“Huh?”

“Please, don’t be angry with him. I’m sure he was just joking with you. He didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

Phillip just stared at her. She’d actually gone pale, and her hand was nervously twisting the thin gold chain she wore around her neck. There was active and acute distress in her voice. “Sybill, I’m not mad at him. We were just fooling around. Relax.” Baffled, he rubbed his knuckles lightly over her jaw. “Razzing each other is just our clever male way of showing affection.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t certain whether to be embarrassed or relieved. “I guess that shows I didn’t have any brothers.”

“It would have been their job to make your life a living hell.” He leaned down, touched her lips lightly with his. “It’s traditional.”

He stepped onto the boat, held out a hand. After the briefest of hesitations, she let him take hers.

“Welcome aboard.”

The deck rocked under her feet. She did her best to ignore it. “Thank you. Do I have an assignment?”

“For now, sit, relax, and enjoy.”

“I should be able to manage that.”

At least she hoped so. She sat on one of the padded benches, gripping it tightly as he stepped out again to release the lines. It would be fine, she assured herself. It would be fun.

Hadn’t she watched him sail into port, or dock, or whatever you would call it? He’d seemed very competent. Even a bit cocky, she decided, the way he’d scanned the hotel until he saw her standing out on her balcony.

There had been something foolishly romantic about that, she thought now. The way he had sailed across the sun-splashed water, searching for her, finding her. Then the quick smile and wave. If her pulse had bumped a little, it was an understandable and human response.

He made such a picture, after all. The faded jeans, the crisp T-shirt tucked into them as blindingly white as the sails, that gilded hair, and the warmly tanned, sleekly muscled arms. What woman wouldn’t feel a bump at the prospect of spending a few hours alone with a man who looked like Phillip Quinn?

And kissed like Phillip Quinn.

Though she had promised herself she wouldn’t dwell on that particular talent of his. He’d shown her just a little too much of that skill the night before.

Now with the sails lowered, he motored gently away from the dock. She found some security in the low rumble of the engine. Not that different from a car, really, she supposed. This vehicle just happened to drive over water.

Nor were they really alone. Her hands relaxed their death grip on the bench as she watched other boats skim and glide. She saw a boy who was surely no older than Seth, tucked into a tiny boat with a triangular red sail. If it was an activity considered safe for children, surely she could handle it.

“Hoisting sails.”

She turned her head, smiled absently at Phillip. “What did you say?”