The Men of Thorne Island (11 page)

Flowers. She would plant flowers around the inn before she left. Tall, elegant, colorful blooms, which would sway in the gentle breezes of Thorne Island.

There was nothing like the stillness in the air after a spring rain to nurture such satisfying thoughts. Suddenly each glorious sound of Thorne Island seemed magnified. The song of a robin, the cheerful chirrup of a cricket. The strains of James Taylor singing “You’ve got a friend.”

James Taylor?
Sara hadn’t heard anything by Taylor in years, though his words and his voice were timeless. She stood up, dusted off her cutoffs and went into the inn. Then she climbed the stairs, following the music.

N
ICK SAW
S
ARA’S REFLECTION
in his rain-streaked bedroom window. She stood in the doorway uncer
tainly, as if afraid to enter but unwilling to walk away. He turned slowly to look at her. Her clothes were wet, making her seem smaller, more compact. Vulnerable.

“Nice music,” she said.

He nodded toward his stereo. “James Taylor. You like him?”

“Uh-huh.”

Nick waved her in. “Have a look.” He crossed to the stereo in a corner of the room and lowered the volume. “I’ve got other albums by him.”

“Albums?” She knelt in front of the low shelf and looked at his collection. “Well, I’ll be. These are record albums.”

“Yep. And that’s a state-of-the-art turntable.”

She grinned up at him. “‘State of the art’ and ‘turntable.’ Isn’t that an oxymoron, like ‘the convenience of eight-track tapes’?”

“Not if you like true, undiluted composition the way Taylor meant it to sound.”

She flipped through his albums, reading off the names of the artists. “John Denver, Paul Anka, Waylon Jennings, Pete Fountain. My goodness, the many moods of Nick Bass.”

“Is there anyone you’d like to hear?” he asked.

“No, not right now.”

He raised his brows as if to say, “Then why are you here?”

“I want to talk about what happened in the vineyard,” she said. “It was a little awkward.”

Nick leaned against an old dresser and folded his arms. “Oh, yeah? Just because I was lip-locked with Donald’s girlfriend when he ding-a-lings into her
back pocket? The only thing awkward I see about that is he got closer to the body parts I was aiming for than I did, and he was a thousand miles away.”

She stood up and planted her fists on her hips, just as he knew she would. “Don’t be crude. For the record, he’s not my boyfriend, and besides, neither of us planned that little episode. It just happened.”

He waggled an eyebrow at her. “How do you know it wasn’t planned? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

Her cheeks, framed by damp strands of wispy hair, turned a telltale crimson. “Well, it shouldn’t have happened at all,” she said. “We’re complete opposites, for heaven’s sake. We’ve done nothing but snipe at each other ever since I arrived.”

“Nothing?” He rubbed his jaw with an index finger. “So why did it happen, Sara?”

“It was a lapse in judgment. I know I’m somewhat responsible. I’m not proud of myself.”

Nick knew he shouldn’t tease, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d deduced right away that Sara and this Donald guy weren’t the real thing. Someone like Sara would never mess around on a serious relationship. And what had happened in the vineyard went a step beyond messing around to Nick’s way of thinking. He attempted to appear pensive. “Let me understand. You mean you’re not head over heels for me, Crawford?”

She snorted. “Absolutely not. In the vineyard we made a business deal, one that if it succeeds—and I have my doubts about that—will be beneficial for all of us.”

“So?”

“For that reason, you and I will have to maintain
an association. There’s work to be done, Bass. I don’t want what happened between us to affect the repairs on Thorne Island.”

He nodded. “Of course not.”

She paced away from him. “If there
is
some sort of weird, unexplained chemistry between us, we’ll simply keep our distance from each other.”

“For as long as the repairs take?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He stepped in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. “So I’ll have to wait till the renovations are done before I can kiss you senseless?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” she warned.

“I wasn’t thinking of words…”

Just like a Sunday-school teacher exasperated with the kid who refuses to learn the simplest lesson, Sara lifted both hands and shook her head. She looked defeated. Nick took pity on her. “It’s okay, Crawford. I’ll be a good boy. If you don’t want any extracurricular activities, I’ll behave myself. But,” he couldn’t resist adding, “it won’t be easy. It’s all I can do not to jump your bones right now.”

