The Reef

folded in his arms. “I was so scared. I kept telling myself I’d get away, then I thought you were dead. It just didn’t matter anymore.”
    “It’s okay. It’s over now.” Lifting her, he carried her to the bed to cradle her. “When LaRue got back he told me how rough it was going on you. I never knew what it meant to be sick from fear until then.”
    To comfort them both, he brushed kisses over her hair. “We were already working on springing you when LaRue came onboard. Buck and I would swim over, he’d handle the tanks and gear while I looked for you. I figure it might have worked, but LaRue made it easier.”
    “How?”
    “For one, he found out which cabin you were in before he left, and snagged one of the duplicate keys. In his defense,” Matthew added, “he was crazy at the thought that he had to leave you alone with that bastard.”
    “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” She heaved a long sigh. “You had a key. And here I was imagining you swinging onboard like a privateer. Kicking in doors with a knife between your teeth.”
    “Maybe next time.”
    “Nope, I’ve had enough excitement for the next fifty or sixty years.”
    “That’s fine with me.” He took a breath. “So, I laid everything out to Buck, then to Ray and Marla. The best I could think of was to use VanDyke’s plan to burn the boat to our advantage. If we hadn’t given him a show, he might have taken off, or done something to you.” Eyes closed, he pressed his lips to her hair. “I couldn’t risk it.”
    “Your beautiful boat.”
    “Hell of a distraction, and a foolproof way of making him believe everything was going his way. He’d see it go up, figure everything was going according to plan. I had to hope he’d relax enough thinking I was dead so that I could get on the yacht and get you off without risking a fight.”
    He’d have loved a fight, he thought. He’d craved one. But not with her in the middle.
    “Now we—” She stopped, jerked her head up. “Buck. It just hit me. He went in.”
    “It was tough on him. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. When LaRue got back, I thought about him goingwith me, but I wasn’t sure I could keep you quiet if you spotted him. And Ray, well, he and Marla needed to stick together. That left Buck. He did it for you.”
    “Looks like I’ve got a whole basket of heroes.” She touched her lips to his. “Thanks for scaling the castle wall, Lassiter.” With a sigh, she settled her head on his shoulder again. “He’s not sane, Matthew. It’s not just obsession or greed. He slips in and out of sanity like a shadow. He’s only partially the man I met eight years ago, and it’s terrifying to watch.”
    “You won’t have to watch again.”
    “He won’t stop. When he finds out you weren’t blown up with the boat, he’ll keep coming after you.”
    “I’m counting on it. It’ll be over this time tomorrow.”
    “You still mean to kill him.” Chilled, she shifted away, moved out of his arms. “I understand something of what you feel now. I would have killed him myself if I’d had the means when I thought you were dead. When I knew he was responsible for taking you from me. I could have done it then, in the heat of all that grief.”
    Taking a steadying breath, she turned back to him. “I don’t think I could do it now, when the blood’s cooled. But I know why you feel you have to.”
    He looked at her for a long time. Her eyes were swollen from weeping, even in her sleep. Her skin was still pale so that the mark on her cheek stood out like a brand. She had, he knew, forgiven him any mistake he’d made.
    “I’m not going to kill him, Tate. I could,” he continued almost thoughtfully as she stared at him. “For my father, for the helpless kid who stood there doing nothing. For taking you, for touching you, for every bruise, every second you were afraid, I could cut out his heart without a flinch. Do you understand that?”
    “I—”
    “No.” His smile was thin as he rose to face her. “You don’t understand that I could kill him coldly, the way I’ve planned it for years. All those years I stared at the ceiling over my bunk on that fucking boat, with nothing to hold me together but the idea that one day I’d have his blood on my hands. I even used his money, setting what I couldaside so I’d have enough to finish the boat, to buy equipment, to tide me over. Because I was going to find that amulet if it took a lifetime.”
    “Then my father