The Reef

by Nora Roberts

  “No.” She continued to smile, watching the young man struggle onto his board again. “Nothing’s better than diving.”

  “Things have changed around here.”

  “Hmmm.” She waited as he maneuvered to the pier, tossed a line to a member of the resort’s staff. “I didn’t even know they were planning to build when we were here last.” She took Matthew’s offered hand and climbed to the dock. “Now it looks as though it almost grew here.”

  “Nevis isn’t quite the secret it used to be.” He kept a hand on her arm as they walked down the pier to the beach.

  Stone walkways offered a route through lush gardens and sloping green lawns where pretty two-story cabanas sat. They passed the poolside restaurant, moving toward the marble stairs that led to the main building.

  Tate glanced over her shoulder. “We’re not eating out here?”

  “We can do a little better than light fare by the pool. The restaurant inside has terrace dining.” He led Tate inside toward the reservation pedestal, where a woman in the bright-patterned shirt of the staff beamed at him. “Lassiter.”

  “Yes, sir. You requested the terrace.”

  “That’s right. I called ahead,” he told Tate when she frowned at him. Her frown only deepened when he held out her chair. If memory served, his manners had smoothed out considerably. “Can you handle champagne?” he murmured, leaning down so that his breath tickled her ear.

  “Of course, but—”

  He was ordering a bottle even as he took the seat across from her. “Nice view.”

  “Yes.” She took her gaze from his face and looked out over the gardens to the sea.

  “Tell me about the last eight years, Tate.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know.” Needed to know. “Let’s say it’ll fill in some of the blanks.”

  “I studied a lot,” she began. “More than I bargained for. I guess I had the idea that I knew so much going in. But I knew so little really. The first couple of months I . . .” Was lost, unhappy, missing you so terribly. “I needed to adjust,” she said carefully.

  “But you caught on pretty quick.”

  “I suppose.” Relax, she ordered herself and made herself turn back and smile at him. “I liked the routine, the structure. And I really wanted to learn.”

  She looked over as the waitress brought the champagne to the table to show off its label.

  “Let her taste it,” Matthew ordered.

  Obliging, the waitress uncorked the bottle and poured a swallow into Tate’s flute. “It’s lovely,” Tate murmured, much too aware that Matthew’s eyes never left her face.

  When their glasses were filled, she started to drink again, but he laid a finger on her wrist. Gently, he tapped the glasses together. “To the next page,” he said and smiled.

  “All right.” She was a grown woman, Tate reminded herself. Experienced now. She had all the defenses necessary to resist a man. Even one like Matthew.

  “So you learned,” Matthew prompted.

  “Yes. And whenever I had an opportunity to use what I’d learned on an expedition, I took it.”

  “And the Isabella, isn’t she an opportunity?”

  “That remains to be seen.” She opened her menu, skimmed it, looked up at him with wide eyes. “Matthew.”

  “I managed to hold on to a few bucks over the years,” he assured her. “Besides, you’ve always been my lucky charm.” He picked up her hand. “This time, Red, we go home rich.”

  “So, that’s still the bottom line? All right.” She shrugged. “It’s your party, Lassiter. If you want to live for today, we’ll do it.”

  While they ate, and the wine fizzed in their glasses, the sun lowered. It sank red into the sea, giving the air that brief and painfully lovely twilight of the tropics. On cue, the music from the patio beyond began.

  “You haven’t told me about your eight years, Matthew.”

  “Nothing very interesting.”

  “You built the Mermaid. That’s interesting.”

  “She’s a beauty.” He looked out to the sea where, beyond his sight, she rocked. “Just like I imagined her.”

  “Whatever happens here, you’d have a career in boat design and building.”

  “I’m never working to make ends meet again,” he said quietly. “Never doing what needs to be done and forgetting what I want.”

  It struck her, that fierceness in his eyes, so that she reached out to touch his hand. “Is that what you did?”

  Surprised, he looked back. With a careless shrug, he linked his fingers with hers. “It’s not what I’m doing. That’s what counts. You know something, Red?”

  “What?”

  “You’re beautiful. No.” He smiled slowly when she tried to slip her hand free. “I’ve got you now. For now,” he corrected. “Get used to it.”

  “The fact that I chose you over pinochle has obviously gone to your head.”

  “Then there’s that voice,” he murmured, delighted by the way confusion flickered with the candlelight in her eyes. “Soft, slow, smooth. Like honey spiked with just the right amount of good bourbon. A man could get drunk just listening to you.”

