A Coral Kiss Part 21

Hank glanced down the aisle of rattan tables, frowning in concentration. "Can't say that he does.

Probably just your imagination, Rosie."

"Maybe," Rosie agreed. "Well, you two run along and have fun this afternoon. We'll see you tonight."

Jed nodded, using his hand on Amy's waist to steer her toward the door as she said her good-byes.

"Really, Jed," she announced as she found herself out on the street beside him, "you came very close to being rude in there."

"I can do better than come close. I can get right down to the real thing."

She was clearly taken aback by bis words. "Don't you think you overreacted a bit? Dan was only being friendly."

"Sure."

"Sure, what?" she demanded. "That's no kind of answer. Sure you overreacted or sure he was being friendly?"

"Amy, your voice is rising." He opened the Jeep door and helped her onto the seat.

"My voice is rising?" she squeaked. "I can do more than raise it a little, I can scream. Jed, this is ridiculous. Why are you so upset?"

He sighed as he got in beside her and turned the key in the ignition. "I just realized I've gotten spoiled."

When she tried to pin him down on his meaning he switched the conversation to the dive plan.

An hour and a half later Amy watched a sleek blue jack swim lazily through the water in front of her and knew this time she was going to be all right. Her breathing was normal, the water felt good and she was actually beginning to enjoy the dive. Jed was to her left and a little behind her, swimming easily. If he was watching her for signs of incipient panic he was doing a good job of hiding his concern. He appeared relaxed and interested in the underwater landscape. The bomber lay in shallow water just beyond the reef that ringed a small cove. Jed and Amy were both carrying dive lights to explore the inside of the fuselage, but the lights weren't necessary for anything else.

Sunlight filtered through the beautiful water, illuminating the waving seaweed, the scalloped sand and the flas.h.i.+ng schools of endlessly patrolling fish. Everything was clear and gently lit. There were no terrifyingly dark corridors that led nowhere, no confining rock walls that threatened to close in on a diver, no body guarding the only exit.

And Jed was with her. Jed, who now knew everything. Amy had told him the truth about her worst nightmares and he had accepted it all without batting an eye.

Amy didn't kid herself about why he had been able to handle the facts about her past so easily. It was because his past contained nightmares that were undoubtedly a lot worse than her own. But hadn't she subconsciously guessed that all along? He had confirmed those half realized truths the night before, although he had spared her the details.

It occurred to Amy as she watched Jed glide down to explore a small reef cranny that she had accepted his past as easily as he had accepted hers. In spite of what had happened to her eight months before she had a feeling she should have been far more shocked when she heard the truth about Jed. After all, for her the terrifying experience with LePage and the excursion into darkness that had followed were distinct aberrations in her world. For Jed such things apparently bordered on the normal.

He wasn't the kind of man she had once thought she could love. Never in her wildest imaginings had she envisioned losing her heart to a man like Jedidiah Glaze.

Strangely enough, the shadows in him weren't what disturbed her the most, although a year ago they would have been the reason she would have steered clear of him. No, now Amy knew it was Jed's manner of dismissing most of his past and a large part of his future that truly bothered her. He kept both locked away in the farthest corners of his mind, just as he kept the shadows imprisoned. Amy sensed it was his ability to do so that had helped him survive. It had been her inability to do just that which had threatened her sanity.

She understood Jed's commitment only to the present, but she wondered what hope there was for a love that existed within such boundaries. She wasn't even sure that in Jed's case the emotion could be labeled love. It was probably more in the nature of a short-term s.e.xual bond that could be severed quite easily.

Unfortunately for her, her emotions were far more complex. She was in love, and there was nothing else she could label it.

Amy pushed aside the unanswered questions and concentrated on her diving. Kicking forward, she led Jed around the reef toward a large, hulking shape on the ocean floor. The twin tails of the B-25 were still intact, although their once sleek outlines were marred by decades of marine growth. The sea had done its work on the invading object from the outer world. It accepted it and used it for its own purposes. The bomber was now home for a variety of plants and aquatic creatures.

Amy swam around it first, letting Jed have a good look at the empty hose where the gunner had once crouched. The gla.s.s was long gone, but it wasn't hard to imagine how it had looked. Amy thought briefly of the unknown young man who had sat there at the front of the craft, so vulnerable and exposed, in order to do his job. She had always told herself that the crew of the plane had managed to bail out before the bomber went down. It was probably a fairy tale, but she preferred it to the more likely truth that everyone on board had been killed.

A creative imagination, Jed said, had its drawbacks. Sometimes he was right. She couldn't bear to think of the crew of the bomber trapped in the plane as they watched their doom rise to meet them. It was one thing to create that sort of scenario on a word processor, quite another to imagine it happening in real life.

Amy turned away from the gunner's seat and swam toward the broken fuselage. She was aware of Jed keeping an eye on her now. He was trying to be un.o.btrusive about it, but she knew he was wondering if she would find the interior of the plane too reminiscent of the interior of a cave. Amy was wondering the same thing. She switched on her dive light.

