corkscrew and open the wine.”
THE WHITE THORNE CHARDONNAY, a 1991 vintage, was deliciously tangy with a rich, fruity base. And Nick Bass proved to be a tolerable dinner companion. In fact, when Sara asked questions about his life on Thorne Island, he actually answered some of them, though his answers were evasive.
“You haven’t been here every day for six years, have you?” she asked. “You do leave the island once in a while.”
“Just for hours at a time,” he said. “I’ve been to Put-in-Bay and Sandusky on personal business. But I probably wouldn’t leave at all if I could train Winkie to clean my teeth.” He winked, a simple gesture that somehow seemed ripe with teasing sexuality. “There are some things a guy just can’t do for himself, Sara.”
Then he changed the subject and talked about his Italian grandmother and how she made her own pasta and grew her own tomatoes and spices, and how the idea of expressing an opinion opposite her husband’s was as alien to her as making spaghetti sauce from a can.
But buried somewhere in Nick’s humorous exposition on the parameters for a successful relationship between the sexes was an underlying affection for—and pride in—his past. Sara ended up telling him about her life in Brewster Falls. Nick said he’d been there once. He liked the town, claiming it was typical Americana, in a good, town-square/band-shell kind of a way.
She talked about her father and how he’d done his best to raise his teenage daughter alone. And how he still worried about her and called two or three times a week just to talk and offer advice. And she admitted that leaving Brewster Falls after graduating from college had been a tough decision.
“So why did you go?” Nick asked.
She explained about the charismatic recruiting executive from the Bosch and Lindstrom accounting firm who’d spoken to graduating seniors at Ohio State University. She submitted her résumé, and they’d hired her by phone a week later.
Nick leaned back in his chair and appraised her. “So you must be a pretty darn good tax accountant then, right?”
She made the mistake of thinking he was sincerely interested in her skills and allowed her enthusiasm to guide the discussion in a new direction. “Well, yes, I am,” she admitted. “And I see so much potential for this island.”
His eyebrows came together to form a ripple of worry over the bridge of his nose.
Sara wasn’t deterred. Nick and his buddies might as well know some of the details she’d been considering. “The buildings I’ve noticed on the island are basically sound,” she said. “A few minor structural repairs, a little fixup here and there, a massive cleanup of course, and Thorne Island could be a delightful, exclusive hideaway.”
“It already is a hideaway. For us.” The sharp tone in his voice matched the dangerous narrowing of his eyes.
“I mean for vacationers,” she persisted.
A vision of the improved island had already taken shape in her imagination, and she proceeded to tell him about it. “Nothing expensive of course. A place where families could come for a summer weekend. A nice beach, a modernized harbor, maybe a miniature golf course for children. And this inn—it wouldn’t take much to bring it up to par.”
A muscle worked in Nick’s jaw as he inhaled a deep breath. He drew himself up until his back was as straight as the fence posts in front of the Cozy Cove must have been originally. Then he leaned forward. A threatening glare in his eyes silenced Sara.
“You’re not seriously thinking of doing all this to Thorne Island, are you?” he demanded.
Her determination flared anew. “I’ve been having some thoughts along this line, yes. I can’t see letting the island fall into ruin, especially when a profit can be realized once a formula for investing a guarded amount of capital is devised…”
She felt the buildup of his anger from across the table. He drummed his fingers, stopping after each four-tap for emphasis. “You can’t do this, Sara,” he said in a voice that trembled with underlying fury. “What about the people who live here and like it the way it is? What about Millie’s promise to them?”
“I don’t intend to fight your leases,” she said. “All of you are free to stay as long as you like. I don’t see what difference it will make to you if civilization slowly encroaches. I’m only trying to make things better—”
“That’s bunk, Sara. You only care about making money.”
She stood up from the table and slammed her chair under it. “So, we’re back to that again. The sin of making money. I don’t happen to think it is a sin, Nick. I think it’s the smart thing to do. If you want to know what I think is a real sin, I’ll tell you. It’s four men hiding from life on an isolated island. You’re like turtles drawn inside your shells for reasons that frankly scare me to death when I imagine what they might be.”
He stood up and came around the table. Planting her feet solidly on the brick floor, Sara refused to let him intimidate her into backing away.
“You don’t know anything about us,” he said.
“Then tell me.”
“I’m not telling you anything about these men, but I will tell you one thing—it’s a piece of advice you’d do well to heed. This development thing, it’s been tried before, and it didn’t work.”
“You mean the Golden Isles project?”
His eyes rounded and he drew in a sharp breath. He looked as if she’d physically struck him. “What do you know about that?”
“Only that what I’m proposing is nothing like what that company wanted to do. I’m not even considering selling plots of land.”
Relief softened his features but apparently didn’t lessen his anger. “Right. You only want to turn Thorne Island into a circus.”
Sara shook her head in dismay. This man had the most irritating habit of exaggerating everything she said. “I do not. I only want to—”
“Leave the island alone, Sara. If you want to play accountant, go back to Florida and crunch numbers all you want. We like things the way they are.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, really? You like eating tomato soup and taking naps and watching your world crumble into decay?”
“And not obsessing about where our next dollar is coming from, yes!”
He wrapped his hands around her shoulders the way he’d done that afternoon, but this time his grip was forceful. Sara wasn’t afraid. She stared into his pewter eyes and blasted him with the same words he’d said to her the day before. “If you’re trying to scare me to death, it won’t work.” She let her lips curl into a satisfied grin. “I can outrun you, Bass.”
His fingers flexed just before his hold on her moved to her upper arms and tightened. A tremor ran through his body and shuddered into hers. “God, you are one aggravating pencil pusher,” he ground out.
She thrust her chin at him. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you, Bass?”
He sucked in a breath
