The Men of Thorne Island

Sara’s mind wouldn’t let her continue her rationale. All at once every heightened sense was focused on the man walking out of the kitchen. All she could think about were his strong, broad shoulders and the graceful tapering of his hips under loose-fitting shorts. Such a man could banish all rational thought from any woman’s mind. “Excuse me,” she said.

He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “Yeah?”

“About that bottle of wine you promised me. If you bring it, I’d be willing to share my family-size lasagna tonight.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got a lot to do.” He left her standing there with her temper skyrocketing and her ego plummeting.

She grabbed the cleaning supplies from the cupboard and began scrubbing and scouring everything in sight. And she pictured Nick Bass’s face in every grimy surface.

BANNING CROUCHED in the dark hallway and pulled his service revolver from the shoulder holster. The smells of unwashed bodies and stale beer mingled with the scent of his own fear.

“Come on, come on,” Nick grumbled to the screen. For the last thirty minutes—ever since he’d left Sara—he’d been staring at the words he’d entered into his computer and willing others to follow. These first lines of chapter five of Dead Last had come to him last night just after he’d gotten into bed and turned out his lantern. He’d struck a match and relit the wick so he could scribble the words down on a dog-eared tablet on his nightstand. He often did that—committed the words to paper so his next writing session would start fluidly.

He’d tried to come up with the next line in Detective Ivan Banning’s crisis before extinguishing the light a second time, but nothing else had come to mind. Telling himself a literary lightning bolt would strike him the next morning, Nick had snuffed the lantern flame again and settled down to go to sleep.

Only sleep hadn’t come, and Nick knew why. In the six years he’d lived in the Cozy Cove Inn, never once had a soft, willowy blonde lain between her own sheets—well, his sheets, really—just a few doors away from him.

Nick loved to write about guys whose lives were always in turmoil, men for whom the word norm was synonymous with boredom. But he didn’t like it when his own situation threatened to follow that same path. He’d gotten used to the flawless, undiluted routine of life on Thorne Island, and Sara Crawford was like oil to the pure water of Nick’s existence.

He didn’t like thinking about her sleeping down the hall. He didn’t like not sleeping because he was thinking about her. And he especially didn’t like the hot, sweet jolt of energy that thinking about her brought to parts of his body that had become accustomed to their own special tempo of regularity.

And now there was this new dilemma. He couldn’t figure out how in the world Banning was going to move from that smelly hallway into apartment number seven. Sure as black on a bat, Nick had writer’s block. He rarely suffered from it, but the inability to put words to paper did afflict him every once in a while. Like when he remembered with spine-chilling clarity the cold, gray gutter slush of Prospect Avenue seeping into his clothes and turning red with his blood. Or when he recalled the hands of the medics working over his lump of a body, and the one cheerful guy telling him he would be all right. And Nick knowing full well he was lying.

Now those were good reasons to experience writer’s block, but Sara Crawford? If he had to rate the significant moments of his life, he wouldn’t put meeting her up there with nearly dying. Thinking about it rationally—and telling himself that thoughts about women could be handled this way—Nick knew why Sara’s presence had affected him so adversely.

He’d touched her.

In the kitchen he’d put his hands on her shoulders and looked into those fresh-water-blue eyes and nearly forgotten what he was saying.

That had been a mistake. As long as he remained distant from her, he could be objective. But once he’d felt her soft flesh under his palms, once he’d been close enough to admire the determined thrust of her chin and the spark of indignation in her eyes, she’d become all too real. And that could mean trouble for him. Not the kind of trouble Detective Banning had to face in apartment number seven, but trouble nonetheless.

The last person Nick needed in his life was an accountant. He hadn’t filed a tax return in six years, and he imagined the IRS frowned on people who just disappeared without a forwarding address. He didn’t need a finicky bean counter looking into his private life, probing his secrets, turning him into a computer entry again.

All right, maybe he’d been a little rough on her when she’d asked him to share her stupid lasagna. He conceded that, but she’d get over it. Besides, why would a guy named Nicolas Romano whose paternal ancestors came from Napoli want to eat factory-produced lasagna, anyway?

