Nora Roberts
Treasures Lost, Treasures Found

To Dixie Browning,

the true lady of the island.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

Chapter 1

He had believed in it. Edwin J. Hardesty hadn’t been the kind of man who had fantasies or followed dreams, but sometime during his quiet, literary life he had looked for a pot of gold. From the information in the reams of notes, the careful charts and the dog-eared research books, he thought he’d found it.

In the panelled study, a single light shot a beam across a durable oak desk. The light fell over a hand—narrow, slender, without the affectation of rings or polish. Yet even bare, it remained an essentially feminine hand, the kind that could be pictured holding a porcelain cup or waving a feather fan. It was a surprisingly elegant hand for a woman who didn’t consider herself elegant, delicate or particularly feminine. Kathleen Hardesty was, as her father had been, and as he’d directed her to be, a dedicated educator.

Minds were her concern—the expanding and the fulfilling of them. This included her own as well as every one of her students’. For as long as she could remember, her father had impressed upon her the importance of education. He’d stressed the priority of it over every other aspect of life. Education was the cohesiveness that held civilization together. She grew up surrounded by the dusty smell of books and the quiet, placid tone of patient instruction.

She’d been expected to excel in school, and she had. She’d been expected to follow her father’s path into education. At twenty-eight, Kate was just finishing her first year at Yale as an assistant professor of English literature.

In the dim light of the quiet study, she looked the part. Her light brown hair was tidily secured at the nape of her neck with all the pins neatly tucked in. Her practical tortoiseshell reading glasses seemed dark against her milk-pale complexion. Her high cheekbones gave her face an almost haughty look that was often dispelled by her warm, doe-brown eyes.

Though her jacket was draped over the back of her chair, the white blouse she wore was still crisp. Her cuffs were turned back to reveal delicate wrists and a slim Swiss watch on her left arm. Her earrings were tasteful gold studs given to Kate by her father on her twenty-first birthday, the only truly personal gift she could ever remember receiving from him.

Seven long years later, one short week after her father’s funeral, Kate sat at his desk. The room still carried the scent of his cologne and a hint of the pipe tobacco he’d only smoked in that room.

She’d finally found the courage to go through his papers.

She hadn’t known he was ill. In his early sixties, Hardesty had looked robust and strong. He hadn’t told his daughter about his visits to the doctor, his check-ups, ECG results or the little pills he carried with him everywhere. She’d found his pills in his inside pocket after his fatal heart attack. Kate hadn’t known his heart was weak because Hardesty never shared his shortcomings with anyone. She hadn’t known about the charts and research papers in his desk; he’d never shared his dreams either.

Now that she was aware of both, Kate wasn’t certain she ever really knew the man who’d raised her. The memory of her mother was dim; that was to be expected after more than twenty years. Her father had been alive just a week before.

Leaning back for a moment, she pushed her glasses up and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She tried, with only the desk lamp between herself and the dark, to think of her father in precise terms.

Physically, he’d been a tall, big man with a full head of steel-gray hair and a patient face. He had favored dark suits and white shirts. The only vanity she could remember had been his weekly manicures. But it wasn’t a physical picture Kate struggled with now. As a father…

He was never unkind. In all her memories, Kate couldn’t remember her father ever raising his voice to her, ever striking her. He never had to, she thought with a sigh. All he had to do was express disappointment, disapproval, and that was enough.

He had been brilliant, tireless, dedicated. But all of that had been directed toward his vocation. As a father, Kate reflected…He’d never been unkind. That was all that would come to her, and because of it she felt a fresh wave of guilt and grief.

She hadn’t disappointed him, that much she could cling to. He had told her so himself, in just those words, when she was accepted by the English Department at Yale. Nor had he expected her ever to disappoint him. Kate knew, though it had never been discussed, that her father wanted her to become head of the English Department within ten years. That had been the extent of his dream for her.

Had he ever realized just how much she’d loved him? She wondered as she shut her eyes, tired now from the hours of reading her father’s handwriting. Had he ever known just how desperately she’d wanted to please him? If he’d just once said he was proud…

In the end, she hadn’t had those few intense last moments with her father one reads about in books or sees in the movies. When she’d arrived at the hospital, he was already gone. There’d been no time for words. No time for tears.

Now she was on her own in the tidy Cape Cod house she’d shared with him for so long. The housekeeper would still come on Wednesday mornings, and the gardener would come on Saturdays to cut the grass. She alone would have to deal with the paperwork, the sorting, the shifting, the clearing out.

That could be done. Kate leaned back farther in her father’s worn leather chair. It could be done because all of those things were practical matters. She dealt easily with the practical. But what about these papers she’d found? What would she do about the carefully drawn charts, the notebooks filled with information, directions, history, theory? In part, because she was raised to be logical, she considered filing them neatly away.

But there was another part, the part that enabled one to lose oneself in fantasies, in dreams, in the “perhapses” of life. This was the part that allowed Kate to lose herself totally in the possibilities of the written word, in the wonders of a book. The papers on her father’s desk beckoned her.

He’d believed in it. She bent over the papers again. He’d believed in it or he never would have wasted his time documenting, searching, theorizing. She would never be able to discuss it with him. Yet, in a way, wasn’t he telling her about it through his words?

Treasure. Sunken treasure. The stuff of fiction and Hollywood movies. Judging by the stack of papers and notebooks on his desk, Hardesty must have spent months, perhaps years, compiling information on the location of an English merchant ship lost off the coast of North Carolina two centuries before.

It brought Kate an immediate picture of Edward Teach—Blackbeard, the bloodthirsty pirate with the crazed superstitions and reign of terror. The stuff of romances, she thought. Of romance…

Ocracoke Island. The memory was sharp, sweet and painful. Kate had blocked out everything that had happened that summer four years before. Everything and everyone. Now, if she was to make a rational decision about what was to be done, she had to think of those long, lazy months on the remote Outer Banks of North Carolina.

She’d begun work on her doctorate. It had been a surprise when her father had announced that he planned to spend the summer on Ocracoke and invited her to accompany him. Of course, she’d gone, taking her portable typewriter, boxes of books, reams of paper. She hadn’t expected to be seduced by white sand beaches and the call of gulls. She hadn’t expected to fall desperately and insensibly in love.

Insensibly, Kate repeated to herself, as if in defense. She’d have to remember that was the most apt adjective. There’d been nothing sensible about her feelings for Ky Silver.

Even the name, she mused, was unique, unconventional, flashy. They’d been as suitable for each other as a peacock and a wren. Yet that hadn’t stopped her from losing her head, her heart and her innocence during that balmy, magic summer.

She could still see him at the helm of the boat her father had rented, steering into the wind, laughing, dark hair flowing wildly. She could still remember that heady, weightless feeling when they’d gone scuba diving in the warm coastal waters. Kate had been too caught up in what was happening to herself to think about her father’s sudden interest in boating and diving.

She’d been too swept away by her own feelings of astonishment that a man like Ky Silver should be attracted to someone like her to notice her father’s preoccupation with currents and tides. There’d been too much excitement for her to realize that her father never bothered with fishing rods like the other vacationers.

But now her youthful fancies were behind her, Kate told herself. Now, she could clearly remember how many hours her father had closeted himself in his hotel room, reading book after book that he brought with him from the mainland library. He’d been researching even then. She was sure he’d continued that research in the following summers when she had refused to go back. Refused to go back, Kate remembered, because of Ky Silver.

Ky had asked her to believe in fairy tales. He asked her to give him the impossible. When she refused, frightened, he shrugged and walked away without a second look. She had never gone back to the white sand and gulls since then.

Kate looked down again at her father’s papers. She had to go back now—go back and finish what her father had started. Perhaps, more than the house, the trust fund, the antique jewelry that had been her mother’s, this was her father’s legacy to her. If she filed those papers neatly away, they’d haunt her for the rest of her life.

She had to go back, Kate reaffirmed as she took off her glasses and folded them neatly on the blotter. And it was Ky Silver she’d have to go to. Her father’s aspirations had drawn her away from Ky once; now, four years later, they were drawing her back.

But Dr. Kathleen Hardesty knew the difference between fairy tales and reality. Reaching in her father’s desk drawer, she drew out a sheet of thick creamy stationery and began to write.

