“I love it out here.” But she didn’t belabor the point, because if he’d dragged her whereabouts out of Carine, she didn’t stand a chance herself if he decided to press her about what all she wasn’t telling him. “Did you come alone?”

“Yes, ma’am. All by myself.”

His comment struck Antonia as deliberately intimate, and she felt a rush of heat and awareness so fierce she had to turn away. “At least you didn’t come by helicopter. You’re not getting me up in one of those things.”

But he was good with both helicopters and boats—and she was good with neither. In many respects, she had more in common with Tyler North than she did with Hank Callahan. She and Tyler had grown up together in northern New Hampshire, and as a pararescueman, he was a highly skilled paramedic. But he was impossible. If Gus didn’t skewer him for what he’d done to Carine, Antonia thought, she might.

But if she wasn’t careful herself with the air force type she had in her own life, she’d end up like her younger sister, nursing a broken heart. Maybe there’d been something in the air that night in Carine’s cabin, and they’d both been gripped by forces beyond their control, doomed to fall in love with the wrong men.

Antonia gave herself a mental shake. She was getting way ahead of herself. She and Hank had been out to dinner together, the theater, a couple of movies, a pathetic baseball game—and they’d landed up in bed once, memorably, a few weeks ago.

But no one was tinkling wedding bells in the background. Hank had lost a family once. Antonia could see it wasn’t easy for him to get beyond just having a nice time with a woman, moving to something deeper.

Which was just as well, because “deeper” meant “more complicated,” and right now, Antonia thought, her life was complicated enough. Was that why she’d lied to him, withheld from him? To put him at arm’s length?

“I have a boat anchored on the other side of the island.” His tone was matter of fact, but he wasn’t relaxed. “It’s out of the worst of the wind. We can leave in the morning.”

The morning. It was, she thought, a very small cottage. One bed, a lumpy couch. Antonia pushed a flood of unbidden images to the back of her mind. “It’ll get into the papers,” she said. “Senate candidate Hank Callahan rescues doctor from island ahead of hurricane.”

“Hate being rescued, don’t you?”

“I hate having put myself in the position of needing to be rescued. I don’t mind that you’re here. It’s nice you came after me.”