“Get into my boat,” he snapped. “Yours’ll tow faster light. Come on, lady, just move it, will you? I’m in no mood to risk my neck just to save yours!”

And despite his surliness, Lucy was in no mood to argue. As stiff as she was from rowing and shivering, one glance at the stern, dripping wet face looming over her was enough to force her reluctant muscles to cooperate.

Stone didn’t waste time. While she huddled on the center thwart, hugging her wet, goose-bumpy knees with equally wet, goose-bumpy arms, he piloted them toward shore. The worst of the storm had already passed overhead and was headed for the northern villages on Hatteras Island.

The rain continued to fall.

And Lucy continued to shiver.

Neither of them spoke. Even if he’d been inclined to yell over all the noise, Stone didn’t think she wanted to hear anything he might have to say at the moment.

Besides, he had come to the island for a purpose. Driving her away wasn’t going to do the job. If she left, he’d feel obligated to follow her, and he wasn’t ready to quit this place yet.

With swift efficiency, he secured both boats and then reached out to help her up onto the pier. Lucy couldn’t repress a gasp when his hard, salty palm grasped hers.

He narrowed those icy gray eyes at her. “You got a problem?”

Lucy shook her head. She had a problem—she had a lot of problems, but she didn’t think he really wanted to hear them. “No, b-b-but thanks for rescuing me. I th-think I must have fl-flooded the c-c-carburator.”

Stone’s wide, mobile mouth turned down at the corners. He didn’t want her thanks. He didn’t want anything to do with her. He sure as hell didn’t want to start feeling sorry for her just because she was wet and cold and maybe a little bit scared—if she had sense enough to be scared. If she had sense enough even to know what might have happened to her out there.

At the moment she looked more like a big-eyed, waterlogged, oversize waif than a man-eating witch with a cash register for a heart. In spite of what he knew about her, Stone felt a growing urge to gather her into his arms and hold her there until her teeth stopped chattering.

He told himself that the concussion he’d suffered back in March must have shaken loose a few too many gray cells. “Better get out of those wet things,” he muttered. “Go have a hot soak and a stiff drink—make you feel better.”

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