But his eyes narrowed on her, his hard gaze lingering on her face until she had to turn away. “You’re on edge, Antonia.” His tone was soft, but there was no mistaking his intensity. “Why?”

“A Category 3 hurricane bearing down on me, maybe?”

“That’s not it,” he said with certainty.

She stepped past him, her arm brushing against his arm, adding to her sense of agitation. How could she think? A stalker, a hurricane, Hank Callahan. She glanced back at him as she headed up the steps to the back door, a warm gust of wind rolling over the top of the small cottage. “What would you do if I change my mind and refuse to leave in the morning, even if a watch goes up?”

He mounted the step behind her and smiled. “Do likewise.”

“You mean you’d stay?”

He grinned at her, with no warning. “Gives you a little shiver of excitement, doesn’t it? You, me, a storm, a one-room cottage—”

“Don’t you have staff and security people who’d worry?”

“So? You have people who worry. It hasn’t stopped you.”

“I’m not going to win this argument, am I? Luckily I don’t have to.” She returned his grin and faked a half-swoon. “I’m willing to be rescued.”

CHAPTER 5

Robert set up camp behind the tallest dune on the Nantucket Sound side of Shelter Island. He felt intrepid. He dropped his pack in the sand and tufts of grass—he didn’t know his beach vegetation—and crouched down, pulling up his pants leg.

“Shit!”

Ticks. A million of them on his legs and ankles.

The bitch doctor’s fault.

He was maybe fifty yards from her cottage, but she had no idea he was there. He was sure of it. He’d arrived about an hour before Superman Hank showed up on the island. Pissed Robert off, totally. He’d known Callahan would find her but thought, given his good fortune with Babs, that he’d get a better jump on him. Maybe work it out so the wannabe senator could find his new girlfriend dead.

Breathing hard, Robert used his fingernails to pick tiny deer ticks off his lower legs. He didn’t have tweezers. Dr. Bitch probably had a medical kit in the cottage with her, but she wouldn’t help him. She was such a phony.

One of the ticks had a good hold on him. He drew blood digging it out.