"You can give me a ride."

Riley glanced over her shoulder at him, said calmly, "You've your nerve, you know that?"

He grinned.

"I've done a few scarier things than get in the car. Not many, but a few."

She wasn't embarrassed or intimidated, and she wasn't about to back down. But she wasn't mad, either. Her eyes sparked, and she licked her lips. He knew she was imagining what they could be doing together in the back seat. She'd never admit it, but for once they were on the same wavelength.

"Oh, shit," Sig mumbled, sinking low in her seat.

"Sig? Riley?" Matt Granger was crossing the street to the small parking lot. He swore to himself.

"Son of a bitch."

Sig glanced into the back seat. She was very pale.

"Straker--quick, toss me that blanket."

He grabbed a fleece throw off the floor and shoved it over the top of the seat. She took it gratefully, unfurled it and buried herself under it as best she could.

"What do you want me to do?" Riley asked her.

"Get us out of here."

He could hear Riley fumbling for her keys. These two were as different as night and day, Straker thought, but they'd go to the ends of the earth for each other. If Sig didn't want her husband to know she was pregnant, Riley would back her up.

It was a damned conspiracy, but Matt Granger was helpless in the face of it. He stormed around to Sig's window, which was partway down.

Taking no pains to be subtle, she reached up and locked her door. In Granger's position, Straker didn't know what he'd do. Push the car into a ditch, for starters. Keep these two put for ten minutes, anyway.

If Granger had ever possessed the same manners and cool bearing as his older sister, they were long gone. He looked ready to rip the window out and smash it onto the parking lot.

"Goddamn you two-what the hell do you think you're doing?"

That had been Straker's line last night. Hadn't done him much good.

Sig smiled, snottily cool, in control.

"Well, seeing how you asked so nicely, and so clearly have our best interests at heart, I'll tell you. We're just coming from dinner. We both had the fishermen's platter. I had apple pie for dessert, Riley abstained." She paused a beat.

"Anything else?"

Every muscle and nerve ending in Granger's body went nuts. Straker could see it happen. He understood. These women would drive any man over the edge. A day by himself on an island hadn't exorcised Riley from his mind, not to mention his body.

"Go back to Camden," Granger said through clenched teeth.

"Paint."

Sig yawned.

"I don't take orders very well. That's one reason I'm a painter." She snuggled down into her fleece throw.

"You go home. Matt.

You have no reason at all to be here. My grandfather's family goes back generations in this area. I spent summers here as a child. "

Granger hissed through his teeth.

"Sig, goddamn it" -- "Riley came up for the weekend," she continued, not giving him one millimeter. "We decided to spend some time together."

This was bullshit, of course, and Granger knew it. He leaned as far into the car as he could manage without tearing off the door.

"You two are trying to find Emile. You're in over your heads. He's dangerous and possibly insane. If anything happens to you, it's not going to be on my conscience."

"Riley, start the car." Sig breathed in deeply, taking charge.

"If my husband doesn't move back, run over his feet."

Granger pounded the roof of the car.

"Goddamn it, Sig, you won't listen!"

"I'd listen if you talked." She was furious now, biting out her words.

"But you don't. You just want everything your way. You're so damned eaten up with your self-righteous anger..." She flopped back against her seat.

"Riley, let's go."

Riley turned the ignition.

She wasn't fast enough for her sister.

"Now."

"I'm going, I'm going...."

Granger kicked the door. He was speechless with rage, fear, a tangle of emotions. Straker felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"Riley!" Sig urged. An angle of streetlight caught her face, the high cheekbones, the long, straight nose.

Straker understood her urgency. He had seen the same green look on her little sister just a few days ago. Sig had her teeth clenched, her fingers tight on the throw.

"Step on the damned gas."

Straker leaned forward, one hand on the seat behind Riley's head.

"Go," he told her.

"Granger'll move back."

"Straker? What the fuck" -Matt started to say.

But Riley said, "Stand back. Matt," and hit the gas.

Sig lasted a mile. When Riley hit a bump in the road, Straker told her to pull over. Her sister almost fell out of the car. He jumped out after her and held on to her while she emptied her stomach on the side of the road, sobbing, swearing, screaming in frustration and agony.

