by Nora Roberts
It was nearly four miles to where they had moved the New Adventure. There were squid and other night feeders, spots of color, blurs of movement in the shadowy sea. She never flagged.
He could have fallen in love with her for that alone, for the dogged way she swam, her hair and clothes floating around her, her eyes dark and determined behind her mask.
From time to time he checked his compass, corrected their course. It took more than thirty minutes of steady strokes to reach the boat.
Tate surfaced, fountaining water.
“Matthew, I thought you were dead. I saw the Mermaid explode and I knew you were on it.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” he said lightly, but supported them both gratefully as she held onto him. “Let’s get you on deck, Red, you’re shaking pretty bad, and your mom and dad are crazy with worry.”
“I thought you were dead,” she said again and sobbed as she crushed her mouth to his.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry. Buck, give me a hand with her.”
But Ray was already reaching over the side. His eyes, wet with relief, roamed over his daughter as he hauled up the tanks. “Tate, are you hurt. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said again as Marla reached down to take her hand. “Don’t cry.”
But she was crying herself when her mother embraced her. “We were so worried. That horrible man. That bastard. Oh, let me look at you.” Marla framed Tate’s face, nearly smiled before she saw the bruising. “He hurt you. I’m going to get you some ice, some hot tea. You sit down, honey, and let us take care of you.”
“I’m all right now.” But it felt wonderfully good to sink onto the bench. “The Mermaid—”
“It’s gone,” Ray said gently. “Don’t worry about that now. I want to take a good look at you, see if there’s any shock.”
“I’m not in shock.” She sent Buck a grateful smile when he wrapped a blanket over her shoulders. “I need to tell you. LaRue—”
“At your service, mademoiselle.” With a jaunty smile, he came out of the galley with a bottle of brandy.
“Sonofabitch.” Fatigue, fear and the fogginess of shock snapped clear. With a snarl she was on her feet and leaping. Matthew barely caught her before she could sink nails and teeth into LaRue’s face.
“Did I tell you?” LaRue shivered and drank the brandy himself, straight from the bottle. “She’d have clawed my eyes out if she’d had the chance.” He tapped his free hand on the medicated scratches scoring his cheek. “Another inch north and I would be wearing a patch, eh?”
“He’s working for VanDyke,” Tate spat out. “He’s been VanDyke’s worm all along.”
“Now she insults me. You give her the brandy,” he said, shoving it into Ray’s hand. “LaRue, she’d hit over the head with it.”
“I’d tie you to the stern and use you for chum.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Matthew suggested. “Sit down, take a drink. LaRue isn’t working for VanDyke.”
“He only pays me,” LaRue said cheerfully.
“He’s a traitor, a spy. He blew up your boat, Matthew.”
“I blew up my boat,” Matthew corrected. “Drink.” He all but poured a shot of brandy down her throat.
She sputtered, and the heat hit her stomach like a fist. “What are you talking about?”
“If you’d sit and calm down, I’ll tell you.”
“You should have told her, and all of us, months ago,” Marla said testily as she bustled out with a steaming mug. “Here’s some soup, honey. Did you eat?”
“Did I—” In spite of everything, Tate began to laugh. It was only when she couldn’t seem to stop that she realized it was borderline hysteria. “I didn’t care much for the menu.”
“Why the hell’d you waltz off with him?” Matthew exploded. “A half a dozen people saw you get into his tender without a murmur.”
“Because he said he’d have one of his men kill you if I didn’t,” she shot back. “He had another right outside the boutique where Mom was.”
“Oh, Tate.” Shaken all over again, Marla sank to her knees beside her daughter.
“I didn’t have any choice,” she said, and between sips of hot chicken soup, did her best to fill them all in on the events that had taken place since VanDyke had found her.
“He wanted me outside,” she finished. “He even provided binoculars so I could watch the boat blow up. There was nothing I could do. I thought you were dead,” she murmured, looking up at Matthew. “And there was nothing I could do.”
