Treasures Lost, Treasures Found

glittery metal seemed to mock her. “It’s possible they put the gold in one of the lifeboats when they manned them. The survivor’s story wasn’t clear after the ship began to break up.”
    “A lot of things are possible.” He touched her cheek briefly before he started to strip off his gear. “With a little luck and a little more time, we might find it all.”
    She smiled as she dropped the coins back into her bag. “Then you could buy your boat.”
    “And you could go to Greece.” Stripped down to hisbathing trunks, Ky went to the helm. “We need to give ourselves the full twelve hours before we dive again, Kate. We’ve been calling it close as it is.”
    “That’s fine.” She made a business of removing her own suit. She needed the twelve hours, she discovered, for more than the practical reason of residual nitrogen.
    They spoke little on the trip back. They should’ve been ecstatic. Kate knew it, and though she tried, she couldn’t recapture that quick boost she’d felt when she picked up the first coin.
    She discovered that if she’d had a choice she would have gone back weeks, to the time when the gold was a distant goal and the search was everything.
    It took the rest of the day to transport the salvage from the Vortex to Ky’s house, to separate and catalog it. She’d already decided to contact the Park Service. Their advice in placing many of the artifacts would be invaluable. After taxes, she’d give her father his memorial. And, she mused, she’d give Ky whatever he wanted out of the salvage.
    Their original agreement no longer mattered to her. If he wanted half, she’d give it. All she wanted, Kate realized, was the first bowl she’d found, the blackened silver coin and the gold one that had led her to the five other coins.
    “We might think about investing in a small electrolytic reduction bath,” Ky murmured as he turned what he guessed was a silver snuff box in his palm. “We could treat a lot of this salvage ourselves.” Coming to a decision, he set the box down. “We’re going to have to think about a bigger ship and equipment. It might be best to stop diving for the next couple of days while we arrange for it. It’s been six weeks, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s down there.”
    She nodded, not entirely sure why she wanted to weep. He was right. It was time to move on, to expand. How could she explain to him, when she couldn’t explain to herself, that she wanted nothing else from the sea? While the sun set, she watched him meticulously list the salvage.
    “Ky…” She broke off because she couldn’t find the words to tell him what moved through her. Sadness, emptiness, needs.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.” But she took his hands as she rose. “Come upstairs now,” she said quietly. “Make love with me before the sun goes down.”
    Questions ran through him, but he told himself they could wait. The need he felt from her touched off his own. He wanted to give her, and to take from her, what couldn’t be found anywhere else.
    When they entered the bedroom it was washed with the warm, lingering light of the sun. The sky was slowly turning red as he lay beside her. Her arms reached out to gather him close. Her lips parted. Refusing to rush, they undressed each other. No boundaries. Flesh against flesh they lay. Mouth against mouth they touched.
    Kisses—long and deep—took them both beyond the ordinary world of place and time. Here, there were dozens of sensations to be felt, and no questions to be asked. Here, there was no past, no tomorrow, only the moment. Her body went limp under his, but her mouth hungered and sought.
    No one else… No one else had ever taken her beyond herself so effortlessly. Never before had anyone made her so completely aware of her own body. A feathery touch along her skin drove pleasure through her with inescapable force.
    The scent of sea still clung to both of them. As pleasure became liquid, they might have been fathoms under the ocean, moving freely without the strict rules of gravity. There were no rules here.
    As his hands brought their emotions rising to the surface, so did hers for him. She explored the rippling muscles of his back, near the shoulders. Lingering there, she enjoyed just the feel of one of the subtle differences between them. His skin was smooth, but muscles bunched under it. His hands were gentle, but the palms were hard. He was lean, but there was no softness there.
    Again and