  “I think you got a head start with the champagne. I’ll pilot us back.”

  “Fine. But we’ll have at least one dance.” He signaled for the bill.

  A dance wouldn’t hurt, Tate decided. If anything, she could use the close contact to convince him that she wasn’t about to be seduced into the brief affair he was obviously after.

  She could enjoy him without losing herself or her heart this time around. And if he suffered a little, she wasn’t above enjoying that as well.

  To show how little it mattered, she let her hand stay in his as they left the screened terrace for the open patio below.

  The music was slow, sexy, with the vocalist adding a teasing interpretation to the words. A couple sat huddled together at a table in the shadows, but there were no other dancers when Matthew took her into his arms.

  He took her close, so their bodies molded, so that her cheek had little choice but to rest on his. Without thinking, she closed her eyes.

  She should have known that he would be smooth, that he would be clever. But she hadn’t expected that her steps would match his so perfectly.

  “I didn’t know you could dance.”

  He skimmed a hand up her back to where material gave way to flesh, flesh that shivered at the touch. “There’s a lot we didn’t know about each other. But I know the way you smelled.” He nuzzled just under her ear. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “I’ve changed,” she said, struggling not to react as fire licked along her vulnerable flesh.

  “You still feel the same.” He reached up to pull pins out of her hair.

  “Stop that.”

  “I liked it short.” His voice was as quiet as the breeze, just as seductive. “But this is better.” Softly, his mouth skimmed over her temple. “Some changes are.”

  She was trembling, those quick, involuntary shivers he remembered so well.

  “We’re different people now,” she murmured. She wanted it to be true, needed it to be. And yet, if it was, how could it be so easy to move into his arms as if not a moment had passed since the last time?

  “Lots of other things are just the way they were. Like the way you fit against me.”

  She jerked her head back, then shuddered when his lips brushed over hers.

  “You still taste the same.”

  “I’m not the same. Nothing’s the same.” She broke away and darted down the steps toward the beach.

  She couldn’t seem to draw in enough air. The balmy night had suddenly turned traitor, making her skin shiver. It was anger—she wanted to believe it was anger that made her stomach clench and her eyes tear. But she knew it was need, and could only hate him for rekindling a long-dead spark.

  When he caught her, she was sure she would round on him, clawing and spitting. Somehow her arms were around him, her mouth seeking his.

>   “I hate you for this. God, I hate you for this.”

  “I don’t give a damn.” He dragged her head back to plunder. It was all there, that energy, that verve, that passion. He had a wild, desperate thought to drag her off into the bushes, to plunge himself into the heat that vibrated from her.

  “I know you don’t.” And it was that which still hurt, a scar that throbbed under a fresh wound. “But I do.”

  She broke away, throwing her hands up to ward him off when he would have taken her into his arms again. She fought to even her breathing, fought to resist that reckless, compelling light in his eyes.

  “You wanted to prove you could still strike a spark between us.” She pressed an unsteady hand to her stomach. “Well, you did. But what we do or don’t do about it is my choice, Matthew. And I’m not ready to make a choice.”

  “I want you, Tate. Do you need to hear me say it?” He stepped forward, but didn’t touch her. “Do you need to hear me tell you I can’t sleep at night for wanting you?”

  The words, the rough, impatient delivery, spun in her head, swam in her blood. “Maybe I do, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m taking whatever time I need to decide. I’d have gone anywhere, done anything for you once, Matthew. Once. What I do now, I do for myself.”

  He hooked his tensed hands in his pockets. “That’s fair enough. Because this time around what I do, I do for myself.”

  “This time around.” She gave a quick laugh and pulled her fingers through her tumbled hair. “That part looks the same from where I’m standing.”

  “Then you know what you’re dealing with.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she said wearily. “You keep shifting on me, Matthew. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s shadow.”

  “This is real.” He cupped a hand behind her neck, lifting her to her toes until their mouths met.

  “Yes, that’s real.” As she eased away, she let out her breath. “I want to go back now, Matthew. We start early tomorrow.”

  She really didn’t mind the way the teams split so that her father and LaRue worked together, leaving her and Matthew as the second team. She and Matthew had always worked well together under water. After their first dive, she realized they still had the same natural and instinctive communication and rhythm.

  The electronic equipment was the most efficient method of locating the Isabella, but Tate was grateful to have the chance to dive, to search by sight and by hand as she had learned to do.

