“You should try to look less mean when you talk,” she said pointedly.

He might’ve actually snarled then, and the words You’re on thin ice popped into her head—a sort of warning, she supposed, though she didn’t make a habit of listening to the commonsensical parts of herself.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and tried to push her hand through her hair but found the tangles problematic.

“You gonna answer me?”

“Oh, that wasn’t a rhetorical question?”

“Louisa.”

“I’ll make sure to rest,” she said, doing nothing to hide her exasperation.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because I’m lying?” She stood on unsteady legs, trying to ground herself, but her head was light and the room spun. She might’ve taken a step—she wasn’t sure—and yep, she was going down.

In a flash, Cody’s arms were around her, and though she was barely conscious, she was coherent enough to notice he smelled really, really good, but not coherent enough to keep that thought to herself.

Next thing she knew, she was back on the bed and the room went dark.

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE FISHER DIDN’T HAVE ANY KIDS OF HER OWN, but she’d become a sort of wacky aunt to both Louisa and Cody when they were kids, and these days Louisa was much closer to Maggie than to any of her actual family members.

Even if her parents had been in Nantucket year-round, Louisa wondered if Maggie would still feel like the only family she had. Things hadn’t been right in the Chambers house for a very long time. The best thing Louisa had done for her parents was to move away. Never mind they’d replaced her with a dog.

None of that mattered, though. What mattered was that the local news had caught the story of her little mishap on the ocean, and while her parents might not learn about it from the news, Maggie definitely would. In fact, she was a little surprised Maggie hadn’t shown up at the hospital.

After her brief dizzy spell, Cody got bossy and told her to lie back down. She ignored him, of course, and might’ve told him he didn’t have any right to tell her what to do, thank you very much.

Did it matter that she sort of liked that he seemed to care? As if they had any chance of being friends again.

Now Louisa lay on her couch while Maggie fussed around the cottage, mumbling to herself. Louisa tried to ignore her, but Maggie seemed to emphasize certain words as she puttered.

Life jacket.

Weather radar.

Common sense.

She’d made her point.

Leaving the hospital, Louisa had had no intention of lying around the rest of the day, but as promised, the adolescent doctor had called Maggie and told her what happened. Another traitor.