The Reef (7 page)

“We can. We are.” God, she couldn't breathe. “Kiss me again. Hurry.”

His mouth crushed down on hers. The taste of her seemed to explode inside him. Everything about it was painful, nearly agonizing, as heat would be after cold.

“This is crazy,” he murmured against her mouth. “I'm out of my mind.”

“Me, too. Oh, I want you, Matthew. I want you.”

And that struck him hard. He jerked back, gripped unsteady hands on her shoulders. “Listen, Tate . . . What the hell are you smiling at?”

“You want me, too.” She lifted a hand, laid it gently against his cheek and almost unmanned him. “For a while I thought you didn't. And it hurt because I want you so
much. I didn't even like you at first, and wanted you anyway.”

“Jesus.” To gain control of himself, he let his brow rest on hers. “I thought you said you were the careful one.”

“Not about you.” Full of love and trust, she nuzzled into him. Heart to heart. “Never about you. When you kissed me the first time, I knew you were what I'd been waiting for.”

He had no compass, no direction, but he knew it was essential to reverse course. “Tate, we have to take this slow. You're not ready for what I'm thinking of. Believe me.”

“You want to make love with me.” Her chin came up. Her eyes, all at once, were a woman's, and just as mysterious. “I'm not a child, Matthew.”

“Then I'm not ready. And I'm not willing to do something that would hurt your parents. They've been straight with me and Buck.”

Pride, she thought. Pride, loyalty and integrity. Was it any wonder she loved him? Her lips curved. “All right. We'll take it slow. But it's between us, Matthew. What we decide, and what we want.” She leaned forward, touched her lips to his. “I can wait.”

S
TORMS SWEPT IN
and made diving impossible for the next two days. When the first wave of impatience passed, Tate settled down on the boat deck of the
Adventure
to clean and catalogue the pieces of the
Santa Marguerite
her father and Buck had brought up on the last dive.

Rain drummed on the tarp stretched overhead. The islands had vanished in the mist, leaving only restless seas and angry skies. Their world had whittled down to water, and each other.

In the deckhouse, a marathon poker game was in progress. Voices, a laugh, a curse, drifted out to her over the monotonous patter of rain. Tate cleaned the corrosion from a crudely made silver cross, and knew she'd never been happier in her life.

With a mug of coffee in each hand, Matthew ducked under the tarp. “Want some help?”

“Sure.” Just looking at him had her heart cartwheeling into her throat. “Is the poker game breaking up?”

“No, but my luck is.” He sat beside her, offered a mug. “Buck just blew down my full house with a straight flush.”

“I can never keep straight what beats what. I'm better at gin.” She held up the cross. “Maybe the ship's cook
wore this, Matthew. It would have banged against his chest when he beat batter for biscuits.”

“Yeah.” He fingered the silver. It was an ugly piece, more likely fashioned by a blacksmith than a jeweler. Neither did it have weight. Matthew dismissed it as little value. “What else you got here?”

“These rigging hasps. See, they've still got traces of rope in them. Imagine.” She handled the black metal reverently. “How they would have fought to save the ship. The wind would have been screaming, the sails in tatters.”

She looked beyond into the mist and saw what had been. “Men clinging to lines and masts as the ship heeled. Passengers terrified. Mothers holding their children while the ship pitched and heeled. And we're finding what's left of them.”

She set the fitting down and lifted a clay pipe with both hands. “A seaman kept this tucked in his pocket, stood on deck after his watch to light it and enjoy a quiet smoke. And this tankard would have been filled with ale.”

“Too bad it's missing the handle.” He plucked it up, turned it over. He didn't want to admit her vision had moved him. “Devaluates it.”

“You can't just think about the money.”

He grinned. “Sure I can, Red. You take the drama, I'll take the dough.”

“But—” He cut off her objection with a quick, sneaky kiss.

“You look so cute when you're indignant.”

“Really?” She was young enough, and in love enough, to be flattered. Picking up her coffee, she sipped, watching him over the rim. “I don't believe you're nearly as mercenary as you pretend.”

“Believe it. History's fine if you can make something from it. Otherwise, it's just dead guys.” He glanced up, barely noticing her frown. “Rain's slowing down. We'll dive tomorrow.”

“Restless?”

“Some. The trouble is hanging out here, having your mother put a plate under my nose every time I blink. I
could get used to it.” He lifted a hand, ran it over her hair. “It's a different world. You're a different world.”

“Not so different, Matthew,” she murmured and turned her lips to his. “Maybe just different enough.”