Riley paced behind them with a water bottle and the fleece throw. When Sig finished, mumbling apologies, crying, he and Riley dabbed her face with water, wrapped her in the blanket and helped her lie down in the back seat. Her teeth chattered. She clung to the blanket, sobbing for her husband.

"Maybe I should go find Matt and tell him everything," Riley said.

"I don't know how much more of this she can stand. He loves her. I'm sure of it. "

Straker remembered the word from the lobster boats. Matt Granger was in deep, probably over his head, too. On some level, Sig knew, feared it, and that was why she was here.

"Maybe you just shouldn't meddle."

Riley didn't take offense. She sighed, the strain catching up with her.

"You're right. For a minute back there, I thought she'd hit the gas pedal or grab the wheel and run him over.

Straker, they were so happy. Until last year"-- " Come on. " He touched her shoulder.

"We need to get her back to Emile's."

"Should she see a doctor?"

Sig groaned in the dark.

"I'm okay, goddamn it. It was the scallops. I never should have eaten the frigging scallops."

It was another three minutes back to Emile's. The air was cool and crisp, the water dark. A stiff breeze gusted, making the spruce trees creak and sway. Sig tried to walk, but she was shivering, wobbly, and finally Straker just scooped her up. Of course she swore. She was an ungrateful St. Joe. But she clung to him, too, and when he laid her in one of the twin beds upstairs, she squeezed his hand.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.

"We can get you to a doctor."

"I'm fine." She managed a weak smile.

"I threw up like that a lot in the first few weeks."

Pregnant and alone. If Granger knew, what would he do? That was what Sig couldn't face. Straker knew she was afraid if Matt found out she was pregnant, he still wouldn't end his vendetta against her grandfather. She couldn't count on him. His father's death had shattered the trust between them.

Riley covered her sister with old quilts, tucked them carefully around her.

"Can I get you anything? A cup of tea ... water..." But Sig was almost asleep, and Riley straightened, her hair sticking out, dark circles under her eyes.

"I guess we should let her sleep."

Straker built a fire in Emile's woodstove while Riley paced. He could see that sharp mind of hers working. She had her arms crossed on her breasts and looked worried, frustrated, boiling over with unchanneled energy.

Finally, she stopped. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes almost black.

She took a breath.

"Thank you."

Straker stood in front of the woodstove, the fire crackling, hot against his back. She was softening, but he wasn't. He couldn't.

This was his opening, and he had to seize it.

"I don't want your thanks. I want you and Sig to pack up in the morning and get the hell out of here. Go back to your mother's, go back to Boston. You two must have friends who'd take you in for a few days."

To his surprise, she nodded.

"I was just thinking the same thing.

Sig. " She blinked rapidly, holding back tears.

"What does Matt think he's doing? Doesn't he know she's--can't he tell?"

"He knows something's wrong, but he thinks it's him. The man's caught up in his own hell right now. He can't see your sister is, too."

"That's no excuse."

"From your point of view, no, it's not."

She sighed, looking exhausted.

"I'm in no mood to be reasonable."

He smiled.

"That's a mood I know well."

With another sigh, she ran a hand through her hair, muttered about needing air and suddenly shot outside. Straker could hear her race down the steps, and by the time he'd put another log on the fire and followed her out, she was charging toward the water.

The wind had picked up, howling in steady gusts. He walked at a deliberate pace, debating whether it would be best to climb into his boat and head on back to the island. Riley stormed off to the end of the dock, her arms crossed against the cold, her jaw set.

"You want to be alone?" he asked, coming up behind her.

She turned slightly.

"I want..." She stopped, swallowed, caught her breath. "I want this all to go away. I want to toast marshmallows on the fire, I want Sig's babies to have a chance at a happy life, I want Emile..." She couldn't go on. She shifted back toward the water, dark and churning in the wind.

Straker said nothing. He knew what it was to have the world close in on him. His answer had been La- breque Island, six months of solitude, of a simple, if hard, life. If he didn't do it, it didn't get done.

If he was socked in with fog for days on end, there was no running down to the store for milk and videos. There had been days--weeks--when he'd thought he wouldn't come out of his exile sane or whole, able ever again to connect with another human being.