The Reef

ways than one, she thought. “You’d hardly know it now.”
    Above the sky was blue and clear with no more than a few tattered powder puff clouds. She glanced over atop the bridge to study the wind gauge. “Wind’s coming from the south now.”
    “Bringing in drier air. The sea’s calming, too.” He set a regulator aside. “I’ve got a good feeling about today, Tate. Woke up full of energy, a kind of anticipation.” He rose, took a deep gulp of air. “Your mother said it was leftover electricity from the storm.”
    “You’re thinking about the amulet,” she murmured and wanted to sigh. “What is it about that one piece that pulls everyone so?”
    “Possibilities.” Ray looked out to sea.
    “Last night Buck was panicked at the thought of finding it. All Matthew can think about is using it to settle the score with VanDyke. VanDyke himself, a rich, powerful, successful man, is so obsessed by it he’ll do anything to have it. And you.” She pushed impatiently at her hair. “And you. You’ve realized a dream of a lifetime with the Isabella. There’s a fortune down there, for you, for the museum we’ve always wanted. But it’s the amulet that brought you back here.”
    “And that makes no sense to you.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “When I was a boy, I was fortunate to have a beautiful home, a yard with rich green grass and big shady trees to climb. I had a jungle gym, sliding board, pals. Everything a kid could want. But beyond the fence and just over the hill there was a swampy area. Dark, junglelike kudzu and ugly trees, a slow, almost stagnant river. There were snakes. I was forbidden to go there.”
    “So, of course, that’s where you most wanted to go.”
    He laughed and kissed Tate on top of the head. “Of course. Legend had it that it was haunted, which only added to the allure. Little boys went in, so I was told, and never came out again. I would stand at the back fence, smelling the honeysuckle that climbed there and think, what if.”
    “Did you ever go in?”
    “I got as far as the edge once, where you could smell the river and see the vines clogging the trees. But I lost my nerve.”
    “Just as well. You’d likely have been snakebit.”
    “But what if,” he murmured. “I’ve never lost that curiosity.”
    “You know it wasn’t haunted. Your mother told youthose stories so that you’d stay out of it. Otherwise you could have fallen in the river or lost your way. It wasn’t ghosts she was worried about.”
    “I’m not at all sure it wasn’t.” He watched a gull soar overhead, then turn restlessly toward the horizon. “I think it would be very sad if we lost our wonder, if we knew there was no possibility of magic—good or evil. I suppose you could say Angelique’s Curse has become my haunted swamp. This time I want to go in and see for myself.”
    “And if you find it?”
    “I’ll stop regretting I didn’t take that next step through the kudzu.” Laughing at himself, Ray gave her a quick squeeze. “Maybe Buck will stop believing he’s not the man he was. Matthew might stop blaming himself for his father’s death. And you . . .” He turned her to face him. “You might let a little magic into your life again.”
    “That’s an awful lot to ask of one necklace.”
    “But what if.” He drew her close for a hug. “I want you happy, Tate.”
    “I am happy.”
    “All the way happy. I know you closed something off inside eight years ago. I’ve always worried that I handled things badly because I wanted the best for you.”
    “You’ve never handled anything badly.” She drew her head back to study his face. “Not where I was concerned.”
    “I knew how Matthew felt about you. How you felt about him. It worried me.”
    “You had nothing to worry about.”
    “You were so young.” He sighed and touched her hair. “I see the way he feels about you now.”
    “Now I’m not so young,” she pointed out. “You still have nothing to worry about.”
    “I see the way he feels about you,” Ray repeated, his eyes sober and seeking. “What worries me, what surprises me, is that I can’t see the way you feel about him.”
    “Maybe I haven’t decided. Maybe I don’t want to decide.” She shook herself, drummed up a smile for him. “And maybe you shouldn’t worry about something I have completely under control.”
    “Maybe that’s what worries me.”
    “I can’t win with you.” Rising on her toes, she gave Ray a quick kiss.