“And when were you planning on sharing that with me?” he asked.

“I’m sharing it now,” she said. She pushed through the door into the frigid night air. “Besides, it’s complicated.”

“So I gathered,” he said. She didn’t have to look to know that Sully was frowning and probably rolling his eyes, too.

The wind coming off the water whipped down the pier and shoved the hat back on Lindsey’s head. She took it off and cradled it under her arm.

She scanned the surrounding area and the parking lot beyond. She didn’t even know if Jack had a car here. It was too dark to see very far. She glanced down the pier, which had security lights overhead all the way down to the end.

She could see the silhouettes of two people in the distance. She wondered if one of them was Jack, and then she saw the overhead light glint off the tip of the pith helmet Jack was wearing. She began to hurry toward the end of the pier and Sully fell into step beside her.

They crossed the weatherworn uneven planks. Lindsey wobbled in her low-heeled boots, and Sully steadied her with a hand on her elbow. From this distance she couldn’t make out much about Jack and his companion. She saw him step back and she saw the woman raise her arms. He then crossed his arms over his chest.

“It might be a wild guess here,” Sully said. “But it seems that they’re having a tiff.”

“No, not a wild guess,” Lindsey said. “Jack has a long line of angry women trailing after him. I don’t think he means to hurt them, and in fact, he’s told me that he tells them he isn’t the type to stick around, but he’s charming and they all think that it will be different with them, that they’re the one who makes him want to stay.”

“And he never does,” Sully surmised.

“His longest relationship was with a beautiful Swedish woman named Anita that he got snowed in with for four months when he was working for a company in Kiruna that wanted to know how to market its hotel made out of ice.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“I don’t think he was as snowed in as he led us to believe,” Lindsey said with a smile. “But yeah, she was the longest of all his relationships. He still speaks fondly of Sweden and her.”

Sully looked bemused, and Lindsey felt the need to clarify the situation on Jack’s behalf.

“He’s an economist,” she said. “He works for a company in Boston and is hired by businesses all over the world to come in and evaluate their current processes and develop a plan to sustainably grow their profit margins. He’s taken companies on the brink of disaster and gotten them back into the Forbes top one hundred.”

“So he’s smart,” Sully said.

“About business,” Lindsey said. “Relationships? Not so much.”

She glanced back at the couple. The woman was wearing a coat, but Lindsey could see her long dark hair streaming on the wind. Even from a distance, Lindsey could tell that she was beautiful. Jack specialized in beautiful women.

“I don’t want to embarrass them,” she said. She paused about fifty yards away, unsure of whether to continue or not.

She shivered, regretting that she’d left her coat in the café. Sully noticed and quickly put an arm around her, pulling her close. He didn’t have his jacket on either.

“Body heat will have to suffice,” he said. He didn’t sound bummed by this at all.

Lindsey gave him a dubious sideways glance at which he blinked innocently. Since her fingers were freezing into claws around the brim of the hat she still held, she gratefully accepted his warmth and didn’t argue the point.

She glanced back at her brother just in time to see the woman slap Jack. Her open palm connected with his face in a hit that cracked like a gunshot. Jack staggered and his pith helmet fell to the ground. All thought of the chill or Sully’s delightful warmth vanished and Lindsey was running down the pier as fast as she could.

It was that sibling bond again. She might take issue with Jack and his life choices, but she would not tolerate anyone else doing so, especially in front of her.

The low hum of an engine sounded, and Lindsey wondered at the noise. Still, she was focused on Jack and the woman, who looked angry enough to strike him again.

“Jack, what have you gotten yourself into now?” she muttered as she continued jogging, the cold air feeling like icicle spears in her lungs.

She pounded down the pier with Sully at her side. “What’s the plan?”

“Get him away from her,” she panted. “Any way we can.”

They were halfway there when the humming noise grew louder and Lindsey saw a speedboat approaching the dock at a breakneck pace.

“Isn’t that a no wake zone?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Sully said. He was frowning, and he poured on the speed to reach the couple.

Lindsey could hear the woman shrieking at Jack. She went to hit him again, and he held up his hands to ward off the blows.

“How dare you betray me?” the woman screeched. Using both hands, she shoved Jack off the pier.

“Ah!” Lindsey shrieked, and the woman turned to look at her. She was just as breathtaking as Lindsey had suspected. She noted that even Sully stumbled when he saw her.

