The Reef (4 page)

And that's when she found the coin.

The small spread of darkened sand drew her closer. She fanned more from habit than enthusiasm, imagining she'd probably unearth someone's pocket change or a rusted tin can tossed from a passing boat. But the blackened disk was barely an inch under the silt. She knew the moment she plucked it up that she was holding a legend.

Pieces of eight, she thought, giddy with discovery. A pirate's chant, a buccaneer's booty.

Realizing she was holding her breath, a dangerous mistake, she began to breathe slowly as she rubbed at the discoloration with her thumb. There was the dull sheen of silver at the corner of the irregularly shaped coin.

With a cautious glance over her shoulder to be certain Matthew was occupied, she tucked it into the sleeve of her wet suit. Smug now, she began to search for more signs.

When a check of her gauge and her watch indicated their time was up, she noted her position, and turned toward her partner. He nodded, jerked a thumb. They began to swim east, ascending slowly.

His goody bag was laden with conglomerate, which he pointed out to her before gesturing to her own empty one. She gave him the equivalent of a shrug and broke the surface just ahead of him.

“Bad luck, Red.”

She suffered his superior smile as they headed in. “Maybe.” Gripping the ladder of the
Adventure,
she tossed her flippers up to where her father waited. “Maybe not.”

“How'd it go?” Once his daughter was on deck, Ray relieved her of her weight belt and tanks. Noting her empty bag, he struggled to mask disappointment. “Nothing worth bringing up, huh?”

“I wouldn't say that,” Matthew commented. He handed Buck his full bag before unzipping his suit. Water dripped from his hair, pooled at his feet. “Might be something worthwhile once we chip away at it.”

“The boy's got a sixth sense about these things.” Buck set the bag on a bench. His fingers were already itching to start hammering at the conglomerate.

“I'll work on it,” Marla offered. She was wearing her flowered sun hat and a sundress of canary yellow that set off her flame-colored hair. “I just want to get some videos first. Tate, you and Matthew have a nice cold drink and something to eat. I know these two want to go down and try their luck.”

“Sure.” Tate pushed her wet hair back from her face. “Oh, and speaking of luck.” She pulled the wrists of her wet suit. A half dozen coins fell jingling to the deck. “I had a little myself.”

“Sonofabitch.” Matthew crouched down. He knew by the weight and the shape what she'd found. While the others erupted with excitement, he rubbed a coin between his fingers and looked up coolly into Tate's self-satisfied smile.

He didn't begrudge her the find. But he sure as hell hated that she'd managed to make him look like a fool.

“Where'd you find them?”

“A couple of yards north of where you were harvesting your rocks.” She decided the way annoyance narrowed his eyes almost made up for the sword. “You were so busy I didn't want to interrupt you.”

“Yeah. I bet.”

“Spanish.” Ray stared down at the coin nestled in his palm. “Seventeen thirty-three. This could be it. The date's right.”

“Could be from the other ships,” Matthew responded. “Time, current, storms—they spread things out.”

“They could just as easily be from the
Isabella
or
Santa Marguerite.”
There was a fever in Buck's eyes. “Ray and me, we'll concentrate on the area where you found these.” He rose from his crouched position, held out a coin to Tate. “These'll go in the kitty. But I figure you ought to keep one, for yourself. That sit right with you, Matthew?”

“Sure.” He shrugged his shoulders before turning to the ice chest. “No big deal.”

“It is to me,” Tate murmured as she accepted the coin from Buck. “It's the first time I've ever found coins. Pieces of eight.” She laughed and leaned forward to give Buck an impulsive kiss. “What a feeling.”

His ruddy cheeks darkened. Women had always remained a mystery to him and mostly at a distance. “You hold on to it—that feeling. Sometimes it's a long stretch before you have it again.” He slapped Ray on the back. “Let's suit up, partner.”

Within thirty minutes, the second team was under way. Marla had spread out a drop cloth and was busily chipping away at the conglomerate. Tate postponed lunch to clean the silver coins.

Nearby, Matthew sat on the deck and polished off his second BLT. “I tell you, Marla, I might just shanghai you. You sure have a way of putting food together.”

