“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 Hope began 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.”