The Reef

  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.”

  “I can do better.” She leaned back, her eyes on his, and slowly unbelted the robe. “Just watch me.”

  She was his oldest and most vivid fantasy, rising over him, slim and agile. Flame-colored hair, milky skin, eyes that echoed the sea. She was his to touch wherever he desired. His to hold when his heart thundered. His to watch as passion shimmered over her.

  It was so quiet, so peaceful, so easy to join body and heart with hers. They might have been in that long-ago underwater dream, weightless, anchored only to each other. Every sense, every cell, every thought was tied to her, and only her.

  He belonged, finally and completely.

  CHAPTER 28

  T ATE ROSE EARLY, and leaving Matthew sleeping, slipped from the cabin. She needed to think. The idea of a solitary cup of coffee in the galley seemed the best way to start.

  Trusting Matthew was one thing, but letting him handle VanDyke on his own was another.

  When she walked into the galley she found her mother already at the stove with the radio playing Bob Marley at low volume.

  “I didn’t think anyone was up.” Following the scent, Tate walked to the coffeepot and poured.

  “I had an urge to bake bread. Kneading helps me think.” Marla vigorously massaged the dough on her floured board. “And I thought I’d cook everyone a full breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits. Cholesterol be damned.”

  “You cook like that during emotional upheavals.” Concerned, Tate studied her mother over the rim of her mug. However carefully Marla had made up her face, Tate spotted the signs of a disturbed night. “I’m okay, Mom.”

  “I know.” Marla bit her lip, surprised tears were threatening again. Like most mothers facing a crisis, she hadn’t broken down until Tate had been safe. Then she’d crumbled. “I know everything’s all right. But when I think of those hours that vile, unprincipled—” Rather than give in to tears, she punctuated each word with a sharp punch to the dough. “Evil, conniving, murdering jackal had you I want to peel his skin away from his bones with a paring knife.”

  “Whoa.” Impressed, Tate rubbed her mother’s shoulder. “Great image. You’re a scary woman, Marla Beaumont. That’s why I love you.”

  “Nobody messes with my baby.” She let out a long breath, grateful there was no betraying hitch in it. The kneading and the venting had worked wonders. “Your father talked about drawing and quartering and keelhauling.”

  “Dad?” Tate set her mug down and chuckled. “Good old mild-mannered Ray?”

  “I wasn’t sure Matthew was going to be able to convince him to stay aboard when they went after you. They fought about it.”

  That brought her up short. “Fought? Dad and Matthew?” Tate decided she needed more coffee after all.

  “Well, they didn’t come to blows, though it was close there for a minute or two.”

  It took a conscious effort to close her mouth at the image of her father and her lover squaring off on the foredeck. “You’re joking.”

  “Buck got between them until they’d both cooled off,” Marla remembered. “I was afraid Ray would pop him instead.”

  “Come on, Dad’s never hit anyone in his life.” She lowered her mug again. “Has he?”

  “Not in the last few decades. Tempers were a b
it heightened.” Marla’s eyes softened as she brushed at her daughter’s tumbled hair. “You’ve got two men who love you sick with worry. And Matthew busy blaming himself.”

  “He always does that,” Tate muttered.

  “It’s his nature to believe he has to protect his woman. Don’t knock it,” Marla added with a chuckle at Tate’s derisive snort. “No matter how strong and self-reliant, a woman who has a man who loves her enough that he would literally give his life for hers is very lucky.”

  “Yes.” Equality and common sense aside, she couldn’t help but