Treasures Lost, Treasures Found

thought, had already been located, documented. The adventure there was over. One day, because of the chain her father had started and she’d continued, the Liberty would be among them.
    Fretfully, Kate waited for Ky to surface. She thought of her father. He’d pored over this same book as well—planning, calculating. Yet his calculations hadn’t taken him beyond the initial stage. If he’d shared his goal with her, would he have taken her on his summer quests? She’d never know, because she’d never been given the choice.
    She was making her own choices now, Kate mused. Her first had been to return to Ocracoke, accepting the consequences. Her next had been to give herself to Ky without conditions. Her last, she thought as she stared downat the quiet water, would be to leave him again. Yet, in reality, perhaps she’d still been given no choice. It was all a matter of currents. She could only swim against them for so long.
    Relief washed over her when she spotted the flow of bubbles. Ky grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder as he pushed up his mask. “Waiting for me?”
    Relief mixed with annoyance for the time she’d spent worrying about him. “You cut it close.”
    “Yeah, a little.” He passed up his tanks. “I had to stop and get you a present.”
    “It’s not a joke, Ky.” Kate watched him come over the side, agile, lean and energetic. “You’d be furious with me if I’d cut my time that close.”
    “Leave it up to Linda to fuss,” he advised as he pulled down the zipper of his wet suit. “She was born that way.” Then he grabbed her, crushing her against him so that she felt the excitement he’d brought up with him. His mouth closed over hers, tasting of salt from the sea. Because he was wet, her clothes clung to him, binding them together for the brief instant he held her. But when he would have released her, she held fast, drawing the kiss out into something that warmed his cool skin.
    “I worry about you, Ky.” For one last moment, she held on fiercely. “Damn it, is that what you want to hear?”
    “No.” He took her face in his hands and shook his head. “No.”
    Kate broke away, afraid she’d say too much, afraidshe’d say things neither of them were ready to hear. She knew the rules this time. She groped for something calm, something simple. “I suppose I got a bit frantic waiting up here. It’s different when you’re down.”
    “Yeah.” What did she want from him, he wondered? Why was it that every time she started to show her concern for him, she clammed up? “I’ve got some more things to add to the chart.”
    “I saw the buoys you sent up.” Kate moistened her lips and relaxed, muscle by muscle.
    “Two more cannons. From the size of them, I’d say she was a fairly small ship. It’s unlikely she was constructed for battle.”
    “She was a merchant ship.”
    “Maybe. I’m going to take the metal detector down and see what I come up with. From the stuff we’ve found, I don’t think she’s buried too deep.”
    Kate nodded. Delve into business, keep the personal aspect light. “I’d like to send off a piece of the planking and some of the glass to be analyzed. I think we’ll have more luck with the glass, but it doesn’t hurt to cover all the angles.”
    “No, it doesn’t. Don’t you want your present?”
    At ease again, she smiled. “I thought you were joking. Did you bring me a shell?”
    “I thought you’d like this better.” Reaching into his bag, Ky brought out the bottle. “It’s too bad it’s not still corked. We could’ve had wine with peanut butter.”
    “Oh, Ky, it’s not damaged!” Thrilled, she reached out for it, but he pulled it back out of reach and grinned.
    “Bottoms up,” he told her and turned the bottle upside down.
    Kate stared at the smeared bottom of the bottle. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “It’s dated. 1749.” Gingerly, she took the bottle in both hands. “The year before the Liberty sank.”
    “It’s another ship, maybe,” Ky reminded her. “But it does narrow down the time element.”
    “Over two hundred years,” she murmured. “Glass, it’s so breakable, so vulnerable, and yet it survived two centuries.” Her eyes lit with enthusiasm as she looked back at him. “Ky, we should be able to find out where the bottle was made.”
    “Probably, but most glass bottles found on wrecks from the seventeenth and eighteenth century were manufactured in England anyway. It wouldn’t prove the ship was