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what you’re suggesting.”
    Samantha’s body went cold. She remembered Chad jesting about the crew knowing who the whip master was. He’d made the joke on the same day lightning struck him. “Wh…wh…why did you say that?” she stammered.
    “Say what?”
    “Whip master? Why did you use that term?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed you were insinuating I should beat my dog if he doesn’t behave. I take it you’re not an animal lover. Abusing an animal is not a form of discipline. Paddy may be a tad rambunctious, but he’s a lovable guy. And if anyone ever lays a hand on him, they’ll have me to wrangle with.”
    Aidan’s eyes flashed dark, and Samantha felt embarrassed. He’d put her in her place, and it was deserved. She did not condone abuse of any kind and hadn’t meant to imply any such thing. The whip master comment had thrown her into a tailspin after everything else that had already occurred. That was all.
    “I apologize,” she said quietly. “I meant nothing of the sort. I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m not myself today. Your dog seems perfectly nice, even if he might suffer from attention deficit disorder and stink like fish.” She smiled, hoping the kidding would ease the strain. It was obvious this man was devoted to his dog.
    Feeling a strong desire to touch him and make believe he was Chad, healthy, handsome, and well again, she held out her hand to shake. “Can we start over? Hello. My name is Samantha Landers, but you can call me Sam. I’m a contractor from Portland. It’s nice to meet you.”
    Apparently Aidan was not a man who held grudges. Grinning widely, he grasped her hand and pumped it up and down. The moment their flesh touched, her chest tightened and her heart began to pound with an insane rhythm. Her body felt like it had caught fire. A gaze into his startled eyes ensured her he’d also felt something powerful course between them.
    “Aidan Gallagher,” he answered, re-introducing himself, while exploring her face and squeezing her hand.
    Tears threatened to spring from her eyes, the second time in as many days. Aidan looked and sounded so much like Chad, who lay far away in a hospital bed, perhaps asleep for eternity. She didn’t know how long she could stand there before breaking down.
    Slipping free of his hand, she changed the subject back to the dog as a way of trying to still her racing heart. “What kind of a name is Paddy for a German breed? That is a German shepherd, right?”
    With his intense gaze riveted to her, Aidan hesitated before answering. “Yes, he’s German, but I’m Irish. Thus, the name Paddy.”
    “Oh. I should have known Gallagher was Irish.” She searched her memory, trying to recall whether Chad had ever mentioned having Irish roots. She couldn’t remember that, or much of anything else about his family he’d ever told her. Her brain felt fuzzy. It was more than strange, the way she suddenly felt that small details about Chad were fading.
    “The Irish half of me comes from my mom,” Aidan said, drawing her back to the conversation.
    No mention of a father, she noted. Perhaps the two of them had that in common—an absentee dad. “You don’t have an Irish accent,” she said.
    “I lost it years ago.”
    “I didn’t know people could lose their accent.” Before he could comment further, Paddy bent his head and clamped his teeth around a yellow Frisbee, distracting them both. It was the first time she’d noticed the toy. “Were you playing Frisbee with him earlier?”
    “Yeah. I’m afraid I threw it too high a couple of times and it thumped against your window.”
    So, that was the bump she’d heard. A wave of relief flowed through her knowing she wasn’t sharing the lighthouse with a ghost.
    Aidan’s gaze continued to scorch her like a burning torch. Confusion ran havoc over her. She wanted to continue standing there and looking at him while suppressing the urge to flee. “Well, nice to see you again.” She moved