The Last Treasure (14 page)

He put his hands on her waist and gently eased her back. “I brought you something.”

“Better than pizza?”

“Much better.”

Liv watched as he pulled a poster from his bag and handed it to her. “Think of it as a room-warming gift.”

Even before she unrolled the thick paper and saw the familiar curls of her handwriting, she knew what it was.

“Whit wanted to chuck it when we got back, so I rescued it,” said Sam. “Come on, I'll help you put it up.”

Soon the huge chart was on the wall, tall and wide and filling the small room with the deliciously dusty scent of old books. Liv stared at it, thinking of all the leads they'd acquired in the weeks since she first put her pencil to it in Hatteras. “We have so much to add,” she said.

Sam took the wine from her hand. “Later.”

Afterward, the sheet around their tangled legs, they stared up at the map. Moonlight swam across the ivory paper, flickering hypnotically, pulling her toward sleep.

Sam traced her hipbone with his thumb. “What would you do if you solved the mystery?”

“Don't you mean
when
?” She turned her head, finding the perfect line of his nose in the velvety dark, warm ripples of longing stirring.

“You'll never guess who I got partnered with for my conservation lab project.”

Liv nestled against him and smiled. “Whit Crosby.”

“He said you told him we were going out to Kitty Hawk to look at those letters. He asked if he could come with us.”

She rose on her elbows. “What did you say?”

“I said it was more of a two-person expedition. I think he took the hint.”

“He does know a lot about ships and wrecks. He might surprise you, you know.”

“That's what I'm afraid of.”

Liv settled back against the heat of his hard chest. “Speaking of conservation lab, I can't find that concretion Lou gave me on the boat. Have you seen it?”

“No,” said Sam, dropping a kiss on her temple. “But I wouldn't be too broken up about it. It didn't look like much to me.”

•   •   •

A
fter that, well. Maybe Liv would have to concede that Whit did try to insert himself into their world at every chance. Despite his reservations, Sam did grow to appreciate Whit Crosby's expertise in the field of marine archaeology. Just as Liv had predicted, Sam had to admit that Whit made an excellent lab partner, after several weeks on the project, his feverish intensity and spontaneity a perfect balance to Sam's methodical organization. When their project was awarded the highest grade in the class, Whit decided they should celebrate at Zephyr's, the most expensive restaurant in town. “My treat,” he said. “Greta and I can meet you there at seven.”

Thanks in part to traffic, and an emergency stop at her father's to assure him his thermostat wasn't in fact smoking, they arrived closer to eight. The restaurant was crowded and loud. Several groups waited in the entry for tables. Stalled at the hostess station, Liv spotted Greta's waves of shiny blond hair at a booth in the back.

Her bright red lips were as tight as her arms across her chest.

“Hey,” said Sam. “Where's Whit?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Greta's brown eyes flared. “He said he had to pick something up and that he'd meet me here at six thirty. That was ninety fucking minutes ago. I've called four times. He won't answer. And I'm sure as hell not ordering food if he thinks he's sticking me with the bill for this place.”

“Maybe he had car trouble,” Liv said.

“Car trouble? Are you kidding?” Greta rolled her eyes as she stood and smoothed the sides of her leather skirt. “I'm sure the only thing he had to
pick up
was a round of scotches at Tuck's.” She pulled on a fringed suede coat, freeing the caught ribbons of her blond hair and shaking them out down her back. “If he does show up, feel free to tell him I'm breaking up with him—and that I really mean it this time.”

“Do you need a lift back to the dorms?” Sam asked.

“I'll be fine.” The tight line of her lips softened briefly. “Thanks, though.”

When Greta had marched out the front, Sam muttered something under his breath and took Liv's hand to exit too.

She pulled gently to stall him. “We're leaving?”

“Of course we're leaving. I'm not buying dinner here. Whit's obviously blown us off.”

Liv waited until they were back in his truck and Sam had twisted the heater to full blast before she continued to protest. “What if something really did happen to him? Maybe he got into an accident.”

