean?"

Ryan frowned with a curious smile. Then he looked at his brother who was clearly listening although he was acting cool and collected as he calmly smoked his cigarette.

"Yes, I do believe we understand what you're saying." Ryan nodded. "And we promise to do our part," he assured her.

"Good!" She reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a ziploc baggie that contained six waterlogged cigarette butts.

Ryan eyed them for a few moments before he realized the real reason she was there. His hand shot to his mouth as he suppressed a burst of laughter while he noticed how Royce had paused in the middle of bringing his cigarette to his lips.

"I assume these are yours?" she asked as she held up the baggie.

Royce arched an eyebrow but he was looking at her, not the bag. "What makes you say that? I kind of feel discriminated against."

She smiled politely. "You're not being discriminated against, Mr. Masterson."

Royce arched an eyebrow. "How did you know our last names?"

She smiled but that smile didn't reach her eyes. "We don't have Davidoff cigarettes anywhere on the island, sir. These are luxury Swiss cigarettes not widely available around these parts. And until you docked your boat here, they were nonexistent." Then she tossed the baggie over to him and he caught it to his chest. "You smoke Davidoffs," she said with a nod at the lit cigarette between his fingers. "So those butts are yours."

He watched as she fished out a stack of pink index cards from her pocket.

"Don't tell me," he drawled, "you're anti-smoking."

As she focused on rearranging the index cards, she shrugged. "If by anti-smoking you mean I don't want the end result littering up our oceans, then yes." She looked up as she shook the stack between her fingers. "Otherwise, I have no opinion on the matter. My sole purpose here this morning is to help our guests understand that we would appreciate it if they helped to keep our little island and the ocean litter-free."

She turned her attention to the younger brother and handed him a pink card.

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

"Island rules on waste management. We're very environmentally conscious around here."

"I can see that."

"Every day, at about six in the evening, a group of deputized volunteers will be by to pick up any garbage you might have. Bulky items have to be called in for special pickup." She craned her neck and pointed the tip of her finger at a phone number typed in bold at the bottom of the card. "This the number you call for special pickup. But mind you, they only come by once a week." She dropped to her feet and she smiled at him. "Only on Wednesdays which means you've missed this week's special pickup, so I'll have to ask you to keep any garbage on your boat until next week, or you can deliver it to the Island Waste Management facility at the address on the card if you can't wait until then."

"Island Waste Management ... rules?"

"We're a tiny island surrounded by the Atlantic, and we islanders don't soil where we live. We'd appreciate it if you and your guests stick to these simple rules and guidelines during your stay so we can keep a happy and healthy island," she said kindly. Then she smiled and nodded. "Have a wonderful stay on Mount Desert," she said before she moved to return to the ladder to disembark.

"Aren't you going to ask her, Ry?" Royce spoke up and watched her pause as she turned and looked curiously from him to his younger brother.

"Ask me what?" she asked.

Ryan frowned as he looked at his older brother, but Royce had his attention on Charly. "Ask you about that sea stone that fellow brought in the other day at the coffee shop. What was his name again? You referred to him as "Gems"."

Ryan briefly frowned before he got what his big brother was telling him, but before he could speak, Royce continued, "This Gems fella seemed to be convinced that you were an expert on sea treasures like that. I wonder why he'd think that."

She stared at him for a few seconds, and for those few seconds they saw the Charly Meeren from the other day briefly appear. Then she smiled and that Charly vanished again. "Don't mind Gems," she said with a soft chuckle. "He's always treasure hunting, and for some strange reason, he thinks I'm some expert on whatever he finds."

"Why would he think that?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you should ask him?"

"I'm asking you," he said and watched her smile briefly falter. "But I was hoping you might save my brother the time and trouble of having to look him up."

"That's easy to do." She looked at the younger brother. "Just don't."

"Just don't look him up, you mean?"

She returned her attention on the older brother. "Yea. That's what I mean."

He suddenly smiled the most charming smile in the world. "There's something you need to know about a Masterson, Charly."

She arched eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Once we make up our mind we want something, we don't stop until we get it."

She felt her smile fade as she studied the twinkling in his eyes, but behind that twinkle there was an unmistakable determination that made her uneasy. She quickly hid that uneasiness behind a polite smile and a nod.

Then he flashed a smile. "Or so I've heard," he added with a lighter tone.

"Hm." She nodded. "Well," she said with a light sigh, "I have things to do so I need to be going. But I wish you a pleasant stay." Then she turned to leave.

"So you won't confess your little secret?"

She stopped but didn't immediately turn. Then she looked over her shoulder at the older Masterson brother. "Secret?"

"Why this Gems is convinced that you're an expert on sea treasures."

They were like a dog with a bone! She knew she had to do something to satisfy what appeared to be an insatiable curiosity that could cause her problems. Maybe if she defused the situation with some story, they'd finally let up?

So she turned and smiled as she looked at both of them. "Gems and I grew up together," she began. "As you've seen for yourself, he's not as ... worldly as either of you."

"Or you."

She smiled with a curious frown as she looked at the older brother. "I'm not that worldly, Mister Masterson. I've lived on this island all my life."

"And yet my intuition tells me that you're more traveled than most people around here."

She stared at him for a few moments before she smiled. "At any rate," she continued with the story, "Gems and I used to do a little treasure hunting as kids. I was a good storyteller back then and maybe it was wrong of me, but I used to tell tall tales about items we found that seemed to fascinate him. That's probably the reason why he believes I'm an expert on sea treasures."

"Specifically, sea stones."

"Sea stones?" She popped eyebrows as her eyes twinkled with mirth. "That rock he found, you mean?" She laughed charmingly, drawing an indulgent smile from him. "It's probably something he's bought off of ebay from some person who polishes stones and sells them with the same fantastic story I used to tell him. People do that to make their product interesting."

"Maybe that happens, but that's not what happened in this case," Royce said as he closely monitored the young woman's reaction, but she was good at putting up a charming front.

"No, Mister Masterson, I'm pretty sure that's probably the case."

She watched as Royce lowered his eyes with a smile, and she couldn't help but admire how thick his black eyelashes were on his tanned skin. "My brother, Ryan," he began before he raised his eyes and looked at her, "is somewhat of a treasure hunter himself."

Oh?"

"Hm-mm," he said with a slow nod. "He once found a similar sea stone like the one your friend, Gems, was showing off to you in the coffee shop, only, he found his at the bottom of Cape Cod Bay."

"That doesn't rule out the possibility that it might've been dropped into that bay, does it? I mean, that person could've bought the manufactured rock from some unscrupulous merchant on ebay, had buyer's remorse, and tossed it, right?" She arched an eyebrow.

"Problem is, it wasn't manufactured and it wasn't a rock, and although my brother continues to refer to it as a "stone", it wasn't a stone, either."

She looked at him with an almost emotionless face. "You sound pretty confident."

"It's because I am—"

"—Yes, I've noticed."

He paused as he studied the look in her eye and she arched an eyebrow and folded arms.

"I'm confident because the sea stone had been professionally appraised," he finished.

"And the appraiser didn't know what to make of it," Ryan injected. "But he told me that it was extremely precious and valuable because it was so rare. In terms of monetary value, it was easily worth one hundred million dollars."

"That's a lot of money."

"Impossibly so," Ryan said with and. "It was probably worth more than that to the right collector. Probably half a million more."

She didn't seem impressed with the quoted value but seemed more interested in something else. "Was?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, it was lost years ago."

"I can see why you'd be upset about that." Then she cleared her throat and rubbed a finger along the bridge of her nose. "So ... were you planning on selling it? If what you say is true, that sea stone was pretty priceless."