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N assau, Bahamas, 1718 has thieves, loose women, sunken treasure, and a smell that could wrinkle a dolphin’s nose. What it doesn’t have is Jack Sparrow, Peter Pan, the Pirates of Penzance, or any sign of Tinker Bell.

My name is Jennifer Cloud. I’m a transporter for the World Travel Federation, frequently frustrated time traveler, and, for the sake of my mother’s mental health, chiropractic assistant at my brother Eli’s office, Cloud Chiropractic.

The genetic gift of time travel flows in my veins but requires a special vessel and key to make the magic happen.

The World Travel Federation, a.k.a. WTF, is a secret agency of time travelers made up of defenders and transporters. The defenders follow bad guys, a.k.a. brigands, to the past and prevent them from screwing up present day. The transporters, lucky me, are summoned by the defenders to cart the brigands to headquarters. The CIA keeps the facts straight and oversees this magic with muscle from the U.S. military.

After an unfortunate accident on a jump to the Titanic that only changed a smidge of things in present day, my boss grounded me, adding to my frustration with the magical overseers. The WTF locked up my key and prevented me from helping my team with their missions. My team went to bat for me, bitching and moaning until voilà! My boss returned my key.

Currently, I was on a mission sweating my ass off in 1718 with my defender, Marco Ferrari. If he was lucky enough to catch a brigand committing a crime, I’d cart the beastly bad guy or gal back to base in my handy dandy vessel, otherwise known as my outhouse. My great-aunt Elma Jean Cloud, who we lovingly call Aint Elma, gave it to me after she made her final jump to the great beyond.

* * *

Marco’s sun-kissed hair was gathered into a stubby tail bound with a piece of leather. A white cotton shirt and dark breeches made him look like the cover model for Yachts R Us. I sat across from him at New Providence Island’s main attraction, a tavern on the first floor and a brothel on the second.

I took a drink of a curious brown liquid that made my lips pucker. The smell of foul body odor, laughter, and the clink of mugs filled with the same sticky liquor floated around the room like a rotten fart at a two-for-one taco special.

Except for Marco. He smelled like salty sea air and freshly laundered linen. I didn’t know how he managed. We’d gone two days without a bath. I wasn’t daisy-fresh like Marco, but I was thankful I didn’t live in this time. And thankful we were about to return home.

At five-foot-seven, I lacked several inches of seeing eye to eye with Marco. I have a fit body from hours of despised physical training, blond hair that turns an occasional head, and blue eyes my boyfriend, not Marco, says make him weak in the kilt.

I had recently spent a weekend with the other man in my life, my current boyfriend, Caiyan McGregor, on the beautiful island of Nassau. Of course, that was present-day, with a luxury hotel, room service, a comfy king-sized bed we put to good use, and a picturesque view of white sand beaches surrounded by an aqua ocean.

This Nassau has white beaches, but the hotels and the room service are missing. The copious amounts of driftwood, seaweed, sea creatures, and seashells that washed up on the beach didn’t prevent a fantasy of me and a naked Marco rolling around in the sand.

I can always tell Marco’s mood by the color of his eyes. Icy blue when he’s mad, steel when he’s in protection mode, and when he looks at me the way he hasn’t looked at me in weeks, they resemble celestial moonbeams reflecting off the warm Caribbean Sea. Currently, they were light blue, scanning the room of prostitutes, sailors, pirates, and other patrons.

“Sasha’s here. I can feel it.”

“There’s no sign of Mortas.” I reminded Marco of the brigand we were supposed to be following, not the woman he was pursuing like a hound with his first sniff of fox.

Mortas Mafuso, a brigand I never wanted to be caught with in a dark alley unarmed and alone, should have been here. Unfortunately, Marco was also hunting the time traveler of his dreams, a sassy brigand currently stealing his undivided attention from me.

Sasha Romanov wasn’t his official target. She’d also stolen the King’s eye, an important relic essential to locating the King’s key. The King’s key was an even more important relic Mortas sought like a shark in the shallow end filled with a synchronized swim team.

According to legend, the King of the Ancalites and the first known time traveler wore armor made up of all the time traveler’s keys. The WTF has been searching for this so-called King’s key for decades.

And coming up empty.

We’d been following Mortas for days, but once we maneuvered inside the tavern, through the throng of people, I’d dropped my tired ass into a hard wooden chair. He was nowhere to be found. Apparently, neither brigand was present in the tavern.

