She'd thought her uncle was just worrying about her. People tended to worry about her. She wasn't a tough

U.S. marshal like her brother or a physician who'd seen everything like her sister-people saw her as the sensitive soul of her family, a nature photographer who'd never really left home.

Well, now she had.

She finished her latte and decided to head back to Commonwealth Avenue and the Rancourt house, although she wasn't under any time constraints. The Rancourts hadn't just hired her out of the blue. They weren't part of her horizon-expanding. They'd hired her, Carine knew, because she was from Cold Ridge, friends with the three men who rescued them the year before. Hank Callahan and Antonia had started dating in Boston after that first meeting in Carine's cabin. He was now her brother-in-law. As of a week ago, the voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had made him their junior senator-elect. Since he was friends with Ty and Antonia was a fiercely loyal sister, their relationship had suffered after Carine's aborted wedding. Then Antonia found herself trapped on an island off Cape Cod with a violent stalker and with a hurricane about to blow on shore; Hank had come after her, ending any doubts either of them had. The media-and voters-lapped up the story. But it was clear to everyone that Hank hadn't been thinking about their opinion when he'd headed to the Shelter Island.

No, Carine thought, she had no illusions. As much as she liked them, Sterling and Jodie Rancourt had their own reasons for asking her to do the job.

She walked slowly, in no hurry. Her hair was pulled back neatly, and she wore jeans, a black turtleneck, her barn coat and waterproof ankle boots, comfortable clothes that permitted her to go up and down ladders, trek over drop cloths and stacks of building supplies and tools, do whatever she had to do to get the particular picture she wanted.