The Men of Thorne Island

“Then it’s fortunate we don’t have any pigs, or I don’t know where they’d eat.”

She scowled at him, though judging from his teasing grin, her glare had lost its effectiveness. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Mr. Bass, I need something to eat. You’re not going to let me starve, are you?”

“You can buy food on the island.”

“Thank goodness. Where?”

“At Brody’s cottage. He’s an ex-marine and he calls our supply store the commissary. He orders the groceries and we buy them from him. But he’s not there now. He fishes every day at dusk. But no, I won’t let you starve. In fact, you can even use my part of the kitchen, which I maintain for my own use.”

She uncrossed her arms and managed a tight smile. “Thanks.”

“What kind of soup do you like?”

Soup. She could almost feel a steaming mug of delicious broth between her hands, almost taste the savory herbs and spices. “That sounds wonderful,” she said. “I like all kinds—broccoli and cheese, roasted chicken and wild rice, any of the new low-fat soups are delicious….”

“That’s fine, but I meant, do you like Chicken Noodle or Tomato?”

“Those are my choices?”

“Brody volunteered to keep us supplied, but he isn’t particularly imaginative.”

“I see. Tomato, then.”

Nick went to a tall pantry cabinet near the back door and produced the trademark red-and-white can, which he set on his clean counter. Then he went to his small refrigerator. “Now, what kind of meat for your sandwich?”

“Do we really need to go through this again?”

“No. We have salami.”

He took bread and meat slices from the refrigerator. “And to drink?”

“You tell me.”

“Actually I have six different brands of beer—”

She wasn’t surprised.

“—and one Mountain Dew.”

“Shall I fight you for the Mountain Dew?”

He took the can from the refrigerator and tossed it to her. “No. I’ll let you win this one.” He pointed to a stool next to the counter. “Have a seat. I’ll even cook.”

The entire meal process took less than thirty minutes from preparation to cleanup. And during that time the few sentences Sara and Nick spoke to each other involved passing the condiments and a smattering of comments about Millicent Thorne. Sara admitted that she hadn’t known her great-aunt very well and even expressed her guilt about that situation.

“It’s too bad,” he said. “You would have liked her. In fact, I see similarities between the two of you.”

Since he didn’t elaborate, Sara decided to accept his statement as a compliment.

Once the dishes were put away, Nick went out the back door and stood on the stoop. “Will you be needing anything else from the refrigerator tonight?” he asked through the screen door.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“I always turn off the generator before I go to bed. Can’t see wasting fuel. The food stays cold all night if the refrigerator door’s not opened, and I’m an early riser.”

He was turning off the generator? Sara’s stomach did a somersault of alarm. “But does that mean the lights won’t work?”

“Sure does. Take one of the lanterns from the parlor. They’re not just decoration. There should be plenty of oil in the well. You’ll find a flashlight in the pantry, too.”

Resigned to the conventions of Thorne Island, she got the flashlight and watched Bass step down from the back porch. His limp was more obvious now. In fact, a tightening of his facial muscles indicated that he was in pain. Since they’d just shared a few companionable moments, Sara felt comfortable enough to ask, “Are you all right, Mr. Bass?”

He looked up at her from the yard. “What do you mean?”

“Your limp. I couldn’t help noticing.”

“And you want to know why I have it?”

“I don’t mean to pry, but if you’d like to tell me…”

“A few years ago I was shot. The bullet entered at the base of my spine and pretty well screwed things up.”

The flashlight clattered to the floor. “You were shot?”

“Yep. So when I told you earlier that if you meant to kill me, you’d better use a gun, I really wasn’t relishing the idea all that much. Good night, Sara.”

That was obviously all the information she was going to get. She picked up the flashlight and spoke to his dark form as it blended with the angular shadows of the inn. “Good night, Nick.”

THE NEXT MORNING Sara awoke to the sound of voices filtering through her second-story window. She got out of bed and opened the slats of her shutter just enough to peek outside. A cool breeze washed over her, and she breathed in the fresh, heady scent of the flowers in the porch baskets.