Ky let the wind buffet him as he opened the throttle. He liked speed in much the same way he liked a lazy afternoon in the hammock. They were two of the things that made life worthwhile. He was used to the smell of salt spray, but he still inhaled deeply. He was well accustomed to the vibration of the deck under his feet, but he still felt it. He wasn’t a man to let anything go unnoticed or unappreciated.

He grew up in this quiet, remote little coastal town, and though he’d traveled and intended to travel more, he didn’t plan to live anywhere else. It suited him—the freedom of the sea, and the coziness of a small community.

He didn’t resent the tourists because he knew they helped keep the village alive, but he preferred the island in winter. Then the storms blew wild and cold, and only the hearty would brave the ferry across Hatteras Inlet.

He fished, but unlike the majority of his neighbors, he rarely sold what he caught. What he pulled out of the sea, he ate. He dove, occasionally collecting shells, but again, this was for his own pleasure. Often he took tourists out on his boat to fish or to scuba dive, because there were times he enjoyed the company. But there were afternoons, like this sparkling one, when he simply wanted the sea to himself.

He had always been restless. His mother had said that he came into the world two weeks early because he grew impatient waiting. Ky turned thirty-two that spring, but was far from settled. He knew what he wanted—to live as he chose. The trouble was that he wasn’t certain just what he wanted to choose.

At the moment, he chose the open sky and the endless sea. There were other moments when he knew that that wouldn’t be enough.

But the sun was hot, the breeze cool and the shoreline was drawing near. The boat’s motor was purring smoothly and in the small cooler was a tidy catch of fish he’d cook up for his supper that night. On a crystal, sparkling afternoon, perhaps it was enough.

From the shore he looked like a pirate might if there were pirates in the twentieth century. His hair was long enough to curl over his ears and well over the collar of a shirt had he worn one. It was black, a rich, true black that might have come from his Arapaho or Sicilian blood. His eyes were the deep, dark green of the sea on a cloudy day. His skin was bronzed from years in the sun, taut from the years of swimming and pulling in nets. His bone structure was also part of his heritage, sculpted, hard, defined.

When he smiled as he did now, racing the wind to shore, his face took on that reckless freedom women found irresistible. When he didn’t smile, his eyes could turn as cold as a lion’s before a leap. He discovered long ago that women found that equally irresistible.

Ky drew back on the throttle so that the boat slowed, rocked, then glided into its slip in Silver Lake Harbor. With the quick, efficient movements of one born to the sea, he leaped onto the dock to secure the lines.

“Catch anything?”

Ky straightened and turned. He smiled, but absently, as one does at a brother seen almost every day of one’s life. “Enough. Things slow at the Roost?”

Marsh smiled, and there was a brief flicker of family resemblance, but his eyes were a calm light brown and his hair was carefully styled. “Worried about your investment?”

Ky gave a half-shrug. “With you running things?”

Marsh didn’t comment. They knew each other as intimately as men ever know each other. One was restless, the other calm. The opposition never seemed to matter. “Linda wants you to come up for dinner. She worries about you.”

She would, Ky thought, amused. His sister-in-law loved to mother and fuss, even though she was five years younger than Ky. That was one of the reasons the restaurant she ran with Marsh was such a success—that, plus Marsh’s business sense and the hefty investment and shrewd renovations Ky had made. Ky left the managing up to his brother and his sister-in-law. He didn’t mind owning a restaurant, even keeping half an eye on the profit and loss, but he certainly had no interest in running one.

After the lines were secure, he wiped his palms down the hips of his cut-offs. “What’s the special tonight?”

Marsh dipped his hands into his front pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Bluefish.”

Grinning, Ky tossed back the lid of his cooler revealing his catch. “Tell Linda not to worry. I’ll eat.”

“That’s not going to satisfy her.” Marsh glanced at his brother as Ky looked out to sea. “She thinks you’re alone too much.”

“You’re only alone too much if you don’t like being alone.” Ky glanced back over his shoulder. He didn’t want to debate now, when the exhilaration of the speed and the sea were still upon him. But he’d never been a man to placate. “Maybe you two should think about having another baby, then Linda would be too busy to worry about big brothers.”

“Give me a break. Hope’s only eighteen months old.”

“You’ve got to add nine to that,” Ky reminded him carelessly. He was fond of his niece, despite—no, because she was a demon. “Anyway, it looks like the family lineage is in your hands.”

“Yeah.” Marsh shifted his feet, cleared his throat and fell silent. It was a habit he’d carried since childhood, one that could annoy or amuse Ky depending on his mood. At the moment, it was only mildly distracting.

Something was in the air. He could smell it, but he couldn’t quite identify it. A storm brewing, he wondered? One of those hot, patient storms that seemed capable of brewing for weeks. He was certain he could smell it.

“Why don’t you tell me what else is on your mind?” Ky suggested. “I want to get back to the house and clean these.”

“You had a letter. It was put in our box by mistake.”

It was a common enough occurrence, but by his brother’s expression Ky knew there was more. His sense of an impending storm grew sharper. Saying nothing, he held out his hand.

“Ky…” Marsh began. There was nothing he could say, just as there’d been nothing to say four years before. Reaching in his back pocket, he drew out the letter.

The envelope was made from heavy cream-colored paper. Ky didn’t have to look at the return address. The handwriting and the memories it brought leaped out at him. For a moment, he felt his breath catch in his lungs as it might if someone had caught him with a blow to the solar plexus. Deliberately, he expelled it. “Thanks,” he said, as if it meant nothing. He stuck the letter in his pocket before he picked up his cooler and gear.

“Ky—” Again Marsh broke off. His brother had turned his head, and the cool, half-impatient stare said very clearly—back off. “If you change your mind about dinner,” Marsh said.

“I’ll let you know.” Ky went down the length of the dock without looking back.

He was grateful he hadn’t bothered to bring his car down to the harbor. He needed to walk. He needed the fresh air and the exercise to keep his mind clear while he remembered what he didn’t want to remember. What he never really forgot.

Kate. Four years ago she’d walked out of his life with the same sort of cool precision with which she’d walked into it. She had reminded him of a Victorian doll—a little prim, a little aloof. He’d never had much patience with neatly folded hands or haughty manners, yet almost from the first instant he’d wanted her.

At first, he thought it was the fact that she was so different. A challenge—something for Ky Silver to conquer. He enjoyed teaching her to dive, and watching the precise step-by-step way she learned. It hadn’t been any hardship to look at her in a snug scuba suit, although she didn’t have voluptuous curves. She had a trim, neat, almost boylike figure and what seemed like yards of thick, soft hair.

He could still remember the first time she took it down from its pristine knot. It left him breathless, hurting, fascinated. Ky would have touched it—touched her then and there if her father hadn’t been standing beside her. But if a man was clever, if a man was determined, he could find a way to be alone with a woman.

Ky had found ways. Kate had taken to diving as though she’d been born to it. While her father had buried himself in his books, Ky had taken Kate out on the water—under the water, to the silent, dreamlike world that had attracted her just as it had always attracted him.

He could remember the first time he kissed her. They had been wet and cool from a dive, standing on the deck of his boat. He was able to see the lighthouse behind her and the vague line of the coast. Her hair had flowed down her back, sleek from the water, dripping with it. He’d reached out and gathered it in his hand.

“What are you doing?”

Four years later, he could hear that low, cultured, eastern voice, the curiosity in it. It took no effort for him to see the curiosity that had been in her eyes.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

The curiosity had remained in her eyes, fascinating him. “Why?”

“Because I want to.”

It was as simple as that for him. He wanted to. Her body had stiffened as he’d drawn her against him. When her lips parted in protest, he closed his over them. In the time it takes a heart to beat, the rigidity had melted from her body. She’d kissed him with all the young, stored-up passion that had been in her—passion mixed with innocence. He was experienced enough to recognize her innocence, and that too had fascinated him. Ky had, foolishly, youthfully and completely, fallen in love.

Kate had remained an enigma to him, though they shared impassioned hours of laughter and long, lazy talks. He admired her thirst for learning and she had a predilection for putting knowledge into neat slots that baffled him. She was enthusiastic about diving, but it hadn’t been enough for her simply to be able to swim freely underwater, taking her air from tanks. She had to know how the tanks worked, why they were fashioned a certain way. Ky watched her absorb what he told her, and knew she’d retain it.