  Hours of fanning sand didn’t bore her. Nor did hauling chunks of conglomerate to the surface for her mother and Buck to hammer apart. As far as she was concerned she was home again, with the fish as both audience and playmates. Every lovely sculpture of coral pleased her eye. Even disappointment was part of the whole. A rusted chain, a soda can might turn a quickly beating heart into a sigh. But it was all part of the hunt.

  And there was Matthew, always close at hand to share some small delight with. A garden of sea plants, a grumpy grouper disturbed from his feeding, the bright silver flash of a fish in flight. If he tended to touch her just a bit too often, she told herself to enjoy it.

  If she was strong enough to resist seduction, she was certainly strong enough to resist romance.

  The days slipped by into weeks, but she wasn’t discouraged. The time here was soothing a need she hadn’t realized she’d held inside—to revisit the sea she loved, not as a scientist, an objective observer trained to record data, but as a woman enjoying her freedom, and the companionship of a man who intrigued her.

  She examined a formation of coral, fanning sand away. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Matthew tucking conglomerate into his lobster bag. She started to smile at him, the way she reserved for herself when she knew he wasn’t looking. A sharp pain stabbed the back of her hand.

  Jolted, she jerked back just as the head of a moray eel retreated into its slitted home in the coral. Almost before Tate could register the insult, and curse her own carelessness, Matthew was there, grabbing the fingers of her wounded hand as blood swirled into the water. The alarm in his eyes pierced through her own shock. She started to signal that she was fine, but he already had an arm around her waist and was kicking toward the surface.

  “Just relax,” he ordered the minute he spat out his mouthpiece. “I’m going to tow you in.”

  “I’m all right.” But the throbbing pain made her eyes water. “It’s just a nick, really.”

  “Relax,” he said again. His face was as pale as hers by the time he reached the ladder. Hailing Ray, he began unhooking Tate’s tanks.

  “Matthew, for goodness sake, it’s a scratch.”

  “Shut up. Ray, goddamn it.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “She got bit. Moray.” Matthew passed her tanks over. “Help her in.”

  “Lord, you’d think I’d been chewed in half by a shark,” she muttered, then winced as she realized what she’d said. “I’m okay,” she hurried on as her mother came rushing over.

  “Let me see. Oh, honey. Ray, get the first-aid kit so I can clean this up.”

  “It only nicked me,” Tate insisted when Marla pushed her down on a bench. “It was my own fault.” She blew out a breath and watched Matthew pull himself aboard. “There’s no need to get everyone in an uproar, Lassiter.”

  “Let me see the damn thing.” In a move that had Marla blinking in surprise, he shouldered her aside and took Tate’s hand himself. He smeared blood away from the shallow puncture with his thumb. “Doesn’t look like it’ll need stitches.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. It’s just—” Tate broke off as he snatched the first-aid kit from Ray. The next sound she made was a screech as he doused on antiseptic. “You’re not exactly Doctor Feelgood.”

  His own blood pressure was gradually leveling as he was able to get a good look at the cleaned wound. “Probably scar.” Annoyance was an easier emotion than fear, so he scowled up at her. “Stupid.”

  “Listen, it could have happened to anyone.”

  “Not if they were paying attention.”

  “I was.”

  “You were daydreaming again.”

  Ray and Marla exchanged glances as the argument and doctoring continued.

  “I suppose you’ve never taken a bite. Your hands are riddled with scars.”

  “We’re talking about you.” It infuriated him that those lovely, narrow hands might be marred.

  She sniffled, flexed her fingers. The bandage was small, neat and efficient. She’d have swallowed her tongue before saying so. “Aren’t you going to kiss it and make it better?”

  “Sure.” In answer, he hauled her to her feet. While her astonished parents looked on, he fixed his mouth on hers in a long, hard, demanding kiss.

  When Tate could speak again, she scrupulously cleared her throat. “You missed,” she said, holding up her bandaged hand.

  “No, I didn’t. Your mouth’s what needs the work, sweetheart.”

  “Really?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Now you’re an expert on what I need?”

  “I’ve always known what you need, Red. Anytime you want to—” Abruptly, he remembered they were a long way from alone. Getting a grip on his temper, he stepped back. “You might want to take a couple of aspirin to take the edge off the pain.”

  Her chin was angled like a sword. “It doesn’t hurt.” She turned and hefted her tanks.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m going back down.”

  “The hell you are.”

  “Just try to stop me.”

  As her husband opened his mouth, Marla patted his arm. “Let