by Nora Roberts
“This isn’t hunting for treasure,” she began, her voice sharp with annoyance fully self-directed. “It’s computers and machines and robotics, and it’s marvelous in its way. We’d never have found the Justine or been able to study her without the equipment, obviously.”
A fresh wave of restlessness had her pushing back from her worktable, pacing to the porthole that was her miserly view of the sea. “It couldn’t be excavated or studied without it. The pressure and temperature at that depth make diving impossible. It’s basic biology, basic physics. I know it. But damn it, Lorraine, I want to go down. I want to touch it. I want to fan away the sand and find some piece of yesterday. Bowers’s droid’s having all the fun.”
“Yeah, he’s always bragging about it.”
“I know it sounds stupid.” Because it did, Tate was able to smile as she turned back. “But diving a wreck, being there, is an incredible high. And this is all so sterile. I didn’t know I’d feel this way, but every time I come in here to work, I remember what it was like. My first dive, my first wreck, working the airlift, hauling up conglomerate. All the fish, the coral, the mud and sand. The work, Lorraine, the physical strain of it. You feel like you’re part of it.” She spread her arms, let them fall. “This seems so removed, so cold and intrusive somehow.”
“So scientific?” Lorraine put in.
“Science without participation, for me, anyway. I remember when I found my first coin, a silver piece of eight. We had a virgin wreck in the West Indies.” She sighed, sat again. “I was twenty. It was a very eventful summer for me. We found a Spanish galleon, and lost it. I fell in love and had my heart broken. I’ve never been that involved with anything or anyone again. I haven’t wanted to be.”
“Because of the ship or the man?”
“Both. In a few weeks, I experienced absolute joy and absolute grief. A difficult ride at twenty. I went back to college that fall with my goals very well defined. I would get my degree and be the very best in my field. I would do exactly what I’m doing now and keep a logical, professional distance. And here I am, eight years later, wondering if I’ve made some terrible mistake.”
Lorraine cocked a brow. “You don’t like your work?”
“I love my work. I’m just having a hard time letting machines do the best part of it for me. Keeping me at that logical, professional distance.”
“It doesn’t sound like a crisis to me, Tate. It just sounds like you need to strap on your tanks and have a little fun.” She studied the nails she’d recently manicured. “If that’s the way you define fun. When’s the last time you took a vacation?”
“Oh, let’s see . . .” Tate leaned back, closed her eyes. “That would have been about eight years ago, unless we count a couple of quick weekends and Christmases at home.”
“We don’t,” Lorraine said definitely. “Doctor Lorraine’s prescription is very simple. What you’ve got here is a case of the blues. Take a month off when we’re done here, go someplace with lots of palm trees and spend lots of time with fish.”
Lorraine developed a sudden avid interest in her manicure and studied the coral-pink enamel. “If you wanted company, Hayden would jump at the chance to go with you.”
“Hayden?”
“To use a technical term, the man’s nuts about you.”
“Hayden?”
“Yes, Hayden.” Lorraine jerked back so that her feet slapped on the floor. “Christ, Tate, pay attention. He’s been mooning over you for weeks.”
“Hay—” Tate began before she caught herself. “We’re friends, Lorraine, associates.” Then she remembered the way he’d kissed her the night they’d found the Justine. “Well, hell.”
“He’s a terrific man.”
“Of course he is.” Baffled, Tate dragged a hand through her hair. “I just never thought about him that way.”
“He’s thinking about you that way.”
“It’s not a good idea,” Tate murmured. “It’s not a good idea to get involved with someone you’re working with. I know.”
“Your choice,” Lorraine said carelessly. “I just thought it was time somebody gave the guy a break and let you know. I’m also supposed to let you know that some reps from SeaSearch and Poseidon are coming to examine and transport some of the loot. And they’re bringing a film crew.”
“A film crew.” Automatically, Tate filed the problem of Hayden in the back of her mind. “I thought we were doing our own video records.”
