The Men of Thorne Island (18 page)

Nick rubbed his chin. Sara could almost see the ideas churning in his mind. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” he said. “Okay. I’ll make one phone call on Dexter’s behalf—only one, though, Sara. If it doesn’t
pan out, that’s it. I like having Dex around here. I don’t want him to leave unless he really wants to.”

“Fair enough.”
And what would it take to make you leave, Nick?

“Next I suppose you’ll tell me to send Ryan back to the racetrack,” he said, scattering her thoughts.

“No, I won’t, but I wish there was something we could do for him.” She hushed his response with a finger to her lips. “Here they come.”

All three men approached from the direction of Brody’s cottage. Brody was obviously still angry. He stomped to the back porch and put his fists on his hips. “Well, come on, Nick,” he said. “This is your party. Let’s get working.” Then with a snide glance at Sara, he added, “And speaking of parties, why don’t you and the little woman here start by taking down all those friggin’ love lights in the dining room?”

Sara’s jaw dropped. Nick swore. And Brody, ignoring the reaction, continued into the inn, followed by Ryan and Dexter, who had the decency to hide their embarrassment by clearing their throats loudly.

Once the men were inside, Sara whirled on Nick. “You told!”

“No, I didn’t. Brody doesn’t know anything. He saw the lights, yeah, but he doesn’t know what we were doing. He just wants us to take the lights down because he hates to waste fuel.”

Sara put her head in her hands and moaned. Brody may not have known what happened between them, but he definitely suspected.

Nick patted the top of her head. “Relax, Sara. We don’t have to worry about fuel. We don’t need those lights. We can generate enough electricity in the dark
with our body heat. Now tell me where your phone is so I can make those calls.”

“It’s on the kitchen table,” she said.

Nick went inside and Sara listened to the soft pad of his shoes across the kitchen floor. How was it possible for such an obviously bright man to so completely miss the point?

C
ARL
J
UNIOR’S NUMBER
was one of the few Nick had committed to memory. Nick announced his name to Junior’s wife when she answered, and he immediately came to the phone. “Hey, what’s up, Nick? Did something happen to the old man?”

“No. But I think it’s time something did.”

Junior chuckled. “Now, Nickie, you’re not going to kill him, are you?”

“It might be the other way around. I want you to come here, Carl.”

“Did he tell you to call me?” The suspicion in Carl’s voice was obvious.

“No, but it’s time.”

“Why now?”

“He’s mellowing, Carl. I think he really wants to make amends.” Nick winced at the obvious lie. Maybe hell wouldn’t be such a bad place. “When can you come?”

There was a pause while Junior considered the invitation. Finally he said, “I’ll talk to my wife. How can I get back to you?”

Nick looked at the number Sara had written on a piece of paper. “Use this cell number. If a woman answers, don’t hang up. Believe it or not, she’s part of this picture.”

Next Nick dialed information to get the number of the manager of the Cleveland Browns football organization.

W
HILE THE MEN WORKED
in the Cozy Cove, Sara called the newspaper office in Sandusky. She placed an ad for a manager for the inn knowing she’d have to tell applicants that the position depended on whether the Cozy Cove passed inspection and whether they received any reservations.

Then she called the JCPenney catalog store. She ordered coordinating comforter sets, pillows and curtains for each of the finished guest rooms. Giving in to a last-minute impulse, she added colorful throw rugs to the list, rugs she’d scatter around the floors to warm a guest’s bare feet on chilly mornings.

Finally she called Candy in Florida.

“Hi, Sara,” Candy said. “I get to Cleveland at one-thirty Friday afternoon.”

“That’s great, Candy. I need you to do a favor for me when you get to Sandusky.”

“Sure. What?”

“Pick up an order at Penney’s. The store is near the ferry dock, so it won’t be much out of the way.”

“Okay.”

“And Candy, rent a car with a good-size trunk. The things I’ve ordered aren’t particularly heavy, but they’ll take up a lot of room. You’ll arrive in plenty of time to get the last ferry to Put-in-Bay.”

“Okay.”