“Then I’m glad you fell through the porch. It put your jumping days on hold for a while.”

S
ARA WENT DOWNSTAIRS
for coffee the next morning at seven-thirty. As usual, Nick had beaten her there. The pot already simmered with his rich brew, and her cup sat next to it.

Taking her coffee and an old ladder-back chair to the big kitchen window, she sat down to enjoy a day promising bright sun and warm temperatures. A perfect start to her projects. She hooked her toes around the chair legs and took the first sip from her mug.

“So, boss, what do you think I’d be good at?”

Sara jumped at the familiar voice coming from the back porch. How did he always manage to surprise her?

“Probably not replacing the eaves,” he continued. “If I got a splinter, I’d have to put up with Mother Dexter and that sewing needle he uses to dig them out.”

Sara stood and walked to the screen door. She stared at the back of Nick’s head. The baseball cap was on backward, and she smiled at the team’s grinning trademark face. “I don’t think you’ll be good at much of anything, Bass,” she said. “I’ll just let you putter around so you’ll feel like one of the boys.”

“What about painting?” he said, still looking out at the yard.

“Takes too much patience. You don’t have any.”

“Electrical?”

“Have you ever smelled charred skin? It’s not pleasant.”

He turned slowly, meeting her gaze with a serious narrowing of his eyes. “You know what I’m especially good at, Sara?”

Yes, she did, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up. “No. What’s that?”

“Thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“You know, problem solving. I like to tackle problems before they get a toehold. Anticipate the roadblocks and head them off.”

Sara knew this conversation was leading her somewhere as surely as if he’d snapped a leash around her neck. She decided to play along. “What problems do you think we might have?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee.

He stood up and faced her through the screen door. “The first one is the transportation of materials. You’ve got a boatload of supplies coming from the mainland, right? Paint, paste, nails, tools, lumber, wire…”

“Everything but qualified help,” she said.

He ignored the gibe. “Have you thought about how you’re going to move these materials from the dock to the inn?”

She knew exactly where he was going. “Of course I have,” she answered. “Why do you think I brought the car back? It’ll take a few trips, but I can get everything here in the bee. I’ll load up the trunk and the back seat…”

The muscles in his face tensed with impatience the
longer she talked. Finally he cut her off midsentence. “Let me drive it, Sara.”

She pretended not to have heard. “What? What’s that?”

“I want to drive the damn car, Sara.”

With the exception of one other activity she could think of, this was probably the most fun she’d had with Nick since the day she met him. “I’ll have to think about it, Bass. You’ve been on this island for so long I don’t know if you even have a valid driver’s license.”

His eyebrows drew together in an obstinate scowl. “I promise to avoid the cops.”

“Well, I might consider it…on one condition.”

His enthusiasm deflated like a week-old party balloon. “What’s that?”

“I want information. And I’ll trade you these—” she pulled the car keys out of her pocket and dangled them in front of the screen door “—for it.”

“Heck, that’s easy,” he said. “I’ve already told you a little about the island’s history. And about the Kraus family and their wine making. What else do you want to know?”

“I don’t want that kind of info, Bass.”

“Then what?”

She opened the door and waved him inside. Making him wait, she refilled her coffee mug, sat down at the table and said, “Tell me about Ryan. Why is he here? And why is he so timid at the prospect of being around other people?”

“Aw, come on, Sara, I can’t talk about him. It’s privileged information.”

“Strictest confidence, Bass, I promise.” She meant it, and knew he’d believe her.

“Still…”

She jangled the keys one time and then clamped her fist around them. “No story. No keys.”

He looked up at the ceiling, then back down at her. She could tell the end was beginning to justify the means. “Why Ryan?” he asked. “Why not one of the others?”

“Because I’ve sort of got the others figured out. Brody’s story is obvious. He’s here because nobody else will have him. And you other three are just weird enough to overlook his faults and maybe even envy him for them.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

“And Dexter—he’s sweet-natured all right. Just like you told me. But he’s ticked off that the rest of the world is still playing football and he isn’t. So he’s hiding out with a remote control in one hand and a physical therapy manual in the other. Your recovery has become his mission.”

