He narrowed his eyes. “The phone, Red.”

“Right. I left my purse in your car.” She brushed past him and bent inside the car, feeling around on the floor where she’d tossed it earlier.

She felt him watching her, and wondered if her blanket was covering her bare butt or not. “Got it,” she said, and pushed herself to her knees in his driver’s seat, rifling through her bag, her hair in her face. “Here.”

“Scoot over.” He added his hands to the command, giving her a little push so that he could climb in after her. He shut the door, creating a tight intimacy she didn’t know how to face after all they’d said to each other. The air felt charged, and not just sexually, but emotionally.

While he looked at her text message, she looked at him. He’d been tense before their little tryst on the floor, but then afterward had become more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.

Now he was tense again. She knew he was shocked that this had happened, and frightened for her safety. Bundled in with that was anger and frustration that he couldn’t fix it for her right here right now, all complicated by what they were, or weren’t, to each other.

Finally, he lifted his head and looked at her. “Is this your first call from this number?”

“Yes.”

“Your first threat?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a threat—Yes,” she said at the irritation in his face. “It’s my first prank.”

He nodded, pulled out his own cell. “Kenny,” he said into it. “We need to meet—Yeah, I know what time it is. Bring caffeine.” He clicked off and looked at Summer across the console, his eyes dark and unreadable.

Distant.

She’d done that. “Joe—”

“I want you to come home with me.” He glanced at the house behind them. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

She took in the small cottage, lit in the night like a beacon, with darkness all around. The other cottages either weren’t filled at the moment, or their occupants long asleep.

“I’m going to go into work after I drop you off,” he said. “But I’d like it if you stayed on the boat until daylight, and then kept me informed of your day as you go.”

“I’m sure I’m not in any real danger—” At the unbroachable look in his eyes, she broke off. He wasn’t going to bend on this. “Okay. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

He let out a long breath. “Nothing about any of this is fair, I know.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, surprised into opening them again when he touched her jaw. She turned her cheek into his palm and closed her eyes, unbearably reassured by just the feel of his callused fingers on her.