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“I’ll take them all. How about the best table in the house?”
“No less than I expected.” She linked her arm through his. “Your life agrees with you,” she decided as he led her to a table by the window. “You look happy.”
“Look and am.” He lifted a hand to brush hers. “We were sorry to hear about your father, Kate.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Marsh sat across from her and fixed her with eyes so much calmer, so much softer than his brother’s. She’d always wondered why the man with the dreamer’s eyes had been so practical while Ky had been the real dreamer. “It’s tragic, but I can’t say I’m sorry it brought you back to the island. We’ve missed you.” He paused, just long enough for effect. “All of us.”
Kate picked up the square carmine-colored napkin and ran it through her hands. “Things change,” she said deliberately. “You and Linda are certainly proof of that. When I left, you thought she was a bit of a nuisance.”
“That hasn’t changed,” he claimed and grinned. He glanced up at the young, pony-tailed waitress. “This is Cindy, she’ll take good care of you, Miss Hardesty—” He looked back at Kate with a grin. “I guess I should say Dr. Hardesty.”
“Miss’ll do,” Kate told him. “I’ve taken the summer off.”
“Miss Hardesty’s a guest, a special one,” he added, giving the waitress a smile. “How about a drink before you order? Or a bottle of wine?”
“Piesporter,” the reply came from a deep, masculine voice.
Kate’s fingers tightened on the linen, but she forced herself to look up calmly to meet Ky’s amused eyes.
“The professor has a fondness for it.”
“Yes, Mr. Silver.”
Before Kate could agree or disagree, the waitress had dashed off.
“Well, Ky,” Marsh commented easily. “You have a way of making the help come to attention.”
With a shrug, Ky leaned against his brother’s chair. If the three of them felt the air was suddenly tighter, each concealed it in their own way. “I had an urge for scampi.”
“I can recommend it,” Marsh told Kate. “Linda and the chef debated the recipe, then babied it until they reached perfection.”
Kate smiled at Marsh as though there were no dark, brooding man looking down at her. “I’ll try it. Are you going to join me?”
“I wish I could. Linda had to run home and deal with some crisis—Hope has a way of creating them and browbeating the babysitter—but I’ll try to get back for coffee. Enjoy your dinner.” Rising, he sent his brother a cool, knowing look, then walked away.
“Marsh never completely got over that first case of adulation,” Ky commented, then took his brother’s seat without invitation.
“Marsh has always been a good friend.” Kate draped the napkin over her lap with great care. “Though I realize this is your brother’s restaurant, Ky, I’m sure you don’t want my company for dinner any more than I want yours.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He sent a quick, dashing smile at the waitress as she brought the wine. He didn’t bother to correct Kate’s assumption on the Roost’s ownership. Kate sat stone-faced, her manners too good to allow her to argue, while Cindy opened the bottle and poured the first sip for Ky to taste.
“It’s fine,” he told her. “I’ll pour.” Taking the bottle, he filled Kate’s glass to within half an inch of the rim. “Since we’ve both chosen the Roost tonight, why don’t we have a little test?”
Kate lifted her glass and sipped. The wine was cool and dry. She remembered the first bottle they’d shared—sitting on the floor of his cottage the night she gave him her innocence. Deliberately, she took another swallow. “What kind of test?”
“We can see if the two of us can share a civilized meal in public. That was something we never got around to before.”
Kate frowned as he lifted his glass. She’d never seen Ky drink from a wineglass. The few times they had indulged in wine, it had been drunk out of one of the half a dozen water glasses he’d owned. The stemware seemed too delicate for his hand, the wine too mellow for the look in his eye.
No, they’d never eaten dinner in public before. Her father would have exuded disapproval for socializing with someone he’d considered an employee. Kate had known it, and hadn’t risked it.
Things were different now, she told herself as she lifted her own glass. In a sense, Ky was now her employee. She could make her own judgments. Recklessly, she toasted him. “To a profitable arrangement then.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He touched the rim of his glass to hers, but his gaze was direct and uncomfortable. “Blue suits you,” he said, referring to her dress, but not taking his eyes off hers. “The deep midnight blue that makes your skin look like something that should be tasted very, very carefully.”
She stared at him, stunned at how easily his voice could take on that low, intimate tone that had always made the blood rush out of her brain. He’d always been able to make words seem something dark and secret. That had been one of his greatest skills, one she had never been prepared for. She was no more prepared for it now.
