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didn’t stir. He showed a commendable lack of interest in most of Stranahan’s endeavors, including fishing and the occasional romance. Female visitors were greeted with a perfunctory sniff and then largely ignored. It was as if Strom knew they were destined to be short-timers, and thus saw no point in bonding.
    The dog’s opinion notwithstanding, Mick Stranahan didn’t consider himself an eccentric or a hermit, even though at age fifty-three he lived alone on an island at the edge of the Atlantic with no landline, satellite dish or personal computer. It was sadly true, however, that the women who came to stay rarely lasted more than a few months, until the unrelenting peace and tranquillity drove them over the edge. Stranahan was sorry to let them go but it was kinder than marrying them, which had been a habit when he’d lived on the mainland.
    Without knowing anything about Joey Perrone, Stranahan was impressed by her strength and composure. Many swimmers would have been either catatonic or yammering incoherently after a blind night at sea, but Joey was perfectly cogent and sharp. Stranahan was inclined to give her some downtime, as she had requested. He knew what it was like to survive a murder attempt, if that’s what really had happened to her.
    Part of him instinctively wanted to know more, to ask nosy questions and dig around like in the old days. A wiser inner voice told him to drop it—Mrs. Perrone and her marital crisis would be departing soon, and then the cops could sort out her story.
    After all, I’m retired, Stranahan reminded himself as he unhooked another fish.
    Retired.
    After all these years, it still sounded absurd.
    “What were you doing out there, anyway?” Joey asked.
    “Out where?”
    “The ocean. In that little boat of yours.”
    Stranahan dipped the fillets one by one in egg batter. “First of all, it wasn’t exactly the ocean,” he said. “It was only about a half mile off Elliott Key. And I was looking for tarpon.”
    “In other words, what you’re telling me, I would’ve floated ashore anyway.”
    “Yeah, one way or another.”
    “So, technically, could we even call that a rescue?” she said. “Even though I was sort of digging the idea of being rescued.”
    “Be careful of the stove,” said Stranahan.
    Each slice of fish went first into a bowl of bread crumbs, then the frying pan. Joey heard the sizzle when the fillets landed in the hot oil; she counted eight and wondered if that would be enough for both of them. Never had she felt so famished.
    “Tell me about yourself, Mick. I promise your darkest secrets are safe with me,” she said.
    “How are you feeling? Your eyes better?”
    “I won’t know until you take off this damn blindfold.”
    “It’s not a blindfold,” he said, “and you can take it off whenever you want.”
    He had cut a strip from a towel, soaked it in cool freshwater and aloe, then knotted it gently around Joey’s brow. An hour earlier, stubbornly trying to get around the house by herself, she’d tripped over a sack of dog food and nearly busted an ankle.
    “I don’t even know your last name,” she said.
    “Stranahan.”
    “And exactly what do you do, Mr. S., besides plucking damsels from the deep blue sea?”
    “Actually, it wasn’t so deep. Maybe twenty feet where I found you.”
    “Okay, that’s enough. You’re determined to spoil this whole adventure for me,” Joey said. “It’s bad enough that I apparently owe my life to some Rastafarian pot smuggler. Now you tell me I was, like, five minutes from the beach at the time of my so-called rescue.”
    “Would it help if I said I saw a fifteen-foot hammerhead in that very same place last week?”
    “You’re kidding.”
    Stranahan shook his head. “Seriously. It was eating a stingray for lunch.”
    “No shit!”
    “You want limes or tartar sauce?” he asked.
    “Both.” Joey jumped slightly when he took his hand in hers.
    “It’s okay,” he said, and led her outside to a