They had taken walks along the shoreline at night and she had recited poetry from memory. Beautiful words, Byron, Shelley, Keats. And he, who’d never been overly impressed by such things, had eaten it up because her voice had made the words somehow personal. Then she’d begin to talk about syntax, iambic pentameters, and Ky would find new ways to divert her.

For three months, he did little but think of her. For the first time, Ky had considered changing his lifestyle. His little cottage near the beach needed work. It needed furniture. Kate would need more than milk crates and the hammock that had been his style. Because he’d been young and had never been in love before, Ky had taken his own plans for granted.

She’d walked out on him. She’d had her own plans, and he hadn’t been part of them.

Her father came back to the island the following summer, and every summer thereafter. Kate never came back. Ky knew she had completed her doctorate and was teaching in a prestigious ivy league school where her father was all but a cornerstone. She had what she wanted. So, he told himself as he swung open the screen door of his cottage, did he. He went where he wanted, when he wanted. He called his own shots. His responsibilities extended only as far as he chose to extend them. To his way of thinking, that itself was a mark of success.

Setting the cooler on the kitchen floor, Ky opened the refrigerator. He twisted the top off a beer and drank half of it in one icy cold swallow. It washed some of the bitterness out of his mouth.

Calm now, and curious, he pulled the letter out of his pocket. Ripping it open, he drew out the single neatly written sheet.

Dear Ky,

You may or may not be aware that my father suffered a fatal heart attack two weeks ago. It was very sudden, and I’m currently trying to tie up the many details this involves.

In going through my father’s papers, I find that he had again made arrangements to come to the island this summer, and engage your services. I now find it necessary to take his place. For reasons which I’d rather explain in person, I need your help. You have my father’s deposit. When I arrive in Ocracoke on the fifteenth, we can discuss terms.

If possible, contact me at the hotel, or leave a message. I hope we’ll be able to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement. Please give my best to Marsh. Perhaps I’ll see him during my stay.

Best,

Kathleen Hardesty

So the old man was dead. Ky set down the letter and lifted his beer again. He couldn’t say he’d had any liking for Edwin Hardesty. Kate’s father had been a stringent, humorless man. Still, he hadn’t disliked him. Ky had, in an odd way, gotten used to his company over the last few summers. But this summer, it would be Kate.

Ky glanced at the letter again, then jogged his memory until he remembered the date. Two days, he mused. She’d be there in two days…to discuss terms. A smile played around the corners of his mouth but it didn’t have anything to do with humor. They’d discuss terms, he agreed silently as he scanned Kate’s letter again.

She wanted to take her father’s place. Ky wondered if she’d realized, when she wrote that, just how ironic it was. Kathleen Hardesty had been obediently dogging her father’s footsteps all her life. Why should that change after his death?

Had she changed? Ky wondered briefly. Would that fascinating aura of innocence and aloofness still cling to her? Or perhaps that had faded with the years. Would that rather sweet primness have developed into a rigidity? He’d see for himself in a couple of days, he realized, but tossed the letter onto the counter rather than into the trash.

So, she wanted to engage his services, he mused. Leaning both hands on either side of the sink, he looked out the window in the direction of the water he could smell, but not quite see. She wanted a business arrangement—the rental of his boat, his gear and his time. He felt the bitterness well up and swallowed it as cleanly as he had the beer. She’d have her business arrangement. And she’d pay. He’d see to that.

Ky left the kitchen with his catch still in the cooler. The appetite he’d worked up with salt spray and speed had vanished.

Kate pulled her car onto the ferry to Ocracoke and set the brake. The morning was cool and very clear. Even so, she was tempted to simply lean her head back and close her eyes. She wasn’t certain what impulse had pushed her to drive from Connecticut rather than fly, but now that she’d all but reached her destination, she was too weary to analyze.

In the bucket seat beside her was her briefcase, and inside, all the papers she’d collected from her father’s desk. Perhaps once she was in the hotel on the island, she could go through them again, understand them better. Perhaps the feeling that she was doing the right thing would come back. Over the last few days she’d lost that sense.

The closer she came to the island, the more she began to think she was making a mistake. Not to the island, Kate corrected ruthlessly—the closer she came to Ky. It was a fact, and Kate knew it was imperative to face facts so that they could be dealt with logically.

She had a little time left, a little time to calm the feelings that had somehow gotten stirred up during the drive south. It was foolish, and somehow it helped Kate to remind herself of that. She wasn’t a woman returning to a lover, but a woman hoping to engage a diver in a very specific venture. Past personal feelings wouldn’t enter into it because they were just that. Past.

The Kate Hardesty who’d arrived on Ocracoke four years ago had little to do with the Dr. Kathleen Hardesty who was going there now. She wasn’t young, inexperienced or impressionable. Those reckless, wild traits of Ky’s wouldn’t appeal to her now. They wouldn’t frighten her. They would be, if Ky agreed to her terms, business partners.

Kate felt the ferry move beneath her as she stared through the windshield. Yes, she thought, unless Ky had changed a great deal, the prospect of diving for treasure would appeal to his sense of adventure.

She knew enough about diving in the technical sense to be sure she’d find no one better equipped for the job. It was always advisable to have the best. More relaxed and less weary, Kate stepped out of her car to stand at the rail. From there she could watch the gulls swoop and the tiny uninhabited islands pass by. She felt a sense of homecoming, but pushed it away. Connecticut was home. Once Kate did what she came for, she’d go back.

The water swirled behind the boat. She couldn’t hear it over the motor, but looking down she could watch the wake. One island was nearly imperceptible under a flock of big, brown pelicans. It made her smile, pleased to see the odd, awkward-looking birds again. They passed the long spit of land, where fishermen parked trucks and tried their luck, near the point where bay met sea. She could watch the waves crash and foam where there was no shore, just a turbulent marriage of waters. That was something she hadn’t forgotten, though she hadn’t seen it since she left the island. Nor had she forgotten just how treacherous the current was along that verge.

Excitement. She breathed deeply before she turned back to her car. The treacherous was always exciting.

When the ferry docked, she had only a short wait before she could drive her car onto the narrow blacktop. The trip to town wouldn’t take long, and it wasn’t possible to lose your way if you stayed on the one long road. The sea battered on one side, the sound flowed smoothly on the other—both were deep blue in the late morning light.

Her nerves were gone, at least that’s what she told herself. It had just been a case of last minute jitters—very normal. She was prepared to see Ky again, speak to him, work with him if they could agree on the terms.

With the windows down, the soft moist air blew around her. It was soothing. She’d almost forgotten just how soothing air could be, or the sound of water lapping constantly against sand. It was right to come. When she saw the first faded buildings of the village, she felt a wave of relief. She was here. There was no turning back now.

The hotel where she had stayed that summer with her father was on the sound side of the island. It was small and quiet. If the service was a bit slow by northern standards, the view made up for it.

Kate pulled up in front and turned off the ignition. Self-satisfaction made her sigh. She’d taken the first step and was completely prepared for the next.

Then as she stepped out of the car, she saw him. For an instant, the confident professor of English literature vanished. She was only a woman, vulnerable to her own emotions.

Oh God, he hasn’t changed. Not at all. As Ky came closer, she could remember every kiss, every murmur, every crazed storm of their loving. The breeze blew his hair back from his face so that every familiar angle and plane was clear to her. With the sun warm on her skin, bright in her eyes, she felt the years spin back, then forward again. He hadn’t changed.

He hadn’t expected to see her yet. Somehow he thought she’d arrive that afternoon. Yet he found it necessary to go by the Roost that morning knowing the restaurant was directly across from the hotel where she’d be staying.

She was here, looking neat and a bit too thin in her tailored slacks and blouse. Her hair was pinned up so that the soft femininity of her neck and throat were revealed. Her eyes seemed too dark against her pale skin—skin Ky knew would turn golden slowly under the summer sun.

She looked the same. Soft, prim, calm. Lovely. He ignored the thud in the pit of his stomach as he stepped in front of her. He looked her up and down with the arrogance that was so much a part of him. Then he grinned because he had an overwhelming urge to strangle her.

“Kate. Looks like my timing’s good.”

She was almost certain she couldn’t speak and was therefore determined to speak calmly. “Ky, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Is it?”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Kate walked around to her trunk and released it. “I’d like to get together with you as soon as possible. There are some things I want to show you, and some business I’d like to discuss.”