“A man named Winkie will be at the ferry to meet you and bring you to the island. He wears a weird little naval cap, and he probably won’t have shaved for a couple of days. But he’s basically a nice man and will get you here unharmed.”

“Okay. See ya.”

Candy’s amazing, Sara thought as she ended the connection. She lives in a world of chaos and yet remains totally unflappable. It was definitely a quality to be envied.

During the next two days Dexter and Brody finished all the renovations to the interior of the inn and were now busy with the porch roof and a sign for the front gate. Ryan and Nick painted the exterior of the Cozy Cove and hosed down the mossy stone walls of the press house. When Sara called the code-enforcement office to request a visit by officials for Monday morning, she felt confident Thorne Island would pass inspection.

But how would its residents feel if guests were permitted to stay on the island? That remained the big question. Sara kept her eyes open for any last-minute sabotage by Brody, but so far she hadn’t noticed any sneaky behavior.

Still, she couldn’t shake a general melancholy that had come over her. Her stay on Thorne Island was coming to a close. She’d made her flight reservation to Fort Lauderdale for Tuesday evening. She hadn’t told Nick. Perhaps deep down, she feared his reaction would be an indifferent shrug. Maybe he wouldn’t care. Sara could almost feel the stab to her heart when she considered that possibility.

Nick certainly hadn’t been indifferent to
her
in the past couple of days. He’d come to her room both nights after the island settled into darkness. He was a wonderful, sensitive lover. He caressed and courted Sara with fervent words and passionate embraces. He mixed humor with desire and could just as easily send her into fits of laughter as inflame her with flights of
absolute ecstasy. Nick was sexy beyond belief and he was fun.

And on Friday afternoon, just four days before Sara would leave for Florida—just three weeks since she’d arrived on Thorne Island, one question kept invading her thoughts. Had she fallen in love with him?

She’d told him about Candy coming to Thorne Island to help her. He joked about having to share her attention with the “pizza-eating secretary.” It seemed, however, that underneath all the teasing he was really worried, because at four o’clock on Friday, he came to her room with sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and a grin wide enough to melt Sara’s heart.

For the next two hours they feasted on delicacies of both the soul and the body. Deliriously exhausted, they lay in each other’s arms on Sara’s bed until the sounds of Winkie’s boat broke the sweet, contented bliss.

Sara jumped up and scrambled around for her clothes. “Candy’s here!” she said.

Nick crossed his arms under his head, stretched back against a pillow and watched her with amusement dancing in his eyes. “So it seems.”

She threw his shirt at him, and it landed on his face. “Well, don’t just lie there. Get dressed.”

He did as he was told. “Okay, okay. We wouldn’t want Candy to think there was anything other than number-crunching going on in here.”

They left the room together and went to the stairs. Candy’s giggles floated through the front screen door several seconds before she actually appeared. Nick and Sara had only descended a couple of steps when the door was yanked open by a hand that glittered with a half-dozen bangle bracelets.

“There’s so much stuff,” Candy said, sliding a large JCPenney bag over the threshold. She followed it inside, looked up the stairs and flashed a huge grin. “Hi, Sara. I made it.”

“Hi, Candy. I hope the packages weren’t too much—”

The next words stuck in Sara’s throat. Carrying a similar bag under each arm, an extra-large sack in each hand and a leather duffel over his shoulder, her father stepped into the Cozy Cove lobby.

“Dad!” Sara cried.

Ben Crawford set down his bags and smiled up at her. “Hi, Sarabelle.”

At the same time from behind her, she distinctly heard Nick mumble, “Damn.”

Ben’s eyes grew round as hubcaps. He snapped his fingers several times as if to kickstart his memory. “I know you,” he said, pointing at Nick. “Romano. You’re that reporter from the
Plain Dealer.
I wondered what happened to you.”

Nick cleared his throat. “How ya doing, Ben?”

Romano? Reporter?
Sara sank to the bottom step and stared at her father. Then she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the man who’d shared her bed and somehow managed to turn her sensible world upside down. Who was this impostor who faced her now with dark, glittering eyes and a guilty grin?