“There was no way to tell you what was going on here.” Knowing no better way to soothe, Matthew sat beside her, took her hand. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“Worried. Yes, I suppose I was a bit concerned when I thought pieces of you were floating on the Caribbean. And why did you blow up your boat?”
“So VanDyke would think pieces of me were floating on the Caribbean. He’s paying LaRue an extra quarter mill for it.”
“I will enjoy collecting.” LaRue’s cocky smile faded. “I apologize for not killing him for you when I found you on his boat. It was an unexpected turn of events. I didn’t yet know you were missing. When I returned to tell Matthew, he was already making plans to get you back.”
“You’ll excuse me if I’m confused,” Tate said coolly. “Have you or have you not been passing information about Matthew to VanDyke during this expedition?”
“Filtering information is more accurate. He knew only what Matthew and I chose for him to know.” Squatting on the deck, LaRue took the brandy bottle again. “I’ll tell you the beginning. VanDyke offered me money to keep watch on Matthew, to become his companion and to pass along any salient information. I am fond of money. I am fond of Matthew. It seemed to me there was a way to take the first and assist the second.”
“LaRue told me months ago about the deal.” Matthew picked up the story, and the bottle. “Of course LaRue had already been collecting for what, about a year, before he decided to let me in on the arrangement.”
With a flash of gold, LaRue grinned. “Who is counting, mon ami? When the time was necessary, I shared with you.”
“Yeah.” To settle the stomach that had just begun to jitter in reaction, Matthew drank from the bottle. “We figured we’d play along, split the profit.”
“Seventy-five, twenty-five, of course.”
“Yeah.” Matthew shot him a sour look. “Anyway, the extra cash came in handy, and it did me a lot of good knowing we were bleeding it out of VanDyke. When we decided to come back after the Isabella, we knew we’d have to up the ante. And if we played it right, we’d harpoon VanDyke at the same time.”
“You knew he was watching us?” Tate said dully.
“LaRue was doing the watching,” Matthew corrected. “All VanDyke knew was what we wanted him to know. When you found the amulet, LaRue and I agreed that it was time to reel him in with it. Only it got a little complicated when he reeled you in first.”
“You kept this from me, from all of us?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react, or even if you’d be interested in my personal agenda. Then things moved pretty fast. It seemed logical,” he decided with a lift of brow, “that the fewer people who were in on it, the better.”
“You know what, Lassiter?” She rose stiffly to her feet. “That hurts. I need dry clothes,” she murmured and stalked off to her cabin.
She’d no more than slammed the door when he was shoving it open again. One look at her face decided him. He flipped the lock.
“You put me through hell.” She slapped open her closet, yanked out a robe. “All because you didn’t trust me.”
“I was playing it by ear, Red. I couldn’t even trust myself. Look, it’s not the first mistake I’ve made where you’re concerned.”
“Hardly.” She fumbled to unbutton her wet shirt.
“And it won’t be the last. So why don’t we . . .” His words trailed off as she dragged off the shirt. There were purpling bruises
on her arms and shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was icily detached. “Did he put those marks on you?”
“Him and his ham-fisted henchman from hell.” Still simmering, she peeled off her slacks, shrugged into the robe. “I stabbed that Slavic robot with a hundred-dollar pen.”
He was staring at her face now, at the bruise along her cheekbone. “What?”
“I aimed for his eyes, but I guess I froze up. Put a damn good hole in his cheek. Scraped a few layers off LaRue, too. I suppose I should be sorry for that now. But I’m not. If you had told me—” She squeaked in painful surprise when Matthew lurched forward and wrapped her tight in his arms.
“Yell at me later. He put his hands on you.” Eyes fierce, he framed her face. “I swear to God he’ll never touch you again.” He laid his lips gently on her cheekbone. “Never again.”
Strapping on control, he stepped back again. “Okay, you can yell now.”
