The Men of Thorne Island (9 page)

Once Ryan and Dexter left for their own cottages, she expected Nick to go off, as well. He didn’t. He plopped down in a chair on the porch and thumped one of the boxes with the toe of his Docksider. “What is all this stuff?”

She opened a box, looked inside and determined the articles were targeted for the bathroom. “Just some things I picked up for the inn.”

He craned his neck to see over the tops of several bags. “It looks like you bought out the store.”

She smiled. “Actually the manager did come out of his office with a bottle of champagne to thank me for shopping there.”

“Sure he did.” Nick snickered. “So why did you buy so much?”

“Because, Bass, if guests are going to be staying here, they’ll need nicer amenities than plastic dishes and threadbare towels that have probably been used to clean fishing gear.”

She expected a typical Bass outburst, but he only shrugged.

She carried a box into the kitchen and returned for more. Nick had gotten up from the chair and was leaning over the porch railing, looking up at the eaves. “I don’t know, Sara,” he said. “I’d say this old place has a long way to go before people can stay here. There are Sandusky city codes to think about.”

Aha, so he’d come up with what he believed was a surefire argument against turning the Cozy Cove into a profit-making venture. No wonder he’d acted so nonchalantly. He reached up and pulled a sliver of wood from the fascia board. “Dry rot,” he said, holding the wood out to her like a gift. “Yep, it’ll be some time before this place meets even the lowest standards required to accept paying guests. You would be personally liable if anything went wrong.”

The time had come. She might as well tell him about the appointments she’d had that afternoon in Sandusky. She took the piece of wood from his hand and tossed it over the railing. Then glancing back at him, she said, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

His eyes widened just slightly, enough for her to see a quick flash of something like panic in their stormy depths. He was worried. “What do you mean?” he asked.

She couldn’t stop a grin of triumph. “You gentlemen can expect some company on the island starting day after tomorrow.”

“Company? Are you crazy? You can’t bring people over here to stay at the Cozy Cove! The wiring is fifty years old at least. Some of the porch boards are nearly rotted through. A kid could go right over
the edge of the dock. The authorities would close you down and slap a fine on you so fast—”

“The people I’m expecting aren’t guests, Bass,” she said calmly. “They weren’t
invited.
They were
hired.
They’re fully licensed, bonded and insured.”

There was no mistaking the squall brewing in Nick’s eyes now. Again, Sara waited for the tirade she expected to erupt from his mouth, but for several seconds his jaw remained tightly clenched. He took a determined step toward her, and one of those loose floorboards he’d just mentioned sagged under his weight.

Sara held up her hand to stop his approach. “Now, Nick, calm down.” She said the words as soothingly as her suddenly alert instincts would allow. “Do I have to remind you that I have every right to make changes on
my
island?”

The air around him seemed to vibrate. The board under his foot creaked threateningly. “Let me get this straight, Miss Tax Accountant,” he said. “In two days we can expect to see our island, the place we’ve lived for six years, invaded by electricians, carpenters…” He stalled, apparently at a loss for words to enumerate what other menacing demons might cross his precious boundaries.

She couldn’t resist helping him out. “And painters, wallpaper hangers… Nick, no one is going to ask you to leave your home.” She rolled her eyes. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, since you negotiated those terms with my aunt.”

He snorted his annoyance and rocked back on his heels. The board moaned in protest. “It won’t be our place any longer, don’t you realize that? Strangers will be wandering around talking about sing-alongs
and barbecues and suntan lotion. It’ll be oh-so-nice and homey, and color-coordinated, for God’s sake!”

She waved her hand in the air. “Nick, you worry too much.”

“You’re killing us, Sara. Little by little you’re stifling the breath right out of our lungs.” He lifted one foot to take a step closer, leaving the bulk of his weight on his other foot and the loose board.

The old plank cracked down the middle. Nick’s foot and a good amount of rotted wood plummeted to the ground two feet below the porch. He yelped in shock and pain as his gaze shot to the side of him that was buried from the mid thigh down. “Damn it!”