“Sure, always open for business.”

He watched her pull two cases from her trunk, but didn’t offer to help. He saw there was no ring on her hand—but it wouldn’t have mattered.

“Perhaps we can meet this afternoon then, after I’ve settled in.” The sooner the better, she told herself. They would establish the purpose, the ground rules and the payment. “We could have lunch in the hotel.”

“No, thanks,” he said easily, leaning against the side of her car while she set her cases down. “You want me, you know where to find me. It’s a small island.”

With his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he walked away from her. Though she didn’t want to, Kate remembered that the last time he’d walked away, they’d stood in almost the same spot.

Picking up her cases, she headed for the hotel, perhaps a bit too quickly.

Chapter 2

She knew where to find him. If the island had been double in size, she’d still have known where to find him. Kate acknowledged that Ky hadn’t changed. That meant if he wasn’t out on his boat, he would be at home, in the small, slightly dilapidated cottage he owned near the beach. Because she felt it would be a strategic error to go after him too soon, she dawdled over her unpacking.

But there were memories even here, where she’d spent one giddy, whirlwind night of love with Ky. It had been the only time they were able to sleep together through the night, embracing each other in the crisp hotel sheets until the first light of dawn crept around the edges of the window shades. She remembered how reckless she’d felt during those few stolen hours, and how dull the morning had seemed because it brought them to an end.

Now she could look out the same window she had stood by then, staring out in the same direction she’d stared out then when she watched Ky walk away. She remembered the sky had been streaked with a rose color before it had brightened to a pure, pale blue.

Then, with her skin still warm from her lover’s touch and her mind glazed with lack of sleep and passion, Kate had believed such things could go on forever. But of course they couldn’t. She had seen that only weeks later. Passion and reckless nights of loving had to give way to responsibilities, obligations.

Staring out the same window, in the same direction, Kate could feel the sense of loss she’d felt that long ago dawn without the underlying hope that they’d be together again. And again.

They wouldn’t be together again, and there’d been no one else since that one heady summer. She had her career, her vocation, her books. She had had her taste of passion.

Turning away, she busied herself by rearranging everything she’d just arranged in her drawers and closet. When she decided she’d stalled in her hotel room long enough, Kate started out. She didn’t take her car. She walked, just as she always walked to Ky’s home.

She told herself she was over the shock of seeing him again. It was only natural that there be some strain, some discomfort. She was honest enough to admit that it would have been easier if there’d been only strain and discomfort, and not that one sharp quiver of pleasure. Kate acknowledged it, now that it had passed.

No, Ky Silver hadn’t changed, she reminded herself. He was still arrogant, self-absorbed and cocky. Those traits might have appealed to her once, but she’d been very young. If she were wise, she could use those same traits to persuade Ky to help her. Yes, those traits, she thought, and the tempting offer of a treasure hunt. Even at her most pessimistic, she couldn’t believe Ky would refuse. It was his nature to take chances.

This time she’d be in charge. Kate drew in a deep breath of warm air that tasted of sea. Somehow she felt it would steady her. Ky was going to find she was no longer naive, or susceptible to a few careless words of affection.

With her briefcase in hand, Kate walked through the village. This too was the same, she thought. She was glad of it. The simplicity and solitude still appealed to her. She enjoyed the dozens of little shops, the restaurants and small inns tucked here and there, all somehow using the harbor as a central point, the lighthouse as a landmark. The villagers still made the most of their notorious one-time resident and permanent ghost, Blackbeard. His name or face was lavishly displayed on store signs.

She passed the harbor, unconsciously scanning for Ky’s boat. It was there, in the same slip he’d always used—clean lines, scrubbed deck, shining hardware. The flying bridge gleamed in the afternoon light and looked the same as she remembered. Reckless, challenging. The paint was fresh and there was no film of salt spray on the bridge windows. However careless Ky had been about his own appearance or his home, he’d always pampered his boat.

The Vortex. Kate studied the flamboyant lettering on the stern. He could pamper, she thought again, but he also expected a lot in return. She knew the speed he could urge out of the second-hand cabin cruiser he’d lovingly reconstructed himself. Nothing could block the image of the days she’d stood beside him at the helm. The wind had whipped her hair as he’d laughed and pushed for speed, and more speed. Her heart thudded, her pulse raced until she was certain nothing and no one could catch them. She’d been afraid, of him, of the rush of wind—but she’d stayed with both. In the end, she’d left both.

He enjoyed the demanding, the thrilling, the frightening. Kate gripped the handle of her briefcase tighter. Isn’t that why she came to him? There were dozens of other experienced divers, many, many other experts on the coastal waters of the Outer Banks. There was only one Ky Silver.

“Kate? Kate Hardesty?”

At the sound of her name, Kate turned and felt the years tumble back again. “Linda!” This time there was no restraint. With an openness she showed to very few, Kate embraced the woman who dashed up to her, “It’s wonderful to see you.” With a laugh, she drew Linda away to study her. The same chestnut hair cut short and pert, the same frank, brown eyes. It seemed very little had changed on the island. “You look wonderful.”

“When I looked out the window and saw you, I could hardly believe it. Kate, you’ve barely changed at all.” With her usual candor and lack of pretension, Linda took a quick, thorough survey. It was quick only because she did things quickly, but it wasn’t subtle. “You’re too thin,” she decided. “But that might be jealousy.”

“You still look like a college freshman,” Kate returned. “That is jealousy.”

As swiftly as the laugh had come, Linda sobered. “I’m sorry about your father, Kate. These past weeks must’ve been difficult for you.”

Kate heard the sincerity, but she’d already tied up her grief and stored it away. “Ky told you?”

“Ky never tells me anything,” Linda said with a sniff. In an unconscious move, she glanced in the direction of his boat. It was in its slip and Kate had been walking north—in the direction of Ky’s cottage. There could be only one place she could have been going. “Marsh did. How long are you going to stay?”

“I’m not sure yet.” She felt the weight of her briefcase. Dreams held the same weight as responsibilities. “There are some things I have to do.”

“One of the things you have to do is have dinner at the Roost tonight. It’s the restaurant right across from your hotel.”

Kate looked back at the rough wooden sign. “Yes, I noticed it. Is it new?”

Linda glanced over her shoulder with a self-satisfied nod. “By Ocracoke standards. We run it.”

“We?”

“Marsh and I.” With a beaming smile, Linda held out her left hand. “We’ve been married for three years.” Then she rolled her eyes in a habit Kate remembered. “It only took me fifteen years to convince him he couldn’t live without me.”

“I’m happy for you.” She was, and if she felt a pang, she ignored it. “Married and running a restaurant. My father never filled me in on island gossip.”

“We have a daughter too. Hope. She’s a year and a half old and a terror. For some reason, she takes after Ky.” Linda sobered again, laying a hand lightly on Kate’s arm. “You’re going to see him now.” It wasn’t a question; she didn’t bother to disguise it as one.

“Yes.” Keep it casual, Kate ordered herself. Don’t let the questions and concern in Linda’s eyes weaken you. There were ties between Linda and Ky, not only newly formed family ones, but the older tie of the island. “My father was working on something. I need Ky’s help with it.”

Linda studied Kate’s calm face. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Yes.” She didn’t show a flicker of unease. Her stomach slowly wrapped itself in knots. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay.” Accepting Kate’s answer, but not satisfied, Linda dropped her hand. “Please come by—the restaurant or the house. We live just down the road from Ky. Marsh’ll want to see you, and I’d like to show off Hope—and our menu,” she added with a grin. “Both are outstanding.”

“Of course I’ll come by.” On impulse, she took both of Linda’s hands. “It’s really good to see you again. I know I didn’t keep in touch, but—”

“I understand.” Linda gave her hands a quick squeeze. “That was yesterday. I’ve got to get back, the lunch crowd’s pretty heavy during the season.” She let out a little sigh, wondering if Kate was as calm as she seemed. And if Ky were as big a fool as ever. “Good luck,” she murmured, then dashed across the street again.

“Thanks,” Kate said under her breath. She was going to need it.

The walk was as beautiful as she remembered. She passed the little shops with their display windows showing handmade crafts or antiques. She passed the blue and white clapboard houses and the neat little streets on the outskirts of town with their bleached green lawns and leafy trees.