“Would you care to order now?” The waitress stopped beside the table, cheerful, eager to please.
Ky smiled when Kate remained silent. “We’re having scampi. The house dressing on the salads will be fine.” He leaned back, glass in hand, still smiling. But the smile on his lips didn’t connect with his eyes. “You’re not drinking your wine. Maybe I should’ve asked if your taste has changed over the years.”
“It’s fine.” Deliberately she sipped, then kept the glass in her hand as though it would anchor her. “Marsh looks well,” she commented. “I was happy to hear about him and Linda. I always pictured them together.”
“Did you?” Ky lifted his glass toward the lowering evening light slanting through the window. He watched the colors spear through the wine and glass and onto Kate’s hand. “He didn’t. But then…” Shifting his gaze, he met her eyes again. “Marsh always took more time to make up his mind than me.”
“Recklessness,” she continued as she struggled just to breathe evenly, “was always more your style than your brother’s.”
“But you didn’t come to my brother with your charts and notes, did you?”
“No.” With an effort she kept her voice and her eyes level. “I didn’t. Perhaps I decided a certain amount of recklessness had its uses.”
“Find me useful, do you, Kate?”
The waitress served the salads but didn’t speak this time. She saw the look in Ky’s eyes.
So had Kate. “When I’m having a job done, I’ve found that it saves a considerable amount of time and trouble to find the most suitable person.” With forced calm, she set down her wine and picked up her fork. “I wouldn’t have come back to Ocracoke for any other reason.” She tilted her head, surprised by the quick surge of challenge that rushed through her. “Things will be simpler for both of us if that’s clear up front.”
Anger moved through him, but he controlled it. If they were playing word games, he had to keep his wits. She’d always been clever, but now it appeared the cleverness was glossed over with sophistication. He remembered the innocent, curious Kate with a pang. “As I recall, you were always one for complicating rather than simplifying. I had to explain the purpose, history and mechanics of every piece of equipment before you’d take the first dive.”
“That’s called caution, not complication.”
“You’d know more about caution than I would. Some people spend half their lives testing the wind.” He drank deeply of the wine. “I’d rather ride with it.”
“Yes.” This time it was she who smiled with her lips only. “I remember very well. No plans, no ties, tomorrow the wind might change.”
“If you’re anchored in one spot too long, you can become like those trees out there.” He gestured out the window where a line of sparse junipers bent away from the sea. “Stunted.”
“Yet you’re still here, where you were born, where you grew up.”
Slowly Ky poured her more wine. “The island’s too isolated, the life a bit too basic for some. I prefer it to those structured little communities with their parties and country clubs.”
Kate looked like she belonged in such a place, Ky thought as he fought against the frustrated desire that ebbed and flowed inside him. She belonged in an elegant silk suit, holding a Dresden cup and discussing an obscure eighteenth-century English poet. Was that why she could still make him feel rough and awkward and too full of longings?
If they could be swept back in time, he’d have stolen her, taken her out to open sea and kept her there. They would have traveled from port to exotic port. If having her meant he could never go home again, then he’d have sailed until his time was up. But he would have had her. Ky’s fingers tightened around his glass. By God, he would have had her.
The main course was slipped in front of him discreetly. Ky brought himself back to the moment. It wasn’t the eighteenth century, but today. Still, she had brought him the past with the papers and maps. Perhaps they’d both find more than they’d bargained for.
“I looked over the things you left with me.”
“Oh?” She felt a quick tingle of excitement but speared the first delicate shrimp as though it were all that concerned her.
“Your father’s research is very thorough.”
“Of course.”
Ky let out a quick laugh. “Of course,” he repeated, toasting her. “In any case, I think he might have been on the right track. You do realize that the section he narrowed it down to goes into a dangerous area.”
Her brows drew together, but she continued to eat. “Sharks?”
“Sharks are a little difficult to confine to an area,” he said easily. “A lot of people forget that the war came this close in the forties. There are still mines all along the coast of the Outer Banks. If we’re going down to the bottom, it’d be smart to keep that in mind.”
“I’ve no intention of being careless.”
“No, but sometimes people look so far ahead they don’t see what’s under their feet.”
Though he’d eaten barely half of his meal, Ky picked up his wine again. How could he eat when his whole system was aware of her? He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it would be like to pull those confining pins out of her hair as he’d done so often in the past. He couldn’t prevent the memory from springing up about what it had been like to bundle her into his arms and just hold her there with her body fitting so neatly against his. He could picture those long, serious looks she’d give him just before passion would start to take over, then the freedom he could feel racing through her in those last heady moments of love-making.