Sara lunged for him. “Now you’ve done it!” She positioned her shoulder under his arm, and he leaned his weight on her. Slipping her other arm around his waist, she held him and tugged until he twisted his foot free and stepped back onto the porch.

“Nick, if you want my advice…” Sara began.

“I don’t—not that it’ll matter.”

“What’s going to kill you is having this place fall down around you. You’re lucky you haven’t been electrocuted or conked on the head by part of the roof.”

He leaned more heavily on her. He was obviously in pain, but at least some of his color had returned. “What are you all afraid of, anyway?” she asked. “Why does civilization scare the daylights out of you guys?”

“How do you know it scares us?” He interspersed the words with short gasps. “Maybe we just don’t like it much.”

“Nonsense. You told me yourself that you haven’t been more than a few miles from this island in years.
And it’s my guess that none of you men would leave at all unless it was an absolute necessity. That’s fear, plain and simple.”

He settled an arm around her waist so that they ended up in a sort of awkward embrace. “Look, we just happen to like it here, all right? The real issue is all these little fix-ups you’re planning. I’m warning you, Sara, when the others hear about it, there’s going to be trouble.”

She smiled up at him. “I welcome the challenge.”

He released a long, normal breath. He even managed a halfhearted grin. “Maybe you do. But remember, I’m the only one who thinks you’re cute enough to put up with.”

He brought her around so she was standing straight in front of him. His eyes had mellowed to a soft ash-gray, the same shade as the early-evening shadows bathing the inn porch. His hair, neat and trim and touchable, just covered his ears and brushed his collar. Jeez, he looked good. Sara had to give Gina Sacco credit for the good haircut. And some higher power credit for the rest of this man.

“You see, Sara,” he said, “I’m the only guy on Thorne who’s willing to cut you some slack. The other guys—”

His words were drowned out by some blasted primal instinct that hummed through her senses. Good God, she was going to kiss him. He’d just been bullying her, and still she was drawn to that slow-moving mouth until his words didn’t matter. They were barely words any longer. It was just his voice, his eyes, his hands on her arms.

Finally, some of what he said broke through. “…I
don’t know how I’m going to keep them from coming down hard on you…”

Shut up, Nick. Pull me just a couple inches closer. That’s all it would take.

“…especially since you know that I think what you’re doing is wrong. If you want
my
advice, I’d suggest you take a big step backward…”

She blinked hard, breaking the hypnotic contact that had clouded her senses. He’d just given her the best advice of her life! No matter how this man tweaked every impulse in her body, fired every cell into tingling awareness, he was opposed to everything she wanted to do.

Enough! She was going to turn this disaster of an inn into the most charming place anywhere in northern Ohio. And she was going to love doing it! Didn’t he understand that she needed to do this? Didn’t he care? No, of course not. That much was clear, so she did as he said. She took a big step backward until several feet separated them.

“I’m not going to change my mind, Nick. Those men are coming on Friday. I’m going to start patching up holes around this place, and no one is going to stop me.”

She picked up a box of new bath towels and stormed into the inn.

N
ICK ROLLED OVER
in bed, squinted one eye at the clock on his nightstand and sucked in a breath of pain. Seven-thirty. Normally he’d have been up for at least a half hour. Morning was his most productive time of the day, except for Mondays when he devoted the best hours to Brody’s treasure hunt.

He’d been awake for hours, staring at the moonlit water stains spreading across his ceiling. All the while he’d contemplated the logic of Sara Crawford’s fixup scheme. So what if every good rainfall left its mark on the roof of the Cozy Cove? Nick had been up in the rafters himself a time or two, and they still looked sturdy enough. As sturdy as the planks on the front porch had seemed—until yesterday.

