The Reef

for homemade biscuits, I’d swim back from the island with the whole cow.”
    He was rewarded by her quick, infectious laughter.“Just a gallon will do me. Oh, not this minute,” she said, waving him back when he started to rise. “Plenty of time. You enjoy your lunch and the sunshine.”
    “Stop trying to charm my mother,” Tate said under her breath.
    Matthew scooted closer. “I like your mother. You’ve got her hair,” he murmured. “Her eyes, too.” He picked up another section of sandwich, bit in. “Too bad you don’t take after her otherwise.”
    “I also have her delicate bone structure,” Tate said with a clench-toothed smile.
    Matthew took his time with his study. “Yeah, I guess you do.”
    Suddenly uncomfortable, she shifted back an inch. “You’re crowding me,” she complained. “Just like you do on a dive.”
    “Here, take a bite.” He held out the sandwich, nearly plowing it into her mouth so that she had little choice but to accept. “I’ve decided you’re my good-luck charm.”
    Rather than choke, she swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”
    “There’s a nice Southern flow to the way you say that,” he observed. “Just a hint of ice under the honey. My good-luck charm,” he repeated. “Because you were around when I found the sword.”
    “You were around when I found it.”
    “Whatever. There are a couple of things I don’t turn my back on. A man with greed in his eyes, a woman with fire in hers.” He offered Tate more of the sandwich. “And luck. Good or bad.”
    “I’d think it would be smarter to walk away from bad luck.”
    “Facing it’s better. Usually quicker. Lassiters have had a long run of the bad.” With a shrug, he finished the sandwich himself. “Seems to me you’ve brought me some of the good.”
    “I’m the one who found the coins.”
    “Maybe I’m bringing you some, too.”
    “I’ve got something,” Marla sang out. “Come and see.”
    Matthew rose, and after a moment’s hesitation, held out a hand. With matching wariness, Tate took it and let him haul her to her feet.
    “Nails,” Marla said, gesturing with one hand as she dabbed a handkerchief over her damp face with the other. “They look old. And this . . .” She picked up a small disk from amid the rubble. “Looks like some sort of button. Copper or bronze perhaps.”
    With a grunt, Matthew crouched down. There were two iron spikes, a pile of pottery shards, a broken piece of metal that might have been a buckle or pin of some sort. But it was the nails that interested him most.
    Marla was right. They were old. He picked one up, turned it in his fingers, imagining it once being hammered into planks that were doomed to storms and sea worms.
    “Brass,” Tate announced with delight as she worked off the corrosion with solvent and a rag. “It is a button. It’s got some etching on it, a flower. A little rose. It was probably on a dress of a female passenger.”
    The thought made her sad. The woman, unlike the button, hadn’t survived.
    “Maybe.” Matthew spared the button a glance. “Odds are we hit a bounce site.”
    Tate reached for her own sunglasses to cut the glare. “What’s a bounce site?”
    “Just what it sounds like. We probably found the spot where a ship hit while it was being driven in by waves. The wreck’s somewhere else.” He lifted his gaze, scanned the sea to the horizon. “Somewhere else,” he repeated.
    But Tate shook her head. “You’re not going to discourage me after this. We haven’t come up empty-handed, Matthew. One full dive and we have all this. Coins and nails—”
    “Broken pottery and a brass button.” Matthew tossed the nail he held back into the pile. “Chump change, Red. Even for an amateur.”
    She reached out and took hold of the coin that dangled around his neck. “Where there’s some, there’s more. My father believes we have a chance at a major find. So do I.”
    She was ready to quiver with anger, he noted. Her chinthrust up, sharp as the spikes at their feet, eyes hard and hot.
    Christ, why did she have to be a college girl?
    He moved his shoulder, and deliberately gave her a light, insulting pat on the cheek. “Well, it’ll keep us entertained. But it’s more often true that where there’s some, that’s all.” He brushed off his hands and rose. “I’ll clean this up for you, Marla.”
    “You’re a real upbeat kind of guy, Lassiter.” Tate tugged off her T-shirt. For some reason, the way he’d looked at