The Men of Thorne Island (4 page)

“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.”

H
IS 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 tell
ing 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.

A
FTER 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…

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.

B
ANNING 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.

A
T 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.