“Anybody can make a sandwich.” Her hammer rang in counterpoint to her molasses-drenched voice. “You'll have to have dinner with us, Matthew. Then you'll see what cooking's all about.”

He was sure he heard Tate's teeth gnash. “Love to. I can run over to Saint Kitts for you if you need any supplies.”

“That's very sweet.” She'd changed into work shorts and an oversized shirt, and was sweating. Somehow she still managed to look like a Southern belle planning a tea party. “I could use a little fresh milk to make biscuits.”

“Biscuits? Marla, for homemade biscuits, I'd swim back from the island with the whole cow.”

He was rewarded by her quick, infectious laughter.
“Just a gallon will do me. Oh, not this minute,” she said, waving him back when he started to rise. “Plenty of time. You enjoy your lunch and the sunshine.”

“Stop trying to charm my mother,” Tate said under her breath.

Matthew scooted closer. “I like your mother. You've got her hair,” he murmured. “Her eyes, too.” He picked up another section of sandwich, bit in. “Too bad you don't take after her otherwise.”

“I also have her delicate bone structure,” Tate said with a clench-toothed smile.

Matthew took his time with his study. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

Suddenly uncomfortable, she shifted back an inch. “You're crowding me,” she complained. “Just like you do on a dive.”

“Here, take a bite.” He held out the sandwich, nearly plowing it into her mouth so that she had little choice but to accept. “I've decided you're my good-luck charm.”

Rather than choke, she swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“There's a nice Southern flow to the way you say that,” he observed. “Just a hint of ice under the honey. My good-luck charm,” he repeated. “Because you were around when I found the sword.”

“You were around when I found it.”

“Whatever. There are a couple of things I don't turn my back on. A man with greed in his eyes, a woman with fire in hers.” He offered Tate more of the sandwich. “And luck. Good or bad.”

“I'd think it would be smarter to walk away from bad luck.”

“Facing it's better. Usually quicker. Lassiters have had a long run of the bad.” With a shrug, he finished the sandwich himself. “Seems to me you've brought me some of the good.”

“I'm the one who found the coins.”

“Maybe I'm bringing you some, too.”

“I've got something,” Marla sang out. “Come and see.”

Matthew rose, and after a moment's hesitation, held out a hand. With matching wariness, Tate took it and let him haul her to her feet.

“Nails,” Marla said, gesturing with one hand as she dabbed a handkerchief over her damp face with the other. “They look old. And this . . .” She picked up a small disk from amid the rubble. “Looks like some sort of button. Copper or bronze perhaps.”

With a grunt, Matthew crouched down. There were two iron spikes, a pile of pottery shards, a broken piece of metal that might have been a buckle or pin of some sort. But it was the nails that interested him most.

Marla was right. They were old. He picked one up, turned it in his fingers, imagining it once being hammered into planks that were doomed to storms and sea worms.

“Brass,” Tate announced with delight as she worked off the corrosion with solvent and a rag. “It is a button. It's got some etching on it, a flower. A little rose. It was probably on a dress of a female passenger.”

The thought made her sad. The woman, unlike the button, hadn't survived.

“Maybe.” Matthew spared the button a glance. “Odds are we hit a bounce site.”

Tate reached for her own sunglasses to cut the glare. “What's a bounce site?”

“Just what it sounds like. We probably found the spot where a ship hit while it was being driven in by waves. The wreck's somewhere else.” He lifted his gaze, scanned the sea to the horizon. “Somewhere else,” he repeated.

But Tate shook her head. “You're not going to discourage me after this. We haven't come up empty-handed, Matthew. One full dive and we have all this. Coins and nails—”

“Broken pottery and a brass button.” Matthew tossed the nail he held back into the pile. “Chump change, Red. Even for an amateur.”

She reached out and took hold of the coin that dangled around his neck. “Where there's some, there's more. My father believes we have a chance at a major find. So do I.”

She was ready to quiver with anger, he noted. Her chin
thrust up, sharp as the spikes at their feet, eyes hard and hot.

Christ, why did she have to be a college girl?

He moved his shoulder, and deliberately gave her a light, insulting pat on the cheek. “Well, it'll keep us entertained. But it's more often true that where there's some, that's all.” He brushed off his hands and rose. “I'll clean this up for you, Marla.”

