“You might be right,” he said. “But let me know if you ever want to try.”
Was he flirting with her? It was hard to tell. The words were mildly provocative, but they’d been said matter-of-factly and without any innuendo.
That was him, she realized. Matter-of-fact and without innuendo. What you saw was what you got. He wasn’t the type to sugarcoat. He would tell it like it was—or at least how he saw it—whether she liked it or not. She suspected there was quite a lot of my way or the highway with him. She couldn’t decide whether he was overbearing or old-fashioned. Probably a little of both.
Still, she might not agree with him—and she guessed she wouldn’t on many things—but there was something refreshing about his no-BS straightforwardness.
She supposed she wouldn’t lose her feminist card if she went along with it this one time.
When he made an “after you” gesture with his hand, she didn’t object and moved to the right enough for him to walk beside her.
She peered up at him from under her lashes, taking the opportunity to observe him. Strong “don’t mess with me” jaw, razor-sharp eyes that didn’t miss anything, squared “ready to take on the world” shoulders. Confident. Tough. Smart.
But defensive. There was a wall up around him that seemed to warn her not to get too close, and there was that grim shadow that she’d sensed earlier.
What was his story? There was something about him that didn’t quite fit, but she couldn’t figure out what. He didn’t seem the type to be involved in something illegal or disreputable as she’d first assumed. He was too solid and principled. But there was definitely something off about him; something that made her think he was trying to fly under the radar. The beard, the hat, the baggy clothes, the job with the not-quite-on-the-up-and-up charter company.
She probably should just let him walk her back and leave it at that, but curiosity got the better of her. It was a downfall. “How did a Canadian boat captain end up on the Isle of Lewis?”
She thought he might have stiffened slightly, but he answered the question so unhesitatingly that she realized she must have been mistaken. “I visited here once as a kid. I was looking for a change of pace when I saw the job opening posted on the Internet.” Seeing her expression, he quirked a smile. She wished he’d stop doing that. She liked it too much. “They do have the Internet here, you know.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure I’d call it that. The Wi-Fi at the guest house is painfullyslow, and my phone seems to work in about a two-block radius.” She frowned, wrinkling her nose at something in his voice. The tempo was slow and very deliberate. “Where are you from in Canada? I can’t quite make out the accent. It’s not French, and I haven’t heard one ‘eh’ yet.”
“Vancouver,” he said. “What about you?” He glancedmeaningfully at her sweatshirt. “From your lack of accent, I’m guessing not New Orleans.”
She was surprised that he knew where Tulane was. A lot of Americans didn’t even know that.
She shook her head. “I’ve been in school there for the past eight years, but I was raised in different parts of the South.” She guessed his next question. “I was born in Florida, which is why I don’t have an accent.”
“Eight years?”
She nodded. “I just finished my PhD.”
“Congratulations. I think I heard your boyfriend mention that. What field was it in?”
“Marine ecology.”
He nodded as if something suddenly made sense. “So that is how you became involved with the protest?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. It was Julien who told me about it.” She went on to explain how she had met Julien at a fund-raiser for the BP oil disaster a couple of months ago, and how they’d bonded over the devastation and wanting to make sure something like that never happened again. “But these are mainly his friends. I didn’t know many of them before I came.”
She didn’t know why she’d just made the disclaimer.
Or maybe she did. Maybe the situation with Jean Paul was bothering her more than she wanted to admit. So much so that she didn’t want Dan associating her with him.
And what about Julien? Was he bothering her, too?
She knew the answer.
She was tempted to say something more. Tempted to voice her concerns that her boyfriend had been acting strangely, and she was having second thoughts about their plans.
Why she thought she could confide in Dan, she didn’t know. But not since her father—in the old days—had she been around someone who gave off that “you can count on me” vibe.
Of course when it mattered, she hadn’t been able to count on her father at all.
But she sensed Dan would be a good sounding board. He had to wonder—probably even suspect—what they were planning to do, didn’t he?
They’d reached the guest house and stopped. She turned slightly and realized how close they were standing, from the blast of body heat that engulfed her. There wouldn’t be any cold winter nights with him. He smelled good. Not like the colognes that Julien wore, but fresh and bracing like the wind on the sea.