Four men stood in the overgrown front yard of the inn just beyond the edge of the porch eaves. Sara could see three of them clearly and just an arm and a foot of the fourth. She recognized Dexter Sweet, his huge arms bulging from the short sleeves of an athletic T-shirt. She heard the low timbre of Nick Bass’s voice coming from under the porch. She didn’t know the other two men, but assumed they were the pair Dexter had mentioned the day before—Brody and Ryan.

One man was short, thin, with brown, shoulder-length hair bound in a leather strap at his nape. The other was medium height, with a middle-aged paunch and slumping shoulders. “Ol’ Brody,” Sara concluded. He wore a canvas fishing hat with an ageless collection of rusty lures pinned to every square inch. Definitely the island’s unimaginative grocer.

Sara tuned in to the conversation when Brody was speaking or, more appropriately, complaining. “Hell-fire! How long is she going to stay?”

Nick answered in a harsh whisper, but Sara couldn’t make out the words.

The small man with the ponytail spoke next. He glanced up several times at the second story. Ducking out of sight, Sara was able to interpret his opinion from the tone of his voice. He didn’t seem any more pleased about her arrival than Brody had.

When she risked a peek through the shutters again, she saw Brody nodding his head, causing the lures to bob up and down. “I agree with Ryan. I don’t cotton to having a woman snooping around our island. Millie Thorne left us alone.”

Dexter raised his hands as if to quiet the complaints of his friends. “Now don’t go borrowing trouble,” he said. “Like Nickie told me last night, she probably—”

Nick stopped Dexter’s words with a sharp warning and stepped away from the porch. He looked up at Sara’s window. She jerked back again. Then the men moved down the crumbling walkway of the inn toward the path to the harbor.

Sara opened the door to her wardrobe, took out underwear, a pair of jeans and a San Francisco T-shirt and tossed them onto her bed. Then she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her terry cloth robe and tied it in front. Walking down the hall to the bathroom, she mumbled to herself, “Thanks for the welcoming committee, boys, and have a nice day!”

THE COZY COVE INN was an interesting blend of two centuries. While the decorative moldings and wooden ceiling planks in every room were clearly from the 1890s, the bath fixtures probably dated from the 1950s. Small black-and-white tiles lined the lavatory walls and the small circular shower, and provided a nice backdrop for white porcelain fixtures. The toilet with its oddly squat shape worked sufficiently well, but the night before, Sara had carefully checked the oak seat for splinters before using it.

The inn had an adequate hot-water heater, though insufficient pressure. It took Sara longer than normal to rinse shampoo from her hair.

It was eight-thirty by the time she’d dressed, dried her hair and secured it in a clip at her nape. Obviously morning activities started early on Thorne Island. With Nick gone, she’d have to scrounge around his kitchen again in search of coffee. A trip to Brody’s grocery store and a thorough cleaning of her own area of the big kitchen were first on her list after she had a jolt of caffeine. She didn’t intend to “borrow” from Nick any more than she had to.

With sunlight streaming in the windows, the clean section of kitchen gleamed even more brightly than it had the night before. Unfortunately the grimy section looked even worse. But Sara’s resolve was bolstered by the sight of the automatic drip coffeemaker on Nick’s counter. Dark brew steamed from the glass pot, and a clean crockery mug and sugar packets sat next to it. Nick had obviously left the supplies where she would find them. Sara smiled to herself. If he didn’t work so hard at being annoying, Sara could almost tolerate Nick for this one friendly gesture.

After her second cup, she took cleaning supplies from the cupboard and set to work on the stove. Layers of grime slowly dissolved under the onslaught of bleach and pine-scented solvent. An hour later she decided to tackle the brick floor and set about finding a mop and a bucket. She spied a wood-paneled door in the middle of an interior kitchen wall and thought it might be a cleaning closet. She grabbed the knob, but Nick’s voice stopped her from turning it.

“I don’t think you should go into the cellar,” he warned through the back screen door. The hinges squeaked as he opened it and came inside. He wore a pair of cargo shorts that showed off muscular, tanned calves. A T-shirt with the faded logo of a Cleveland tavern on the front clung to his broad chest and disappeared into the waistband of the shorts. A Cleveland Indians ball cap sat low on his forehead, but she still had an all-too-intimate look at his silver-flecked eyes and freshly shaven face.

