But she wasn’t taking any chances. Taking her knife with her, she darted out the back door, making no noise as she tiptoed quickly down the rickety steps, thinking only that she needed to get to a place where she could see but not be seen.

She ducked behind a sprawling beach rosebush that grew close to the back steps and, mindful of its thorns, crouched down. She held her knife as if it was a surgical instrument, not something she might use to defend herself against attack.

The whistling had stopped.

Maybe it was Gus. If Carine had even hinted about Cape Cod and a hurricane, Antonia obviously unnerved, their uncle would get in his truck and head south, without stopping to consider that she was thirty-five, an experienced physician capable of making her own decisions.

And who’s hiding behind a rosebush with a carving knife?

She groaned to herself. Sometimes Gus did have a point.

It wasn’t Carine, that was for sure. Carine couldn’t whistle worth a damn.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the front porch on the other side of the cottage. “Antonia? It’s me, Hank. Hank Callahan.”

As if there were other Hanks in her life. She almost collapsed to her knees in relief. How had he found her? Carine? It had to be, but not voluntarily—Hank must have tripped her up. Charmed her. Used Ty North to throw her off balance. He and Hank were unyielding when they thought they were in the right and someone was trying to thwart them, keep them from getting done what they meant to get done.

What did Hank mean to do?

Belatedly, Antonia realized that her own behavior must have aroused his suspicions. She supposed she hadn’t done a good job of concealing how upset she was at dinner, and then she’d taken off without telling him where she was going. Even if he hadn’t seen her agitation, Hank would wonder what was going on with her. She’d hoped he’d be too busy to act on it. Then there was Carine—she’d recognized Antonia’s jumpiness for what it was and had asked what was wrong. Antonia hadn’t told her, which probably only fueled her sister’s concern.

And now, for whatever reason, Hank had tracked her down.

He wouldn’t regard crouching behind a rosebush with a knife as the ordinary precaution of a woman alone on an island. Innocent. Unsuspicious. If he wasn’t already on alert, finding her right now would do it.

She stabbed the knife into the sand and stood up, easing out from behind the bush. Her sleeve caught on a thorny sprig. As she freed herself, she pricked her index finger, drawing blood.

“I’m out back,” she called, thinking she sounded reasonably composed. “How on earth did you find me?”