“You're a real upbeat kind of guy, Lassiter.” Tate tugged off her T-shirt. For some reason, the way he'd looked at her, just for an instant, had heated her skin. “I'm going for a swim.” Moving to the rail, she dove off the side.

“She's her father's daughter,” Marla said with a quiet smile. “Always sure hard work, perseverence and a good heart will pay off. Life's harder on them than it is for those of us who know those things aren't always enough.” She patted Matthew's arm. “I'll tidy up here, Matthew. I have my own little system. You go on and get me that milk.”

T
ATE FOUND PESSIMISM
cowardly. It seemed to her that it was simply an excuse never to face disappointment.

It was even worse when pessimism won out.

After two weeks of dawn-to-dusk double-team diving, they found nothing but a few more scraps of corroded metal. She told herself she wasn't discouraged and hunted on her shift with more care and more enthusiasm than was warranted.

At night, she took to poring over her father's charts, the copies he'd made from his research. The more cavalier Matthew became, the more determined she was to prove him wrong. She wanted the wreck now, passionately. If only to beat him.

She had to admit the weeks weren't a total loss. The weather was beautiful, the diving spectacular. The time she spent on the island when her mother insisted on a break was filled with souvenir shopping, exploring, picnics on the beach. She hunted through cemeteries and old churches, hoping she might find another clue to the secret of the wrecks of 1733.

But most of all, she enjoyed watching her father with Buck. They were an odd pair—one squat and round and
cue-ball bald, the other aristocratically lean with a mane of silvering blond hair.

Her father spoke with the slow, sweet drawl of coastal Carolina while Buck's conversation was peppershot with oaths delivered with Yankee quickness. Yet they merged together like old friends reunited.

Often when they surfaced after a dive, they were laughing like boys fresh from some misdemeanor. And one always seemed to have a tale to tell on the other.

It was illuminating for Tate to watch the friendship bloom and grow so rapidly. On land, her father's companions were businessmen, a suit-and-tie brigade of success, moderate wealth and staunch Southern heritage.

Here she watched him bronzing in the sun with Buck, sharing a beer and dreams of fortune.

Marla would snap their picture or pull out her ubiquitous video camera and call them two old salts.

As Tate prepared for her morning dive, she watched them arguing baseball over coffee and croissants.

“What Buck knows about baseball you could swallow in one gulp,” Matthew commented. “He's been boning up so he can fight with Ray.”

Tate sat down to pull on her flippers. “I think it's nice.”

“Didn't say it wasn't.”

“You never say anything's nice.”

He sat beside her. “Okay, it's nice. Hanging with your father's been good for Buck. He's had a rough time the last few years. I haven't seen him enjoy himself so much since . . . for a long time.”

Tate let out a long sigh. It was difficult to work up any annoyance with straight sincerity. “I know you care about him.”

“Sure I do. He's always been there for me. I'd do anything for Buck.” Matthew pressed a securing hand to his mask. “Hell, I'm diving with you, aren't I?” With that, he rolled into the water.

Instead of being insulted, she grinned, and rolled in after him.

They followed the marker down. They had been moving the search steadily northward. Each time they tried new
territory, Tate felt that quickening surge of anticipation. Each time they went down, she told herself today could be the day.

The water was pleasantly cool on the exposed skin of her hands and face. She enjoyed the way it streamed through her hair on her descent.

The fish had grown used to them. It wasn't unusual for a curious grouper or angelfish to peer into her mask. She'd gotten into the habit of bringing a plastic bag of crackers or bread crumbs with her, and took a few minutes at the start of every dive to feed them, and have them swirl around her.

Invariably the barracuda they'd dubbed “Smiley” came to call, always keeping his distance, always watching. As a mascot, he wasn't particularly lively, but he was loyal.

She and Matthew developed an easy routine. They worked in sight of each other, rarely crossing the invisible line both recognized as separating their territories. Still, they shared their glimpses of sea life. A hand signal, a tap on the tank to point out a school of fish, a burrowing ray.

He was, Tate decided, easier to tolerate in the silence of the sea than above it. Now and again that silence was broken by the blurred roar of a tourist boat above them. Tate had even heard the eerie echo of music from a blasting portable radio with Tina Turner's raw-throated voice wanting to know what love had to do with it.

