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tighten his muscles. Greta was halfway down the block already, and he had to catch up with her.
    Wrestling his phone from the back pocket of his borrowed jeans, Miles swiped open the lock and scrolled through his recent contacts for the number he wanted.
    He had plans to make.

Chapter 5
    Anger fizzed and bubbled through Greta’s veins like anesthesia, numbing her to every other emotion.
    Except, of course, embarrassment.
    You’d think she’d be used to the way her mother wanted to cocoon her in endless layers of bubble wrap, but somehow, it had felt different to be told how helpless and fragile she was in front of Miles Harrington.
    But since she couldn’t bring herself to get mad at her mother, Miles was the one who got the brunt of Greta’s embarrassed rage when his long, loping strides caught up to her at the corner of Main Street and Island Road.
    “I don’t appreciate you ganging up on me with my mother,” she snapped out, whirling to face him. “And I certainly don’t need you to take care of me.”
    “Of course you don’t,” he agreed.
    But Greta was on a roll. “And if you think I’m too delicate or weak to help get that swing rehung—”
    “Here,” Miles interrupted, grabbing her flailing hand and dropping a couple of heavy metal hooks into her palm. “Peace offering to prove I don’t think you’re weak. Please don’t take a shot at me with those in your fist. I like my nose the way it is.”
    Closing her fingers over the cold metal, Greta deflated. “Sorry. God, my mother knows me too well. I am taking it out on you. I apologize, and I promise your nose is safe.”
    Of course that led to Greta thinking about the other things her mother might be right about, and the surge of frustration at her body’s limitations was almost comforting.
    She’d been dealing with it ever since she could remember, in one form or another. And no matter how strong she felt or how she pushed herself to gain the strength others took for granted, Greta could always count on her mother to slap her in the face with reality.
    She glanced up to see Miles studying her expression, head cocked inquisitively to one side like a panther trying to understand the nonsensical flailing of its prey. “There’s no ticking clock on that repair back at the house,” he said slowly. “Let’s take our time, see a little more of the island.”
    Sighing, Greta said, “You mean my prison? Sure, great.”
    “Prison.” Miles frowned. With the light growth of beard after one day without shaving shadowing his hard-edged jaw, he looked piratical. Dangerous, like Penny said.
    Greta shook her head, ignoring the tingle of desire. “Forget about it. My mother turns me into a crazy person. So!” She gestured expansively at the wide, flat swath of green grass dotted with flowering tulip poplars and dogwoods.
    While they were in Hackley’s Hardware, the sky had clouded over with dark, forbidding gray. The humidity, always intense in the summer, had thickened until every breath felt like a gulp of tepid water.
    “This is the town square. That’s the pavilion. All the core businesses on the island have storefronts along Main Street on this side, and all the big, old houses are along Island Road on that side of the park.”
    “Interesting,” Miles said, never taking his eyes off her face.
    Greta fought the urge to squirm under the laser intensity of his scrutiny. “The high school marching band plays concerts on the steps of the pavilion sometimes,” she said breathlessly.
    Grabbing her hand, Miles turned and pulled her into the park. “Great. Let’s see this pavilion up close.”
    The heat of his rough fingers on hers sent chills up her arms, even in the moist thickness of the still noonday air. “It’s nothing special,” Greta tried to tell him, almost tripping over her own booted feet in her hurry to keep up with his ground-eating strides.
    “I’ll be the judge of that.”
    The pavilion squatted in the center of the town square,