A dog raced back and forth on the length of his chain as she wandered by, barking at her as if he knew he was supposed to but didn’t have much interest in it. She could see the tower of the white lighthouse. There’d been a keeper there once, but those days were over. Then she was on the narrow path that led to Ky’s cottage.

Her palms were damp. She cursed herself. If she had to remember, she’d remember later, when she was alone. When she was safe.

The path was as it had been, just wide enough for a car, sparsely graveled, lined with bushes that always grew out a bit too far. The bushes and trees had always had a wild, overgrown look that suited the spot. That suited him.

Ky had told her he didn’t care much for visitors. If he wanted company, all he had to do was go into town where he knew everyone. That was typical of Ky Silver, Kate mused. If I want you, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, back off.

He’d wanted her once…. Nervous, Kate shifted the briefcase to her other hand. Whatever he wanted now, he’d have to hear her out. She needed him for what he was best at—diving and taking chances.

When the house came into view, she stopped, staring. It was still small, still primitive. But it no longer looked as though it would keel over on its side in a brisk wind.

The roof had been redone. Obviously Ky wouldn’t need to set out pots and pans during a rain any longer. The porch he’d once talked vaguely about building now ran the length of the front, sturdy and wide. The screen door that had once been patched in a half a dozen places had been replaced by a new one. Yet nothing looked new, she observed. It just looked right. The cedar had weathered to silver, the windows were untrimmed but gleaming. There was, much to her surprise, a spill of impatiens in a long wooden planter.

She’d been wrong, Kate decided as she walked closer. Ky Silver had changed. Precisely how, and precisely how much, she had yet to find out.

She was nearly to the first step when she heard sounds coming from the rear of the house. There was a shed back there, she remembered, full of boards and tools and salvage. Grateful that she didn’t have to meet him in the house, Kate walked around the side to the tiny backyard. She could hear the sea and knew it was less than a two-minute walk through high grass and sand dunes.

Did he still go down there in the evenings? she wondered. Just to look, he’d said. Just to smell. Sometimes he’d pick up driftwood or shells or whatever small treasures the sea gave up to the sand. Once he’d given her a small smooth shell that fit into the palm of her hand—very white with a delicate pink center. A woman with her first gift of diamonds could not have been more thrilled.

Shaking the memories away, she went into the shed. It was as tall as the cottage and half as wide. The last time she’d been there, it’d been crowded with planks and boards and boxes of hardware. Now she saw the hull of a boat. At a worktable with his back to her, Ky sanded the mast.

“You’ve built it.” The words came out before she could stop them, full of astonished pleasure. How many times had he told her about the boat he’d build one day? It had seemed to Kate it had been his only concrete ambition. Mahogany on oak, he’d said. A seventeen-foot sloop that would cut through the water like a dream. He’d have bronze fastenings and teak on the deck. One day he’d sail the inner coastal waters from Ocracoke to New England. He’d described the boat so minutely that she’d seen it then just as clearly as she saw it now.

“I told you I would.” Ky turned away from the mast and faced her. She, in the doorway, had the sun at her back. He was half in shadow.

“Yes.” Feeling foolish, Kate tightened her grip on the briefcase. “You did.”

“But you didn’t believe me.” Ky tossed aside the sandpaper. Did she have to look so neat and cool, and impossibly lovely? A trickle of sweat ran down his back. “You always had a problem seeing beyond the moment.”

Reckless, impatient, compelling. Would he always bring those words to her mind? “You always had a problem dealing with the moment,” she said.

His brow lifted, whether in surprise or derision she couldn’t be sure. “Then it might be said we always had a problem.” He walked to her, so that the sun slanting through the small windows fell over him, then behind him. “But it didn’t always seem to matter.” To satisfy himself that he still could, Ky reached out and touched her face. She didn’t move, and her skin was as soft and cool as he remembered. “You look tired Kate.”

The muscles in her stomach quivered, but not her voice. “It was a long trip.”

His thumb brushed along her cheekbone. “You need some sun.”

This time she backed away. “I intend to get some.”

“So I gathered from your letter.” Pleased that she’d retreated first, Ky leaned against the open door. “You wrote that you wanted to talk to me in person. You’re here. Why don’t you tell me what you want?”

The cocky grin might have made her melt once. Now it stiffened her spine. “My father was researching a project. I intend to finish it.”

“So?”

“I need your help.”

Ky laughed and stepped past her into the sunlight. He needed the air, the distance. He needed to touch her again. “From your tone, there’s nothing you hate more than asking me for it.”

“No.” She stood firm, feeling suddenly strong and bitter. “Nothing.”

There was no humor in his eyes as he faced her again. The expression in them was cold and flat. She’d seen it before. “Then let’s understand each other before we start. You left the island and me, and took what I wanted.”

He couldn’t make her cringe now as he once had with only that look. “What happened four years ago has nothing to do with today.”

“The hell it doesn’t.” He came toward her again so that she took an involuntary step backward. “Still afraid of me?” he asked softly.

As it had a moment ago, the question turned the fear to anger. “No,” she told him, and meant it. “I’m not afraid of you, Ky. I’ve no intention of discussing the past, but I will agree that I left the island and you. I’m here now on business. I’d like you to hear me out. If you’re interested, we’ll discuss terms, nothing else.”

“I’m not one of your students, professor.” The drawl crept into his voice, as it did when he let it. “Don’t instruct.”

She curled her fingers tighter around the handle of her briefcase. “In business, there are always ground rules.”

“Nobody agreed to let you make them.”

“I made a mistake,” Kate said quietly as she fought for control. “I’ll find someone else.”

She’d taken only two steps away when Ky grabbed her arm. “No, you won’t.” The stormy look in his eyes made her throat dry. She knew what he meant. She’d never find anyone else that could make her feel as he made her feel, or want as he made her want. Deliberately, Kate removed his hand from her arm.

“I came here on business. I’ve no intention of fighting with you over something that doesn’t exist any longer.”

“We’ll see about that.” How long could he hold on? Ky wondered. It hurt just to look at her and to feel her withdrawing with every second that went by. “But for now, why don’t you tell me what you have in that businesslike briefcase, professor.”

Kate took a deep breath. She should have known it wouldn’t be easy. Nothing was ever easy with Ky. “Charts,” she said precisely. “Notebooks full of research, maps, carefully documented facts and precise theories. In my opinion, my father was very close to pinpointing the exact location of the Liberty, an English merchant vessel that sank, stores intact, off the North Carolina coast two hundred and fifty years ago.”

He listened without a comment or a change of expression from beginning to end. When she finished, Ky studied her face for one long moment. “Come inside,” he said and turned toward the house. “Show me what you’ve got.”

His arrogance made her want to turn away and go back to town exactly as she’d come. There were other divers, others who knew the coast and the waters as well as Ky did. Kate forced herself to calm down, forced herself to think. There were others, but if it was a choice between the devil she knew and the unknown, she had no choice. Kate followed him into the house.

This, too, had changed. The kitchen she remembered had had a paint splattered floor, with the only usable counter space being a tottering picnic table. The floor had been stripped and varnished, the cabinets redone, and scrubbed butcher block counters lined the sink. He had put in a skylight so that the sun spilled down over the picnic table, now re-worked and re-painted, with benches along either side.

“Did you do all of this yourself?”

“Yeah. Surprised?”

So he didn’t want to make polite conversation. Kate set her briefcase on the table. “Yes. You always seemed content that the walls were about to cave in on you.”

“I was content with a lot of things, once. Want a beer?”

“No.” Kate sat down and drew the first of her father’s notebooks out of her briefcase. “You’ll want to read these. It would be unnecessary and time-consuming for you to read every page, but if you’d look over the ones I’ve marked, I think you’ll have enough to go by.”

“All right.” Ky turned from the refrigerator, beer in hand. He sat, watching her over the rim as he took the first swallow, then he opened the notebook.

Edwin Hardesty’s handwriting was very clear and precise. He wrote down his facts in didactic, unromantic terms. What could have been exciting was as dry as a thesis, but it was accurate. Ky had no doubt of that.

The Liberty had been lost, with its stores of sugar, tea, silks, wine and other imports for the colonies. Hardesty had listed the manifest down to the last piece of hardtack. When it had left England, the ship had also been carrying gold. Twenty-five thousand in coins of the realm. Ky glanced up from the notebook to see Kate watching him.

