He looked like he was considering smiling but thought better of it. At least she could imagine he wanted to smile, even if he was still wearing that morose expression. What did this guy do for fun anyway?

“You should’ve worn a life vest.”

“I know,” she said. “But I wasn’t going out far. I was in what is usually calm water, the same area where people swim.”

“The ocean is pretty vicious when it wants to be,” he said.

She stared at her folded hands in her lap. “You know when I was out there, certain I was about to drown, I thought about you.”

She didn’t dare look at him. He didn’t say a word.

“I thought about your dad.”

“Louisa, we should talk about this fundraiser.”

She took his point. Don’t talk to me about my dad.

“Right. Of course.” She cleared her throat. “I think you’re going to love what we’ve come up with.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I LOVE IT,” DUNCAN DECLARED.

Duncan had told Cody this fundraiser project was his, but as soon as he saw Louisa sitting in the office, he pulled up a chair and listened to her pitch.

“Yeah?” Louisa beamed at the compliment.

Man, she was pretty. No wonder Cody had taken it so hard when she broke his heart. Losing her was like losing something precious—and he knew it, even when he was eighteen, even before that, if he was honest.

“It’s brilliant. Make it happen.” Duncan’s smile was wider than necessary in Cody’s opinion. Did he have a thing for Louisa?

The master chief was five years older, divorced, and he supposed, a good prospect for a single woman. But not Louisa. Not his Louisa.

“Good work, Miss Chambers.” Duncan stood. “I knew we were right to come to you.”

And now she was blushing. Did she have a thing for Duncan? Why did he feel like he should give them privacy?

Get it together, Boggs.

He cleared his throat. “We’re really doing this?”

Louisa’s smile faded. Somehow he’d become the wet blanket in the room.

“Go over the logistics and come up with a plan,” Duncan said. “This is gonna be good.” He took out his phone and typed something as he walked out—a tweet, no doubt. One of McGreery’s other brilliant plans had been to start a Twitter account for their station.

Never mind that it was working. People were paying attention to the videos and tweets, and his master chief was increasing their visibility on the island. It was one of his strengths. It was not one of Cody’s.

“So how do we do this?” Cody asked.

Louisa shuffled some papers around, and a white envelope fell from the folder in her hand. It slipped across the desk, and he saw his mom’s name written in a frilly script. Louisa quickly stuffed it back inside the folder.