For a brief moment Sara found it difficult to breathe. She covered the dysfunction with a hard swallow. Nick Bass had a certain indefinable appeal in the bright light of day, even if he was telling her she couldn’t do something. “Why not?” she said. “What’s down there?”

He settled onto the bar stool and shoved the hat back. “Spiders. Cobwebs. Some old barrels and a few dusty bottles of wine.”

“I’m not too excited about the spiders, but I’d still like to go down.”

“You can’t see anything because the lightbulb burned out years ago.”

“And you never replaced it?”

He shrugged. “I will…tomorrow.”

A burned out lightbulb was hardly an insurmountable problem. “I’ll use the flashlight,” Sara said.

“Suit yourself, but if it’s wine you’re after, I’ve brought a few bottles upstairs already. You’re welcome to sample those.”

“Thank you. I may take you up on that offer, but if there’s a real wine cellar down those steps, I want to see it.”

He leaned back and studied her face, as if judging the level of her enthusiasm. “How would you feel about seeing six acres of real vineyard?”

Amusement underlined his offer and prevented Sara from taking him seriously. “And just where might this vineyard be?” she asked skeptically.

He hitched his thumb toward the back door. “Out there.”

Amusement or not, he’d hooked her and was reeling her in. “Here? On the island?”

“You don’t know much about your inheritance, do you?”

All commitment to cleaning fled from her mind. She ran to the door and looked out, but all she saw was a row of overgrown box hedges, wild winter cress and the yellow tops of dandelions. “I don’t see any vineyard,” she said.

He’d come up behind her and startled her by taking her elbow. “Then come with me, Miss Sara Crawford, because it’s definitely out there.”

Even with his limp, Nick easily navigated the un-pruned shrubs and prickly pears that poked their stubborn twigs between the flagstones in the pathway behind the Cozy Cove Inn. Sara had a more difficult time and was thankful when they emerged into an area only moderately suffering from nature gone wild. And as far as she could see, the gently rolling terrain before her was lined with rows of equally spaced posts and clinging twisted vines of various thicknesses. Definitely a vineyard!

She knew enough about cultivating grapes to be captivated by the prospect of owning a vineyard. She’d been fascinated by her tour of the California wine country the year before and had listened avidly to experts explaining the wine-making process. The dry acreage of Thorne Island was far different from the lush green carpet of Napa Valley, but it was obvious that there had once been a flourishing wine business on her island.

She wandered among the rows of thick trunks, stopping to examine the cordons and canes that split from mother plants and ran along wires from post to post. She used her thumbnail to scrape the bark off several plants, found green wood underneath and determined that the core trunks were very much alive. She called over her shoulder to Nick, who had stopped trying to keep up with her. “When was wine last made on this island?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s been six years at least. You won’t even get one dried-up old raisin to harvest now.” He spread his arms to encompass the whole six acres. “Look at this mess, Sara. For Pete’s sake, I was kidding about this island having a real vineyard.”

“Then the joke’s on you, Bass,” she hollered back. She plucked a cluster of shriveled fruit from a healthy shoot and ran back to him. “See this, Nick? Once upon a time these determined little ‘raisins’ probably made a fine chardonnay.”

HIS LITTLE JOKE had backfired. Nick had figured if he took Sara out among the arid field that had once been a vineyard, she might see the futility of trying to make something of her flagging inheritance. Thorne Island’s glory days were long over. She simply needed to recognize that and leave the island and its crusty inhabitants to themselves.

He took a beer and a sandwich to Brody’s cottage and joined his companions for lunch. It killed him to have to admit the error in judgment he’d made this morning, especially since the other guys were counting on him to rid them of their interfering landlady.

At first he tried to put the blame on the little guy. “Hell, Ryan,” he said, “this is all your doing. You just had to go out there and pluck and prune and probably baby-talk those plants into staying alive.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Ryan argued. “I was just passing time thinking it’s a shame to let anything die in the winter frost. My clipping was just dumb luck.”

Brody scowled at him and ran his hand over his thinning hair. “I told you to leave those plants alone. What do we care about growing a bunch of sissy grapes, anyway? We’re fishermen and fortune hunters.”

“Leave him alone, Brody,” Dexter said. “I think his baskets hanging over at the inn look real pretty. If it weren’t for Ryan here, we wouldn’t have anything nice to look at.”