He pushed away from the computer and stared out the window rather than face the barren monitor screen any longer. But then it was Sara’s face that crept into his mind, and that didn’t make him feel any better. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt him to go down later and eat some of her dinner. It was the decent thing to do, and after all, she wasn’t staying forever. Feeling a surge of pride at his unselfish decision, Nick risked glancing at his monitor again. He rested his hands lightly on the keyboard, then lifted one of them to plow his fingers through his hair.

Stubborn strands coiled onto his forehead. He needed a haircut. It had been more than a month since his last one. It was definitely time for Gina to come over from Put-in-Bay. Now there was a woman who didn’t ask nosy questions. She just gave a damn good haircut to a man who needed some pampering once in a while. He’d be okay after he saw Gina and after he squared things with the accountant. Nick smiled in anticipation of having all his parts back in working order again. He liked an orderly life.

The knob turned slowly, guided by an unseen hand… The door to number seven eased open.

All right! Nick Bass and Ivan Banning were back in business.

AT SEVEN P.M. the first pungent aromas of garlic and tomato sauce wafted up the stairs. Factory-produced or not, the lasagna smelled darned inviting. Maybe Sara Crawford actually knew enough about cooking to add the right ingredients to a store-bought concoction to make it better.

Nick turned off his computer and headed for the bathroom down the hall. After a quick shower and shave, he pulled on a pair of jeans, a Cleveland Cavaliers T-shirt, his favorite worn Docksiders and made his way to the kitchen. He was going to enjoy seeing Sara’s face when she realized he was taking her up on her invitation after all.

A single place setting, consisting of a plate, silverware and one wineglass, was on the kitchen table. Nick almost changed his mind about dinner. The thought of eating on the grime-imbedded dinette was certainly unappetizing. But when he noticed the overhead light reflecting off the polished surface of the table, he recognized that something was different in the Cozy Cove kitchen. It was clean.

Lasagna sat on top of the gleaming stove. Cheese bubbled around the edges of the pan and rippled golden brown on top. Canned sliced pears were in a bowl on the counter. And Sara, oblivious to his entrance, had her head in the refrigerator.

She was wearing a long dress made of some thin material with big splashy flowers all over. Since she was bent at the waist, the hem of the dress was raised well above her feet and showed off a pair of canvas sandals with ties going halfway up her calves. Her very shapely calves.

Nick’s appetite for lasagna plunged. He would have been content to stare at Sara’s backside for another few hours, but she stood up, denying him the privilege. She removed a bottle of White Thorne chardonnay from the refrigerator and set it on the counter. Obviously she’d been snooping again and discovered the secret cache he’d brought up from the cellar and stored at the bottom of the pantry. But it was technically her wine now, anyway.

Nick stepped all the way into the room. “Is it a good year?” he asked.

She turned abruptly, causing the flared hem of her dress to swish around her ankles. She’d caught most of her hair up in a white, shell-shaped thing. But straight honey-colored strands trailed down her neck. It looked as if she hadn’t done anything to style it, but the effect was soft and feminine. The word angelic came to Nick’s mind, though that was a word that rarely entered his vocabulary.

All similarity to a heavenly entity ended there because Sara’s eyes sparked with animosity that made him stop a good ten feet from her. “What are you doing here?” she said.

“You invited me, remember?” He jerked his thumb at the lone place setting. “Though it looks like you forgot.”

She turned away from him and carried the wine bottle to the table. “I withdraw my invitation. You’re free to go.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Well, I don’t want you here.”

What the devil was the matter with her now? He was doing the decent thing, coming down to eat her supper as she wanted and she’d done a complete one-eighty. Nick had no intention of leaving. He’d seen the lasagna, smelled it and had a good long look at the cook. Nope. The kitchen was right where he wanted to stay. He walked over to her, affected a grin that ought to win her over if only she’d look at him, and tapped her on her bare shoulder. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re mad at me for some reason.”

She didn’t see the grin. She was too busy looking in a drawer, probably for a corkscrew. He debated whether or not to tell her it was in the pantry.

