The Reef

suggestion that they might need to rent a room or a garage for storage was met by a grunt and a shrug. Buck waited until they were putting toward the Sea Devil before he exploded.
    “Have you lost your mind, boy?”
    Matthew jogged the wheel slightly. “I don’t need you crawling up my back, Buck.”
    “If I got to crawl up your back to get to your brain, then that’s what I’ll do.” He rose smoothly when Matthew cut the engine. “Haven’t you got more sense than to mess around with that young thing?”
    “I haven’t been messing around with her,” Matthew said between his teeth. He secured the bow line. “Not like you mean.”
    “Thank God for that.” Agilely, Buck shouldered the first tarp, hooked his foot on the ladder. “You got no business playing games with Tate, boy. She ain’t a loose one.”
    “I know what she is.” Matthew hauled the second tarp. “And I know what she isn’t.”
    “Then you remember it.” Buck carried his tarp into the wheelhouse, unrolled it carefully on the counter. “The Beaumonts are good, decent people, Matthew.”
    “And I’m not.”
    Surprised at the bitterness in the tone, Buck looked up as Matthew set down his tarp. “Never said you weren’t good or decent, boy. But we ain’t like them. Never have been. Maybe you figure it’s okay to dally around with her before we move on, but a girl like that expects things.”
    He took out a cigarette, lighted it, peering at his nephew through the smoke. “You going to tell me you’re thinking about giving them to her.”
    Matthew pulled out a beer, swallowed long to wash some of the anger out of his throat. “No, I’m not going to tell you that. But I’m not going to hurt her, either.”
    Wouldn’t mean to, Buck thought. “Change your course, boy. There’s plenty of females out there if you’ve got an itch.” He saw the fury flash into Matthew’s eyes and met it equably. “I’m telling you ’cause I’m the one who’s got to. A man hooks up with the wrong woman, it can ruin both of them.”
    Struggling for calm, Matthew set the half-drained bottle of beer aside. “Like my mother and father.”
    “That’s true enough,” Buck said, but his voice had gentled. “They set sparks off each other, sure. Gotthemselves tangled before either of them thought it through. Left them both pretty scraped up.”
    “I don’t think she did a hell of a lot of bleeding,” Matthew shot back. “She left him, didn’t she? And me. Never came back. Never looked back as far as I can tell.”
    “She couldn’t take the life. Ask me, most women can’t. No use blaming them for it.”
    But Matthew could. “I’m not my father. Tate’s not my mother. That’s the bottom line.”
    “I’ll give you the bottom line.” Eyes heavy with concern, Buck crushed out his cigarette. “That girl over there’s having herself some fun and excitement for a few months. You’re a good-looking man, so it’s natural you’d be part of that fun and excitement. But when it’s over, she’ll go back to college, get herself a fancy job, a fancy husband. That leaves you high and dry. If you forget that, and take advantage of the stars in her eyes, both of you’ll be the worse for it.”
    “It wouldn’t occur to you that I might be good enough for her.”
    “You’re good enough for anybody,” Buck corrected. “Better’n most. But being right for somebody’s different.”
    “So speaks the voice of experience.”
    “Maybe I don’t know a goddamn thing about women. But I know you.” Hoping to calm the waters, he laid a hand on Matthew’s rigid shoulder. “We got a chance at the big time here, Matthew. Men like us look all our lives, only a few of us find it. We found it. All we have to do is take it. You can make something out of yourself with your share. Once you do, there’ll be plenty of time for women.”
    “Sure.” Matthew picked up his beer, tipped it back. “No sweat.”
    “There you go.” Relieved, Buck gave his shoulder a slap. “Let’s take a look at the engine.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    Alone, Matthew stared at the bottle in his hand until he’d willed back the clawing urge to smash it into jaggedpieces. There was nothing Buck had told him that he hadn’t already told himself. And less kindly.
    He was a third-generation treasure hunter with a legacy of bad luck that had dogged him like a bloodhound all of his life. He’d lived by his wits, and the occasional flip side of that luck. He had no