“Interesting,” he said simply, and turned to the next page she marked.

There’d been only three survivors who’d washed up on the island. One of the crew had described the storm that had sunk the Liberty, giving details on the height of the waves, the splintering wood, the water gushing into the hole. It was a grim, grisly story which Hardesty had recounted in his pragmatic style, complete with footnotes. The crewman had also given the last known location of the ship before it had gone down. Ky didn’t require Hardesty’s calculations to figure the ship had sunk two-and-a-half miles off the coast of Ocracoke.

Going from one notebook to another, Ky read through Hardesty’s well-drafted theories, his clear to-the-point documentations, corroborated and recorroborated. He scanned the charts, then studied them with more care. He remembered the man’s avid interest in diving, which had always seemed inconsistent with his precise lifestyle.

So he’d been looking for gold, Ky mused. All these years the man had been digging in books and looking for gold. If it had been anyone else, Ky might have dismissed it as another fable. Little towns along the coast were full of stories about buried treasure. Edward Teach had used the shallow waters of the inlets to frustrate and outwit the crown until his last battle off the shores of Ocracoke. That alone kept the dreams of finding sunken treasures alive.

But it was Dr. Edwin J. Hardesty, Yale professor, an unimaginative, humorless man who didn’t believe there was time to be wasted on the frivolous, who’d written these notebooks.

Ky might still have dismissed it, but Kate was sitting across from him. He had enough adventurous blood in him to believe in destinies.

Setting the last notebook aside, he picked up his beer again. “So, you want to treasure hunt.”

She ignored the humor in his voice. With her hands folded on the table, she leaned forward. “I intend to follow through with what my father was working on.”

“Do you believe it?”

Did she? Kate opened her mouth and closed it again. She had no idea. “I don’t believe that all of my father’s time and research should go for nothing. I want to try. As it happens, I need you to help me do it. You’ll be compensated.”

“Will I?” He studied the liquid left in the beer bottle with a half smile. “Will I indeed?”

“I need you, your boat and your equipment for a month, maybe two. I can’t dive alone because I just don’t know the waters well enough to risk it, and I don’t have the time to waste. I have to be back in Connecticut by the end of August.”

“To get more chalk dust under your fingernails.”

She sat back slowly. “You have no right to criticize my profession.”

“I’m sure the chalk’s very exclusive at Yale,” Ky commented. “So you’re giving yourself six weeks or so to find a pot of gold.”

“If my father’s calculations are viable, it won’t take that long.”

“If,” Ky repeated. Setting down his bottle, he leaned forward. “I’ve got no timetable. You want six weeks of my time, you can have it. For a price.”

“Which is?”

“A hundred dollars a day and fifty percent of whatever we find.”

Kate gave him a cool look as she slipped the notebooks back into her briefcase. “Whatever I was four years ago, Ky, I’m not a fool now. A hundred dollars a day is outrageous when we’re dealing with monthly rates. And fifty percent is out of the question.” It gave her a certain satisfaction to bargain with him. This made it business, pure and simple. “I’ll give you fifty dollars a day and ten percent.”

With the maddening half grin on his face he swirled the beer in the bottle. “I don’t turn my boat on for fifty a day.”

She tilted her head a bit to study him. Something tore inside him. She’d often done that whenever he said something she wanted to think over. “You’re more mercenary than you once were.”

“We’ve all got to make a living, professor.” Didn’t she feel anything? he thought furiously. Wasn’t she suffering just a little, being in the house where they’d made love their first and last time? “You want a service,” he said quietly, “you pay for it. Nothing’s free. Seventy-five a day and twenty-five percent. We’ll say it’s for old-times’ sake.”

“No, we’ll say it’s for business’ sake.” She made herself extend her hand, but when his closed over it, she regretted the gesture. It was callused, hard, strong. Kate knew how his hand felt skimming over her skin, driving her to desperation, soothing, teasing, seducing.

“We have a deal.” Ky thought he could see a flash of remembrance in her eyes. He kept her hand in his knowing she didn’t welcome his touch. Because she didn’t. “There’s no guarantee you’ll find your treasure.”

“That’s understood.”

“Fine. I’ll deduct your father’s deposit from the total.”

“All right.” With her free hand, she clutched at her briefcase. “When do we start?”

“Meet me at the harbor at eight tomorrow.” Deliberately, he placed his other free hand over hers on the leather case. “Leave this with me. I want to look over the papers some more.”

“There’s no need for you to have them,” Kate began, but his hands tightened on hers.

“If you don’t trust me with them, you take them along.” His voice was very smooth and very quiet. At its most dangerous. “And find yourself another diver.”

Their gazes locked. Her hands were trapped and so was she. Kate knew there would be sacrifices she’d have to make. “I’ll meet you at eight.”

“Fine.” He released her hands and sat back. “Nice doing business with you, Kate.”

Dismissed, she rose. Just how much had she sacrificed already? she wondered. “Goodbye.”

He lifted and drained his half-finished beer when the screen shut behind her. Then he made himself sit there until he was certain that when he rose and walked to the window she’d be out of sight. He made himself sit there until the air flowing through the screens had carried her scent away.

Sunken ships and deep-sea treasure. It would have excited him, captured his imagination, enthusiasm and interest if he hadn’t had an overwhelming urge to just get in his boat and head toward the horizon. He hadn’t believed she could still affect him that way, that much, that completely. He’d forgotten that just being within touching distance of her tied his stomach in knots.

He’d never gotten over her. No matter what he filled his life with over the past four years, he’d never gotten over the slim, intellectual woman with the haughty face and doe’s eyes.

Ky sat, staring at the briefcase with her initials stamped discreetly near the handle. He’d never expected her to come back, but he’d just discovered he’d never accepted the fact that she’d left him. Somehow, he’d managed to deceive himself through the years. Now, seeing her again, he knew it had just been a matter of pure survival and nothing to do with truth. He’d had to go on, to pretend that that part of his life was behind him, or he would have gone mad.

She was back now, but she hadn’t come back to him. A business arrangement. Ky ran his hand over the smooth leather of the case. She simply wanted the best diver she knew and was willing to pay for him. Fee for services, nothing more, nothing less. The past meant little or nothing to her.

Fury grew until his knuckles whitened around the bottle. He’d give her what she paid for, he promised himself. And maybe a bit extra.

This time when she went away, he wouldn’t be left feeling like an inadequate fool. She’d be the one who would have to go on pretending for the rest of her life. This time when she went away, he’d be done with her. God, he’d have to be.

Rising quickly, he went out to the shed. If he stayed inside, he’d give in to the need to get very, very drunk.

Chapter 3

Kate had the water in the tub so hot that the mirror over the white pedestal sink was fogged. Oil floated on the surface, subtly fragrant and soothing. She’d lost track of how long she lay there—soaking, recharging. The next irrevocable step had been taken. She’d survived. Somehow during her discussion with Ky in his kitchen she had fought back the memories of laughter and passion. She couldn’t count how many meals they’d shared there, cooking their catch, sipping wine.

Somehow during the walk back to her hotel, she’d overcome the need to weep. Tomorrow would be just a little easier. Tomorrow, and every day that followed. She had to believe it.

His animosity would help. His derision toward her kept Kate from romanticizing what she had to tell herself had never been more than a youthful summer fling. Perspective. She’d always been able to stand back and align everything in its proper perspective.

Perhaps her feelings for Ky weren’t as dead as she had hoped or pretended they were. But her emotions were tinged with bitterness. Only a fool asked for more sorrow. Only a romantic believed that bitterness could ever be sweet. It had been a long time since Kate had been a romantic fool. Even so, they would work together because both had an interest in what might be lying on the sea floor.

Think of it. Two hundred and fifty years. Kate closed her eyes and let her mind drift. The silks and sugar would be gone, but would they find brass fittings deep in corrosion after two-and-a-half centuries? The hull would be covered with fungus and barnacles, but how much of the oak would still be intact? Might the log have been secured in a waterproof hold and still be legible? It could be donated to a museum in her father’s name. It would be something—the last something she could do for him. Perhaps then she’d be able to lay all her ambiguous feelings to rest.