The woman met Lindsey’s gaze, and with a malicious smile and a wave, she jumped after Jack. Lindsey sprinted the distance to the end of the pier with Sully right beside her. When they reached the end, the speedboat they’d heard coming in shot out from under the pier.

Jack was lying on the floor while the woman stood over him. Lindsey shouted Jack’s name, but there was no way he could hear her over the roar of the engine. Lindsey watched powerlessly as the boat smacked across the top of the water as it headed out into the bay.

She turned her stunned face to Sully. “I think my brother has just been kidnapped.”

“Not yet he hasn’t,” Sully said. He grabbed her hand and they raced over to his office. Sully owned and operated a water taxi and tour boat company that serviced the one hundred–plus Thumb Islands out in the bay.

“I’m on call for the taxi tonight,” he said. He took his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the glass door to his office. They hustled through the office and out the back door to the private dock that led to his boats below. The water taxi was bobbing in the water. Lindsey tossed her hat into it then bent down and began to unfasten one of the ropes holding it while Sully undid the other.

She jumped in and Sully pushed off the dock. The boat rocked and Lindsey grabbed the back of one of the seats to steady herself. Sully fired up the engine and shot away from the pier, going faster than she’d ever seen him drive amid the islands. In a matter of seconds, they were giving chase after the speedboat that had taken Jack away.

“Isn’t this dangerous?” she cried over the wind that clawed at her hair and clothes.

“More so for them than us,” Sully shouted. “I know where the rocks are!”

The speedboat was gaining speed and disappearing around Clover Island, named not for its shape but for the first family to live there. Sully cursed under his breath and yelled, “Hang on!”

He didn’t have to tell Lindsey twice. She clutched the back of the seat as he cut the wheel hard to the left. The boat lifted half out of the water with the sharpness of the turn, and Lindsey forced herself to lean against it in an effort to keep them from capsizing.

The spray from the water was icy cold and soaked them both all the way to their bones. Lindsey could feel her teeth chattering, but she couldn’t hear the clacking over the roar of the engine, the wind and the waves.

Sully leveled out the boat and gunned the engine. Lindsey realized he was trying to take a shortcut around Clover Island that would allow him to cut off the other boat. As they cleared the far end of the island, the speedboat was just coming around the other side.

The driver saw Sully and panicked. He sped up and turned away from them, narrowly avoiding colliding with a rocky outcropping. Shouts were heard from the speedboat, and wisely, the driver slowed down.

Sully followed them, trying desperately to catch up. The water taxi wasn’t built for speed, however, and only Sully’s cleverness had kept them in the game this long. He maneuvered around another smaller island, trying to close the distance between them. No luck.

Lindsey’s fingers were numb, but still she clung to the seat. She stared doggedly at the speedboat as if she could will its engine to stop or mentally eject her brother from the boat so that they could scoop him up out of the water.

The faster boat steered into a chain of smaller islands. Both boats slowed down, as they had to pick their way between the islands or risk running aground on one of the submerged boulders surrounding them.

“So stupid!” Sully muttered. “Nobody takes a boat through here. It’s suicide.”

Still, his familiarity with the islands gave him an edge, and Sully was able to almost overtake the faster craft. They were just ten yards away, and Lindsey could see Jack arguing with the woman, who was gesturing wildly. It was then that Lindsey noted two other men in the craft. They were both large, hulking figures. One drove the boat while the other carried what looked like a high-powered rifle, cradling it across his chest like a baby.

“Sully,” Lindsey said.

“Yeah, I see him,” he said.

Jack must have said something the woman didn’t like because all of a sudden the woman turned and yelled at the man with the rifle. In seconds he had the hilt at his shoulder and the muzzle pointed at Sully and Lindsey.

Jack shouted at the man and was ignored.

“Oh, shit!” Sully cursed. He cut the engine and snapped off the boat’s deck lights. Then he grabbed Lindsey by the shoulder and shoved her down on the cold wet floor. “If he pops the boat, we’re sunk. Not to mention what will happen if he hits one of us instead.”

“But—” Lindsey would have stood back up, but Sully wouldn’t let her. “No, stay down.”

She could hear Jack shouting over the idling engine of the speedboat. He sounded crazy mad and she was afraid he was going to get himself killed. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She shoved away from Sully, who anticipated the move and blocked her, pinning her to the floor with his body.

“Lindsey, you’ll get yourself killed,” he said.