Drat the rotted wood! Nick slowly moved his legs to the side of the mattress. Pain shot up his right thigh and settled in the small of his back. He rubbed his ankle, wincing when his fingers connected with the black-and-blue spots. Gingerly he lowered his right foot to the floor. The pain ebbed a little. He’d have to walk it off or Dexter would double the exercise sessions. Nick didn’t know which was worse—having Dexter mother him or suffering the pain in silence.

He stood up and felt his right knee start to give way.
Oh, no you don’t,
he scolded the obstinate joint as he locked it in place.
We’re walking. At least to
the bathroom.
He rolled his shoulders. Tight muscles began to loosen.

Nick massaged the base of his spine, finding the hardened knot of scar tissue that marked the entrance of the bullet. The old wound had puckered down to an area no larger than the size of a quarter. Small, considering the size of the man, but it was enough to have changed his life.

“Enough moping, Romano,” he said, and limped to the door. He didn’t relish running into Sara, not in the state he was in. He glanced down the hall. Her door was still closed. Not surprising, since he’d heard her puttering around the second floor of the inn till past midnight. She’d made these chirpy little comments to herself every few minutes as she unpacked her boxes.
That’s a perfect match. How adorable.
She’d said a bunch of other things that separated men from women.

Nick ambled down the hall, avoiding rolls of wallpaper against the baseboards and country prints stacked randomly against the walls. Waiting till the painters did their thing, he supposed. When he entered the bathroom, he was bombarded with shades of gray and peach that splashed across curtains and towels. Curtains! What did they need curtains for on a second-story window? There was even a soap dish filled with little peach-colored shell soaps next to his razor.

“What the hell?” He stepped onto a thick area rug with a seagull in the middle of a charcoal background. The room even smelled like peaches. Despite his gloomy disposition, he sniffed the air appreciatively. This part wasn’t so bad. Then he spied a gray acrylic magazine holder with several glossy selections poking
out the top. “Just what we need, a reason to loaf around in the toilet!”

He managed to return to his room without incident. After pulling on a pair of corduroy shorts and a faded Akron University T-shirt, he made his way downstairs and into the kitchen. This room was as full of surprises as the bathroom. Shiny copper-bottomed pots and pans sat on the countertops. A tablecloth printed with little blue flowers covered the scrub table where he’d eaten lasagna with Sara. He didn’t dare open the utensil drawers and look inside for fear he wouldn’t know the names of half the stuff she’d probably put in them. And more curtains!

“She must think the world is full of Peeping Toms,” he remarked to himself as he plugged in the coffeepot. Or maybe she liked to run around in her skivvies. That thought brought a smile to his lips.

He took his coffee out to the back porch and sat on the top step. The rain had stopped, leaving a fresh, loamy scent in the air. Fat drops still fell with soft plops from the oak trees at the back of the inn. Spring was nice, Nick decided. The best time to live on Thorne Island, since the summers were too humid and winters were so cold he couldn’t loosen up in the mornings.

He liked it here for the most part. Sara had her nerve suggesting that he was afraid of something and was using the island as a refuge. Nothing could be farther from the truth—at least for him. Maybe not for the other guys, though. Ryan had only been to Put-in-Bay three times since he got here, and that was because he’d had such terrible toothaches he would have gone to the moon to get relief. But the little guy had good reason to be scared of his own shadow. He
hated crowds and feeling closed in. Being locked up in the state penitentiary for eighteen months did that to a person. Yeah, Nick supposed Ryan could be afraid of going back into the real world.

And Dexter…it was possible that fear ruled his motives, too. The ex-football star hated the thought of being recognized. And hell, he would be, too. The one time he’d gone to Sandusky to buy clothes at the Big and Tall men’s store, some well-meaning but ignorant person recognized him and brought up the less-than-admirable end to his career. There was a time when Dexter Sweet’s face had been as familiar to Cleveland Browns fans as Jim Brown’s. And then the franchise folded in 1996 and no other team would give Dex a chance. Too Old. Washed Up. Those had been the headlines in the sports pages.

