The Reef

again while she scooped handfuls of coins from the sand to the bucket.
    She had filled two to overflowing, and was happily exhausted when she spotted the pouch. It had been velvet and was tattered and worn. Even as her fingers touched it, the corners crumbled in her hand. Through the thready hole, stars fell.
    Her breath literally stopped. With a trembling hand, she reached down and lifted the rope. Diamonds and sapphires exploded through the murk. It was three tiers, ridiculously heavy and ornate. The gems had held their fire through the centuries and flashed now before her dazzled eyes.
    Stunned, she held it out to Matthew.
    For one numbing moment, he thought they’d found it.He would have sworn he saw the amulet dripping from her hands, felt the power humming from the bloody stone. But when he touched it himself, it changed. Priceless, sumptuous, it was. But it held no magic. In a careless gesture, he tossed it over her head so that gems sparkled against her snug, dark suit.
    This time when he signaled to surface, she nodded. She gave a tug on the ropes. Together they followed the buckets.
    “We found the mother lode.” Exhaustion forgotten, Tate reached out for him as they broke the surface.
    “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”
    “Matthew.” Reverently, she slipped her fingers under the necklace. “It’s real.”
    “Looks good on you.” He closed a hand over hers. “You still bring me luck, Tate.”
    “Holy God Almighty!” came the shout from the Mermaid. “We got gold here, Ray,” Buck yelled. “We got ourselves buckets of gold.”
    Tate grinned and squeezed Matthew’s hand. “Let’s go let them pat us on the back.”
    “Good idea. I was thinking”—he kicked lazily toward the Mermaid —“if I were to swim over, say about midnight, go up to the bridge. There’s a lock on that door.”
    She reached for the ladder ahead of him. “Now, that’s a good idea.”
     
    Within two days, they had hauled up over a million dollars in gold. There were jewels that Tate was struggling to appraise and catalogue. The more stunning their success, the more precautions they took.
    They moored the boats more than a hundred feet from the site, and Buck made a show of fishing off the bow at least twice a day when the tour boats passed within hailing distance. Tate took countless rolls of film and stored them. She sketched, and filed the drawings away.
    She knew her dream of a museum was almost within her grasp. There would be articles to be written, papers to be published, interviews. She and her father debated plans and ideas. To Matthew, she said nothing of her hopes. Hisdreams, she knew, were different from hers. They worked together, hunted together. In the quiet of midnight, they made restless love on a padded blanket.
    And if he sometimes seemed moody, if she would catch him studying her with unreadable eyes, she told herself they’d reached their compromise.
    The expedition, and the quiet flow of spring into summer, couldn’t have been more perfect.
     
    LaRue strolled, whistling, out of the deckhouse. He paused a moment, watching Buck and Marla hammer conglomerate. He admired the very attractive Mrs. Beaumont. Not only for her looks and slim, lovely body, but for her seamless class. The women who had flowed in and out of LaRue’s life had been interesting, intriguing, but very rarely had they been classy.
    Even sweaty and grimy-handed, the pedigreed Southern belle shone through.
    It was a pity the woman was married, he thought. One of the few rules LaRue never broke was to seduce a married woman.
    “I must take the tender,” he announced. “We need supplies.”
    “Oh.” Marla sat back on her heels, brushed beads of perspiration from her brow. “Are you going to Saint Kitts, LaRue? I was hoping to run in myself. I could really use some fresh eggs and fruit.”
    “I would be happy to pick up whatever you would like.”
    “Actually . . .” She offered him her most charming smile. “I’d love to go ashore for a little while. If you wouldn’t mind the company.”
    His smile flashed as he quickly adjusted his plans. “ Ma chère Marla, it would be my greatest pleasure.”
    “Could you wait just a few minutes while I clean up?”
    “My time is your time.”
    All chivalry, he assisted her into the tender, watched her efficiently zip across the distance to the New Adventure. Nothing, he knew, would induce the lovely Mrs. Beaumont to swim even a few feet.
    “You’re wasting