Singing in her head, Tate aimed for an odd formation of coral. She startled a grouper, who gave her one baleful glance before gliding off. Amused, she glanced over her shoulder. Matthew was swimming west, but was still in her line of vision. She flipped north toward the pretty soft reds and browns of the formation.

Tate was on top of it before she realized it wasn't coral, but rocks. Bubbles burst from her mouthpiece. If she had been above the water rather than below, she might have babbled.

Ballast rocks. Surely they had to be ballast rocks. From her studies she knew the color meant galleon. Schooners had used the brittle gray egg rock. The ballast of a galleon,
she thought with a dreamy sense of unreality. That had been lost, forgotten. And now found.

One of the lost wrecks of 1733 was here. And she had found it.

She let out a shout that did nothing more than spray bubbles that blurred her vision. Remembering herself, she slipped her knife from its sheath and rapped sharply on her tank.

Turning a circle, she saw the shadow of her partner yards away. She thought he was signaling, and impatient, rapped again.

Come here, damn it.

She rapped a third time, putting as much insistence as she could manage into the one-toned signal. With satisfaction, and the beginnings of smugness, she watched him cut through the water toward her.

Be as irritated as you like, hotshot, she thought. And prepared to be humbled.

She could see the moment he recognized the stones, the slight hesitation in rhythm, then the quickening of pace. Unable to help herself, she grinned at him and attempted a watery pirouette.

Behind his face mask his eyes were blue as cobalt, intense, with a recklessness that had her heart thudding hard in response. He circled the pile once, apparently satisfied. When he took her hand, Tate gave his fingers a quick, friendly squeeze. She expected they would surface, announce her discovery, but he tugged her back in the direction from where he'd come.

She pulled back, shaking her head, jerking her thumb up. Matthew pointed west. Tate rolled her eyes, gestured back toward the ballast pile and started to kick toward the surface.

Matthew grabbed her ankle, shocking her with the familiar way his hands worked up her leg as he drew her back down. She considered swinging at him, but he had her arm again and was towing her.

It left her no choice but to go along, and to imagine all the vicious things she would say to him once she could speak.

Then she saw and her mouth fell open in reaction. She readjusted her mouthpiece, remembered to breathe and stared at the cannons.

They were corroded, covered with sea life and half buried in the sand. But they were there, the great guns that had once graced the Spanish fleet, defended it against pirates and enemies of the king. She could have wept for the joy of it.

Instead, she grabbed Matthew in a clumsy hug and spun him around in what passed for a victory dance. Water swirled around them, and a school of silver fish cut around them like blades. Their face masks bumped, and she bubbled out a giggle, still holding on to him as they kicked toward the surface forty feet above.

The moment they broke through, she pushed back her face mask, let her mouthpiece drop. “Matthew, you saw it. It's really there.”

“Seems to be.”

“We're the first to find it. After more than two hundred and fifty years, we're the first.”

His grin flashed, his legs tangling with hers as they tread water. “A virgin wreck. And it's all ours, Red.”

“I can't believe it. It's nothing like the other times. Someone else had always been there first, and we just puttered around what they'd overlooked or left behind. But this . . .” She tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh God. It feels wonderful. Enormous.”

With another laugh, she threw her arms around him, nearly sinking them both, and pressed her lips to his in an innocent kiss of delight.

Her lips were wet and cool and curved. The shock of them against his blanked his mind for a full three heartbeats. He wasn't fully aware that he tugged her lips apart with his teeth, slipped his tongue into her mouth to taste, that he changed the kiss from innocent to hungry.

He felt her breath hitch, and her lips soften. Then heard her low, catchy sigh.

Mistake. The word flashed like neon in his brain. But she was pouring herself into the kiss now, in a surrender as irresistible as it was unexpected.

She tasted salt and sea and man, and wondered if anyone had ever sampled such potent flavors all at once. Sun-showered golden light, diamonds of it dancing on the water; the water cool and soft and seductive. She thought her heart had stopped, but it didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered in this strange and lovely world but the taste and feel of his mouth.

Then she was cut loose and floundering, the door to that fascinating world slamming shut in her face. She kicked instinctively to keep her head above water and blinked at Matthew with huge, dreamy eyes.