“What a waste,” Nick said, remembering the silent, beaten man he’d brought to the island several years ago. Dex was getting better, though. Still, he was scared. Sara was right about him, too.

And now that he thought about it, Brody was probably scared of his son. If he’d only forgive Junior’s past mistakes and talk to him, as Nick did every so often, he’d understand that Carl truly cared about Brody despite the older man’s lousy attitude. Brody had called Carl Junior a “money-grubbing son of a bitch” many times. Nick didn’t know if that was true, but after all this time he figured the name-calling was just a cover-up. Brody was afraid to face Junior and have it out with him once and for all. Maybe he was afraid his son wouldn’t like him. It wasn’t all that easy to like Brody. Nick had to work at it every day.

Nick upended his coffee mug to get the last of the liquid, which suddenly tasted like motor oil. “Hell,”
he said to himself, “that pushy tax accountant might be right about these guys.”

He shook off a wave of apprehension. “I suppose she might have been right about me, too, a while ago. But not now.” He had to admit that after the shooting, he’d decided that no story was worth his life, no matter how great it was. He’d come to Millie’s island to get away from everything while he healed and decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He still hadn’t made his decision, so staying here was the logical thing to do.

Over the years he’d gone to Sandusky for various appointments. He’d always come back to Thorne Island the same day, but not because he was scared. He returned to the island because he liked it here. No other reason. Sara was wrong about him. Satisfied with himself, Nick picked up his cup and went back into the kitchen to have a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a cherry Pop-Tart.

A half hour later, when he climbed the stairs to go back to his room, he couldn’t resist a look at the other end of the hallway. Sara’s door was half-open. He walked toward it, stopping just beyond the bathroom when he heard her voice. It sounded different this morning. She wasn’t talking to herself like she had the night before. This time she was speaking to
someone.
Who the hell could it be? Ryan? Dex? Nick tried to imagine a liaison between Sara and either of his two friends. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “It’d never happen.”

Then, in an instant of unanticipated relief, Nick realized he was listening to a one-sided conversation. Sara was talking on the phone. He knew he should walk away. She had a right to her privacy like every
one else. But he flattened his back against the wall and inched toward her room and the sound of her voice.

S
ARA BLEW
a stubborn strand of hair off her forehead and tapped a pencil on the case of her new laptop computer. She’d called her office and spoken to the receptionist and the night cleaning lady, who was just leaving. Now if she could just connect with Candy! Why was it taking so long for her assistant to pick up? She’d promised to be on time the week Sara was away, and it was now eight thirty-five.

Ten rings. Sara was reaching for the end button on her cell phone when a breathless voice came from the small speaker grid. She returned the phone to her ear.

“H-hello! I mean, good morning. Miss Crawford’s office. Candy Applebaum speaking. May I help you?”

“Candy? It’s me.”

“Oh, Sara, how are you? I miss you.”

“I’m fine. I miss you, too. How are you getting along with the boss?”

“Oh, great. Mr. Bosch has birds, too. Did you know? We’ve been swapping budgie stories.”

“Great.” Sara couldn’t help smiling. “Candy, I have something to tell you. If there aren’t any major problems, I’m planning to stay here a while longer.”

“You must be having a good time. I just knew you would. Maybe I’ll go to Cleveland myself sometime.”

“It’s not really Cleveland. I’m on an island—”

Candy’s voice rose to an excited pitch. “Oh, you won’t believe what’s been going on this week!”

Sara froze. “What?”

“Mr. Papalardo was so grateful for the way you handled his tax return—you know, getting it in on time—”

“He should be grateful,” Sara interjected.

“Well, anyway, he’s called up every day this week to ask what kind of pizza you want delivered—free! I told him to load it up with everything, but heavy on the anchovies. I said you loved anchovies.”

Sara smiled into the phone. “Candy, I hate anchovies.”

“I know, but you’re not here.”

“True. So you’ve had pizza every day?”

“Yeah, and I’ve gained four pounds. I look grotesque.”

