Shock spread across his face. “I assumed—that should have been the first thing your mother did for you.”

“She didn’t, and I’m glad she didn’t.”

“Everyone should be able to swim.”

“Not me. I don’t need to because I’m never going in the water.” She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip and pulled her back toward him.

“I’m going to teach you.”

She closed her hands over his arms to steady herself, her fingers biting into the rock-hard muscle of his biceps. “I don’t want to learn.”

“I’ll teach you in the Ocean Club pool. There’s a shallow end.”

“I don’t care if you’re offering to teach me in your tub—I’m not interested in learning to swim. I am happy to hike and ride a mountain bike, but you will not persuade me to go on a boat of any sort, and you certainly won’t persuade me to swim.”

“Not even if I promise to keep you safe?”

She looked into those eyes and felt her center of balance shift. “A woman might be many things with you, Ryan Cooper. But I don’t think ‘safe’ is one of them.”

Chapter Nine

Nine

At Lizzy’s insistence, they called at Agnes’s every morning to walk Cocoa. Resigned to her new role as dog walker, Emily paid a trip to the Outdoor Store, equipped them both with hiking boots, rain slickers, insect repellent and a small rucksack, and each day they took the dog and explored a different part of the island. On the first day they followed the road out of the harbor and along the trail that wound its way through overgrown fields to the south of the island, accompanied by song sparrows and butterflies. The trail skirted the edge of the Warrens’ farm, sixty-five acres of mixed hardwood, pasture and hay fields. They stopped to admire the herd of dairy cows who provided the organic milk for the ice cream at Summer Scoop, and walked on through meadows crowded with Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod.

On another day they walked the coastal path around to the east of the island. Emily chose the route that went a little way inland, rather than the path that clung to the rocks and rose up over the bluff. Here, the mossy woods crowded the shoreline, sending dark shadows across rocky coves. Gulls bobbed in the water, and seals played hide-and-seek in the surf around the rocks. Cocoa strained at her leash, desperate to explore, but the one place Emily refused to walk was on the beach itself.