Nick took a long swallow of beer. “It’s not going to help if we argue among ourselves.”

“Nick’s right,” Brody said. “It’s that darned woman who’s the enemy.”

Nick held up his hand. “That’s kind of a harsh way of putting it, Bro. It’s not like she’s entered our no-fly zone.” He smiled at the image of Sara that suddenly came to mind. “You should have seen her this morning, running all around those dumb vines, scraping and plucking and cooing over them like a mother bird. She brought me a scrawny old cluster of dried-up fruit and presented it as proudly as if she’d grown it herself.”

The image sent a quick spurt of warmth to Nick’s groin, a reaction he hadn’t had in a long time without seeing at least part of a naked breast. “It was kind of sweet, actually.”

All three men stared at Nick as though he’d left his mind baking in the noon sun in the middle of the vineyard. He cleared his throat to knock Sara’s face from his thoughts. “Still, though, we’ve got a problem.”

Brody nodded. “That darned woman’s messed up the chemistry around here. Pretty soon she’ll be telling us to do a whole lot more than just pay the rent. That’s the way women are.”

As the other men uttered similar groans of agreement, the door to Brody’s cottage swung open, admitting the object of their despair. Sara stepped inside and smiled sweetly at each of them. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “I assume this is the commissary I’ve heard so much about.”

Nick gave hasty introductions.

“Mr. Brody,” Sara said, “I’d like to buy some food, and if it’s all right with you, I need to use your cell phone.”

He squinted up at her, age lines crinkling the corners of his eyes. “What do you want my phone for?”

“I understand Captain Winkleman will be back tomorrow. I’d like him to bring some fertilizer.”

Ryan jumped down from the up-ended barrel he was sitting on. “There’s a compost pile over by the old press house.”

Sara brightened as if the words compost pile were equal to diamond bracelet. “There is?”

And if looks really could kill, Ryan would have been compost.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER SHE MADE her call to Captain Winkleman, Sara gave her grocery list to Brody. He quickly packaged her items and slid two bags across the counter toward her, jerking his hand back as if coming into direct contact with her would endanger his life. She muttered a succinct and insincere thank-you and left his cottage, making sure the screen door slammed loudly behind her.

“What a rude, ignorant, narrow-minded…” She let her voice trail off. There were simply too many adjectives that fit that anachronism with the tattered fishing hat. While she’d been in his presence, Brody had grumbled the whole time about women in general, and “one certain trespasser” specifically.

Nick Bass, thoroughly amused at her expense, watched the whole comedy of manners with a smirk on his face. At least Dexter Sweet had the decency to pick up a sports magazine and pretend he wasn’t aware of his companion’s rudeness. And poor little Ryan—he’d scuttled out the back way after his mention of the compost pile had turned the gathering quite hostile.

It was only a hundred yards on a narrow path through budding maple trees from Brody’s small cottage to the Cozy Cove Inn. Aware that Nick was following her, Sara stomped her feet as loudly as her Nikes allowed. She wanted the determination in her step to let him know she did not desire his company. When she reached the back door of the inn, she swung the screen open wide, stepped into the kitchen and let the door bang shut behind her.

“Damn it, woman!” he hollered. “You know I can’t keep up when you walk this fast.”

She slammed the bags on the clean counter, catching a glimpse of her catlike grin in the side of Nick’s gleaming toaster. “I wasn’t aware we were out on a stroll, Bass,” she said when he came through the door.

He sat on a stool and whipped the Indians cap off his head. Dark curls tumbled onto his forehead. For the first time she noticed coarser strands of gray at his temples. They lent an air of dignity to a man who certainly didn’t deserve it.

“That’s not the only thing you’re not aware of,” he snapped.

She began yanking her purchases out of the sacks. “If you’ve come to spy on me, don’t worry. I won’t take much of your space.”

“Yeah? Starting when?”

She slapped a package of bologna onto the counter, gripped the smooth pine edges and stared at him. “We’re hardly overcrowded here, Bass. We’re five people on forty acres. This isn’t a ghetto.”

He almost smiled, and since she was mad at him, she was glad he didn’t.

“Look,” he said, “if it makes you feel any better, I agree that Brody acted like an ass back there. But you’ve got to give him a break. He’s hard to get along with even on his good days, and he started out grouchy this morning. At times like this, it’s good to give him some space.”