Sara muffled her laughter.
Grotesque
was hardly the word she’d use to describe rail-thin Candy Applebaum, even after she’d consumed three loaded pizzas. “Tell you what, Candy, today tell Mr. Papalardo that all I want is a tossed salad with low-fat Italian dressing.”

There was a long pause before Candy chirped back, “He’d never believe that. You’ve had me call him every day to tell him how much you loved the pizza.”

Sara laughed out loud. “Candy, I really do miss you.” And it was true. “Take down this phone number. It’s my new cell phone.” She recited the numbers. “Call me anytime if you have questions. I don’t want Mr. Bosch to get upset. And tell him I have business in Ohio that’s keeping me longer than I expected, but that I’m checking in regularly.”

“Business? Aren’t you having any fun at all?” Candy sounded genuinely distressed at the possibility.

If you only knew,
Sara thought.
I’m having the time of my life. I’m bringing beauty to what was drab and
life to what was dying. And meeting one of the biggest challenges of my life by doing it all in spite of a bunch of cantankerous, obstinate men. And one mysterious, argumentative, incredibly sexy man who pushes buttons I never knew I had.

“I wouldn’t say I’m not having any fun,” Sara answered cautiously. “Candy, I have to tell you, I met this—”

“Oh, sorry, Sara,” Candy whispered. “Mr. Bosch is coming into the office. Can I call you back?”

“Sure. It wasn’t important. I’ll talk to you later.” Sara ended the call and went to her wardrobe to get socks and sneakers. By the time she’d laced her shoes, her common sense was in gear once more.
Are you nuts, Crawford?
she asked herself.
What in the world were you going to tell Candy? That you’ve met a man whose sensitivity and manners are strictly in the debit column, but that you can’t stop thinking about him, anyway?

Relieved that she hadn’t blurted out the details of a situation she didn’t understand herself, Sara headed down the hall to the bathroom. Just as she reached the door, it swung open and Nick Bass stood on the threshold. He leaned against the door frame, crossed his arms and gave her a huge grin. “Good morning, Crawford,” he said. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” she said. “Despite being wet and soggy.”

“True, but I’ve decided not to sue you for that loose porch board, so that should put a little sunshine in your life.”

“You’re all heart, Bass.” She looked away from the teasing glint in his eyes. She certainly didn’t need to find anything attractive about Nick this morning.
“So, you done in there?” she asked, returning her gaze to his face since there didn’t seem to be a safe place to settle it.

He scratched the side of his head as if pondering her question. “I don’t know. All that great reading material and soft, fuzzy places to put my feet, I’m tempted to stay all day.”

“Well, forget it because you can’t.” She tried to shoulder her way past him, but it was like trying to knock a granite statue off its base.

He squared his shoulders, filling the entrance. “So, who were you talking to in your room, Sara? You have company in there?”

“Certainly not! I was simply letting my assistant know she could reach me on my cell phone. Unlike some people, I don’t entertain in my bedroom.” He squirmed just slightly at her implied accusation. “Besides, what were you doing listening to my conversation?”

“Were you trying to keep it private?”

“Of course.”

“Then from now on, shut your door. We’re the only two people who live in this palace. What affects you affects me.” He jerked his thumb at the interior of the redecorated bathroom. “What you change affects me.” He pointed to the supplies filling the hall. “Who you hire affects me. In fact, every damn thing you’re doing affects the hell out of me. You can’t blame me for listening in to see what other tricks you’ve got up your sleeve.”

This man could have goaded Mother Teresa into a boxing ring. And yet, the more he annoyed her, the more Sara’s other instincts raced into overdrive. His hair was still sleep-tousled and just needed a trail of
fingers to smooth it into submission. His T-shirt fit his chest like a second skin, and his mouth… Even while he delivered his lecture of self-defense, his lips twitched in amusement. Sara knew only two ways to wipe a smug expression off a person’s mouth. One was to slug it off, and the other…well, she couldn’t let herself think about that one.