“Full frontal hugging?” asked Lexi.

“Yes,” Devin admitted. And, wow, that had been one great hug.

“Groping?”

“No,” she quickly denied.

“But the kiss was good?” Lexi persisted.

“The kiss was great,” Devin confirmed on a huge sigh of frustration. It would probably go down in the record books as one of her all-time favorite kisses. Whatever his ethics, whatever his conduct, Lucas Demarco knew how to kiss a woman.

She compulsively rolled one of the webbing straps on Amelia’s life jacket into a tight spiral, then she let it spring back open in her hand. “But I don’t get why he did it.” The question had plagued her all night long.

“Sometimes guys don’t have a reason,” Lexi offered, swooping some loose strands of hair back from her face as the wind grew stronger. “They take random action. And, when it comes to sex, they’re ruled by their primal brains.”

“Number one, it wasn’t sex. And number two, Lucas is not a random guy.” And Devin doubted his primal brain ruled any of his actions. “He’s logical, organized and compulsively goal-oriented. When he does something, it’s for a reason.”

“Do you really think you need to add paranoia to this situation?” Lexi pushed hard on the tiller.

The boat canted to one side, and Devin braced herself with a rope handle, holding tight to Amelia. “It doesn’t count as paranoia, when they truly are out to get you.”

Lexi rocked her head back and forth, obviously considering the merits of Devin’s point.

“I’ve been thinking,” Devin added, completely convinced that Lucas’s kiss was part of some well thought out, detailed plan to gain an advantage over her. “I’m not going to just sit back and wait for his next move.”

She anchored her white baseball cap on her head. “If all I do is react to his maneuvers, then I’m going to lose. That’s what happened in the temporary guardianship hearing. He had a plan. I didn’t. And it cost me.”