Treasures Lost, Treasures Found Read Free Page A

though they shared impassioned hours of laughter and long, lazy talks. He admired her thirst for learning and she had a predilection for putting knowledge into neat slots that baffled him.She was enthusiastic about diving, but it hadn’t been enough for her simply to be able to swim freely underwater, taking her air from tanks. She had to know how the tanks worked, why they were fashioned a certain way. Ky watched her absorb what he told her, and knew she’d retain it.
    They had taken walks along the shoreline at night and she had recited poetry from memory. Beautiful words, Byron, Shelley, Keats. And he, who’d never been overly impressed by such things, had eaten it up because her voice had made the words somehow personal. Then she’d begin to talk about syntax, iambic pentameters, and Ky would find new ways to divert her.
    For three months, he did little but think of her. For the first time, Ky had considered changing his lifestyle. His little cottage near the beach needed work. It needed furniture. Kate would need more than milk crates and the hammock that had been his style. Because he’d been young and had never been in love before, Ky had taken his own plans for granted.
    She’d walked out on him. She’d had her own plans, and he hadn’t been part of them.
    Her father came back to the island the following summer, and every summer thereafter. Kate never came back. Ky knew she had completed her doctorate and was teaching in a prestigious ivy league school where her father was all but a cornerstone. She had what she wanted. So, he told himself as he swung open the screen door of his cottage, did he. He went where he wanted, when hewanted. He called his own shots. His responsibilities extended only as far as he chose to extend them. To his way of thinking, that itself was a mark of success.
    Setting the cooler on the kitchen floor, Ky opened the refrigerator. He twisted the top off a beer and drank half of it in one icy cold swallow. It washed some of the bitterness out of his mouth.
    Calm now, and curious, he pulled the letter out of his pocket. Ripping it open, he drew out the single neatly written sheet.
    Dear Ky,
    You may or may not be aware that my father suffered a fatal heart attack two weeks ago. It was very sudden, and I’m currently trying to tie up the many details this involves.
    In going through my father’s papers, I find that he had again made arrangements to come to the island this summer, and engage your services. I now find it necessary to take his place. For reasons which I’d rather explain in person, I need your help. You have my father’s deposit. When I arrive in Ocracoke on the fifteenth, we can discuss terms.
    If possible, contact me at the hotel, or leave a message. I hope we’ll be able to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement. Please give my best to Marsh. Perhaps I’ll see him during my stay.
    Best,
Kathleen Hardesty
    So the old man was dead. Ky set down the letter and lifted his beer again. He couldn’t say he’d had any liking for Edwin Hardesty. Kate’s father had been a stringent, humorless man. Still, he hadn’t disliked him. Ky had, in an odd way, gotten used to his company over the last few summers. But this summer, it would be Kate.
    Ky glanced at the letter again, then jogged his memory until he remembered the date. Two days, he mused. She’d be there in two days…to discuss terms. A smile played around the corners of his mouth but it didn’t have anything to do with humor. They’d discuss terms, he agreed silently as he scanned Kate’s letter again.
    She wanted to take her father’s place. Ky wondered if she’d realized, when she wrote that, just how ironic it was. Kathleen Hardesty had been obediently dogging her father’s footsteps all her life. Why should that change after his death?
    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