“They’ll use ours as well. We’re going to be a cable documentary, so don’t forget your mascara and lipstick.”
“When are they due?”
“They’re on their way.”
Hardly realizing it, Tate picked up the wooden top, cupped it possessively in her hands. “They’re not moving anything I haven’t finished studying and cataloguing.”
“You be sure to tell them that, champ.” Lorraine headed for the door. “But remember, we’re just the hired help.”
The hired help, Tate thought and set the top carefully aside. Maybe that was the crux of it. Somehow she’d gone from being an independent woman looking for adventure to a competent drone who worked for a faceless corporation.
It made her work possible, she reminded herself. Scientists were always beggars. And yet . . .
There were a lot of “and yets” in her life, she realized. She was going to have to take some time and decide which ones mattered.
Matthew decided he had lost his mind. He’d quit his job. A job he’d hated, but one that had paid the bills and left enough to spare to keep a couple of small dreams from dying. Without the job, the boat he’d been building bit by bit over the years would never be completed, his uncle would be forced to live on subsidies and he would be lucky to be able to afford a decent meal in six months’ time.
Not only had he quit his job, but he’d been maneuvered into taking LaRue along with him. The man had simply packed up and shipped out with him with no encouragement at all. As Matthew saw it, he was now stuck with two dependents, two men who spent most of their time arguing with each other and pointing out his flaws.
So here he sat, outside a trailer in southern Florida wondering when he had gone mad.
It was the letter from the Beaumonts that had started it. The mention of Tate, of VanDyke, and of course, the Isabella. It had brought back too many memories, too many failures and too much hope. Before he’d let himself think through the consequences, he’d been packing his gear.
Now that his bridges were burning at his back, Matthew had plenty of time to think. What the hell was he going to do with Buck? The man’s drinking was out of hand again.
Big surprise, Matthew thought. Every year, he came back to Florida and spent his month on shore struggling to get his uncle dry. And every year he went back to sea, hampered with guilt, regrets and the grief that he would never be able to make a difference.
Even now, he could hear Buck’s voice lifted in drunken bitterness. Despite the rain that was falling in steady, sodden sheets, Matthew remained outside under the rusted, leaking awning.
“What is this slop?” Buck demanded, clattering into the tiny kitchen.
LaRue didn’t bother to glance up from the book he was reading. “It is bouillabaisse. A family recipe.”
“Slop,” Buck said again. “French slop.” Unshaven, wearing the clothes he’d slept in, Buck slammed open a cabinet door in search of a bottle. “I don’t want it smelling up my house.”
In answer, LaRue turned a page.
“Where the fuck’s my whiskey?” Buck stabbed his hand into the cupboard, knocking over and scattering the meager supplies. “I had a bottle in here, goddamn it.”
“Me, I prefer a good Beaujolais,” LaRue commented. “At room temperature.” He heard the screen door open and marked his place in his Faulkner novel. The evening show was about to begin.
“You been stealing my whiskey, you fucking Canuk?”
As LaRue’s tooth gleamed in a snarl, Matthew stepped in. “There isn’t an
y whiskey. I got rid of it.”
Hampered more by his morning’s drinking than by his prosthesis, Buck turned on him. “You got no right to take my bottle.”
Who was this man, Matthew thought, this stranger? If Buck was somewhere in that bloated, unshaven face, in those red-rimmed, bleary eyes, he could no longer see him. “Right or not,” he said calmly, “I got rid of it. Try the coffee.”
In response, Buck grabbed the pot from the stove and hurled it against the wall.
“So don’t try the coffee.” Because he was tempted to ball them into fists, Matthew tucked his hands into his pockets. “You want to drink, you’re going to have to do it somewhere else. I’m not going to watch you kill yourself.”
“What I do’s my business,” Buck muttered, crunching over broken glass and slopped coffee.
“Not while I’m around.”