“You know damn well you’ve ruined that for me, Matthew.” She reached out, let herself be folded in his arms. “I was so scared. I kept telling myself I’d get away, then I thought you were dead. It just didn’t matter anymore.”
“It’s okay. It’s over now.” Lifting her, he carried her to the bed to cradle her. “When LaRue got back he told me how rough it was going on you. I never knew what it meant to be sick from fear until then.”
To comfort them both, he brushed kisses over her hair. “We were already working on springing you when LaRue came onboard. Buck and I would swim over, he’d handle the tanks and gear while I looked for you. I figure it might have worked, but LaRue made it easier.”
“How?”
“For one, he found out which cabin you were in before he left, and snagged one of the duplicate keys. In his defense,” Matthew added, “he was crazy at the thought that he had to leave you alone with that bastard.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” She heaved a long sigh. “You had a key. And here I was imagining you swinging onboard like a privateer. Kicking in doors with a knife between your teeth.”
“Maybe next time.”
“Nope, I’ve had enough excitement for the next fifty or sixty years.”
“That’s fine with me.” He took a breath. “So, I laid everything out to Buck, then to Ray and Marla. The best I could think of was to use VanDyke’s plan to burn the boat to our advantage. If we hadn’t given him a show, he might have taken off, or done something to you.” Eyes closed, he pressed his lips to her hair. “I couldn’t risk it.”
“Your beautiful boat.”
“Hell of a distraction, and a foolproof way of making him believe everything was going his way. He’d see it go up, figure everything was going according to plan. I had to hope he’d relax enough thinking I was dead so that I could get on the yacht and get you off without risking a fight.”
He’d have loved a fight, he thought. He’d craved one. But not with her in the middle.
“Now we—” She stopped, jerked her head up. “Buck. It just hit me. He went in.”
“It was tough on him. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. When LaRue got back, I thought about him going with me, but I wasn’t sure I could keep you quiet if you spotted him. And Ray, well, he and Marla needed to stick together. That left Buck. He did it for you.”
“Looks like I’ve got a whole basket of heroes.” She touched her lips to his. “Thanks for scaling the castle wall, Lassiter.” With a sigh, she settled her head on his shoulder again. “He’s not sane, Matthew. It’s not just obsession or greed. He slips in and out of sanity like a shadow. He’s only partially the man I met eight years ago, and it’s terrifying to watch.”
“You won’t have to watch again.”
“He won’t stop. When he finds out you weren’t blown up with the boat, he’ll keep coming after you.”
“I’m counting on it. It’ll be over this time tomorrow.”
“You still mean to kill him.” Chilled, she shifted away, moved out of his arms. “I understand something of what you feel now. I would have killed him myself if I’d had the means when I thought you were dead. When I knew he was responsible for taking you from me. I could have done it then, in the heat of all that grief.”
Taking a steadying breath, she turned back to him. “I don’t think I could do it now, when the blood’s cooled. But I know why you feel you have to.”
He looked at her for a long time. Her eyes were swollen from weeping, even in her sleep. Her skin was still pale so that the mark on her cheek stood out like a brand. She had, he knew, forgiven him any mistake he’d made.
“I’m not going to kill him, Tate. I could,” he continued almost thoughtfully as she stared at him. “For my father, for the helpless kid who stood there doing nothing. For taking you, for touching you, for every bruise, every second you were afraid, I could cut out his heart without a flinch. Do you understand that?”
“I—”
“No.” His smile was thin as he rose to face her. “You don’t understand that I could kill him coldly, the way I’ve planned it for years. All those years I stared at the ceiling over my bunk on that fucking boat, with nothing to hold me together but the idea that one day I’d have his blood on my hands. I even used his money, setting what I could aside so I’d have enough to finish the boat, to buy equipment, to tide me over. Because I was going to find that amulet if it took a lifetime.”
“Then my father speeded things up.”
“Yeah. I could practically see ‘X’ marking the spot. I knew I’d have it, and him. Then you . . .” He reached out to touch her face. “Then you tipped the scales. You can’t imagine how shocked I was to realize I was still in love with you. To know that the only thing inside me that had changed where you were concerned was that there was more.”
