Risky Business

reached for his wet suit.
    “We are getting started. You can’t dive without a working knowledge of your equipment.”
    “That’s a depth gauge.” He nodded toward her hand as he stripped down to black briefs. “A very sophisticated one. I wouldn’t think most dive shops would find it necessary to stock that quality.”
    “This is mine,” she murmured. “But I keep a handful for rentals.”
    “I don’t think I mentioned that you have the best-tended equipment I’ve ever seen. It isn’t in the same league with your personal gear, but it’s quality. Give me a hand, will you?”
    Liz rose to help him into the tough, stretchy suit. “You’ve gone down before.”
    “I’ve been diving since I was fifteen.” Jonas pulled up the zipper before bending over to check the tanks himself.
    “Since you were fifteen.” Liz yanked off her shirt and tossed it aside. Fuming, she pulled off her shorts until she wore nothing but a string bikini and a scowl. “Then why did you let me go on that way?”
    “I liked hearing you.” Jonas glanced up and felt his blood surge. “Almost as much as I like looking at you.”
    She wasn’t in the mood to be flattered, less in the mood to be charmed. Without asking for assistance, she tugged herself into her wet suit. “You’re still paying for the lesson.”
    Jonas grinned as he examined his flippers. “I never doubted it.”
    She strapped on the rest of her gear in silence. It was difficult even for her to say if she were really angry. All she knew was the day, and dive, weren’t as simple as they had started out to be. Lifting the top of a bench, she reached into a compartment and took out two short metal sticks shaped like bats.
    “What’s this for?” Jonas asked as she handed him one.
    “Insurance.” She adjusted her mask. “We’re going down to the caves where the sharks sleep.”
    “Sharks don’t sleep.”
    “The oxygen content in the water in the cave keeps them quiescent. But don’t think you can trust them.”
    Without another word, she swung over the side and down the ladder.
    The water was as clear as glass, so she could see for more than a hundred feet. As she heard Jonas plunge in beside her, Liz turned to assure herself he did indeed know what he was doing. Catching her skeptical look, Jonas merely circled his thumb and forefinger, then pointed down.
    He was tense. Liz could feel it from him, though she understood it had nothing to do with his skill underwater. His brother had dived here once—she was as certain of it as Jonas. And the reason for his dives had been the reason for his death. She no longer had to think whether she was angry. In a gesture as personal as a kiss, she reached out a hand and took his.
    Grateful, Jonas curled his fingers around hers. He didn’t know what he was looking for, or even why he continued to look when already he’d found more than he’d wanted to. His brother had played games with the rules and had lost. Some would say there was justice in that. But they’d shared birth. He had to go on looking, and go on hoping.
    Liz saw the first of the devilfish and tugged on Jonas’s hand. Such things never failed to touch her spirit. The giant manta rays cruised together, feeding on plankton and unconcerned with the human intruders. Liz kicked forward, delighted to swim among them. Their huge mouths could crush and devour crustaceans. Their wingspan of twenty feet and more was awesome. Without fear, Liz reached out to touch. Pleasure came easily, as it always did to her in the sea. Her eyes were laughing as she reached out again for Jonas.
    They descended farther, and some of his tension began to dissolve. There was something different about her here, a lightness, an ease that dissolved the sadness that always seemed to linger in her eyes. She looked free, and more, as happy as he’d ever seen her. If it were possible to fall in love in a matter of moments, Jonas fell in love in those, forty feet below the surface with a mermaid who’d forgotten how to dream.
    Everything she saw, everything she could touch fascinated her. He could see it in the way she moved, the way she looked at everything as though it were her first dive. If he could have found a way, he would have stayed with her there, surrounded by love and protected by fathoms.
    They swam deeper, but leisurely. If something evil had been begun, or been ended there, it had left no trace. The sea was calm and silent and full of life too lovely to exist in the