“We're wasting time.” He snapped it at her and cursed himself. When she pressed her lips together as if to recapture the kiss, he bit back a groan and cursed her.

“What?”

“Snap out of it. Somebody your age has been kissed before.”

The hard edge of his voice and the insult beneath it cut away the mists. “Of course I have. It was just a gesture of congratulations.” That shouldn't have left this hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, save it. We've got to tell the others and put out markers.”

“Fine.” She headed toward the boat with a quick, efficient crawl. “I don't see what you're so mad about.”

“You wouldn't,” Matthew muttered and started after her.

Determined not to let him spoil the most exciting day of her life, Tate clambered onto the boat.

Marla was sitting under the awning giving herself a manicure. One hand was already tipped with bright-salmon pink. She looked over with a smile. “You're early, honey. We didn't expect you up for another hour or so.”

“Where are Dad and Buck?”

“In the pilothouse, studying that old map again.” Marla's smile began to crumble at the edges. “Something's wrong. Matthew.” She scrambled out of her chair, panic darting out of her eyes. Her secret, never-voiced fear of sharks clawed at her throat. “Is he hurt? What happened?”

“He's fine.” Tate unhooked her weight belt. “He's
right behind me.” She heard his flippers hit the deck, but didn't turn to offer him a hand up. Instead she took a deep breath. “Nothing's wrong, Mom. Nothing at all. Everything's great. We found it.”

Marla had hurried over to the rail to make certain of Matthew's safety. Her heartbeat began to level again when she saw him whole and unharmed. “Found what, honey?”

“The wreck.” Tate passed a hand over her face, stunned to see her fingers were trembling. There was a roaring in her ears, a flutter in her chest. “One of them. We found it.”

“Christ Jesus.” Buck stood at the door to the deckhouse. His normally ruddy face was pale, the eyes behind his lenses stunned. “Which one?” he said in a strained voice. “Which one did you find, boy?”

“Can't say.” Matthew shrugged off his tanks. His pulse was scrambling fast, but he knew it had as much to do with the fact he'd nearly devoured Tate as it did with the possibilities of treasure. “But she's down there, Buck. We found ballast, galleon ballast, and cannon.” He looked beyond Buck to where Ray stood, goggling. “The other spot was a bounce site, like I figured. But this site has real possibilities.”

“What—” Ray had to clear his throat. “What was the position, Tate?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again when she realized she'd been too enthralled to mark it. A flush bloomed on her cheeks.

Matthew glanced at her, offered a thin, superior smile before giving Ray the coordinates. “We'll need to put out marker buoys. You guys want to suit up, I'll show you what we have.” Then he grinned. “I'd say we're going to put that nice new airlift of yours to use, Ray.”

“Yeah.” Ray looked at Buck. His dazed expression began to clear. “I'd say you're right.” With a whoop he grabbed Buck. The two men hugged, rocking like drunks.

 

They needed a plan. It was Tate who, after the noisy celebration that night, offered the voice of reason. A system was required in order to salvage the wreck, and preserve
it. Their claim had to be staked legally, and concretely. And the artifacts had to be precisely catalogued.

They needed a good underwater camera to record the sight and the position of artifacts they uncovered, several good notebooks to use for cataloguing. Slates and graphite pencils for sketching under water.

“Used to be,” Buck began as he helped himself to another beer, “a man found a wreck, and all it held was his—long as he could hold off pirates and claim jumpers. You had to be cagey, know how to keep your mouth shut, and be willing to fight for what was yours.”

His words slurred a bit as he gestured with his bottle. “Now there's rules and regulations, and every bloody body wants a piece of what you find with your own work and God-given luck. And there's plenty who're more worried about some planks of worm-eaten timber than about a mother lode of silver.”

“The historical integrity of a wreck's important, Buck.” Ray cruised on his own beer, and the possibilities. “It's historical value, our responsibility to the past, and the future.”

“Shit.” Buck lighted one of the ten cigarettes he permitted himself a day. “Time was we blew her to kingdom come if that's what it took to get to the mother lode. Not saying it was smart.” He chuffed out smoke, and his eyes grew dim with memory. “But it sure as hell was fun.”