His fingers tensed, relaxed slowly. She hadn't seen enough of the world, his world, he thought, to know the difference. If he were a good man, a kind one, he knew he wouldn't be touching her now, tempting them both toward a step that could only be a mistake.

“Tate—” He was riding the wire between pushing her away or bringing her closer, when Buck stuck his head under the tarp.

“Hey, Matthew, you—” Buck's jaw dropped open as they broke apart. His unshaven cheeks bloomed with color. “Ah, 'scuze me. Ah, Matthew . . .” While Buck searched for what to say, Tate calmly picked up her pen and catalogued the clay pipe.

“Hi, Buck.” Tate sent him a bright, easy smile while the two men eyed each other uncertainly. “I heard you were having a run of luck at the poker table.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I, ah . . .” He jammed his hands into his pockets, shifted his feet. “Rain's slacking off,” he announced. “Me and Matthew, we'll load this stuff up, store it on the
Sea Devil.
”

“I'm just finishing cataloguing.” Meticulously, Tate capped the pen. “I'll give you a hand.”

“No, no, we'll do her.” Buck dragged his hand out of his pocket long enough to shove his glasses back up his nose. “Me and Matthew, we've got to do some tinkering with the engine over there anyhow. Your mama said something about you being on kitchen duty tonight.”

“She's right,” Tate said with a sigh. “I guess I'll get started.” She unfolded her legs and rose before tucking her notebook under her arm. “I'll see you at dinner.”

The men said little as they wrapped and loaded the booty. Matthew's suggestion that they might need to rent a room or a garage for storage was met by a grunt and a shrug. Buck waited until they were putting toward the
Sea Devil
before he exploded.

“Have you lost your mind, boy?”

Matthew jogged the wheel slightly. “I don't need you crawling up my back, Buck.”

“If I got to crawl up your back to get to your brain, then that's what I'll do.” He rose smoothly when Matthew cut the engine. “Haven't you got more sense than to mess around with that young thing?”

“I haven't been messing around with her,” Matthew said between his teeth. He secured the bow line. “Not like you mean.”

“Thank God for that.” Agilely, Buck shouldered the first tarp, hooked his foot on the ladder. “You got no business playing games with Tate, boy. She ain't a loose one.”

“I know what she is.” Matthew hauled the second tarp. “And I know what she isn't.”

“Then you remember it.” Buck carried his tarp into the wheelhouse, unrolled it carefully on the counter. “The Beaumonts are good, decent people, Matthew.”

“And I'm not.”

Surprised at the bitterness in the tone, Buck looked up as Matthew set down his tarp. “Never said you weren't good or decent, boy. But we ain't like them. Never have been. Maybe you figure it's okay to dally around with her before we move on, but a girl like that expects things.”

He took out a cigarette, lighted it, peering at his nephew through the smoke. “You going to tell me you're thinking about giving them to her.”

Matthew pulled out a beer, swallowed long to wash some of the anger out of his throat. “No, I'm not going to tell you that. But I'm not going to hurt her, either.”

Wouldn't mean to, Buck thought. “Change your course, boy. There's plenty of females out there if you've got an itch.” He saw the fury flash into Matthew's eyes and met it equably. “I'm telling you 'cause I'm the one who's got to. A man hooks up with the wrong woman, it can ruin both of them.”

Struggling for calm, Matthew set the half-drained bottle of beer aside. “Like my mother and father.”

“That's true enough,” Buck said, but his voice had gentled. “They set sparks off each other, sure. Got
themselves tangled before either of them thought it through. Left them both pretty scraped up.”

“I don't think she did a hell of a lot of bleeding,” Matthew shot back. “She left him, didn't she? And me. Never came back. Never looked back as far as I can tell.”

“She couldn't take the life. Ask me, most women can't. No use blaming them for it.”

But Matthew could. “I'm not my father. Tate's not my mother. That's the bottom line.”

“I'll give you the bottom line.” Eyes heavy with concern, Buck crushed out his cigarette. “That girl over there's having herself some fun and excitement for a few months. You're a good-looking man, so it's natural you'd be part of that fun and excitement. But when it's over, she'll go back to college, get herself a fancy job, a fancy husband. That leaves you high and dry. If you forget that, and take advantage of the stars in her eyes, both of you'll be the worse for it.”

“It wouldn't occur to you that I might be good enough for her.”

“You're good enough for anybody,” Buck corrected. “Better'n most. But being right for somebody's different.”

“So speaks the voice of experience.”

“Maybe I don't know a goddamn thing about women. But I know you.” Hoping to calm the waters, he laid a hand on Matthew's rigid shoulder. “We got a chance at the big time here, Matthew. Men like us look all our lives, only a few of us find it. We found it. All we have to do is take it. You can make something out of yourself with your share. Once you do, there'll be plenty of time for women.”

