“No, but you also have a way of imposing your will on me. My fault to a point.” Her voice was calm, level, as it was when she lectured her students. She hadn’t slept while Ky had spent his hours in the shed. Like him, she’d spent her time in thought, in search for the right answers.

“Four years ago, I had to give to one of you and deny the other. It broke my heart. Today, I know I have to answer to myself first.” With her breakfast hardly touched, she took her plate to the sink. “I love you, Ky,” she murmured. “But I have to answer to myself first.”

Rising, he went to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. Somehow the strength that suddenly seemed so powerful in her both attracted him yet left him uneasy. “Okay.” When she turned into his arms, he felt the world settle a bit. “Just let me know what the answer is.”

“When I can.” She closed her eyes and held tight. “When I can.”

* * *

For three long days they dove, working away the silt to find new discoveries. With a small air lift and their own hands, they found the practical, the beautiful and the ordinary. They came upon more than eight thousand of the ten thousand decorated pipes on the Liberty’s manifest. At least half of them, to Kate’s delight, had their bowls intact. They were clay, long-stemmed pipes with the bowls decorated with oak leaves or bunches of grapes and flowers. In a heady moment of pleasure, she snapped Ky’s picture as he held one up to his lips.

She knew that at auction, they would more than pay for the investment she’d made. And, with them, the donation she’d make to a museum in her father’s name was steadily growing. But more than this, the discovery of so many pipes on a wreck added force to their claim that the ship was English.

There were also snuff boxes, again thousands, leaving literally no doubt in her mind that they’d found the merchantman Liberty. They found tableware, some of it elegant, some basic utility-ware, but again in quantity. Their list of salvage grew beyond anything Kate had imagined, but they found no chest of gold.

They took turns hauling their finds to the surface, using an inverted plastic trash can filled with air to help them lift. Even with this, they stored the bulk of it on the sea floor. They were working alone again, without a need for Marsh to man the prop-wash. As it had been in the beginning, the project became a personal chore for only the two of them. What they found became a personal triumph. What they didn’t find, a personal disappointment.