My heart hurt a little. Marco wasn’t as into me as he had been before our treacherous trip on the Titanic . The same trip where he met Sasha. He still threw occasional sexy innuendos in my direction, but the hope that I would respond seemed less important.

“Do you sense Sasha’s here like you’re having Spidey tingles, or you’re just guessing that she’s here?” I tore my eyes away from his gaze, but not before I caught the smile. The smile that attracted women like a neon sign flashing Single Ladies, Apply Here.

“I don’t get the Spidey tingles like you do, but I have a gut feeling, and sometimes you have to go with your gut.”

“Great.” I’d followed my gut a time or two, and it could definitely steer you wrong. “We’re staying in this pigsty of a brothel, possibly catching the disease of the month, because you have a tummy tingle?”

He gave a quick laugh. “It’s a tavern. The brothel’s upstairs, and you won’t catch anything unless you’re naked.”

“I’m only getting naked if it involves a tub full of hot water and a bar of lavender soap.” I waited for the “I can help you with that” or “we could go upstairs and find out,” but I got nada. Nothing. Not even a comment about how my nipples poked through the thin material of my eighteenth-century dress.

“What?” Marco shrugged at the look I gave him.

“Nothing.” I shook my head, trying to get out of my thoughts and focus on the mission. Our mission.

“What are you thinking about?” Marco plucked a green grape off a stem and held it out to me. I took it and popped it into my mouth. It was juicy and plump and perfect and probably cut from the vine that very morning.

“Why her?” I chewed and swallowed the grape, along with my guilt over wanting Marco when I had a boyfriend. My unacknowledged truth is that I’m in love with one man and want to love another.

Marco plucked another grape off the stem, chewed over the question. “I don’t know. We just connected.” He caught my you-barely-know-her look and glanced away.

“You also connected with that runway model in Milan last year. And how about that Dallas Stars Ice Girl you cozied up with on New Year’s Eve? Or maybe the?—”

He placed his hand over mine. “Jen, none of those women did what Sasha did for me.”

Ewww. Did I really want to know? My inner voice held up a picture of some sort of Kama Sutra pose. “What?” I couldn’t help myself. I had to know.

“She made me stop thinking about you.”

Well, shit.

He removed his hand and scanned the room again. “I know you’re in love with McGregor. When I stopped trying to win your heart, I found Sasha.”

“You know.” I sipped my drink and made a sour face. “Sasha is not going to deliver herself to you on a silver platter. She has an agenda. If I were her, knowing that you and Mortas were hot on my trail, I’d be extra supercalifragilistic careful.”

He moved my drink away from me.

A ruckus broke out at the next table over a game of cards. Marco leaned in. “If you were her, what would you do?”

I slid my drink back toward me and sipped the spicy sludge. I ate a piece of pineapple, sighed at its deliciousness, and put some thought into the question. “It depends on why I’m here. If whatever I’m looking for is in some pirate’s treasure, I’d find a way on a recovery ship. Or I’d buy a ship, but time traveling with that kind of money would be cumbersome.”

“Yeah.” Marco chewed a slice of pineapple, running the possible scenarios over in his mind.

“I could thumb a ride with another ship looking for the treasure, but it’s highly unlikely any of these men would take a woman aboard, unless…” I left the words captain’s whore hanging in the wind.

Marco fidgeted in his seat. His six-two frame dwarfed the chair, and his eyes took on the icy blue of an oncoming storm. “She’s three years past the wreck of the 1715 Spanish fleet. I’m not aware of any others.”

“True. But the search for treasure went on for years. Maybe she has a map.”

The argument over the card game stepped up a notch. A man wearing a fancy coat cut in and had words with the paunchier of the two men.

“That’s Jack Rackham.” Marco nodded toward the fancy man. His Indian calico coat layered over a bright blue checkered shirt, a scarlet scarf around the collar, and well-fitting breeches encasing his bottom half.

“Calico Jack.” I recalled the famous pirate. Where he went, trouble usually followed. I also knew he’d plundered a ship and stolen those clothes he wore. And he allowed women on his boat because the famous female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, sailed with him.

“I wish I knew Sasha’s game plan.” Marco huffed out the words. The argument escalated and Jack Rackham joined in the shouting.

I thought about Rackham’s female crew. “I’d try to sneak on a ship and ensure I was there when they found the booty.”

Marco leaned in, straining to hear me over the racket.