The gold, Kate thought as she rose from the tub, the gold would survive. She wasn’t immune to the lure of it. Yet she knew it would be the hunt that would be exciting, and somehow fulfilling. If she found it…

What would she do? Kate wondered. She dropped the hotel towel over the rod before she wrapped herself in her robe. Behind her, the mirror was still fogged with steam from the water that drained slowly from the tub. Would she put her share tidily in some conservative investments? Would she take a leisurely trip to the Greek islands to see what Byron had seen and fallen in love with there? With a laugh, Kate walked through to the other room to pick up her brush. Strange, she hadn’t thought beyond the search yet. Perhaps that was for the best, it wasn’t wise to plan too far ahead.

You always had a problem seeing beyond the moment.

Damn him! With a sudden fury, Kate slammed the brush onto the dresser. She’d seen beyond the moment. She’d seen that he’d offered her no more than a tentative affair in a run-down beach shack. No guarantees, no commitment, no future. She only thanked God she’d had enough of her senses left to understand it and to walk away from what was essentially nothing at all. She’d never let Ky know just how horribly it had hurt to walk away from nothing at all.

Her father had been right to quietly point out the weaknesses in Ky, and her obligation to herself and her chosen profession. Ky’s lack of ambition, his careless attitude toward the future weren’t qualities, but flaws. She’d had a responsibility, and by accepting it had given herself independence and satisfaction.

Calmer, she picked up her brush again. She was dwelling on the past too much. It was time to stop. With the deft movements of habit, she secured her hair into a sleek twist. From this time on, she’d think only of what was to come, not what had, or might have been.

She needed to get out.

With panic just under the surface, Kate pulled a dress out of her closet. It no longer mattered that she was tired, that all she really wanted to do was to crawl into bed and let her mind and body rest. Nerves wouldn’t permit it. She’d go across the street, have a drink with Linda and Marsh. She’d see their baby, have a long, extravagant dinner. When she came back to the hotel, alone, she’d make certain she’d be too tired for dreams.

Tomorrow, she had work to do.

Because she dressed quickly, Kate arrived at the Roost just past six. What she saw, she immediately approved of. It wasn’t elegant, but it was comfortable. It didn’t have the dimly lit, cathedral feel of so many of the restaurants she’d dined in with her father, with colleagues, back in Connecticut. It was relaxed, welcoming, cozy.

There were paintings of ships and boats along the stuccoed walls, of armadas and cutters. Throughout the dining room was other sailing paraphernalia—a ship’s compass with its brass gleaming, a colorful spinnaker draped behind the bar with the stools in front of it shaped like wooden kegs. There was a crow’s nest spearing toward the ceiling with ferns spilling out and down the mast.

The room was already half full of couples and families, the bulk of whom Kate identified as tourists. She could hear the comforting sound of cutlery scraping lightly over plates. There was the smell of good food and the hum of mixed conversations.

Comfortable, she thought again, but definitely well organized. Waiters and waitresses in sailor’s denims moved smoothly, making every second count without looking rushed. The window opened out to a full evening view of Silver Lake Harbor. Kate turned her back on it because she knew her gaze would fall on the Vortex or its empty slip.

Tomorrow was soon enough for that. She wanted one night without memories.

“Kate.”

She felt the hands on her shoulders and recognized the voice. There was a smile on her face when she turned around. “Marsh, I’m so glad to see you.”

In his quiet way, he studied her, measured her and saw both the strain and the relief. In the same way, he’d had a crush on her that had faded into admiration and respect before the end of that one summer. “Beautiful as ever. Linda said you were, but it’s nice to see for myself.”

She laughed, because he’d always been able to make her feel as though life could be honed down to the most simple of terms. She’d never questioned why that trait had made her relax with Marsh and tingle with Ky.

“Several congratulations are in order, I hear. On your marriage, your daughter and your business.”

“I’ll take them all. How about the best table in the house?”

“No less than I expected.” She linked her arm through his. “Your life agrees with you,” she decided as he led her to a table by the window. “You look happy.”

“Look and am.” He lifted a hand to brush hers. “We were sorry to hear about your father, Kate.”

“I know. Thank you.”

Marsh sat across from her and fixed her with eyes so much calmer, so much softer than his brother’s. She’d always wondered why the man with the dreamer’s eyes had been so practical while Ky had been the real dreamer. “It’s tragic, but I can’t say I’m sorry it brought you back to the island. We’ve missed you.” He paused, just long enough for effect. “All of us.”

Kate picked up the square carmine-colored napkin and ran it through her hands. “Things change,” she said deliberately. “You and Linda are certainly proof of that. When I left, you thought she was a bit of a nuisance.”

“That hasn’t changed,” he claimed and grinned. He glanced up at the young, pony-tailed waitress. “This is Cindy, she’ll take good care of you, Miss Hardesty—” He looked back at Kate with a grin. “I guess I should say Dr. Hardesty.”

“Miss’ll do,” Kate told him. “I’ve taken the summer off.”

“Miss Hardesty’s a guest, a special one,” he added, giving the waitress a smile. “How about a drink before you order? Or a bottle of wine?”

“Piesporter,” the reply came from a deep, masculine voice.

Kate’s fingers tightened on the linen, but she forced herself to look up calmly to meet Ky’s amused eyes.

“The professor has a fondness for it.”

“Yes, Mr. Silver.”

Before Kate could agree or disagree, the waitress had dashed off.

“Well, Ky,” Marsh commented easily. “You have a way of making the help come to attention.”

With a shrug, Ky leaned against his brother’s chair. If the three of them felt the air was suddenly tighter, each concealed it in their own way. “I had an urge for scampi.”

“I can recommend it,” Marsh told Kate. “Linda and the chef debated the recipe, then babied it until they reached perfection.”

Kate smiled at Marsh as though there were no dark, brooding man looking down at her. “I’ll try it. Are you going to join me?”

“I wish I could. Linda had to run home and deal with some crisis—Hope has a way of creating them and browbeating the babysitter—but I’ll try to get back for coffee. Enjoy your dinner.” Rising, he sent his brother a cool, knowing look, then walked away.

“Marsh never completely got over that first case of adulation,” Ky commented, then took his brother’s seat without invitation.

“Marsh has always been a good friend.” Kate draped the napkin over her lap with great care. “Though I realize this is your brother’s restaurant, Ky, I’m sure you don’t want my company for dinner any more than I want yours.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He sent a quick, dashing smile at the waitress as she brought the wine. He didn’t bother to correct Kate’s assumption on the Roost’s ownership. Kate sat stone-faced, her manners too good to allow her to argue, while Cindy opened the bottle and poured the first sip for Ky to taste.

“It’s fine,” he told her. “I’ll pour.” Taking the bottle, he filled Kate’s glass to within half an inch of the rim. “Since we’ve both chosen the Roost tonight, why don’t we have a little test?”

Kate lifted her glass and sipped. The wine was cool and dry. She remembered the first bottle they’d shared—sitting on the floor of his cottage the night she gave him her innocence. Deliberately, she took another swallow. “What kind of test?”

“We can see if the two of us can share a civilized meal in public. That was something we never got around to before.”

Kate frowned as he lifted his glass. She’d never seen Ky drink from a wineglass. The few times they had indulged in wine, it had been drunk out of one of the half a dozen water glasses he’d owned. The stemware seemed too delicate for his hand, the wine too mellow for the look in his eye.

No, they’d never eaten dinner in public before. Her father would have exuded disapproval for socializing with someone he’d considered an employee. Kate had known it, and hadn’t risked it.

Things were different now, she told herself as she lifted her own glass. In a sense, Ky was now her employee. She could make her own judgments. Recklessly, she toasted him. “To a profitable arrangement then.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He touched the rim of his glass to hers, but his gaze was direct and uncomfortable. “Blue suits you,” he said, referring to her dress, but not taking his eyes off hers. “The deep midnight blue that makes your skin look like something that should be tasted very, very carefully.”

She stared at him, stunned at how easily his voice could take on that low, intimate tone that had always made the blood rush out of her brain. He’d always been able to make words seem something dark and secret. That had been one of his greatest skills, one she had never been prepared for. She was no more prepared for it now.

“Would you care to order now?” The waitress stopped beside the table, cheerful, eager to please.

Ky smiled when Kate remained silent. “We’re having scampi. The house dressing on the salads will be fine.” He leaned back, glass in hand, still smiling. But the smile on his lips didn’t connect with his eyes. “You’re not drinking your wine. Maybe I should’ve asked if your taste has changed over the years.”

