Explosive (34 page)

But she recalled only too well what had occurred when she’d forced him to talk about Rick and Bernard Cokey last time. He’d left. He’d returned, but maybe next time, he wouldn’t.

Thomas wasn’t the only one who seemed to want to take shelter. It was becoming increasingly easy for Sophie, as well, to try to ignore the harsh realities of the world outside Haven Lake . . . to find sanctuary in Thomas’s arms.

She fell asleep during the last part of a suspense movie, the sensation of Thomas caressing her scalp and running his fingers through her hair lulling her.

She awoke later to find herself in Thomas’s arms as he carried her down the darkened hallway to her bedroom.

“I didn’t understand the plot of that movie in the slightest,” she said. She barely made out his small grin in the shadows.

“That’s because you kept falling asleep.”

“Umm, that could be it,” she murmured as she nuzzled his chest with her mouth.

Sophie didn’t say anything when Thomas set her on the edge of the bed and began to undress her. In fact, they only spoke with their bodies for the following moments as they made love, and Sophie was stunned anew by the intense, blazing quality of Thomas’s desire.

Afterwards, they held each other, Sophie becoming hypnotized by the sensation of Thomas’s warm breath falling on a patch of her left breast.

A thought penetrated her languor. She opened her leaden eyelids.

“I kept forgetting to ask Sherman how he called me today with the phone lines down,” she said groggily.

But Thomas didn’t respond, and Sophie realized as he continued to breathe evenly that he’d fallen fast asleep. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, inhaled his scent deeply, and quickly followed him.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

The morning dawned crystalline and golden, making a mockery of all the gloom that had dared to come before its splendor. Sophie walked into the still boggy yard after getting dressed, squinting in the bright summer sunshine as though she’d been secluded in a dark den for weeks. She paused in the front yard and called out in amazement.

Thomas didn’t turn at her shout; he was busy at the moment.

Sophie watched as he overturned the submerged canoe next to her dock with a flex of powerful, gleaming shoulder, back, and arm muscles.

“I heard it hitting the dock the night before last,” she said as she walked onto the dock. She recalled how eerie the cracking sound had been when she’d been in the house all alone while the rain fell ceaselessly around her. “It looks like it’s in perfect condition.”

“It is,” Thomas said from where he stood in four feet of water next to the dock. He found a frayed nylon rope on the bow of the fiberglass craft and clambered up onto the dock. Sophie noticed he was wearing his newly purchased swim trunks and once again admired the way he filled them out.

“With all the drains being opened to the spillway to keep the water level from getting too high in the lake, there would have been some strong currents. The canoe must have broken free and gotten snagged. I saw the underside of it beneath your dock when I came back from my swim. We’ll figure out who owns it, but in the meantime—” He flashed her a grin. “We’re going to borrow it. It’ll help keep us dry.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie murmured, her gaze glued to his mouth. He was an extremely handsome man, but Thomas became nothing less than riveting when he smiled. The radiant sunshine following days of oppressive gloom didn’t even compare.

“I saw some old paddles in your boathouse when I was checking on Guy this morning. He’s doing fine, by the way. That paw is on the mend. I’m thinking your patient is getting used to all the food and hospitality, though. He’s going to take up permanent residence in your boathouse, the little freeloader.”

He chuckled when he saw her mock scowl at his disparagement of Guy. He finished deftly tying a knot in the rope and stood. “Anyway, you said we should take Sherm and Daisy some supplies this morning, so we’ll take the canoe in the lake versus wading through floodwater.”

“Brilliant.” Her eyebrows went up when he put out his arms for a hug. He was teasing, since he was soaking wet, but Sophie went anyway. He laughed, low and soft, when she pressed tight to him, soaking her jean shorts and T-shirt. She wrapped her forearms around his neck. His skin felt smooth and sun-warmed.

“I’m getting used to you being wet all the time,” she said as she urged him down for a kiss.

His hand moved between their bodies and settled between her thighs, cradling her sex possessively.

“I’m getting addicted to the same thing about you,” he murmured gruffly next to her lips before he seized her mouth in a toe-curling kiss.