A wave of relief swept through her, and for the first time Amy realized she had been more tense than she had thought. This wasn't a cave. It wasn't anything like a cave. Her imagination had been a little overactive on that subject, too. Sunlight pierced the shattered, twisted skin of the craft in several places.

Amy glanced around, bouncing her light off the encrusted interior walls of the plane as she hovered just outside a jagged tear in the metal.

Jed appeared on the opposite side of the craft, his light pouring through what had once been the hatch.

The twin beams of the dive lights caught a school of colorful wra.s.ses. They were propelling themselves through the cavernous interior of the plane with the distinctive rowing motion of their pectoral fins. They seemed unperturbed by the human intruders.

Gingerly Amy swam through the tear in the fuselage and went toward the c.o.c.kpit. Jed followed. Their lights played over what remained of the panel and the pilot's seat. Amy was about to turn around when she spotted an untidy little pile of empty sh.e.l.ls beneath the seat.

Swimming closer, Amy dropped down and aimed the dive light up under the skeleton of the instrument panel. She saw what she had half expected to find. The tip of a tentacle was just barely visible. The sh.e.l.ls piled up below the pilot's seat were the remains of several meals. She had found an octopus' den.

Experimentally she moved her wrist back and forth in the water, inviting the den's resident to view the s.h.i.+ny metal casing of her dive watch. It was a toss-up for a minute or two, but eventually the creature's curiosity overcame its natural timidity. A tentacle whipped out to wrap around Amy's wrist. It was a very small tentacle and Amy wanted to laugh. She glanced back and saw Jed watching. Behind the mask she saw the amus.e.m.e.nt in bis eyes.

Gently she reached out to stroke the tentacle. But the instant she touched the octopus it panicked and withdrew completely into hiding. The game was over.

Amy swung slowly around in the water, following Jed back out of the c.o.c.kpit. As they slipped past the entrance a moray poked its head out from under a jumble of wooden crates. Amy backed off, giving the creature room. Morays weren't aggressive, but they had no compunction about biting a stray hand or foot that wandered too close to their territory.

Amy was about to swim out through the hatch when she caught Jed's questioning gaze. She signaled she was fine and kicked easily back out of the plane.

She was fine, she realized. A small burst of relieved euphoria caught her and she swung around to wait for Jed. He appeared after a moment and seemed to understand her mood. Side by side they headed back toward sh.o.r.e.

As they waded out of the surf Jed shoved his mask back on his head and asked, "Everything okay?"

"Peachy," Amy said blithely. "Terrific. A-OK. Wonderful. Great."

"Good. Tomorrow or the next day we'll go after that box in the caves."

Amy's euphoric mood splintered. "No, Jed. I've told you there's no need to drag that thing out of there."

"Have a little faith in me, sweetheart. I know what I'm doing."

"Why, you overconfident, arrogant son of a-"

He leaned down and cut off her words with a quick, salty kiss. "I enjoyed the dive. You're a good partner underwater. Come to think of it, you're pretty good out of the water, too. Terrific in bed, in fact."

Amy saw the unabashed s.e.xual humor in his eyes and didn't know whether to yell at him or give him a disgusted, cold shoulder. It was obvious he wasn't going to argue about the box in the caves. He was going after it and if she didn't go along, he'd probably go by himself. Quietly she turned away from him and began unbuckling her gear.

Jed watched her mood s.h.i.+ft and stifled a sigh of regret. He was genuinely sorry to have caused the change, but there wasn't any help for it. The business with the box in the caves had to be handled sooner or later and it was his nature to take care of loose ends as soon as possible. It made him distinctly uneasy to know Amy's secrets had been so precariously hidden for so long.

She'd handled herself well in the water today, he thought as he silently helped pack the gear. She had been relaxed and efficient. Jed realized he was taking a certain pride in the fact that she seemed back in control. Had confiding her secrets to him relieved some of her stress? It was undoubtedly his ego at work, but he liked to think he'd helped Amy. It satisfied the side of him that wanted to protect her.

As if her secrets were all that horrendous, Jed thought wryly as he swung the tanks into the back of the Jeep. But death and fear could be relative matters. For someone like Amy, the events that night at the caves const.i.tuted a true nightmare.

Whenever he thought about how close she had come to getting herself killed by LePage, Jed had a few nightmares of his own.

"What you have to understand, Amy," Jed said as he climbed into the Jeep beside her, "is that that d.a.m.n box can come back to haunt you in more ways than one. Leave it where it is and it might do more than keep you awake nights."

She turned to eye him uneasily. "What are you talking about?"

"That box has already gotten two people killed, Wyman and LePage. Don't look at me like that, Amy.

I'm glad it was LePage lying on the bottom of that pool the next morning, not you." He saw her wince.

