The Reef

pretty, smooth-faced woman could be her mother.
    “I’m doing so much gardening now. It always seemed to be in the way. Honey, you’re so thin. You’ve been working too hard.” Brow creased, she turned to her husband. “Ray, I told you she’s been working too hard.”
    “You told me,” he agreed and rolled his eyes. “Over and over. How was the trip, baby?”
    “Endless.” She rolled her shoulders to loosen them as they walked through the small terminal to where Ray had parked his jeep. Stifling a yawn, she shook her head. “The bottom line is, I’m here.”
    “We’re glad you are.” Ray stowed the luggage in the back of the jeep. “We wanted you in on this trip, Tate, but I feel guilty knowing you resigned from your expedition. I know it was important to you.”
    “Not as important as I thought.” She climbed into the back of the jeep, let her head fall back. She didn’t want to bring up VanDyke, and his connection. Not yet at least. “I’m glad I was part of it. I really admire the people I was working with, and I’d be thrilled to work with any of them again. And the whole process was fascinating. But it was impersonal. By the time any of the artifacts got to me, they’d been through so many other hands, it was almost like taking something out of a display case to examine.” Wearily, she moved her shoulders. “You understand?”
    “Yes.” Because Marla had warned him, Ray repressed his need to rattle away about his own plans. Give her a little time, Marla had insisted. Take it slow.
    “You’re home now,” Marla said. “The first thing you’re going to do is have a good, hot meal and a nap.”
    “No argument. Once my head clears, I want to hear all about this idea of yours to go after the Isabella. ”
    “When you’ve read through my research,” Ray said cheerfully as he turned toward the village of Buxton, “you’ll see why I’m so eager to get started.” He opened his mouth to continue, noticed his wife’s warning glance and subsided. “After you’ve rested a bit, we’ll get it all together.”
    “At least tell me what you found that started the ball rolling,” she began as he turned through a break in the pines and started up the sandy lane. “Oh, the azaleas are blooming.”
    She was caught, leaning out the window to draw in the scent of pine and bay and blooms mixed with the aroma of water. It looked, as Tate remembered, like a fairy tale.
    Marla had cleverly interspersed flowering shrubs among the trees, naturalized with spring and summer bulbs so that splashes and flows of color seemed gloriously wild and unplanned.
    Near the two-story cedar house with its wide-screened porch, flower beds were only slightly more formal, with low-growing rock cress, sunny primroses and flowering sage giving way to nodding columbine and larkspur. Annuals and perennials thrived, while others waited for their season.
    “You’ve started a rock garden,” Tate observed, craning her head when the jeep turned into a widened slot facing the sound.
    “My new project. We’ve so much shade here I have to be very choosy. And you should see my herb bed around back by the kitchen.”
    “Everything looks fabulous.” Tate stepped out of the jeep and looked at the house. “And it’s so quiet,” she said softly. “Just the water, the birds, the breeze through the pines. I don’t know how you ever leave it.”
    “Whenever we come back from one of our little jaunts, we love it that much more.” Ray hefted her bags. “It’llbe a great place to retire.” He winked at his wife. “When we’re ready to grow up.”
    “That’ll be the day.” More delighted than she’d imagined to be there, Tate started along the walking stones set into the gentle slope. “I suppose I’ll be ready for knitting or bingo long before either of—” She halted at the back door. The colorful hammock she’d bought her father during a trip to Tahiti was stretched in its usual patch of sun. But it was occupied. “You have company?”
    “No, not company. Old friends.” Marla opened the screen door. “They arrived just before dusk last night. We’re loaded with weary travelers, aren’t we, Ray?”
    “Got a full house.”
    Tate could see little more than a mop of dark hair that flopped over mirrored glasses, a hint of a tanned, muscular body. It was enough to have her stomach clench into several painful knots.
    “What old friends?” she asked in a carefully neutral tone.
    “Buck and Matthew