“Yes, I can,” she said quietly. “I can imagine that perfectly.”
“Maybe you can.” He took her hand, brought it to his lips. “I wasn’t going to let that stop me though. I couldn’t let it stop what had started sixteen years ago. Even when you put the amulet in my hand, I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I told myself you loved me, you’d understand and come to accept what I had to do. You’d try to understand, but you’d have to live with it.”
Watching her face, he linked his fingers with hers. “If I killed him, he’d always be between us. I realized that more than anything else, I want a life with you. The rest just doesn’t come close.”
“I love you so much.”
“I know. I want to keep it that way. You can call the Smithsonian, or one of your committees.”
“You’re sure?” she began.
“I’m sure it’s what’s best for us. What’s right for us. The amulet’s going into a vault for safekeeping until we get that museum off the ground. Make sure whoever you call hits the media hard. I want it to be worldwide news.”
“A publicity safety net.”
“It’ll be tough for him to get around it. Meanwhile, I’m going to arrange to meet him.”
Panic grabbed her by the throat. “You can’t. God, Matthew, he’s already tried to have you killed.”
“It has to be done. This time it’ll be VanDyke who’ll have to back down and sail away. A dozen news agencies will be sending reporters out here. The scientific world will be buzzing with the discovery. He’ll know the amulet is out of his reach. There’ll be nothing he can do.”
“It sounds reasonable, Matthew. But he’s not a reasonable man. I wasn’t exaggerating before. He’s not completely sane.”
“He’s sane enough not to risk his reputation, his position.”
She wished she could be so sure of that. “He kidnapped me. We can have him arrested.”
“How are you going to prove it? Too many people saw you go with him, without a struggle. The only way to end it is to face him, to make him see he’s lost.”
“And if he doesn’t see, doesn’t accept?”
“I’ll make him.” He smiled again. “When are you going to trust me, Red?”
“I do. Promise me you won’t meet him alone.”
“Do I look stupid? I said I wanted a life with you. He’s going to be meeting me, along with a couple of my pals, in the hotel lobby. We’ll have drinks, a nice quiet chat.”
She gave a quick shudder. “That sounds too much like him.”
“Whatever it takes.” He kissed her brow. “After tomorrow, we’re finished with him.”
“And then?”
“And then I guess we’re going to be pretty busy for a while, putting this museum together. There’s a piece of land at Cades Bay that ought to do.”
“Land? How do you know?”
“I checked it out the other day.” His eyes heated again as he stroked her bruised cheek. “If I hadn’t gone off to hunt up a realtor, VanDyke would never have gotten near you.”
“Hold on. You found a realtor and went out to look at land without telling me?”
Sensing trouble, he shifted back. “It’s not like you’re committed to it. I just put a deposit on it to hold it for thirty days. I thought it would be like a wedding present.”
“You thought you would buy the land for the museum as a wedding present?”
Irritated, he jammed his hands in his pockets. “You don’t have to take it. It was just an impulse so—” She moved so fast he didn’t have time to yank his hands free and brace himself before she tumbled him onto the bed. “Hey.”
“I love you.” Straddling him, she rained kisses over his face. “No, I adore you.”
“That’s good.” Pleased, if baffled, he pried his hands loose and cupped them comfortably over her hips. “I thought you were mad.”
“I’m mad about you, Lassiter.” Bracing his hands on either side of his head she lowered to cover his mouth with hers in a deep, dreamy kiss that turned his brain to mush. “You did this for me,” she murmured. “You don’t even care about a museum.”
“I don’t have anything against it.” His hands slipped under her robe to flesh as her mouth jolted his system. “In fact, I’m starting to like the idea. More and more.”
She skimmed her lips over his jaw and down his throat. “I’m going to make you so happy.”
He let out a shaky breath as she peeled his T-shirt over his head. “You’re doing a good job so far.”
