Treasures Lost, Treasures Found by Nora Roberts Page A

Linda’s home, Hope hadn’t been still a moment. She was quick, surprisingly agile, with a look in her eyes that made Kate believe she knew exactly what she wanted and intended to get it, one way or the other. Ky had been right. His niece looked like him, in more ways than one.
    “I can see that. Where do you find the energy to run a restaurant, keep a home and manage a fireball?”
    “Vitamins,” Linda sighed. “Lots and lots of vitamins. Hope, don’t put your fingers on the glass.”
    “Hope!” the toddler cried out, making faces at herself in the mirror. “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
    “The Silver ego,” Linda commented. “It never tarnishes.”
    With a chuckle, Kate watched Hope crawl backwards out of the chair, land on her diaper-padded bottom and begin to systematically destroy the tower of blocks she’d built a short time before. “Well, she is pretty. It only shows she’s smart enough to know it.”
    “It’s hard for me to argue that point, except when she’s spread toothpaste all over the bathroom floor.” With a contented sigh, Linda sat back on the couch. She enjoyed having Monday afternoons off to play with Hope and catch up on the dozens of things that went by the wayside when the restaurant demanded her time. “You’ve been here over a week now, and this is the first time we’ve been able to talk.”
    Kate bent over to ruffle Hope’s hair. “You’re a busy woman.”
    “So are you.”
    Kate heard the question, not so subtly submerged in the statement, and smiled. “You know I didn’t come back to the island to fish and wade, Linda.”
    “All right, all right, the heck with being tactful.” With a mother’s skill, she kept her antenna honed on her active toddler and leaned toward Kate. “What are you and Ky doing out on his boat every day?”
    With Linda, evasions were neither necessary nor advisable. “Looking for treasure,” Kate said simply.
    “Oh.” Expressing only mild surprise, Linda saved a budding African violet from her daughter’s curious fingers. “Blackbeard’s treasure.” She handed Hope a rubber duck in lieu of the plant. “My grandfather still tells stories about it. Pieces of eight, a king’s ransom and bottles of rum. I always figured that it was buried on land.”
    Amused at the way Linda could handle the toddler without breaking rhythm, Kate shook her head. “No, not Blackbeard’s.”
    There were dozens of theories and myths about where the infamous pirate had hidden his booty, and fantastic speculation on just how rich the trove was. Kate had never considered them any more than stories. Yet she supposed, in her own way, she was following a similar fantasy.
    “My father’d been researching the whereabouts of an English merchant ship that sank off the coast here in the eighteenth century.”
    “Your father?” Instantly Linda’s attention sharpened. She couldn’t conceive of the Edwin Hardesty she remembered from summers past as a treasure searcher. “That’s why he kept coming to the island every summer? I could never figure out why…” She broke off, grimaced, then plunged ahead. “I’m sorry, Kate, but he never seemed the type to take up scuba diving as a hobby, and I never once saw him with a fish. He certainly managed to keep what he was doing a secret.”
    “Yes, even from me.”
    “You didn’t know?” Linda glanced over idly as Hopebegan to beat on a plastic bucket with a wooden puzzle piece.
    “Not until I went through his papers a few weeks ago. I decided to follow through on what he’d started.”
    “And you came to Ky.”
    “I came to Ky.” Kate smoothed the material of her thin summer skirt over her knees. “I needed a boat, a diver, preferably an islander. He’s the best.”
    Linda’s attention shifted from her daughter to Kate. There was simple understanding there, but it didn’t completely mask impatience. “Is that the only reason you came to Ky?”
    Needs rose up to taunt her. Memories washed up in one warm wave.