"Yeah, think about it. He had plans to be the one who discovered your 'accidentally' drowned body that morning."

Jed knew he sounded cold, but he was determined to do whatever he had to in order to make an impression. Amy was too gentle to be involved in this mess, but the world rarely respected such innocence. Amy was involved and the only way to free her was to make her face her involvement.

Amy wasn't looking at him any longer. She was staring at the road ahead. "All right."

He gave her still profile a quick, startled glance. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means all right. If you're absolutely sure it's the only alternative, we'll go after the box."

Jed exhaled deeply. "It's the only way, Amy."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

He took one hand off the wheel, reached out and caught her fingers in his. He squeezed gently. "I do.

When it comes to this kind of thing I've got sound instincts. Cleaning up loose ends is one of the few things I'm good at."

"Actually," Amy said with a grave, thoughtful air, "you're good at a few other things, too."

He c.o.c.ked a brow interrogatively. "Such as?"

"Building bird cages."

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that. And don't you forget it."

Jed shrugged. "I keep telling you, it's just a hobby."

"Maybe."

He didn't know what to make of the stubborn look on her face, so he shrugged again and put his hand back on the steering wheel. She trusted him, he thought with deep satisfaction. She wasn't pleased with his advice, but she trusted him.

An hour later Jed was still luxuriating in the unexpected pleasure Amy's trust had given him when he realized he might have been deluding himself all day.

Someone had very carefully and discreetly gone through the contents of his room. Whoever had done it had paid particular attention to the flight bag he had unpacked and left stashed in the closet. As usual, Jed had left the last eight pairs of the zipper's metal teeth unzipped. The searcher hadn't caught that little detail. There were only six pairs left unconnected at the end of the zipper.

Someone had recently come looking for some answers about Jedidiah Glaze.

Chapter Twelve.

Amy had just gotten out of the shower, one towel tur-baned around her head and another wrapped around her body when she realized she was not alone in her bedroom. Jed was lounging in the doorway, a remote, watchful expression in his eyes. She paused, one hand securing the knot of the towel as she met his gaze.

"Is something wrong, Jed?" she asked uncertainly. She realized he hadn't looked at her in quite that way before.

"You'll have to answer that one. If you've still got questions, Amy, I'd rather you asked them straight out."

The edge of his low, dark voice cut into her. Amy instinctively took a step backward. "I don't understand. Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong-except that I made the mistake of thinking I had your trust." He moved into the room with a prowling stride that made Amy take another step toward her closet. "Didn't you believe anything I said last night?"

"Of course I did. Why on earth are you acting like this? Jed, what is it?"

He stopped a short distance away from her. "Find anything of interest in the flight bag? Say a pa.s.sport in another man's name? Or a nice, neat, rea.s.suring government identification card proving who I am? A gun, perhaps? Or maybe a mysterious telephone number? With your imagination, you should have been able to attach some kind of significance to a phone number."

Amy's palms grew damp. "Are you saying someone searched your belongings?"

"That's what I'm saying." He took another step forward, forcing her to retreat an equal pace. "You could have just asked me, Amy. I'd have been glad to show you what was in the flight bag. Not that it would have done you any more good than going through it on your own. It was empty, wasn't it?"

She felt a wave of panic and frantically beat it down. "I don't know," she managed. "I didn't go through your flight bag." Her back was against the slatted door of the closet. Jed leaned over her, his hands planted on either side of her to form a cage. This close and in this mood he was extraordinarily intimidating. Amy lifted her chin defiantly. "Did you hear me? I haven't touched your things."

He said nothing for a long moment, pinning her with his eyes. "Just tell me the truth, Amy. It won't matter.

I may not like the fact that you've got qualms about me, but I can sure as h.e.l.l understand your having them. It's just that I thought we worked them all out last night."

"I thought it was your qualms about me we were working out last night," Amy said bluntly. "You were so quiet and distant all day after I told you what happened to LePage, and then when you didn't seem to want me, I was sure-"

"Stop babbling. If I spent a lot of time being uncommunicative yesterday, it was because I had a lot of thinking to do. I was working through all the possible problems we've got because of that box sitting in those caves. But you must have known d.a.m.n well I wanted you. Didn't I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Well, yes." She felt helpless. "But that was after... after you'd spent hours acting as if you didn't know what to think of me and I-"

"And you came up here and searched my flight bag?"

"No, dammit, I did not search your bag! I give you my word of honor on that, Jed Glaze. My word happens to mean something to me."

He was silent, studying her as if he were trying to decide whether to keep up the pressure. Then Jed drew a deep breath and his arms fell away from the wall. He shoved his hands into his back pockets and paced toward the open window.

"I believe you. If I'd thought it through instead of just reacting, I'd have realized right away it couldn't have been you. You're not a pro. You'd have left all kinds of tracks. Whoever tossed my room was reasonably proficient."

"Gee whiz, thanks."

He paid no attention to her. "That leaves us with a problem."