“Going a half mile down the road?”

“Should we call him?”

“You heard Greta—she tried.”

“Maybe he lost his phone.”

Sam lowered his hands from the wheel and turned to her. “Why are you making excuses for him?”

“I'm not. I'm just saying since we don't know for sure, maybe we shouldn't take off so quickly.”

Sam reached over and threw open her door, a burst of cold air stinging her bare calves. “Then feel free to stay here and wait for him, Mother Teresa.”

She slammed the door closed. “You're a jerk.”

“
I'm
a jerk?”

She glared out at the street, willing the chilly air coming out of the vents to grow hot.

“Liv, I'm not the one who invited his friends and his girlfriend out to dinner and then stood them all up without so much as a phone call.”

“I'm not saying it wasn't a shitty thing to do—”

“Then what are you saying?”

She tugged on her seat belt, feeling at turns admonished and furious, and not sure which was worse. A group of students walked in front of the truck, laughing loudly. Dressing for dinner, she'd felt glamorous and sexy. Free and full of promise. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spent so long fixing her damn hair.

Now all she wanted was to get back to her room and tear off this too-tight skirt, unravel this ridiculous twist she'd glued to her head with a million bobby pins.

But mostly she wanted to crawl under her flannel sheets with Sam, to stare up at their chart until they drifted to sleep, this night, and all of Whit's foolishness, fading with them.

But when they reached her dorm, Sam didn't turn off the truck.

She stared at him. “Aren't you coming up?”

“I have Waters's paper that I haven't even started. I should really go back to my place.”

“Makes sense.” But disappointment bloomed.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he said.

“Sure.”

“Liv?”

Halfway out, she stopped and looked back at him.

“It is what it is, okay?”

She nodded and he pulled away, but she wasn't sure what
it
he meant.

•   •   •

S
he wrestled with sleep for far too long before her body—and brain—finally surrendered. Her dreams—nightmares—were vivid and horrible. Visions of her father falling off the side of a large ship, slipping under black waves, and somehow still breathing when she looked over the railing to see him staring up at her, his mouth moving like a fish's, eyes huge and unblinking. Another dream of him wandering around an empty house as an old man, just as Aaron Burr had done at the end of his life, destitute and alone.

When she heard the pounding, she searched for her clock and frowned at the time—two forty-three?
Sam
. Relief washed
over her. Of course it was Sam. He'd felt badly for their fight and had come over to make up. She rushed from the bed to let him in, but when she swung open the door, it was Whit Crosby there instead, leaning against the jamb, his hair wilder than usual, his shirt untucked, one sleeve shoved up past his elbow, the other undone. He smelled of smoke and sweet liquor.

“Not exactly the tooth fairy, huh?”

Liv squinted against the harsh hall fluorescents. “What happened to you? You look terrible.”

“Gee, tell me how you really feel.” He raked both hands through his hair, trying to guide the thick waves into some kind of order.

As he did, Liv made out a streak of scarlet just below his lip. “Oh my God—is that blood?”

He touched his mouth and marveled at the stain on his fingertips. “Definitely not ketchup.”

She pulled him inside and closed the door behind him, snatching a bath towel from her dresser and shoving it against his split lip.

“Ouch. Easy, Red.”

“Serves you right,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

“Shh—don't want to wake Sammy.”

“He's not here.” She turned on her desk lamp and pointed him to her bed. “Keep pressing that towel to stop the bleeding. I have aspirin somewhere. What you really need is ice.”

“Why? Do you have bourbon?”

She rushed to the other side of the room and dropped down to the floor to dig through her toiletry bucket until she found her pill jar. Walking back, she felt her breasts swing loose
under her T-shirt. If Whit noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra, he was enough of a gentleman not to stare.

“What happened to you tonight?” she asked, snatching a bottle of seltzer off her desk. “We went to the restaurant. Greta waited for you for over an hour.”