B
EN
C
RAWFORD
walked over to Sara, took her hand and pulled her up from the stairs. He studied her features and frowned. “What’s the matter with you, Sara? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not me, Dad,” she said, using every ounce of willpower to keep her voice from trembling. “I think you’re the one who’s seen the ghost.”

Ben chuckled. “Oh, you mean Romano here? I’m surprised to see him I must admit. It’s been a few years.” He looked at Nick who’d descended the remaining steps to stand beside Sara. “What’re you doing on Millicent Thorne’s island?”

Sara gave Nick a fake smile. “Yes, Mr.
Romano,
what
are
you doing on Aunt Millie’s island? We’re all dying to know.”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “Mostly, Ben, I’ve just been hanging around here recuperating.”

“You ought to be hanging from a noose,” Sara said in a voice only Nick could hear. Then to her father, she said, “What are you doing here, Dad?”

“I just got curious about what was happening on this island and decided to check things out.” He crooked his thumb at Candy. “Imagine seeing your secretary at the ferry and then finding Romano here. Sure is a small world.”

Since his broad grin was aimed at Nick, Ben
seemed more interested in Thorne Island’s apparent celebrity than he did his daughter. He stuck out his hand to his old acquaintance. The two men shook, and Ben started firing questions.

Fuming on the inside with anger and, almost worse, a desperate curiosity for more details of her father and Nick’s shared past, Sara tried to listen to what they were saying. Candy, unaware of these developments and her boss’s emotional turmoil, talked incessantly, blocking out their words.

“You picked the nicest colors for the bed linens, Sara.”

Sara mumbled a quick thank-you and stepped closer to her father.

“No kidding,” Ben said. “Those rotten bastards from Golden Isles had you shot?”

“Yeah, well, it was a long time ago,” Nick answered. “Just a bad memory now.”

Sara glared at him, and he responded with a sheepish look that said he knew he was in trouble. Sara looked at her father. So Nick was the one who’d brought down the Golden Isles Development Corporation. And for some reason during the last three weeks, he had chosen not to mention this detail. How could he have done this to her? How could he have kept a secret that was so interwoven with her own life?

Candy’s voice forced Sara’s attention back to the mound of JCPenney sacks in the lobby. “So what do you want me to do with all this stuff?”

All at once bed linens didn’t seem important. “The bags belong on the second floor,” Sara answered. “I’ll help you carry them up in a minute.”

Candy dragged one sack to the stairs and started up. “No problem. I’ll get them up there.”

Ben picked up two more and followed her.

Needing to put space between her and Nick, Sara went to the kitchen. She looked for something to do—a dish to wash. A spill to wipe up. Nothing needed doing. Her efforts had been too thorough to provide her with an outlet for her anger and frustration now. With no other options, she paced, nearly running into Nick when he threw open the door and came into the room.

“I know, I know,” he said, trailing after her when she spun away from him. “I’ve got some explaining to do. But right now I’m just getting your father a beer.”

She would have blasted him right then, but he held up his hand and pointed to the back door. “Oh, hi, Ryan.”

Sara caught a glimpse of Ryan’s timid face before he retreated back down the steps. The little guy had a knack for sensing tense situations.

Nick hurried to the door and held it open. “Ryan, buddy. Don’t go. Come in.” Desperation was written all over Nick’s features, the coward!

Trapped by the invitation, Ryan cautiously stepped inside. He looked from Sara to Nick. “Who’s here?”

Having to concede that Nick was spared her revenge at least for the moment, Sara managed to give Ryan what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “There are some people I want you to meet in the lobby, Ryan. Follow me. I’ll introduce you.”

Ben and Candy had returned from carting the bags upstairs when Nick, Sara and Ryan entered the lobby. Nick strolled by Sara as casually as if he was in the
vineyard, instead of the mine field she imagined for him. He handed Ben the can of beer. Then patting his stomach, he said, “Should have gotten myself one while I was there. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Sara followed his progress out of the lobby with her eyes. “Meet me in the press house in half an hour,” she said to his back.

He made a pretense of checking his watch. “I think I can make that appointment.”