“I don’t play guessing games, Bass,” she said. “I’m only too happy to tell you that I am definitely mad at you.”

“And the reason?” he persisted.

She slammed the drawer shut and spun around. Her expression registered such fury that he couldn’t manage to put the grin back in place.

“The reason is that you are rude and inconsiderate—for starters.”

He tried to look guilty. “That’s true.”

He’d opened the door to a personal attack, and she stormed in. “You have no regard for anyone’s feelings. And your manners are atrocious.”

“True again, but isn’t that just sort of repeating the first reason?”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing soft, womanly flesh above the scooped neckline of the dress. Nick cleared his throat and raised his eyes to return to the safer territory of her face. Her lips, which he’d just noticed were tinged a glossy pink, parted as she contemplated how to answer him. “Yes, I suppose it is,” she conceded. “But you’re extremely opinionated—and just plain weird.”

He reached around her and picked up the bottle. “Okay, I’m those things, too. But I have knowledge that can add to the success of this meal, and I’m willing to share it with you for a plate of lasagna.”

Her sandy-brown eyebrows arched as she huffed out an impatient breath. “And what might that be?”

“The whereabouts of the corkscrew.”

He resisted the urge to look down at her pink-painted toes tapping a beat of impatience on the floor. He knew she was weighing her options. Should she allow an ill-mannered oaf to sit at her dinner table in return for her first taste of White Thorne nectar? It was a tough one.

“This is really ridiculous,” she finally said in exasperation. “All right, sit down.”

He headed for the table, but she grabbed his elbow. “After you get the corkscrew and open the wine.”

THE WHITE THORNE CHARDONNAY, a 1991 vintage, was deliciously tangy with a rich, fruity base. And Nick Bass proved to be a tolerable dinner companion. In fact, when Sara asked questions about his life on Thorne Island, he actually answered some of them, though his answers were evasive.

“You haven’t been here every day for six years, have you?” she asked. “You do leave the island once in a while.”

“Just for hours at a time,” he said. “I’ve been to Put-in-Bay and Sandusky on personal business. But I probably wouldn’t leave at all if I could train Winkie to clean my teeth.” He winked, a simple gesture that somehow seemed ripe with teasing sexuality. “There are some things a guy just can’t do for himself, Sara.”

Then he changed the subject and talked about his Italian grandmother and how she made her own pasta and grew her own tomatoes and spices, and how the idea of expressing an opinion opposite her husband’s was as alien to her as making spaghetti sauce from a can.

But buried somewhere in Nick’s humorous exposition on the parameters for a successful relationship between the sexes was an underlying affection for—and pride in—his past. Sara ended up telling him about her life in Brewster Falls. Nick said he’d been there once. He liked the town, claiming it was typical Americana, in a good, town-square/band-shell kind of a way.

She talked about her father and how he’d done his best to raise his teenage daughter alone. And how he still worried about her and called two or three times a week just to talk and offer advice. And she admitted that leaving Brewster Falls after graduating from college had been a tough decision.

“So why did you go?” Nick asked.

She explained about the charismatic recruiting executive from the Bosch and Lindstrom accounting firm who’d spoken to graduating seniors at Ohio State University. She submitted her résumé, and they’d hired her by phone a week later.

Nick leaned back in his chair and appraised her. “So you must be a pretty darn good tax accountant then, right?”

She made the mistake of thinking he was sincerely interested in her skills and allowed her enthusiasm to guide the discussion in a new direction. “Well, yes, I am,” she admitted. “And I see so much potential for this island.”

His eyebrows came together to form a ripple of worry over the bridge of his nose.

Sara wasn’t deterred. Nick and his buddies might as well know some of the details she’d been considering. “The buildings I’ve noticed on the island are basically sound,” she said. “A few minor structural repairs, a little fixup here and there, a massive cleanup of course, and Thorne Island could be a delightful, exclusive hideaway.”

“It already is a hideaway. For us.” The sharp tone in his voice matched the dangerous narrowing of his eyes.

“I mean for vacationers,” she persisted.