“What about me? Why don’t you ask about me?”

“Primarily because you wouldn’t tell me anything if I did. I know you came here after somebody shot you. Maybe it was a jealous husband. Maybe it was the clerk in the convenience store you were robbing. I don’t know. But that happened six years ago, and now you’re just sitting around here waiting for the bullet to come out the other side.”

He grimaced as if she’d delivered a painful shot of her own. “Sara, some people are just private.”

“Fine. So I’ll leave you alone—for now. But I want to know about Ryan. I like him. I won’t use the information against him, and I won’t try to change him. I just want to understand.”

Nick studied her face for several moments. He must
have decided that he could trust her, because he finally said, “Okay, here’s what happened to Ryan.”

F
ROM THE BEGINNING
Nick’s story hinted of misplaced trust and unforgivable betrayal. Eliot Ryan had loved racehorses and the thrill of seeing them run. According to Nick, Ryan had been one hell of a jockey. But he’d become a victim of some double-dealing and had been sentenced to jail. And it was this image—Ryan sitting in a cell—that almost brought Sara to tears.

“He suspected one of the trainers he worked for was injecting his horses with a stimulant,” Nick explained. “When he called the guy on it, he was told to mind his own business or he wouldn’t get a mount in all of Ohio.”

“So he kept quiet,” Sara deduced.

“Yeah, he did. It happened at a time in his life when his mother was on her deathbed and Ryan was paying some heavy-duty medical bills. His silence bought him a ton of good races and cuts of hefty prize money. But when the story finally broke and the racing commission got wind of the drug use, that same silence cast a whole lot of suspicion on him.”

“Is that why he went to jail? For not revealing what he suspected?”

“Nope. He wasn’t arrested then. There wasn’t enough solid evidence.”

“So what happened?” Sara asked.

Nick rubbed the stubble of beard on his chin. “There’s a little device that track people know about called the machine.”

Machine?
A harmless enough name, Sara thought. “What is it?”

“It’s a small, battery-powered prod that fits into the palm of a man’s hand. About the size and shape of a Bic lighter. And it’s highly illegal. With pressure from his thumb, the jockey can turn the device on. Then while he’s riding, he can touch the horse anywhere on its body and send a jolt of electricity through that thick horse hide that’s strong enough to make the animal run faster.”

Sara couldn’t imagine Ryan using the machine on any animal. “Did Ryan use the device in one of his races?”

Nick looked at Sara with honest, clear eyes. “I’d bet my entire next month’s rent that he didn’t.”

Sara didn’t smile at his attempt to lighten the mood.

“Ryan was framed,” he continued, “plain and simple. He won a big race one day, and the jockey who came in second issued a protest, saying he saw Ryan use the machine. The stewards investigated, ran the film dozens of times and finally found a frame that showed Ryan
might
have been using his hand in a way that
might
have indicated the use of a machine. Then the stewards found one of the devices in the dirt—obviously planted. The authorities were called in, there was a short trial, and Ryan didn’t see daylight for the next eighteen months. And of course his career was over.”

“How did he end up here?” Sara asked.

“Brody used to go to the track a lot before he moved to the island. He knew Ryan, and when he heard about his release from prison, he invited him to Thorne. With his mother buried by then, the poor guy had nowhere else to go.”

Now he acts as if he’s afraid of his own shadow, Sara thought. And he’s definitely more anxious than the others at the thought of strangers coming to the island. “If you ask me—” she began.

Nick put his hand up. “Stop right there, little mother. I didn’t tell you this so you’d start conjuring up some scheme to
fix
Ryan.”

She leveled her most frustrated glare on him. “No, you told me so you could drive my car. That’s a much more noble reason!”

He stuck his hand out, palm up. “That’s right, so hand over the keys. A deal’s a deal.”

Sara wanted to ask more questions, but Dexter’s voice boomed from the front porch. “Nick! Sara! Come on. That pontoon boat’s coming into the dock, and it’s carrying quite a load.”

Nick waggled his fingers, his gaze fixed on the keys in Sara’s hand. “Remember what you said, Crawford,” he warned. “I think your exact words were ‘strictest confidence. I won’t try to change him.’ Does that ring a bell?”