“I’d like to put him on a raft, tug him halfway to Canada and leave him in the middle of the lake. That ought to be enough space even for him.”

Nick got off the stool, picked up the bologna and put it in the refrigerator. “Forget about Brody. I think Ryan’s decided to give you a chance.”

Sara refolded one of the bags and placed it in a lower cabinet. “At least he understands about the vineyard,” she said. “But it won’t be long before Brody turns him against me.”

“Well, you did make him mad with all that special request nonsense.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Sara handed Nick a jar of pickles and he slid it into the refrigerator. “Just because I don’t want to eat Frosted Flakes or Captain Crunch.”

Nick looked up at her, a mock-serious expression on his face. “Tony the Tiger and the captain are American icons.”

She handed him a frozen dinner to put away. “And I don’t mind microwave meals, but do I have to buy every one of them in ‘hungry man’ or ‘family-size’ portions?”

“When you’re living with men, I guess you do. You’re making life different around here already, Sara, and you’ve got to know that’s not easy for any of us.”

She scowled at him before she read the price sticker on a can of tomato soup. Then she read the sticker on a loaf of bread and a half carton of eggs. “All these groceries are from Kroger’s,” she said.

“So?”

“But the marked prices are the same as the ones Brody charged me. He didn’t add anything to the Kroger price.”

Nick didn’t say anything. He indicated another question by raising his eyebrows.

“Well, if he gets the food from Kroger’s…”

“Winkie fills the order at Kroger’s, according to Brody’s list, and delivers it to us,” Nick corrected.

“Okay, but if Brody pays Winkie and doesn’t increase the price to you guys, he’s not making any money.”

“He doesn’t care about that.”

Nick’s offhand statement had just reduced years of accounting principles to insignificance. The idea of being in business, after all, was to make a profit. “He doesn’t care about making money?”

“No. He’s got tons of it already. And the thing about Brody is, he’ll never take a dollar from anyone, but he’ll never give one away, either. I guess that’s how rich guys stay that way.”

She pictured the scowling, ill-tempered old goat and almost laughed out loud. He wore that stupid hat with all the rusty lures. His shorts were held up with a tow rope. His canvas shoes had holes in the toes. He lived in a three-room cottage, which cost him a mere one hundred dollars a month, with a twelve-inch black-and-white TV for entertainment. “So Brody is rich?”

“As Midas.”

“But how…?”

Nick read the label on a can of Vienna sausages and grimaced. “I don’t know how you can eat these things,” he said. “How’d Brody make his money? He invented things. Then, for years he managed the factory that produced his inventions.”

Sara grabbed the can out of his hand and shoved it into the pantry. “What things did he invent?”

“If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

That was a heck of an answer. “Well, at least he should see if there’s a warehouse club around here, in Sandusky maybe, or—”

“Sara.”

She clamped her mouth shut and stared at him.

“Leave it alone.”

“But I could show him how volume buying…”

Nick stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Suddenly the cotton fabric of her T-shirt felt warm, as if heated by the pressure of his palms.

For a moment he said nothing. He just kept a tight hold on her and stared into her eyes. “What do you do for a living?” he finally asked.

“I’m a tax accountant.”

The temporary heat became a cold chill. Nick released her and took a step back. “That figures.”

“What’s wrong with being a tax accountant?”

“Nothing. It just figures. All that talk about volume buying. And the concern over the rent we pay. Your comment yesterday about Millie’s ‘unsound financial arrangement.’ I should have guessed.”

The hot blood of indignation surged through her veins. “What’s wrong with caring about money? What’s wrong with making it, tracking it, keeping it, for heaven’s sake?”

“It’s fine, Sara. Be the best accountant you can be. Just let Brody be the kind of grocer he wants to be.” He turned away from her and headed for the door. “I’ve got work to do,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”

An unwelcome press of guilt weighed on Sara’s shoulders, and she tried to shrug it off. Why should she feel guilty for making a few comments meant to help the man who’d treated her abominably just a few minutes ago? And yet she did feel guilty. It was ridiculous. All she was doing was offering a little common-sense advice that anyone with half a brain would recognize as logical and…