“Then we’ll go with Kathleen to Ruth’s. If she looks as if she wishes she’d made a different decision, we’ll drag her out of there and take her for a walk on the beach instead. Or we can take her home.”

“Home?”

“My place. I live up the coast from Santa Monica. I have a great view of the ocean from my deck.”

She had an unsettling vision of him sprawled on the deck wearing nothing but board shorts. Her imagination had always been her downfall and now it was presenting her with vivid images of Josh naked. She tried to switch it off and replace it with less provocative images of Josh hunched over a computer screen, looking serious. But that didn’t work because he didn’t hunch and although he often looked serious, when he smiled it was as if someone had switched on all the lights full beam.

“You live near the sea?” Her voice sounded strange and she cleared her throat. “I thought you hated water?” She wasn’t going to think about him emerging from the ocean, with droplets of water clinging to those broad shoulders.

“I like looking at it. Not experiencing it.”

“So if I was drowning, you wouldn’t save me?”

“I’d save you by alerting the lifeguard.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“You’re alive at the end of it, so it counts. The secret of success is the ability to delegate a task to the most qualified person. If I tried to save you, we’d both drown. Talking of which, you might be right about today. We shouldn’t have left her,” Josh said. “Let’s go back. Who wants to go rafting on the Colorado River, anyway?”

Why did he have to make her laugh? She was doomed. “We do.”

“You do. It always seemed like a bad idea to me. Still does. Particularly now I know I’m expected to save you. Turn the car around.”

Was he serious?

The sudden stab of sympathy pierced those unsettling images. “Is this very hard for you? Doing this without your brother?”

“Being without him is hard—it doesn’t matter much what I’m doing.”

She wanted to stop the car and give him a big hug, but instead she kept the conversation light. “In that case, we might as well go rafting. You can’t back out now. Not when I’ve spent my life savings on this experience for you. You’re welcome, Martha.”

“You’re persistent, Martha. You’re a pain in the neck, Martha.”