The Reef

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 flashof 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