“Sure.” Matthew picked up his beer, tipped it back. “No sweat.”

“There you go.” Relieved, Buck gave his shoulder a slap. “Let's take a look at the engine.”

“I'll be right there.”

Alone, Matthew stared at the bottle in his hand until he'd willed back the clawing urge to smash it into jagged
pieces. There was nothing Buck had told him that he hadn't already told himself. And less kindly.

He was a third-generation treasure hunter with a legacy of bad luck that had dogged him like a bloodhound all of his life. He'd lived by his wits, and the occasional flip side of that luck. He had no ties but to Buck, no property other than what he could strap on his back.

He was a drifter, nothing more, nothing less. The prospect of fortune forty feet beneath his feet would make the drifting more comfortable, but it wouldn't change it.

Buck was right. Matthew Lassiter of no fixed address and less than four hundred dollars tucked into a cigar box had no right picturing himself with Tate Beaumont.

 

Tate had other ideas. It was frustrating to discover over the next few days that the only time she found herself alone with Matthew was under water. There communication and physical contact were hampered.

She would change that, she promised herself as she searched the fallout from the airlift. And she would change it today. After all, it was her twentieth birthday.

Carefully, she picked among the nails, the spikes, the shells, eyes peeled for the valuables that scattered. Ship fittings, a sextant, a small, hinged brass box, a silver coin embedded in a hunk of coral. A wooden crucifix, an octant and a lovely china cup sliced delicately in two.

All this she gathered, ignoring the pings of debris against her back, the occasional nick on her hand.

A glint of gold shot by her. Tate's heart careened in her chest as she scanned the cloud for the telltale flash of it. The small, quick gleam had her darting forward, dipping toward the sand and sending the burrowing rays rising in a swirling cloud.

Her mind was screaming treasure, doubloons, jewels of great price and age. But when her hand closed around the piece of gold, her eyes began to swim.

It wasn't a coin, or jewelry long buried beneath the waves. Not a priceless artifact, but priceless nonetheless. She lifted the gold locket with the single pearl dripping from its point.

When Tate turned back, she saw that Matthew was pointing the airlift pipe away and watching her. He sketched letters in the water with his finger. H. B. D. Happy birthday. With a gurgle of laughter, she swam toward him. Undaunted by tanks and hoses, she took his hand, pressed it to her cheek.

He let it lie there a moment, then waved her away. His signal an obvious “Stop loafing.”

Once more the airlift sucked at sand. Ignoring the fallout, Tate carefully secured the necklace by looping it around her wrist. She went back to work with love soaring in her heart.

Matthew concentrated on the offshore end of the ballast mound. Patiently, he cut into the sand, creating an ever-widening circle with sloping sides. He was a foot down, then two, while Tate worked busily to pick through the fallout. A school of triggerfish darted by. Matthew glanced up and saw through the murky cloud that the barracuda was grinning at him.

On impulse, he shifted his position. He wouldn't have considered himself superstitious. As a man of the sea he followed signs and lived by lore. The toothy fish hovered in nearly the same spot day after day. It wouldn't hurt to use the mascot as a marker.

Curious, Tate looked over as Matthew hauled the airlift several feet north where he was already forming a new hole. Tate let her attention drift and watched a kaleidoscope of fish whirl through the clouded water hunting for the sea worms displaced by the cut of the pipe.

Something clinked against her tank. Efficiently, she turned back to resume her chores. The first glint of gold barely registered. She stared through the roiling water at the bed of sand. The flashes of brightness were scattered around her like flowers that had just bloomed. Stupefied, she reached down and plucked up a doubloon. The long-dead Spanish king stared back at her.

The coin dropped from her numbed fingers. In a sudden fever, she began to harvest them, pushing them into her wet suit, jamming them into her lobster bag and ignoring the solid objects that drifted down in the thick column of
fallout. The conglomerate rained, but she was oblivious to it, facedown, scanning the seafloor like a miner panning for gold.

Five coins, then ten. Twenty and more. Her breath rushed out in a shriek of laughter. She couldn't seem to get enough air. When she looked up, she saw Matthew grinning at her, his eyes dark and wild. Behind her mask, her face was bone white.

They'd hit the mother lode.

He gestured to her. As if in a dream, she swam over and her trembling hand reached for his. Sand trickled down into the test hole, but she saw the sparkle of crystal from a perfectly preserved goblet, the sheen of coins and medallions. And everywhere the calcified shapes of artifacts. And there the blackened streak of sand that every hunter knew meant a river of silver.