The Reef

by Nora Roberts

  “He hurt you that summer. Matthew.” Gently, Ray took her face in his hands. “I knew there was something between you, but I didn’t realize it had cut so deep.”

  “This has nothing to do with that,” she insisted. “It has to do with who and what he is.”

  “Eight years is a long time, honey. Maybe you should step back and take another look. In the meantime, there are things I need to show you, all of you. Let’s get everybody into my den.”

  With reluctance, Tate joined the group in the warmly paneled room where her father did his research and wrote his articles for diving magazines. Deliberately, she moved to the opposite end of the room from Matthew and settled on the arm of her mother’s chair.

  With the windows open to the scents and music of the sound, it was just cool enough to indulge in a quiet fire. Ray walked behind his desk, cleared his throat like a nervous lecturer about to begin his speech.

  “I know you all are curious about what prompted me to begin this venture. All of us know what happened eight years ago, what we found and what we lost. Every time I’d dive after that, I’d think about it.”

  “Brood about it,” Marla corrected with a smile.

  Ray smiled back at her. “I couldn’t let it go. I thought I had for a time, but then something would remind me, and set me off again. One day I had the flu, and Marla wouldn’t let me out of bed. I passed the time with some television and happened across a documentary on salvaging. It was a wreck off Cape Horn, a rich one. And who was backing it, who was pulling in the glory, but Silas VanDyke.”

  “Bastard,” Buck muttered. “Probably pirated that one, too.”

  “Might have, but the point is, he’d decided to film the proceedings. He wasn’t on-camera much himself, but he did talk a little about some of the diving he’d done, other wrecks he’d discovered. The sonofabitch talked about the Santa Marguerite. He never bothered to mention it had already been found, excavated. The way he told it, he did it all, then being the generous soul he is, donated fifty percent of the proceeds to the government of Saint Kitts.”

  “In bribes and kickbacks,” Matthew decided.

  “It got my blood up. I started researching again right then and there. I figured he’d gotten one wreck, but he wasn’t going to get the other. I spent the better part of two years digging up every snatch of information I could find on the Isabella. No reference to that ship, that crew, that storm was too small or insignificant. That’s how I found it. Or, how I found two very vital pieces to the puzzle. A map, and a reference to Angelique’s Curse.”

  Carefully, he lifted a book out of the top drawer. Its cover was tattered and held together by tape. Its pages were dry and yellowed.

  “It’s falling apart,” Ray said unnecessarily. “I found it in a used-book store. A Sailor’s Life. It was written in 1846, by the great-grandson of a survivor of the Isabella.”

  “But there were no survivors,” Tate put in. “That’s one of the reasons the wreck’s been so hard to find.”

  “No recorded survivors.” Ray stroked the book as though it were a well-loved child. “According to this, stories and legends the author transcribed from his grandfather’s tales, Jos Baltazar washed ashore on the island of Nevis. He was a seaman on the Isabella, and he watched her go down as he clung half conscious to a plank probably from the wrecked Santa Marguerite. Matthew, I think your father had traced this same clue.”

  “If that’s true, what was he doing in Australia?”

  “He was following Angelique’s Curse.” Ray paused for effect. “But he was a generation too soon. A British aristocrat, Sir Arthur Minnefield, had acquired the amulet from a French merchant.”

  “Minnefield.” Buck narrowed his eyes in concentration. “I remember seeing that name in James’s notes. The night before he died he told me he’d been looking in the wrong place. He said how VanDyke had it wrong, how that damned necklace had gotten around. That’s how he said it, ‘that damned necklace,’ and he was excited. When we were finished on the reef, he said how we were going to shake loose of VanDyke, turn the tables on him before he turned them on us. Said how we had to be careful of VanDyke and not move too fast. He had a lot more studying and figuring to do before we went after her.”

  “My theory is he found another reference to the amulet, or to Baltazar.” Ray set the book carefully on his desk. “You see, the amulet didn’t go down on the reef, the ship did, Minnefield did, but Angelique’s Curse survived. Details are sketchy for the next thirty years. Maybe it washed up on the beach or someone found it while exploring the reefs. I can’t find any mention of it between 1706 and 1733. But Baltazar saw it around the neck of a young Spanish woman aboard the Isabella. He described it. He heard the legend, and he recounted it.”

  Far from convinced, Tate folded her hands. “If there’s a reference to the amulet that places it on the Isabella, why hasn’t VanDyke found it, and gone after the Isabella himself?”

  “He was dead sure it was in Australia,” Buck told her. “He was fired up about it, obsessed. He got it into his head James knew something more, dogged him about it.”

  “And killed him for it,” Matthew said flatly. “VanDyke’s had teams working that wreck and that area for years.”

  “But if my father found a reference that indicated the necklace was elsewhere,” Tate continued with stubborn logic, “and your father found a reference, it’s only reasonable that a man with VanDyke’s resources, and his greed, would have found it as well.”

  “Maybe the amulet didn’t want him to find it.” LaRue spoke passively as he patiently rolled a cigarette.