Calico Jack settled the squabble. The boisterous men quieted, and he returned to his table.

“I said I’d sneak on the ship. I was thinking about Rackham. I’m not sure if he allowed women on his ship or if the women dressed as men and he was too stupid to realize it until it was too late.”

Marco’s face brightened. “You’re a genius. Sasha has probably disguised herself as a man. We wouldn’t recognize her.” He gave the room another pass.

We’d discovered on a previous mission that Sasha had the chameleon gift. Before that, only the sneaky brigand Kishin Toches, who I lovingly like stab my eyes out—refer to as Toecheese, had the chameleon gift. He was an irritable brigand that we’d fought in the past. Like a chameleon, Toecheese blended with his surroundings. He had the ability to change his appearance as if sprinkled with face-changing fairy dust, and he was almost impossible to recognize.

Sasha had the same ability.

“I don’t know Sasha’s mannerisms like I do Toecheese. It makes it difficult to read her.” My ability to read other traveler’s emotions across a crowded room was improving. If I made physical contact with the person, even better. But I wasn’t touching anyone in this hellhole.

“Have you tried to read lately?” Marco’s hopeful expression reminded me of our trips together. And when he’d looked at me that way instead of across a crowded room of thieves.

“I’ll try again.” I concentrated, used my gift, and sent out a read over the room.

My emotional invasion of privacy pulled in his determination to find Sasha, and a slight increase in blood pressure at my pointy nipples. Nothing more. If Sasha was in the room, she was blocking me.

I shook my head and felt Marco’s disappointment. Caiyan, the man to whom I should be engaged but wasn’t, excelled at blocking me. Marco wasn’t quite as good. If he was distracted, his guard dropped. And right now, pointy nipples aside, he was extremely distracted.

A breeze floated in from the tavern’s open-air courtyard and ruffled Marco’s hair. I had a view over his shoulder of the two-story veranda-style rooms that circled the courtyard like a sleazy motel. The prostitutes often used these rooms. A man exited one and walked down the circular iron staircase. He was tall and dark, the perfect example of a billionaire vampire, and had a vaguely familiar gait.

“Mortas.” I mouthed at Marco.

Marco did a casual glance behind him.

Mortas stopped at the entrance to the tavern, touched the pistol he had strapped to his hip, and scanned the room. His eyes landed on us, and he went squinty-eyed. What? Did he think the WTF wouldn’t send us to track him?

A rather voluptuous redhead bounced down the stairs wearing nothing but a tropical flower and sidled up to Mortas. He shrugged her off, sent us an evil glare, and left the building.

“We should go after him.” I pushed my chair back to stand.

Marco cuffed my arm. “No.”

“Why not?”

He tossed back his drink. “She’s here.”

“Want a go, honey?” The redhead rubbed against Marco. She looked down at me. “I can do her too, but it’ll cost ye extra coin.”

“Thanks, but not tonight.” Marco turned his attention to the bottom of his empty mug.

She frowned and moved on to the next patron.

I finished the disgusting mud sludge and wiped my mouth with my hand. A small cramp twisted in my intestines. I could blame it on the sludge, but most likely, it was the warning it was time to go home.

“The moon cycle’s closing. We don’t have much time.” I gave a little let’s-get-moving head nod toward the door.

“I know, but I have this gut feeling she’s here somewhere.”

My gut told me it was time to go. “We need to get a move on. Uncle Durr’s wedding is tonight, at least it is if the time portal synced up with our time here.” The portal had been finicky lately, spitting us back to the present several days after our jump instead of mere hours. “I’m meeting Caiyan. He’s my plus one.”

“McGregor needs to grow some balls and turn himself in to headquarters.”

I happened to know firsthand Caiyan’s balls were just fine, but I agreed with Marco that things were easier when the entire team worked together. “He’s looking for…something.”

“What’s he after?” Marco asked, and when I didn’t answer, he looked down his perfect nose at me. “I know he shows up at your doorstep and takes you on exotic trips.”

“I’ll admit I’ve seen him, but I don’t know what he’s looking for.”

We stood, and as I turned, I thought I saw a pirate across the room that looked an awful lot like Caiyan. I jerked my head back for a second look but saw only a dark-haired man bussing the tables.

The thought of Caiyan sparked an urgency to head home. If I was here much longer, my hormones might misfire, and I’d jump Marco, satisfying my previously fantasized sex on the beach.