The Reef

companionway.
    “Matthew.” Shame had her springing up after him. “I’m sorry.”
    “Forget it.”
    “No.” Before he could take the stairs, she grabbed his arm. “I am sorry. That was hard on all of us—goingdown, seeing what was left. Remembering. Taking it out on you is easy, but it doesn’t help.”
    In impotent fury, Matthew’s hands whitened on the rail. “Maybe I could have stopped him. Buck thought so.”
    “Buck wasn’t there.” She kept her hand firm on his arm until he turned to face her again. Odd, she thought, she hadn’t realized he would blame himself. Or that he had room in the cold heart she’d assigned to him for guilt. “There was nothing any of us could have done. Looking back doesn’t help either, and certainly doesn’t change anything.”
    “The Marguerite ’s not all we’re talking about, is it?”
    She was tempted to back off, to shrug his words away. But evasions were foolish, and she hoped she was no longer a fool. “No, it’s not.”
    “I wasn’t what you wanted me to be, and I hurt you. I can’t change that either.”
    “I was young. Infatuations pass.” Somehow her hand had found its way to his, and linked. Realizing it, she flexed her fingers free and stepped back. “I understood something when I was down there, looking at what was left. There is nothing left, Matthew. The ship, that summer, that girl. All that’s gone. We have to start with what’s now.”
    “Clean slate.”
    “I don’t know if we can go that far. Let’s just say we’ve turned a page.”
    “Okay.” He offered a hand. When she took it, he brought hers unexpectedly to his lips. “I’m going to work on you, Red,” he murmured.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You said we’ve got a new page. I figure I’ve got some say in what gets written on it. So I’m going to work on you. Last time around, you threw yourself at me.”
    “I did no such thing.”
    “Sure you did. But I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me this time. That’s okay.” He skimmed his thumb over her knuckles before she jerked her hand free. “In fact, I think I’m going to enjoy it.”
    “I don’t know why I waste my time trying to mend fences with you. You’re as arrogant as you ever were.”
    “Just the way you like me, sweetheart.”
    She caught the lightning flash of his grin before she whirled away. Try as she might, she couldn’t quite suppress the answering upward tug of her lips.
    It was hell knowing he was right. That was exactly the way she liked him.

C HAPTER 18
    S WIM - OVERS TURNED UP nothing impressive. Tate spent most of the afternoon closeted with her father and his research while Matthew took LaRue, fresh from passing his written certification, on a practice dive.
    She had already organized the heaps of notes, the snippets from the National Archives, wreck charts, the material Ray had culled from the Archivo General de Indias in Seville.
    She’d separated his maps, charts, storm records, manifests, diaries. Now she concentrated on his calculations.
    Already she’d figured and refigured a dozen times. If their information was correct, they were certainly in the right area. The problem was, of course, that even with a location, finding a wreck was like separating that one special grain of sand from a fat fistful.
    The sea was so huge, so vast, and even with the leaps in technology, a man’s abilities were limited. It was highly possible to be within twenty feet of a wreck, and miss it entirely.
    They had been almost foolishly lucky with the Marguerite. Tate didn’t want to calculate the odds of lightning striking twice, not with the hope and excitement she could see whenever she looked into her father’s eyes.
    They needed the Isabella, she thought. All of them did, for all manner of differing reasons.
    She knew the magnetometer aboard the Mermaid was in use. It was a fine and efficient way of locating a wreck. So far the sensor being towed behind the Mermaid had picked up no readings of iron such as would be found in cannon, riggings, anchor.
    They had depth finders on both bridges so that any telltale change in water depth caused by a wreck would be distinguished. They had set out buoys to mark the search pattern.
    If she was down there, Tate thought, they would find her.
    She stayed in the deckhouse after her father had gone out to starboard.
    “You’re not going to put roses in your cheeks in here, Red.”
    She looked up, surprised when Matthew held out a glass of her mother’s