  “It’s an inanimate object,” Tate retorted.

  “So is the Hope Diamond,” LaRue said. “The philosopher’s stone, the Ark of the Covenant. Yet the legends surrounding them are vital.”

  “The operative word is ‘legend’ ”

  “All those degrees made you cynical,” Matthew commented. “Too bad.”

  “I think the point is,” Marla cut in, recognizing the warrior light in her daughter’s eyes, “that Ray has found something, not whether or not this amulet holds some sort of power.”

  “Well put.” Ray rubbed the side of his nose. “Where was I? Baltazar was captivated by the amulet, even after word began to pass about the curse, and the crew became uneasy. He believed the ship was wrecked because of the curse, and that he survived to tell the tale. He told it well,” Ray added. “I’ve copied several pages of his reminiscences of the storm. You’ll see when you read them that it was a hellish battle against the elements, a hopeless one. Of these two ships, the Marguerite succumbed first. As the Isabella broke up, passengers and crew were swept into the sea. He claims to have seen the Spanish lady, the amulet like a jeweled anchor around her neck, go down. Of course, that tidbit might have been for artistic effect.”

  Ray passed out copied pages. “In any case, he survived. The wind and the waves carried him away from land, from St. Kitts, or St. Christopher’s as it was known then. He’d given up all hope, lost his sense of time when he saw the outline of Nevis. He didn’t believe he could make it to shore as he was too weak to swim. But eventually he drifted in. A young native boy found him. He was delirious and near death for weeks. When he recovered, he had no desire to serve the Armada. Instead he let the world believe him dead. He remained on the island, married and passed down his stories of his adventures at sea.”

  Ray took another paper from his pile. “And, he drew maps. A map,” Ray continued, “from an eyewitness who places the Isabella several degrees south-southeast from the wreck of the Marguerite. She’s there. Waiting.”

  Matthew rose to take the map. It was crude, and sparse, but he recognized the points of reference—the whale’s tail of the peninsula of St. Kitts, the rising cone of Mount Nevis.

  An old, almost forgotten need surged in him. The need to hunt. When he looked up, the grin he flashed was the one from his youth. Bold, reckless and irresistible.

  “When do we leave?”

  Tate co
uldn’t sleep. There was too much racing inside her head, swimming in her blood. She understood, and struggled to accept, that the momentum was out of her hands. There would be no stopping her father from taking on this quest. None of the logic nor the personal doubts she used would sway him from partnering with the Lassiters.

  At least the timing worked. She’d just tossed an enormous career advancement aside for principle. That gave her some satisfaction. And it also gave her the opportunity to help launch the expedition for the Isabella.

  At least if she was there, right on hand, she could keep her eye on everyone. Matthew in particular.

  So she was thinking of him when she stepped outside to face the moon and the wind that washed through the top of the pines.

  She had loved him once. Over the years, she’d told herself it had been merely a crush, a young woman’s infatuation with wild good looks and an adventurer’s heart.

  But that was a coward’s lie.

  She had loved him, Tate admitted, and tugged her jacket tighter against the night’s moist breeze. Or had loved the man she’d thought he was, and could be. Nothing and no one had embraced her heart so completely before him. Just as nothing and no one had ever broken it so totally, and so callously.

  She tugged a leaf from a fragrant bay laurel, spun it under her nose as she walked toward the water. It was a night for reflections, she supposed. The moon, nearly full, rode a sky crowded with hot stars. The air was full of perfume and promise.

  Once she would have been seduced by that alone. Before her romantic side had been sliced away. She considered herself fortunate that she could now appreciate the night for what it was, and not spin dreams around it.

  In a way, she knew she had Matthew to thank for opening her eyes. Rudely, painfully, but he’d opened them. She understood now that princes and pirates were for young, foolish girls to dream of. She had more solid goals than that.

  If she had to put those goals aside for a time, she would. Everything she was, everything she’d accomplished, she owed to her parents’ support and belief in her. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect them. Even if it meant working shoulder-to-shoulder with Matthew Lassiter.

  She stopped near the water, downcurrent from where the boats were docked. Her parents had built up the bank here with duck weed and wild grasses to fight erosion. Always the water stole from the land. Always the land adjusted.

  It was a good lesson, she supposed. Things had been stolen from her. She’d adjusted.

  “It’s a nice spot, isn’t it?”

  Tate’s shoulders tightened at the sound of his voice. She wondered how she hadn’t sensed him. But for a man who spent his life at sea, he moved quietly on land.

  “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “We’re bunked down in the boat.” He knew she didn’t want him beside her, so perversely he stepped forward until their shoulders nearly brushed. “Buck still snores like a freighter. Doesn’t bother LaRue. But then, he sleeps like a corpse.”

  “Try earplugs.”

  “I’ll just string a hammock out on deck. Like old times.”

  “These are new times.” She took a bracing breath before she turned to him. As she’d expected, perhaps feared, he looked magnificent in the moonlight. Bold, exciting, even dangerous. How lucky she was that such traits no longer appealed to her. “And we’d better lay out the ground rules.”