“It’s fine.” Deliberately she sipped, then kept the glass in her hand as though it would anchor her. “Marsh looks well,” she commented. “I was happy to hear about him and Linda. I always pictured them together.”

“Did you?” Ky lifted his glass toward the lowering evening light slanting through the window. He watched the colors spear through the wine and glass and onto Kate’s hand. “He didn’t. But then…” Shifting his gaze, he met her eyes again. “Marsh always took more time to make up his mind than me.”

“Recklessness,” she continued as she struggled just to breathe evenly, “was always more your style than your brother’s.”

“But you didn’t come to my brother with your charts and notes, did you?”

“No.” With an effort she kept her voice and her eyes level. “I didn’t. Perhaps I decided a certain amount of recklessness had its uses.”

“Find me useful, do you, Kate?”

The waitress served the salads but didn’t speak this time. She saw the look in Ky’s eyes.

So had Kate. “When I’m having a job done, I’ve found that it saves a considerable amount of time and trouble to find the most suitable person.” With forced calm, she set down her wine and picked up her fork. “I wouldn’t have come back to Ocracoke for any other reason.” She tilted her head, surprised by the quick surge of challenge that rushed through her. “Things will be simpler for both of us if that’s clear up front.”

Anger moved through him, but he controlled it. If they were playing word games, he had to keep his wits. She’d always been clever, but now it appeared the cleverness was glossed over with sophistication. He remembered the innocent, curious Kate with a pang. “As I recall, you were always one for complicating rather than simplifying. I had to explain the purpose, history and mechanics of every piece of equipment before you’d take the first dive.”

“That’s called caution, not complication.”

“You’d know more about caution than I would. Some people spend half their lives testing the wind.” He drank deeply of the wine. “I’d rather ride with it.”

“Yes.” This time it was she who smiled with her lips only. “I remember very well. No plans, no ties, tomorrow the wind might change.”

“If you’re anchored in one spot too long, you can become like those trees out there.” He gestured out the window where a line of sparse junipers bent away from the sea. “Stunted.”

“Yet you’re still here, where you were born, where you grew up.”

Slowly Ky poured her more wine. “The island’s too isolated, the life a bit too basic for some. I prefer it to those structured little communities with their parties and country clubs.”

Kate looked like she belonged in such a place, Ky thought as he fought against the frustrated desire that ebbed and flowed inside him. She belonged in an elegant silk suit, holding a Dresden cup and discussing an obscure eighteenth-century English poet. Was that why she could still make him feel rough and awkward and too full of longings?

If they could be swept back in time, he’d have stolen her, taken her out to open sea and kept her there. They would have traveled from port to exotic port. If having her meant he could never go home again, then he’d have sailed until his time was up. But he would have had her. Ky’s fingers tightened around his glass. By God, he would have had her.

The main course was slipped in front of him discreetly. Ky brought himself back to the moment. It wasn’t the eighteenth century, but today. Still, she had brought him the past with the papers and maps. Perhaps they’d both find more than they’d bargained for.

“I looked over the things you left with me.”

“Oh?” She felt a quick tingle of excitement but speared the first delicate shrimp as though it were all that concerned her.

“Your father’s research is very thorough.”

“Of course.”

Ky let out a quick laugh. “Of course,” he repeated, toasting her. “In any case, I think he might have been on the right track. You do realize that the section he narrowed it down to goes into a dangerous area.”

Her brows drew together, but she continued to eat. “Sharks?”

“Sharks are a little difficult to confine to an area,” he said easily. “A lot of people forget that the war came this close in the forties. There are still mines all along the coast of the Outer Banks. If we’re going down to the bottom, it’d be smart to keep that in mind.”

“I’ve no intention of being careless.”

“No, but sometimes people look so far ahead they don’t see what’s under their feet.”

Though he’d eaten barely half of his meal, Ky picked up his wine again. How could he eat when his whole system was aware of her? He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it would be like to pull those confining pins out of her hair as he’d done so often in the past. He couldn’t prevent the memory from springing up about what it had been like to bundle her into his arms and just hold her there with her body fitting so neatly against his. He could picture those long, serious looks she’d give him just before passion would start to take over, then the freedom he could feel racing through her in those last heady moments of love-making.

How could it have been so right once and so wrong now? Wouldn’t her body still fit against his? Wouldn’t her hair flow through his hands as it fell—that quiet brown that took on such fascinating lights in the sun. She’d always murmur his name after passion was spent, as if the sound alone sustained her. He wanted to hear her say it, just once more, soft and breathless while they were tangled together, bodies still warm and pulsing. He wasn’t sure he could resist it.

Absently Ky signaled for coffee. Perhaps he didn’t want to resist it. He needed her. He’d forgotten just how sharp and sure a need could be. Perhaps he’d take her. He didn’t believe she was indifferent to him—certain things never fade completely. In his own time, in his own way, he’d take what he once had from her. And pray it would be enough this time.

When he looked back at her, Kate felt the warning signals shiver through her. Ky was a difficult man to understand. She knew only that he’d come to some decision and that it involved her. Grateful for the warming effects of the coffee, she drank. She was in charge this time, she reminded herself, every step of the way and she’d make him aware of it. There was no time like the present to begin.

“I’ll be at the harbor at eight,” she said briskly. “I’ll require tanks of course, but I brought my own wet suit. I’d appreciate it if you’d have my briefcase and its contents on board. I believe we’d be wise to spend between six and eight hours out a day.”

“Have you kept up with your diving?”

“I know what to do.”

“I’d be the last to argue that you had the best teacher.” He tilted his cup back in a quick, impatient gesture Kate found typical of him. “But if you’re rusty, we’ll take it slow for a day or two.”

“I’m a perfectly competent diver.”

“I want more than competence in a partner.”

He saw the flare in her eyes and his need sharpened. It was a rare and arousing thing to watch her controlled and reasonable temperament heat up. “We’re not partners. You’re working for me.”

“A matter of viewpoint,” Ky said easily. He rose, deliberately blocking her in. “We’ll be putting in a full day tomorrow, so you’d better go catch up on all the sleep you’ve been missing lately.”

“I don’t need you to worry about my health, Ky.”

“I worry about my own,” he said curtly. “You don’t go under with me unless you’re rested and alert. You come to the harbor in the morning with shadows under your eyes, you won’t make the first dive.” Furiously she squashed the urge to argue with the reasonable. “If you’re sluggish, you make mistakes,” Ky said briefly. “A mistake you make can cost me. That logical enough for you, professor?”

“It’s perfectly clear.” Bracing herself for the brush of bodies, Kate rose. But bracing herself didn’t stop the jolt, not for either of them.

“I’ll walk you back.”

“It’s not necessary.”

His hand curled over her wrist, strong and stubborn. “It’s civilized,” he said lazily. “You were always big on being civilized.”

Until you’d touch me, she thought. No, she wouldn’t remember that, not if she wanted to sleep tonight. Kate merely inclined her head in cool agreement. “I want to thank Marsh.”

“You can thank him tomorrow.” Ky dropped the waitress’s tip on the table. “He’s busy.”

She started to protest, then saw Marsh disappear into what must have been the kitchen. “All right.” Kate moved by him and out into the balmy evening air.

The sun was low, though it wouldn’t set for nearly an hour. The clouds to the west were just touched with mauve and rose. When she stepped outside, Kate decided there were more people in the restaurant than there were on the streets.

A charter fishing boat glided into the harbor. Some of the tourists would be staying on the island, others would be riding back across Hatteras Inlet on one of the last ferries of the day.

She’d like to go out on the water now, while the light was softening and the breeze was quiet. Now, she thought, while others were coming in and the sea would stretch for mile after endless empty mile.

Shaking off the mood, she headed for the hotel. What she needed wasn’t a sunset sail but a good solid night’s sleep. Daydreaming was foolish, and tomorrow too important.

The same hotel. Ky glanced up at her window. He already knew she had the same room. He’d walked her there before, but then she’d have had her arm through his in that sweet way she had of joining them together. She’d have looked up and laughed at him over something that had happened that day. And she’d have kissed him, warm, long and lingeringly before the door would close behind her.

Because her thoughts had run the same gamut, Kate turned to him while they were still outside the hotel. “Thank you, Ky.” She made a business out of shifting her purse strap on her arm. “There’s no need for you to go any further out of your way.”

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