The Reef

add details to her sketch of a set of jet Rosary beads. “I can’t believe how fast it’s going. It’s been barely two weeks, and we just keep finding more. Look at this, Mom. Look at the detail on this crucifix.”
    “You’ve cleaned it. I’d have done that.”
    “I know, but I couldn’t wait.”
    Fascinated, Marla leaned over her daughter’s shoulder to run a finger on the heavy, carved silver depiction of Christ on the cross. “It’s stunning. You can see the sinew in his arms and legs, count each wound.”
    “It’s too fine to have belonged to a servant. You see, each decade is perfectly matched, and the silver work is first rate. It’s masculine,” she mused. “A man’s piece. One of the officers, perhaps, or maybe a rich priest on his way back to Cuba. I wonder if he held it, prayed with it as the ship went down.”
    “Why aren’t you happy, Tate?”
    “Hmm.” She’d been dreaming again, Tate realized. Brooding. “Oh, I was thinking of the Santa Marguerite. She was salvageable. I mean the wreck itself could have been preserved with enough time and effort. She was nearly intact. I’d hoped, if we did find the Isabella, she would be in a similar state, but she’s ruined.”
    “But we have so much of her.”
    “I know. I’m greedy.” Tate shrugged off the gloom and set her sketch aside. “I had this wild notion we could raise her, the way my team raised the Phoenician ship a few years ago. Now, I have to be content with the pieces the storm and time have left behind.” She toyed with her pencil and tried not to think about the amulet.
    No one spoke of it now. Superstition, she supposed. Angelique’s Curse was on everyone’s mind, as VanDyke was. Sooner or later, she was afraid both would have to be dealt with.
    “I’ll let you get back to work, dear. I’m heading over to the Mermaid to work with Buck.” Marla smiled.
    “I’ll swim over later and see what you’ve come up with.”
    Tate turned back to her keyboard to log in the Rosary. Within twenty minutes, she was lost in an examination of a gold necklace. Its bird in flight pendant had survived the centuries, the tossing waves, the abrasive sand. She estimated the relic to be worth easily fifty thousand dollars, and efficiently noted it down and began her sketch.
    Matthew watched her for a moment, the competent and graceful way she moved pencil over paper. The way the sun was slanting he could make out her ghostly profile in the reflection of her monitor.
    He wanted to press his lips to that spot just at the nape of her neck. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to have her lean back into him, relaxed, easy and just a little eager for his touch.
    But he’d been cautious for the last few weeks. Hoping to move her toward him without tugging. Patience was costing him dozens of restless nights. It seemed only when they were beneath the sea that they moved in concert.
    Every part of him was aching for more.
    “They sent up a couple of wine jugs. One’s intact.”
    “Oh.” Startled, she looked around. “I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were on the Mermaid.”
    “I was.” But all he’d been able to think about was that she was here, alone. “Looks like you’re keeping up with the haul.”
    “I get antsy if I fall behind.” She brushed her braid off her shoulder, hardly aware she’d inched away when he sat beside her. But he was aware, and irritated. “I can usually get in several hours in the evening, when everyone’s turned in.”
    He’d seen the light in the deckhouse every night when he’d restlessly paced his own deck. “Is that why you never come over to the Mermaid?”
    “It’s easier for me to work in one spot.” Much easier not to risk sitting in the moonlight with him on his own turf. “By my calculations, we’re well ahead of where we were in the same amount of time in our excavation of the Marguerite. And we haven’t hit the mother lode.”
    He leaned over to pick up the gold bird, but was more interested in the way her shoulder stiffened when his brushed it. “How much?”
    Her brow creased. It was no more than expected, she supposed, that he could look at such a fabulous relic and think in dollars and cents. “At least fifty thousand, conservatively.”
    “Yeah.” With his eyes on hers, he jiggled the necklace in his hand. “That ought to keep us afloat.”
    “That’s hardly the issue.” Possessively, she took the necklace back, laid it gently on the padded cloth she had