“You’re never around, are you?” Buck nearly skidded on the wet tile, righted himself. His face went pink with humiliation. Every step he took was a reminder. “You blow in here when you please, and blow out the same way. You got no business, boy, telling me what to do in my own house.”
“It’s my house,” Matthew said softly. “You’re just dying in it.”
He could have dodged the blow. He took Buck’s fist on his jaw philosophically. In some perverse part of his brain, he was pleased to note that his uncle could still pack a punch.
While Buck stared at him, Matthew wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m going out,” he said and left.
“Go away, walk away.” Buck shambled to the door to shout after him over the drumming rain. “Walking away’s what you’re best at. Why don’t you keep walking? Nobody here needs you. Nobody needs you.”
LaRue waited until Buck lumbered back toward the bedroom, then rose to turn down the heat on his stew. He took his jacket, and Matthew’s, and slipped out of the trailer.
They had only been in Florida three days, but LaRue knew just where Matthew would go. Adjusting the brim of his cap so that the rain sluiced off in front of his face, he made his way down to the marina.
It was nearly deserted, and the lock was off the door of the concrete garage that Matthew rented by the month. He found Matthew inside, sitting in the bow of a nearly finished boat.
It was a double hull, almost as wide as it was long. LaRue’s first glimpse of it after they’d arrived had impressed him. It was a pretty thing, not dainty by any means, but sturdy and tough. The way LaRue preferred his boats, and his women.
Matthew had designed the deck section to lie across the top of the hulls so that it would stay clear in rough seas. Each bow had an inward curve that would create a cushioning effect and lead to not only a smoother ride, but a faster one. There was plenty of storage area and seating. But the genius of the design in LaRue’s opinion was the sixty square feet of open deck forward.
Treasure room, LaRue thought.
All it lacked were the finishing touches. The paint and brightwork, the bridge equipment, navigational devices. And, LaRue thought, a suitable name.
He climbed up, impressed again by the sharp, cutting look of the bows. It would take the water, he mused. It would fly.
“So, when you finish this thing, eh?”
“I’ve got the time now, don’t I?” Matthew envisioned the rails. Brass and teak. “All I need’s the money.”
“Me, I got plenty of money.” Thoughtfully, LaRue took out a leather pouch and began the slow and, to him, pleasurable process of rolling a cigarette. “What do I spend it on but women? And they don’t cost so much as most men think. So maybe I give you the money to finish it, and you give me part of the boat.”
Matthew let out a sour laugh. “What part do you want?”
LaRue leaned into the backrest, carefully sealing the cigarette paper around the tobacco. “A boat a man builds is a good place to come when he wants to brood. Tell me this, Matthew, why did you let him hit you?”
“Why not?”
“Seems to me he’d be better if you hit him.”
“Right. That would be great. It would do a lot of good for me to knock down a—”
“Cripple?” LaRue finished mildly. “No, you never let him forget he’s not what he was.”
Furious, surprised into hurt, Matthew lunged to his feet. “Where the hell do you come off saying that? What the hell do you know about it? I’ve done everything I can for him.”
“You’ve done.” LaRue struck a match, let it flare on the edge of the neatly rolled cigarette. “You pay for the roof over his head, the food in his belly, the whiskey he kills himself with. All it costs him is his pride.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do, toss him out into the street?”
LaRue shrugged. “You don’t ask him to be a man, so he’s not a man.”
“Butt out.”
“I think you like your guilt, Matthew. It keeps you from doing what you want, and maybe failing at it.” He only grinned when Matthew hauled him up by the shirtfront. “See, me, you treat like a man.” He cocked up his chin, not entirely sure it wouldn’t be broken in the next ten seconds. “You can hit me. I’ll hit you back. When we’re finished, we’ll make a deal for the boat.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” In disgust, Matthew shoved him back. “I don’t need company, I don’t need another partner.”
“You do, yes. And I like you, Matthew.” LaRue sat again, neatly tapping the ash from his cigarette into his palm. “And I figure this. You’re going to go back for that ship you once told me about. Maybe you’ll go after this VanDyke you hate so much. Maybe you’ll even go back for the woman you want. I’m going, because I don’t mind being rich. I like to see a good fight, and me, I have a soft spot for romance.”