  “You were always more into rules than me.” To suit himself he sat on a bale of duck grass, patted the space beside him in invitation. “You go first.”

  She ignored the invitation, and the half-empty bottle of beer he offered. “This is a business arrangement. As I understand it, my parents are fronting the bulk of the expenses. I intend to keep an accurate account of your share.”

  Her voice still carried those lovely liquid vowels of the south, he mused, the consonants blurring like soft shadows. “Fine. Bookkeeping’s your department.”

  “You will pay them back, Lassiter. Every penny.”

  He took a swallow of beer. “I pay my debts.”

  “I’ll see to it you pay this one.” She paused a moment before moving from one practical matter to another. The moon mirrored prettily on the calm water, but she paid no heed to it. “I understand you’re teaching LaRue to dive.”

  “I’ve been working with him.” Matthew moved his shoulders. “He’s catching on.”

  “Will Buck dive?”

  Even in the shadows, she saw his eyes glint. “That’s up to him. I’m not pushing him.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to.” She softened enough to move closer. “He matters to me. I—I’m glad he’s looking so well.”

  “You’re glad he’s off the bottle.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been off it before. Lasted a whole month once.”

  “Matthew.” Before she’d realized it, she laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’s trying.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Abruptly, he grabbed her hand, tugged her down beside him. “I’m tired of looking up at you. Besides, I can see you better down here, in the moonlight. You always had a face for moonlight.”

  “Personal rule,” she said briskly. “You keep your hands off me.”

  “No problem. I don’t need the frostbite. You’ve sure chilled down over the years, Red.”

  “I’ve simply developed a more discerning taste.”

  “College men.” His smile was a sneer. “Always figured you’d go for the academic type.” Deliberately, he looked down at her hands, then back into her eyes. “No rings. How come?”

  “Let’s keep our private lives private.”

  “That’s not going to be easy, seeing as we’re going to be working in close quarters for some time.”

  “We’ll manage. And as to working arrangements, when we dive, one member of your team goes down with a member of ours. I don’t trust you.”

  “And you hid it so well,” he muttered. “That’s fine,” he continued. “That suits me. I like diving with you, Tate. You’re good luck.” He leaned back on his elbows, looked up at the stars. “It’s been a while since I dived in warm water. The North Atlantic’s a bitch. You learn to hate her.”

  “Then why did you dive there?”

  He slanted her a look. “Doesn’t that come under the heading of private?”

  She looked away, cursing herself. “Yes, though it was professional curiosity that made me ask.”

  So, he’d oblige her. “There’s money to be made salvaging metal wrecks. In case you haven’t heard, World War II played hell with ships.”

  “I thought the metal you were interested in was gold.”

  “Whatever pays, sweetheart. I’ve got a feeling this trip’s going to pay off big.” Because it pleased him almost as much as it hurt, he continued to study her profile.

  “You’re not convinced.”

  “No, I’m not. But I am convinced this is something my father needs to do. The Isabella and the Santa Marguerite have fascinated him for years.”

  “And Angelique’s Curse.”

  “Yes, from the moment he heard of it.”

  “But you don’t believe in curses anymore. Or magic. I guess you educated it out of your system.”

  She couldn’t have said why it stung to hear him say what was only the truth. “I believe the amulet exists, and knowing my father, that it was aboard the Isabella. Finding it will be another matter altogether. And its value will come from its age and its stones and the weight of its gold, not from some superstition.”

  “There’s no more mermaid left in you, Tate.” He said it quietly, and stopped himself before his hand lifted to stroke her hair. “You used to remind me of something fanciful that was as much at home in the sea as in the air. With all sorts of secrets in your eyes, and endless possibilities shimmering around you.”

  Her skin shivered, not from the nippy little breeze, but from heat. In defense, her voice was flat and cool. “I doubt very much if you had any sort of romantic flights of fancy where I was concer
ned. We’re both aware of what you thought of me.”

  “I thought you were beautiful. And even more out of reach than you are right now.”

  Hating the fact that such careless lies could make her pulse jump, she rose quickly. “It won’t work, Lassiter. I’m not along on this trip to amuse you. We’re business partners. Fifty-fifty since my father wants it that way.”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” he murmured. He set the bottle down and rose slowly until they were toe to toe. Until he could smell her hair. Until his fingers throbbed with the memory of how her skin felt under them. “I still get to you, don’t I?”

  “Your ego’s still in the same place.” She schooled her features to mild disdain. “Just below the button of your jeans. Tell you what, Lassiter, if things get a little tedious and I’m desperate enough to try anything to break the monotony, I’ll let you know. But until that unlikely event, try not to embarrass yourself.”

  “I’m not embarrassed.” He grinned at her. “Just curious.” Hoping to loosen some of the knots in his gut, he sat again. “Any more rules, Red?”

  She needed a minute before she could trust her voice. Somehow her heart had lodged in her throat. “If, by some miracle, we find the Isabella, I will, as marine archeologist, catalogue and assess