Later that morning, they paddled the canoe over to Sherm and Daisy’s dock and made their way up to the house. Thomas walked down the road to check on the status of the flooding while Sophie gathered some clothing and personal items.

A night’s rest appeared to have done Sherman and Daisy a world of good, Sophie decided a half hour later when they walked into the hospital room. Daisy was sitting up in bed and she and Sherm were working on a crossword puzzle together, bickering good-naturedly about answers.

They only stayed long enough to drop off the supplies and exchange news. The doctor had given a good report to Daisy after she’d made her morning rounds. Thomas assured the couple that their daughter and her husband should have no trouble making it to Haven Lake, as the water had receded to safe levels on the roads between the hospital and the Dolans’ lake house. When a nurse came in to alert Daisy that she’d be going for some testing, Thomas and Sophie said their good-byes.

Sherm turned his good ear toward the hallway. He’d been waiting for Daisy to return from her testing, steadily working his way through the crossword puzzle they’d started together. He’d just heard a man’s voice coming from the direction of the nursing station saying Thomas Nicasio’s name.

Sherm set down the crossword puzzle book and stood. The gruff baritone hadn’t really sounded like his son-in-law’s voice, but who else would be asking for Thomas Nicasio? Sherm had told Michelle and Tad about Sophie’s and Nicasio’s invaluable assistance over the past few days.

When he walked out of the hospital room and down the hallway the short distance to the nursing station, however, he knew immediately that the large man with the jet-black hair and thick stubble on his jaw was most definitely not his son-in-law. The man turned toward him when he called out.

“Are you looking for Thomas Nicasio?”

Sherm realized the man was wearing dark glasses. Well, the sun was exceptionally bright today, after all, following all that God-forsaken rain.

“I am. I’m an old friend. I thought I saw him here earlier, but he didn’t hear me when I called out ...”

“You did see him. You just missed him. He and Sophie were just here . . . oh, twenty minutes ago?” Sherm said as he checked his watch. “You say you’re an old friend of Thomas’s?”

“Yes, from the Navy,” the man said, smiling as if in reminiscence.

Sherm noticed the flashing Rolex watch and the suppleness of the man’s thigh-length leather coat. It was a tad strange to wear a coat on a summer day—even a lightweight one like the man wore—but Sherm supposed the air-conditioning in the hospital could get chilly. Thomas’s old friend must have done well for himself since leaving the military. He practically exuded power and money. The guy had fifteen, maybe twenty years on Thomas, but like Thomas, he appeared to take excellent care of himself. His shoulders and chest were thick with muscle, and there wasn’t a sign of a paunch on his belly. Well, the military taught a man the value of keeping fit, Sherm thought with a trace of good-natured envy.

“Does Nicasio live around this area? I’m visiting an aunt here in the hospital, but I’d love to be able to catch up.” The man’s voice had a slight nasal quality to it, and Sherm noticed his nose was swollen, like he’d been hit.

“Oh, no, no. He’s just staying with Sophie.”

“Sophie?” the man asked with a wide smile. “Don’t tell me Nicasio finally tied the knot. He was the youngest officer of us all, but we all said he’d be the last to dangle on the noose.”

Sherm laughed. “No, they aren’t married, but Nicasio would be lucky to get Sophie. She’s a gem, that girl. Daisy and I look forward to every summer when she comes to Haven Lake.”

“Haven Lake? Is that far from here?”

“Barely ten miles. You could make it there and back while your aunt took a nap. Do you want directions?”

“That’d be very kind of you.”

“No problem,” Sherm assured, glad to do something pleasant for Thomas when he’d done so much for Daisy and him recently. The man didn’t write down the directions, but Sherm got the impression he wouldn’t forget as he listened soberly and nodded.

When Sherm finished, a thought struck him and he tapped his forehead in irritation at himself. “Forget my own head if it wasn’t attached. Bit out of it, I guess—worried about Daisy,” Sherm mumbled under his breath as he dug in his pant pocket and withdrew the BlackBerry. “Would you return Thomas’s phone to him when you see him? I forgot to give it to him; even been using it to talk to my daughter and tell her about her mother and all. Damndest thing. If it weren’t for this phone, my wife might be a lot worse off. You know all that flooding we’ve had?”

