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father’s answer to that question would have been?”
    Looking up with a smile on her face, Casey cleared her throat, and said in a voice much lower than Joe’s had ever been, “Well, Casey, if there’s a pirate ship off shore, I guess it’s our lucky day. Maybe we can thumb a ride back to St. Augustine.”
    Casey giggled, and warmth radiated throughKate for her daughter, for the man they both had loved.
    God, how she missed him.
    Throwing her arms around her mother’s neck, Casey pressed a hard, loving kiss on her cheek. “I’m going to sleep,” she said in a rush of words. “I’m gonna dream about pirates,” she added, skipping out of the room, happily singing “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
    With all her heart, Kate wished that a pirate—a good pirate, she amended—would walk into the fortress and make Casey’s dreams come true. As for her own dreams, she had let them die right along with Joe. Now she was beginning to want them back.
    The caw of a bird turned her attention outside, to the sounds of the night. Wings fluttered overhead as island birds stole from tree to tree. In the distance she could hear the gentle lap of waves on the beach, and the crackle and snap of fallen brush, as if some night creature were stirring from its daytime abode.
    Could it possibly be a man? she wondered. Casey’s pirate? No, that was impossible. She’d just allowed her imagination to run wild. Even now she was seeing fairies dancing across the cobbled floor, when it was only the rays of the rising moon glinting through the window. And the ring poking through the sand was only….
    She moved toward the emerald glow and knelt so the moonlight could still illuminate her find. Calmly, deliberately, she scooped her fingers underneatha band of gold and shimmering jewels, and let the sand sift away.
    â€œOh, my God.”
    A long, slender chain of golden links slid over her hand and dropped to the floor, but the ring settled in the center of her palm, staring up at her in all its glory. The emerald, if that’s what the radiant green stone really was, had to be nearly the size of a dime. It was set in a wide band of filigreed gold, with a trio of diamonds glittering like luminous stars at either side.
    It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever seen, and certainly the most wonderful—and valuable—she’d ever touched. Could it possibly be real, and not just a piece of costume jewelry someone had once left behind on the island?
    She slid the ring on her finger, covering the tan line where, until a few days ago, she’d worn a simple gold wedding band. It seemed sinful to put another ring on that finger, when Joe’s ring had meant the world to her. But this new ring fit perfectly, as if it had been made just for her.
    She looked about her, for some odd reason afraid that someone might be watching. Afraid that she’d just fallen in love with a ring that rightfully belonged to someone else. No one was around, though. No one watched her. As far as she knew, the ring had been buried under the sand in this fortress for hundreds of years, a treasure waiting to be found.
    Perhaps it was the treasure Joe had sent her to find.
    A lone tear slid down her face. With all her heart she wished Joe had been the one to find it.
    Wiping the tear away, she swept the chain from the sand, studying the intricacy of the links, and the break where the unending circle of gold had torn apart. It looked like so many of the antique pieces of jewelry Joe had purchased, only this wasn’t dull from over a hundred years of wear. Instead, it sparkled like new.
    Were there more pieces buried beneath the stones?
    Slipping the ring from her finger, she tucked it and the chain into the pocket of her shorts and went in search of other treasure. She carefully brushed sand away from the cobbles, digging her fingers between the cracks, hoping the