How could it have been so right once and so wrong now? Wouldn’t her body still fit against his? Wouldn’t her hair flow through his hands as it fell—that quiet brown that took on such fascinating lights in the sun. She’d always murmur his name after passion was spent, as if the sound alone sustained her. He wanted to hear her say it, just once more, soft and breathless while they were tangled together, bodies still warm and pulsing. He wasn’t sure he could resist it.
Absently Ky signaled for coffee. Perhaps he didn’t want to resist it. He needed her. He’d forgotten just how sharp and sure a need could be. Perhaps he’d take her. He didn’t believe she was indifferent to him—certain things never fade completely. In his own time, in his own way, he’d take what he once had from her. And pray it would be enough this time.
When he looked back at her, Kate felt the warning signals shiver through her. Ky was a difficult man to understand. She knew only that he’d come to some decision and that it involved her. Grateful for the warming effects of the coffee, she drank. She was in charge this time, she reminded herself, every step of the way and she’d make him aware of it. There was no time like the present to begin.
“I’ll be at the harbor at eight,” she said briskly. “I’ll require tanks of course, but I brought my own wet suit. I’d appreciate it if you’d have my briefcase and its contents on board. I believe we’d be wise to spend between six and eight hours out a day.”
“Have you kept up with your diving?”
“I know what to do.”
“I’d be the last to argue that you had the best teacher.” He tilted his cup back in a quick, impatient gesture Kate found typical of him. “But if you’re rusty, we’ll take it slow for a day or two.”
“I’m a perfectly competent diver.”
“I want more than competence in a partner.”
He saw the flare in her eyes and his need sharpened. It was a rare and arousing thing to watch her controlled and reasonable temperament heat up. “We’re not partners. You’re working for me.”
“A matter of viewpoint,” Ky said easily. He rose, deliberately blocking her in. “We’ll be putting in a full day tomorrow, so you’d better go catch up on all the sleep you’ve been missing lately.”
“I don’t need you to worry about my health, Ky.”
“I worry about my own,” he said curtly. “You don’t go under with me unless you’re rested and alert. You come to the harbor in the morning with shadows under your eyes, you won’t make the first dive.” Furiously she squashed the urge to argue with the reasonable. “If you’re sluggish, you make mistakes,” Ky said briefly. “A mistake you make can cost me. That logical enough for you, professor?”
“It’s perfectly clear.” Bracing herself for the brush of bodies, Kate rose. But bracing herself didn’t stop the jolt, not for either of them.
“I’ll walk you back.”
“It’s not necessary.”
His hand curled over her wrist, strong and stubborn. “It’s civilized,” he said lazily. “You were always big on being civilized.”
Until you’d touch me, she thought. No, she wouldn’t remember that, not if she wanted to sleep tonight. Kate merely inclined her head in cool agreement. “I want to thank Marsh.”
“You can thank him tomorrow.” Ky dropped the waitress’s tip on the table. “He’s busy.”
She started to protest, then saw Marsh disappear into what must have been the kitchen. “All right.” Kate moved by him and out into the balmy evening air.
The sun was low, though it wouldn’t set for nearly an hour. The clouds to the west were just touched with mauve and rose. When she stepped outside, Kate decided there were more people in the restaurant than there were on the streets.
A charter fishing boat glided into the harbor. Some of the tourists would be staying on the island, others would be riding back across Hatteras Inlet on one of the last ferries of the day.
She’d like to go out on the water now, while the light was softening and the breeze was quiet. Now, she thought, while others were coming in and the sea would stretch for mile after endless empty mile.
Shaking off the mood, she headed for the hotel. What she needed wasn’t a sunset sail but a good solid night’s sleep. Daydreaming was foolish, and tomorrow too important.
The same hotel. Ky glanced up at her window. He already knew she had the same room. He’d walked her there before, but then she’d have had her arm through his in that sweet way she had of joining them together. She’d have looked up and laughed at him over something that had happened that day. And she’d have kissed him, warm, long and lingeringly before the door would close behind her.
Because her thoughts had run the same gamut, Kate turned to him while they were still outside the hotel. “Thank you, Ky.” She made a business out of shifting her purse strap on her arm. “There’s no need for you to go any further out of your way.”
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