Thomas’s friend nodded once, eyeing the BlackBerry.

“Well our phone lines went down. It about gave
me
a heart attack when my wife started having chest pains yesterday, and I was surrounded by floodwaters with no working phone. But Thomas had left this on the counter,” Sherm explained, holding up the BlackBerry. “But
it
didn’t work either.”

Sherm saw a gray eyebrow arch up behind the man’s sunglasses. Strange . . . when his hair was so pitch black.

“No battery in it. But the thing of it was ...” Sherm continued, warming up to the topic. He’d been too preoccupied with Daisy to have told anyone yet, and it
really
was a good story. “ . . . I’d been with Thomas in his car that evening—he pulled me out of a ditch, bless the boy. He’d been using a flashlight, and when he put it back in the glove box, I saw the phone battery inside of it.”

“Nicasio had taken the battery out of his phone?”

Sherm nodded and threw up his hands in a “hell if I know why” gesture.

The man’s grin widened as he backed away. “Knowing Nicasio, he was probably trying to avoid some clinging woman.”

Sherm laughed amiably and waved when the man turned away.

CHAPTER
THIRTY

Thomas walked through the dim hallway, knowing Sophie was in the kitchen because he could hear the faucet running. The woman was probably making them a gourmet lunch, he thought with a mixture of amazement and amusement. He couldn’t convince her to stay on the dock with him in the sunshine and make out until they both got so hot they’d have to rush up to the bedroom to cool off. She’d just laughed and slapped away the hand that had been caressing her breast beneath her bikini top.

“I’m hungry,” she’d protested.

“You’re always hungry,” he’d mumbled as he ran his lips over the delicious upper swell of her right breast.

“Well you’re always horny, so that makes us even,” she’d replied briskly.

The smile that had curved his mouth at the memory faded when he saw Sophie standing stock-still at the sink and staring out the window.

“Sophie?”

She jumped and turned around, sloshing soapy water out of the overfilling pan she’d been washing.

“Thomas. You scared me.”

He grinned bemusedly. “What were you staring at?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly when he crossed the kitchen to glance curiously out the window. “I mean . . . there was a deer out there. At the edge of the woods on the right-hand side of the driveway.”

“Well, it’s gone now.” He turned toward her. “What are you making for lunch?”

Thomas thought the odd moment had passed when Sophie answered lightly, but he began to wonder when she seemed distracted as they ate the delicious lunch she’d made of a walnut and pear salad and hot rolls.

“I think I’ll go and stretch my legs,” she said from behind him as he knelt in front of a cabinet, putting away a pan in a lower cupboard.

“The paths in the woods will be a muddy mess,” Thomas commented as he lifted several pans and slid the larger one beneath them.

“I know. I’ll be careful,” she said, giving him a bright smile when he glanced over his shoulder.

He watched her from his kneeling position in front of the cabinet as she went out the back door, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

When she reached the end of her driveway, Sophie paused on the lake road and glanced anxiously from right to left. Sophie’s house lay at the end of an extension of the lake road. The blacktopped road ceased in a crudely shaped, forest-lined cul de sac. She glanced warily back toward her house. The thick foliage on either side of the road obscured the view.

She walked over to the man who had just stepped out of the woods lining the dead-end road.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Fisk in a pressured whisper. She’d been shocked into immobility when she’d seen the young agent signaling to her from her driveway earlier, his motions conveying both a beckoning gesture and a plea for secrecy. Gone was Fisk’s dark, sober suit. Instead, he wore a pair of jeans, a green T-shirt, and very muddy hiking boots.

“Is Nicasio in the house?” he asked in a low voice.

Sophie studied him searchingly, finding that she trusted his face this time as much as she had on their previous meeting.

“How did you find me?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“I was eventually able to trace you to your parents. It wasn’t that hard after that, to locate any property listed under your father’s stage name in the near vicinity. I checked airline passenger lists, so I knew you and Nicasio hadn’t flown anywhere. I figured you had to be within driving distance. I would have found you sooner if the damn interstate hadn’t been shut down. I need to talk to Nicasio. It’s extremely important.”