“It was just supposed to be a few hands, a half hour tops,” Whit said, watching her shake out three aspirins with drowsy eyes. He chased the pills with a swig of seltzer, grimacing as he swallowed.

“We thought you'd been in an accident. Well—” Liv frowned. “
I
thought that. Sam and Greta were sure you were getting shit-faced at a bar somewhere. Don't I feel like an idiot?”

“I don't know what happened. Hold'em's usually my game.”

“What the heck is Hold'em?”

“Poker. Cards, Red.”

“You stood us up for a poker game?”

“How the hell else was I going to buy dinner at Zephyr's?”

She stared at him, understanding washing over her. “Are you saying that's how you make money? Playing poker? Is that how you've been paying for
school
?”

“Of course not. I pay for school with high-interest student loans. Poker's how I pay for everything else.”

He chuckled at his own joke, but Liv didn't feel like laughing. All these months she'd thought he was privileged, loaded.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asked.

“If you want to start from the beginning . . .” Whit's eyes turned wistful. “My dad taught me to count cards when I was seven, then how to box when I was eight—in case they ever caught me counting. Eight years old and I'm walking around
school with this fat eye, looking like a puffer fish. You think I look bad tonight—you should have seen me then.” He sighed. “I really wanted to show everyone a good time tonight, Red. That's all I wanted.”

“The house in Hatteras?” she asked carefully.

“I don't know the owners—I know the girl who cleans it. I worked on a fishing boat in Frisco last summer and this guy was getting rough with her on the dock so I laid him out and took her home. She said anytime I wanted to stay on the beach in the off-season to let her know and she'd hook me up.” Whit dragged his gaze around the room. “So where
is
Sammy?”

“He stayed at his place.” She was eager to steer them back to his story. “Are you telling me your mom never said anything when you'd show up with a black eye?”

He tested his split lip with the tip of his tongue and winced. “My mom took off when I was five. My dad and I moved in with my uncle and his girlfriend.”

“Didn't
they
ever say anything?”

“It wasn't always him, Red. I used to pick fights at school all the time. Pick fights and kiss girls. And when I couldn't, I made up stories, because I couldn't show up empty-handed. I'd come home and my dad would be there in the kitchen with a beer, wanting to know what kind of man I'd been that day. Some kids' parents want to know what they got on their math tests, their history papers—not mine.”

Liv looked down, embarrassed at how wrong she'd been about him. She'd thought he was so untouchable, so lucky. Meanwhile, he was just as much a fraud as she'd been. She knew she should have been hurt, even angry, but all she felt
was the strangest, surest thread of connection to him. The urge to relieve him of all his secrets overcame her. Just the two of them in the warm hush of her tiny room. It was dreamlike, and she believed for one splendid second that he was being more real with her than he'd ever been with anyone else in his life, and the possibility thrilled her in a wholly unexpected way. She wanted to be that real too. That free. Both of them with fathers who demanded too much—they had so much more in common than she'd ever imagined.

“It's hard when you can't be yourself for someone,” she said. “When you always worry that you're letting someone down, and all you want to do is break away. Believe me, I know.”

Whit squinted at her. “What do you know, Red? You're beautiful and smart and you tell it like it is.”

“Not always,” she admitted quietly, feeling the warmth of his compliment at the back of her neck.

“You
do
have lousy taste in men, but other than that . . .” He grinned at her. “You seem pretty damn perfect to me.”

She smiled. “Then your definition of
perfect
must be very strange. Trust me, if you ever met my father, you'd understand.”

“I'd like to meet him.”

“Don't be so sure,” she said.

“I'm sure about everything I want, Red. Everything, and everyone.”

His voice deepened on the last word. She met his eyes, thinking he looked suddenly sober, and almost as if he wanted to, just maybe,
kiss her
 . . .

Out in the hall, a door slammed, breaking their connection.

Whit swung his eyes to the chart on the wall and grinned. “It looks good there.”