“He’s my brother,” she argued. “You’d do the same for your sister Mary.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Lindsey could see Sully struggling with the truth of her words.

“All right,” he said finally, but he did not look happy about it. “Together but stay low.”

In one fluid motion they popped up on their knees and peeked over the water taxi’s dashboard to see what was happening.

In the speedboat’s floodlights, Lindsey could see the woman and Jack arguing. The driver looked nervous as the woman tried to take the rifle from the other man while she yelled. Apparently, this was too much for the driver because all of a sudden he sped up, obviously determined to keep the woman from getting the rifle and shooting them all.

The woman stumbled at the sudden motion. Jack went to pounce on her but the big man kicked him aside and trained the rifle on him, making it clear he would have no problem shooting him if he attacked. Jack raised his hands in surrender. They were moving faster and faster away.

Lindsey saw Jack glance her way and with his right hand he quickly formed the American Sign Language sign for I love you.

“Jack!” she cried. She jumped to her feet, feeling impotent rage flood her. She held up the sign in return, hoping he could see it in the darkness.

Jack had come up with the I love you sign when she had been terrified about starting middle school. A year ahead of her, he’d see her in the hall or in a class and send her the sign. It had always made her feel safe and protected. It was a habit they had kept up ever since. When Jack texted her pictures of himself from all over the globe, he always made the I love you sign.

“Jack!” She said his name again, but the wind carried it away. She lowered her arm, feeling her insides twist with the panicked thought that she would never see the sign from him again.

“Damn it!” Sully cried. He punched the dashboard. “He’s going too fast and heading straight for the rocks! I can’t pursue him or I could get them all killed.”

Sully flipped a switch on the dashboard and snatched a radio microphone out of its holder. He clicked the button on the side and his voice was amplified over the water.

“Alter your course, you are headed straight for rocks!” His voice boomed out over the water. The boat ahead slowed and Sully repeated his command.

Lindsey watched as the pilot flipped on a searchlight. Illuminated ahead of the speedboat was an enormous boulder. The pilot swiftly turned to the right, away from the treacherous area. Once he was clear, the boat picked up speed. Sully maneuvered his way through the rocks, while Lindsey watched as the speedboat with her brother aboard disappeared around another island.

The fact that Sully’s warning had worked and the driver hadn’t smashed into the rock was cold comfort. Lindsey didn’t think there was any way they could catch them now, but still, Sully pressed on.

“Who knows?” she asked. “Maybe their boat will break down and they’ll need us.”

“I just hope they don’t shoot us and take our boat,” he said.

Lindsey gave him an alarmed look and he frowned. He turned back to the controls, driving the boat faster as he rounded the island. They now had a straight shot out into Long Island Sound, and Sully pushed the water taxi to go as fast as it could.

Lindsey was scanning the water, looking for the speedboat even though she knew it had probably rocketed out of the area and the odds of catching it were slim to none. Frustration made her ball her hands into fists, which was a bad idea, as her frozen fingers exploded with painful prickles.

“We lost them, didn’t we?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Sully said. Clearly he was not ready to give up. His narrowed gaze searched the darkness.

A light in the distance flickered over the water. Sully headed for it.

“That’s not good,” he said.

“Why, what is it?” Lindsey asked.

Sully was still for a moment and then he cursed. He pushed the throttle hard and shouted, “Hang on!”

Lindsey grabbed the seatback just as he jerked the wheel in a hard turn. Out of the darkness, a boat the size of a whale, a really big whale, was coming right at them. Just before it neared them, its lights all came on and Lindsey felt her jaw drop. The boat was huge! And on the helm, with the captain, she saw the woman and her brother Jack. He was pressed up against the glass as if he could break through and save her.

Lindsey yelped and clenched her eyes tight. The impact she was waiting for never came. Sully managed to get them out of harm’s way and the yacht missed smashing into them by a salty sea air kiss. Its waves smashed against them, drenching them and leaving a large puddle in the bottom of their boat, but they were intact.

When Lindsey unclenched, all of the breath that had stalled in her lungs came out in a whoosh. Sully glanced over his shoulder at her as they continued speeding away from the yacht.

“You didn’t think I was going to let them harm my favorite boat, did you?” he asked.

Lindsey gave him a shaky smile.

As the yacht moved out into the big water, Sully slowed their significantly smaller craft down and Lindsey knew what he wasn’t saying. There was no way they could catch them now.