“Thirty minutes,
Romano.
”

Once Nick left, the other three people in the lobby stared at Sara with expressions that clearly indicated their confusion. And no wonder. There was enough emotional electricity sizzling in the Cozy Cove to eliminate the need for the generator.

Sara made the introductions. Then despite the thoughts tumbling wildly in her head about her own concerns, she noticed an undeniable interest in Ryan’s eyes when his gaze passed quickly from her father to settle on Candy. She shouldn’t have been surprised, since Candy had never looked more outrageous, but still, this was timid Ryan whose eyes were popping out of his head.

Red hair poked out from a red felt hat with the brim rolled up to reveal Candy’s perfectly penciled eyebrows. Her magenta lips flashed an exuberant smile. She wore a red and purple print top tucked into purple lycra pants. Red sandals with impossibly thin straps completed the outfit. The two-inch heels made Candy only that much taller than Ryan. In her bare feet, she would meet him nose to nose.

Sara couldn’t help smiling. She’d been hoping something good would happen in Ryan’s life, but she’d never suspected it would come breezing
through the door of the Cozy Cove in the effervescent form of her assistant. But there was no denying the attraction. Ryan was mesmerized.

He rubbed the toe of one canvas-clad foot against the back of his other leg and shoved his hands in the pockets of his denim shorts. But for once, he didn’t look as though he wanted to bolt. His eyes were glued to Candy’s mouth, which moved at its customary speed.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Eliot,” she said. “I love this island already. And this inn. It’s so quaint. It’s like Mr. and Mrs. America live here.” Her hand fluttered out to touch Ryan’s arm. He jerked slightly, but if she noticed, she didn’t react. “You’re so lucky to live here. I’ll bet you hear birds sing all day long.”

He nodded, took a couple of steps toward the door and pointed to the porch. His lips quivered with the first tentative efforts toward speech. “Do…do you like the flowers?”

Candy pranced around him, stepped outside and looked at the hanging baskets. “I
love
flowers. These are beautiful.”

He followed her. “I take care of them.”

“My goodness. I wish I could make things grow, but heavens, if I touch a plant, it just withers. You really have a talent.”

“I could teach you,” he offered. “You want to see the vineyard?”

Sara looked out the door as Candy and Ryan walked around the inn to the vineyard. “Well, if that doesn’t beat everything,” she said. “I guess it’s true that there really is someone for everybody. You just have to be in the right place at the right time.”

A low, teasing voice rumbled from behind her and
sent ripples of tingling familiarity down her spine. “I’ll bet you planned this whole thing,” Nick said.

She turned around, momentarily letting her anger subside in favor of a strange delight. “Did not. But I’d be quite proud of myself right now if I had.”

Nick consulted his watch. “Oh, look at the time. Gotta go. I’ve got an important appointment in a few minutes.”

“Do you know who that fella is, Sara?” Ben asked after Nick had gone.

Sara just shook her head. Yes, she now knew his name and that he was the reporter who’d come to her Aunt Millie’s aid. But she also knew he wasn’t Nick Bass, the man she’d naively taken into her bed and into her heart.

M
INUTES LATER
Sara crossed the backyard of the inn and cut through the shrubs separating it from the vineyard. She stopped within a few feet of the press house and took a deep breath. The door was open, indicating Nick was probably inside. Clenching her hands, she stepped through the door and into the cool, shadowy dimness.

In the moment it took for her eyes to adjust to the rose-gold hues of dusk, she was drawn to the vague, gray shapes of the crushing vat and the press baskets. She was furious at Nick, yet she couldn’t ignore the peace this room and its symbols of tradition instilled in her.

“Over here, Sara,” Nick said from the center of the room. He was seated on the top step of the short stairs that led from the floor to the edge of the crushing vat. His voice was soft and soothing, perfect for the atmosphere of ages-old craftsmanship, yet entirely
wrong in the context of his deceit. He lifted his hand and held it out to her. She approached him but ignored his gesture.

Dropping his hand, Nick slid over on the step, making room for Sara to sit beside him.

