Had she changed? Ky wondered briefly. Would that fascinating aura of innocence and aloofness still cling to her? Or perhaps that had faded with the years. Would that rather sweet primness have developed into a rigidity? He’d see for himself in a couple of days, he realized, but tossed the letter onto the counter rather than into the trash.

So, she wanted to engage his services, he mused. Leaning both hands on either side of the sink, he looked out the window in the direction of the water he could smell, but not quite see. She wanted a business arrangement—the rental of his boat, his gear and his time. He felt the bitterness well up and swallowed it as cleanly as he had the beer. She’d have her business arrangement. And she’d pay. He’d see to that.

Ky left the kitchen with his catch still in the cooler. The appetite he’d worked up with salt spray and speed had vanished.

* * *

Kate pulled her car onto the ferry to Ocracoke and set the brake. The morning was cool and very clear. Even so, she was tempted to simply lean her head back and close her eyes. She wasn’t certain what impulse had pushed her to drive from Connecticut rather than fly, but now that she’d all but reached her destination, she was too weary to analyze.

In the bucket seat beside her was her briefcase, and inside, all the papers she’d collected from her father’s desk. Perhaps once she was in the hotel on the island, she could go through them again, understand them better. Perhaps the feeling that she was doing the right thing would come back. Over the last few days she’d lost that sense.

The closer she came to the island, the more she began to think she was making a mistake. Not to the island, Kate corrected ruthlessly—the closer she came to Ky. It was a fact, and Kate knew it was imperative to face facts so that they could be dealt with logically.

She had a little time left, a little time to calm the feelings that had somehow gotten stirred up during the drive south. It was foolish, and somehow it helped Kate to remind herself of that. She wasn’t a woman returning to a lover, but a woman hoping to engage a diver in a very specific venture. Past personal feelings wouldn’t enter into it because they were just that. Past.

The Kate Hardesty who’d arrived on Ocracoke four years ago had little to do with the Doctor Kathleen Hardesty who was going there now. She wasn’t young, inexperienced or impressionable. Those reckless, wild traits of Ky’s wouldn’t appeal to her now. They wouldn’t frighten her. They would be, if Ky agreed to her terms, business partners.