All right, it did. A little. “And then what? Sail home with Ollie?”

He actually winced, which would have made her chuckle if not for the headache. “I’m sure there will be someone else coming this way.”

“You can come with me.” Something about Oliver’s tone—even, firm, steady—drew her gaze back to him. He wasn’t flushed with anger as he usually was when going toe-to-toe with Casek. His eyes weren’t glinting. He was just standing there, calm as could be, holding Libby’s hand as he’d been doing just about every time they were in the same room together.

Looking perfectly aware that only storms waited in that direction. But then, storms thundered over his house too. Storms loomed wherever Beth was. Storms were all he had just now.

Apparently Casek Wearne and his thundering just didn’t rate.

She turned back to him, not sure he’d see the same. Or, frankly, that he could be trusted to respect it. But Casek was regarding Oliver solemnly. And after another moment, he nodded. “It’ll do.”

Well. Mabena exchanged a gaze with Libby—surprised, impressed—before Libby apparently remembered that her complaints against Mabena still stood unresolved and looked away.

She sighed. The lady had been the soul of concern throughout the day and a half since the attack, tending her with care and consideration when she wasn’t doing the same for Mrs. Tremayne. But she never quite met her eye.

They’d have to settle things. Soon. For now though, she’d focus on some other settling. She let a hint of a smile touch her lips as she turned to Casek again. “Well then. Let’s be off.”

He hiked a brow even as he held out a hand toward where her boat was still anchored. “You’re not going to argue? Insist you’ll go with them?”

She tossed a smirk at where Oliver was leading Libby toward the Tremayne boat. “I don’t think they need my company just now.”

He grunted. “That’s going to end badly. Not that I much care, but I’d have thought you would, enough to warn them against it.”

“Oh, I did. But . . .” She shrugged. “I suppose I’m utterly failing at my chaperoning duties. Her mother will be appalled and no doubt sack me for it. And you know, I don’t care a bit. Let them steal an ounce of joy for a summer. They deserve it, both of them.”

She expected him to argue about the deserving bit. Instead, he latched on to the earlier statement. “Let her sack you. You don’t need to go back to the mainland. Just stay here, with us.”

Us, was it? He meant her parents, she supposed, and her siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors. Her lips twitched. “I may, at that.”