“I guess you’re mad,” he said when she remained standing.

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I never lied to you.”

“Not telling me is the same as lying.”

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his brow. “No, Sara, it isn’t. I told you all you needed to know. That I was living cheaply on Thorne Island as repayment for a kindness I’d done for Millicent Thorne. That is entirely true.”

“You just failed to mention that this kindness was part of your job as an investigative reporter. You failed to mention that Thorne Island was saved from corrupt developers because of your story. You failed to mention that my aunt lived the rest of her years in financial comfort because of your efforts.”

He looked up at her, his gaze searching every detail of her features. Her eyes had adjusted to the light now, and she was able to read the bewilderment in his expression.

“Pardon me for saying so, Sara,” he said, “but this list of charges against me reads more like a commendation than a condemnation.”

“Oh, it is, Nick. You were brave and noble in your dealings with my aunt. A seeker of truth and justice.”

He opened his mouth, and his question came out slowly. “But…you’re still angry with me.”

“I am as angry right now as I can ever remember being in my life.”

He shook his head, confusion still clouding his normally clear eyes.

“Don’t look so perplexed, Nick. It’s simple. I don’t like games. Especially between two people who, I
thought,
had come to mean something to each other.”

He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away. “Come on, Sara. You mean a lot to me. You know that.”

“No, I don’t. Shortly after meeting you, I told you who I was, who my father was, why I was here, what I did for a living. You told me almost nothing about yourself. You were a blank tape, Nick. As time passed I told you even more. I told you my expectations for Thorne Island. I told you about my job, my childhood…”

“Yeah, well, you’re just not as private a person as I am. I told you I don’t like to talk about myself.”

Sara pinned him with a stark glare. “You could have given me something, Nick. You knew practically everything there was to know about me. And what did I know about you? Zero! Oh, I’d heard a bit about your parents, and I’d begun to fantasize all sorts of things…”

Apparently liking the sound of that, his eyes brightened, and he reached for her again. “Yeah? What things?”

Sara slapped his hand. “Grope at me again, Ba…
Romano,
and your hand will know how a grape feels in the press basket.”

He dangled his hands between his knees. “Well said, Crawford. Point taken.”

Determined to make him understand, she turned away from his penetrating gaze and the threat of a mesmerizing grin that had clouded her judgment on
more than one occasion. She stared at the ceiling. “I knew that you’d been shot but I never knew why. You wouldn’t talk about it. I slept with a man who could have been a criminal, a mobster or even an idiot who didn’t know how to handle his own gun.”

As usual he had a quick response. “It wouldn’t have been that last one. I was shot in the back, remember? There’s no way I could have…”

She heard a rustle and knew he was twisting around trying to prove he couldn’t have aimed a pistol at his back. This childish ploy to get her attention was the last straw. She whirled on him, pushed at his chest while he was off balance and watched him tumble into the crushing vat.

“Sara!” His cry sounded hollow coming from the cavernous old tub.

She grasped the side of the vat and leaned over. Her voice quivered with rage. “Don’t you even know how to be serious? Do you have to make a joke of every honest emotion you’re faced with in life?”

He grabbed for his lower back. “Oh, I’m damn serious right now. You knocked the sense of humor right out of me, woman. I may never crack a smile again.”

“Good. Then just lie there and listen because I have a question for you. At what point, if any, were you going to tell the woman you’d been sleeping with who the hell you are? If my father hadn’t shown up today, were you maybe going to tell me tomorrow? How about Sunday? Or maybe you were going to wait until Tuesday afternoon when I carried my suitcases out the front door. Or maybe you were never going to tell me at all.”

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and stared at her. “You’re leaving on Tuesday?”

“Yes, I am. Now answer the question.”

He set his elbows on his raised knees and let his hands hang. After appearing to consider his answer carefully, he finally said, “Truthfully, I probably never would have told you.”

His admission, though it did nothing to mend the hole in her heart, was strangely gratifying. At least Sara knew he was telling the truth. “Why not, Nick? Am I so hard to trust?”

“I wouldn’t have told you because it doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with what happened between us.”