“You’re an asshole, LaRue. Christ knows why I ever told you about that shit.” He lifted his hands and rubbed them over his face. “I must have been drunk.”
“No, you never let yourself get drunk. You were talking to yourself, mon ami. I was just there.”
“Maybe I’ll go back for the wreck. And maybe, if I get lucky, I’ll cross paths with VanDyke again. But there’s no woman anymore.”
“There’s always a woman. If not one, another.” LaRue shrugged his bony shoulders. “Me, I don’t understand why men lose their minds over a woman. One leaves, another comes along. But an enemy, that’s worth working for. And money, well, it’s easier to be rich than poor. So we finish your boat, eh, and go looking for fortune and revenge.”
Wary, Matthew eyed LaRue. “The equipment I want isn’t cheap.”
“Nothing worthwhile is cheap.”
“We may never find the wreck. Even if we do, mining her is going to be hard, dangerous work.”
“Danger is what makes life interesting. You’ve forgotten that, Matthew.”
“Maybe,” he murmured. He began to feel something stir again. It was the blood he’d let settle and cool over the years. He held out a hand. “We finish the boat.”
It was three days later when Buck made his way into the garage. He’d gotten a bottle somewhere, Matthew deduced. The sour stench of whiskey surrounded him.
“Where the hell you think you’re going to take this tub?”
Matthew continued to lovingly sand the teak for the rail. “Hatteras to start. I’m hooking up with the Beaumonts.”
“Shit, amateurs.” A little rocky on his feet, Buck walked to the stern. “What the hell did you build a catamaran for?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Single hull’s always been good enough for me. Good enough for your father, too.”
“It’s not your boat. It’s not his boat. It’s mine.”
That stung. “What kind of color is this you’re painting her. Damn sissy blue.”
“Caribbean blue,” Matthew corrected. “I like it.”
“Probably sink the first time you hit weather.” Buck sniffed and stopped himself from caressing one of the hulls. “I guess all you and Ray are good for now is pleasure sa
iling.”
Experimentally, Matthew ran the pad of his thumb over the teak. It was satin smooth. “We’re going after the Isabella.”
Silence sparked like naked wires crossed. Matthew hefted the sanded rail over his shoulder and turned. Buck had a hand on the boat now, braced as he swayed like a man already at sea.
“The hell you are.”
“Ray’s decided to go. He found something he wants to show me. As soon as I can get things done here, I’m heading up. Regardless of what Ray’s come up with, I’m going after her. It’s long past time I did.”
“Are you out of your mind, boy? Do you know what she cost us? Cost me?”
Matthew set the rail aside for varnishing. “I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“You had a treasure, didn’t you? You let her go. You let that bastard VanDyke dance off with it. You lost it for me when I was half dead. Now you think you’re going back and leaving me here to rot?”
“I’m going. What you do is your business.”
Panicked, Buck slammed the heel of his hand into Matthew’s chest. “Who’s going to see to what I need here? You go off like this, the money’ll be gone in a month. You owe me, boy. I saved your worthless life. I lost my leg for you. I lost everything for you.”
The guilt still came, waves of it a strong man could drown in. But this time, Matthew shook his head. He wasn’t going under again. “I’m finished owing you, Buck. Eight years I’ve worked my ass off so you could drink yourself into a coma and make me pay for every breath I took. I’m done. I’m going after something I’d convinced myself I couldn’t have. And I’m going to get her.”
“They’ll kill you. The Isabella and Angelique’s Curse. And if they don’t, VanDyke will. Then where will I be?”
“Just where you are now. Standing on two legs. One of them I paid for.”
He didn’t take the punch this time. Instead he caught Buck’s fist in his hand an inch before it struck his face. Without thinking he shoved back so that Buck stumbled into the stern of the boat.