Reluctantly she slid the key ring across the table. “Yes. I won’t say anything.”

He picked up the keys and started out of the kitchen. He was almost through the door when he whirled around to face her. “That doesn’t mean you won’t
do
anything, though, does it?”

She answered with a noncommittal grin.

L
ATER THAT
F
RIDAY
improvements were well under way at the Cozy Cove. By the time he quit for the day, Dexter had painted two bedrooms a cheerful
shade of lemon. They only needed floral wallpaper borders around the ceiling moldings and chair rails to complete the decor. Ryan had ripped down old gutters and downspouts to reach damaged fascia boards. Brody had removed outlet covers, cut off the power supply and tested wiring with a strange instrument he carried from room to room. Sara, who knew nothing about electrical work, couldn’t gauge his progress, but each time she passed the doorway of a room he was working in, she heard grumbling and complaining.

“Don’t know why I’m bothering with this nonsense,” he said. “If I have my way, there won’t be any people coming to this old inn, anyway. I’m just wasting good fishing time, and for what?”

Sara hadn’t seen much of Nick that day, but she determined that he’d had more fun than his companions. The little engine of the Volkswagen had puttered under her window countless times, indicating that Nick probably made twice as many trips as were necessary. And since he never came from the same direction two times in a row, he’d obviously found circuitous routes from the inn to the harbor.

“Way to squeeze six years of driving into one day, Bass,” she called out the window during one of his stops. “Remember, when that tank of gasoline is gone, somebody’s got to talk Winkie into bringing more from Put-in-Bay—at a cost of twenty bucks!”

The wide grin on his face confirmed that he was having the time of his life. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Crawford,” he hollered back to her. “Your credit’s good with Winkie.”

When all the supplies were eventually deposited at
the inn, Sara heard Nick’s feet clomping around on the roof and his hammer pounding away at the shingles.

For the next few days Sara decided her best course of action was to stay as far away from the renovations as possible. She split her time between working in the vineyard, giving instructions to Candy on the cell phone and preparing monthly statements and flow sheets on her computer.

It was during these hours of isolation that Sara realized she missed being intimately involved in the refurbishing. She stayed away from the men, but the desire to check on every little detail and the need to celebrate even the smallest improvement was almost overwhelming. The more she stared at numbers on a blue computer screen, the more she wished she was painting and preparing the Cozy Cove.

Sara, who’d always prided herself on her levelheaded approach to problems and logical thinking, was now facing a life-altering realization. A big part of her didn’t care about the numbers at all. Instead, she rejoiced in watching the old inn come alive. Suddenly Sara Crawford, number cruncher, had become an artistic visionary!

Another discovery she made about herself, and this one was more surprising, was that she actually missed being around the men. Tucked away in her room with only her laptop to keep her company, she listened to their complaints and winced at language that would have been much more appropriate at the Happy Angler. But occasionally she heard a cheerful whistle, a shared laugh or the country twang of Waylon Jen
nings coming from Nick’s turntable, and she knew that deep down she wanted to be part of the community she had inherited.

That was why late the following Saturday afternoon, Sara called Winkleman on her cell phone and made a special request. Since she always read every food label and calculated each gram of fat in her diet, she couldn’t believe it was her voice listing the groceries she required.

“Two whole cut-up fryers. A one-pound can of vegetable oil. A large tub of margarine. A pound of cheddar cheese. A bag of flour, and a five-pound bag of potatoes…” By the time she mentioned fresh asparagus and crescent rolls, she could tell Winkleman’s mouth was watering.

“Lordy, Sara,” he said, “sounds like you’ll have enough for a small army.”

She smiled into the phone. “If you’re fishing for an invitation, Mr. Winkleman, you’ve got it. Just have the groceries here tomorrow by two o’clock. And you’d better bring a large package of napkins.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And, Winkie,” she added, “don’t tell the others. I want this to be a surprise.”

After hanging up, Sara went into the kitchen to double-check the equipment. Luckily she’d purchased all the necessary utensils on the mainland, including oversize skillets and a large pot for boiling potatoes. She mentally went through the list she’d given Winkie and realized she’d forgotten to mention butter for the rolls.