A vision of the improved island had already taken shape in her imagination, and she proceeded to tell him about it. “Nothing expensive of course. A place where families could come for a summer weekend. A nice beach, a modernized harbor, maybe a miniature golf course for children. And this inn—it wouldn’t take much to bring it up to par.”

A muscle worked in Nick’s jaw as he inhaled a deep breath. He drew himself up until his back was as straight as the fence posts in front of the Cozy Cove must have been originally. Then he leaned forward. A threatening glare in his eyes silenced Sara.

“You’re not seriously thinking of doing all this to Thorne Island, are you?” he demanded.

Her determination flared anew. “I’ve been having some thoughts along this line, yes. I can’t see letting the island fall into ruin, especially when a profit can be realized once a formula for investing a guarded amount of capital is devised…”

She felt the buildup of his anger from across the table. He drummed his fingers, stopping after each four-tap for emphasis. “You can’t do this, Sara,” he said in a voice that trembled with underlying fury. “What about the people who live here and like it the way it is? What about Millie’s promise to them?”

“I don’t intend to fight your leases,” she said. “All of you are free to stay as long as you like. I don’t see what difference it will make to you if civilization slowly encroaches. I’m only trying to make things better—”

“That’s bunk, Sara. You only care about making money.”

She stood up from the table and slammed her chair under it. “So, we’re back to that again. The sin of making money. I don’t happen to think it is a sin, Nick. I think it’s the smart thing to do. If you want to know what I think is a real sin, I’ll tell you. It’s four men hiding from life on an isolated island. You’re like turtles drawn inside your shells for reasons that frankly scare me to death when I imagine what they might be.”

He stood up and came around the table. Planting her feet solidly on the brick floor, Sara refused to let him intimidate her into backing away.

“You don’t know anything about us,” he said.

“Then tell me.”

“I’m not telling you anything about these men, but I will tell you one thing—it’s a piece of advice you’d do well to heed. This development thing, it’s been tried before, and it didn’t work.”

“You mean the Golden Isles project?”

His eyes rounded and he drew in a sharp breath. He looked as if she’d physically struck him. “What do you know about that?”

“Only that what I’m proposing is nothing like what that company wanted to do. I’m not even considering selling plots of land.”

Relief softened his features but apparently didn’t lessen his anger. “Right. You only want to turn Thorne Island into a circus.”

Sara shook her head in dismay. This man had the most irritating habit of exaggerating everything she said. “I do not. I only want to—”

“Leave the island alone, Sara. If you want to play accountant, go back to Florida and crunch numbers all you want. We like things the way they are.”

She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, really? You like eating tomato soup and taking naps and watching your world crumble into decay?”

“And not obsessing about where our next dollar is coming from, yes!”

He wrapped his hands around her shoulders the way he’d done that afternoon, but this time his grip was forceful. Sara wasn’t afraid. She stared into his pewter eyes and blasted him with the same words he’d said to her the day before. “If you’re trying to scare me to death, it won’t work.” She let her lips curl into a satisfied grin. “I can outrun you, Bass.”

His fingers flexed just before his hold on her moved to her upper arms and tightened. A tremor ran through his body and shuddered into hers. “God, you are one aggravating pencil pusher,” he ground out.

She thrust her chin at him. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you, Bass?”

He sucked in a breath and held it, his gaze fixed intently on her face. “You want to know what’s bothering me? Okay, I’ll tell you. You’re what’s bothering me. You and your accounting principles, formulas and plans for modernizing things, and you…just you.” He stopped talking, pulled her to him.

Before Sara could make an evasive move, his mouth was on hers. The kiss was hard and hungry, fired with frustration and the indefinable essence of powerful maleness. It tasted of Italian spices and tangy wine and filled her senses with something infinitely dangerous, undeniably provocative.

When he raised his head, she released a warm, drugged breath that ruffled the hair on his forehead. She swallowed hard. “Why did you do that?” she asked.

“Don’t expect any explanation,” he snapped at her. “Because I don’t have one that would satisfy either one of us. Just think of it as my way of saying thanks for dinner.” He strode from the kitchen without looking back.

A simple thank-you might have been more conventional, she thought. But it wouldn’t have left such a lasting impression.

