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