CHAPTER FIVE

“NICK, COME ON! For pity’s sake, time’s wasting!”

The urgent call from outside her window jolted Sara from a light sleep. She sat up in bed and focused on the sound.

“Let’s go, Nickie!”

There was no mistaking that grumpy voice. Sara knew before she even reached the window that it was Brody issuing orders from in front of the inn.

“What is it with men?” she grumbled. “Is it some rite of manhood, this having to prove they can irritate the rest of society before the sun’s even up?”

Next she heard Nick’s irritated response coming from his window. “Keep your shirt on, Brody. For God’s sake, you start this little exercise earlier every time!”

Sara peered out the window at the walkway below. What the heck are they doing? She couldn’t see anything of Brody, since he was hidden under the metal canopy of a motorized golf cart. Just as she was getting the courage to widen the shutter opening for a better look, Brody poked his head out the side of the cart and risked a glance at her window.

Apparently satisfied when he didn’t see her, he said in a coarse whisper, “You know how I feel about Digging Day, Nick. Dex and Ryan are already there.”

Digging Day? What in the world was Brody talking about? She waited until he was hidden under the cart canopy and then parted the slat again. At the back of the cart, where golf bags were usually stored, was an assortment of digging tools—shovels, spades, a couple of buckets. And flying whimsically over all of it was a yellow plastic flag of the sort kids attach to their bicycles.

“Well, isn’t that cute?” Sara said to herself. “Brody must be afraid of being run over by all the traffic on Thorne Island!”

And yet the flag could prove useful. She could follow it and get to the bottom of this Digging Day thing. She was determined to learn as much as she could about the men of Thorne Island.

“Take your time, Bass,” she muttered, allowing herself one last furtive peek out the window. Drat! He was already stepping off the porch. He backed up slowly toward the golf cart, his gaze intent on her window. Sara grinned to herself. At least he hadn’t forgotten about her in his zeal to meet Brody. Even in the predawn light, his impressive figure sent tiny shockwaves of remembrance through Sara’s system. She definitely hadn’t forgotten his impulsive kiss the night before.

“Why don’t you wake up the whole island, Brody?” Nick grumbled, crooking his thumb at Sara’s window.

“She didn’t hear me,” Brody shot back. “I’ve never known a woman who didn’t sleep past sunrise.”

Sara darted to her wardrobe to pull out shorts and a T-shirt. “A lot you know, Mr. Brody. With your attitude, I’ll bet your research sample has been pretty slim!”

Sara left the inn about two minutes after the golf cart carrying the two men pulled away. She followed the tire tracks until they disappeared around a corner of one of the narrow island paths, and then she cut through a wooded area to save time.

There was enough sun now for her to pick her way through the underbrush. Budding maple and oak trees were still in the early stages of new leaf growth, and parting the lowest branches, Sara spotted the bright yellow flag fluttering over the cart several hundred yards away.

The lush ground cover gave way to flowering plants, wild ferns and sumac the closer Sara got to the opposite side of the island. A cool mist rolled over the shore, bringing with it gentle swells to wash up on the rocky soil and retreat with a repetition that calmed the spirit.

Sara decided she would return to this part of the island some time when she wasn’t on a mission. She would choose one of the tall, straight paper birches that lined the beach, spread out a blanket and spend several hours reading a good book. But she didn’t have time to dwell on that now. The golf cart rounded a bend by a stand of sycamore trees. Two men emerged from the trees and met the cart when it stopped a few feet from the water. What an odd picture the imposing Dexter Sweet made as he walked beside the small, wiry Ryan.

Nick and Brody climbed out of the cart, and each man chose a tool from the bag-storage area. Sara crouched behind a patch of cattails and watched while the men set about doing exactly what the name of the day implied. They dug. Sand and rocks flew in the air with each upward swing of the shovels. When water seeped into the widening hole, one or more of the diggers jumped back and shouted a mild obscenity about possible damage to his shoes.

Once in a while one of them would stop and fill a mug from a thermos, prompting Sara to remember that she hadn’t yet had her coffee. After more than half an hour, she grew impatient waiting for something to happen.