The Men of Thorne Island. Cynthia Thomason

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СКАЧАТЬ was. The shapeless mass had transformed into an exceedingly acceptable-looking human. Except perhaps for his almost black hair, which was unstylishly long and untidy. It curled over his forehead to meet a slightly lighter pair of straight eyebrows. Much of the rest of an interesting face was hidden by at least two days’ growth of beard. He was fairly young, near her own age, Sara assumed, prompting her to conclude that she wasn’t looking at “Ol’ Brody.”

      Once Sara had noted these details, the man’s shirt commanded her attention. She’d given her father a similar one at least fifteen years ago when he took up golf, and her sense of humor had been quite different from what it was now. A beige knit background hugged the man’s chest respectably, but it was the eighteen numbered golf flags fluttering around his torso that made Sara choke back her laughter.

      Each flag had a different cartoon printed on its surface. Flag number sixteen, the one she could see most clearly, depicted a droopy-eyed fellow with an ice bag on his head and a thermometer sticking out of his mouth. The words “Feeling under par” were printed next to the caricature. Other clichéd golf references decorated the remaining flags. Sara covered her mouth with her hand, but wasn’t successful in stopping a chuckle.

      The man plucked a portion of the shirt away from his chest and stared down at it. “What? You don’t like my shirt?”

      “It would be all right if it were a cocktail napkin at the nineteenth hole.”

      “Hey, it’s got a pocket. That’s why I like it. Try to find shirts with pockets these days.”

      Sara’s limited experience with shopping for men’s clothes hadn’t included an awareness of shirt pockets, so she just said, “I know, and it’s a darned shame.”

      “It is if you smoke.”

      “Do you smoke?”

      “Not anymore. But I like knowing I still have a pocket in case I start again. Basically I just hate it when manufacturers mess up a good thing after I get used to it.”

      The hint of a smug grin lifted the corners of his mouth. This man obviously liked to have the last word. And once he knew he wasn’t about to be shot, there was no lack of confidence in his manner. “But we’re off the subject here,” he said. “What are you doing creeping around my place?”

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I wasn’t creeping. What’s the point of trying to remain unnoticed after riding in that boat with the earsplitting engine? Don’t tell me you didn’t hear us arrive.”

      “Of course I heard the boat. I just figured Winkie had forgotten the toilet paper or something and was dropping it off. I sure never thought that what he was leaving behind was a snooping female.”

      Her eyebrows shot up. “So now I’m snooping and creeping?”

      He raised his hands palms up as if his point was obvious. “Look, you came into my place without so much as a hoot or a holler and tiptoed up to my room like a typical nosy woman on your little lady cat’s feet…”

      Suddenly his golf flags weren’t amusing anymore. They were just stupid. And his hair wasn’t untidy, it was unkempt. And his attitude belonged way back in an era before golf was even invented. Sara’s index finger poked out at him as if it had a mind of its own, which it must have, since she hated for anyone to do that to her. “Now look,” she said in a voice that quivered with underlying anger, “first of all, this is my place, and I’ll walk around in it any way I please!”

      That seemed to get to him. He gave her a dark look. “What do you mean, your place?”

      “I mean this hotel is mine, this island is mine. In fact, every single place on this island—if there are any others—belongs to me.” For emphasis, she yanked the deed out of her purse and held it up to the challenge in his eyes. “Would you care to inspect this document?”

      He stood up from the chair, all lean six-feet-plus of him, and glared at the paper in her hand with eyes that she saw now were startlingly gray. “What’s happened to Millie?” he demanded.

      The mention of her aunt’s name gave him some credibility. At least he wasn’t a squatter. Sara softened her tone. “Millicent Thorne died last week.”

      He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his middle finger to the bridge of his nose. “Damn it. Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

      His reaction caught her off guard. “You knew my aunt personally?”

      “Millicent Thorne is…was your aunt?”

      “Actually great-aunt, yes.”

      “Well, of course I knew her. I’ve been living on her island for the past six years.”

      “And not paying any rent for a good part of it, too.”

      His eyes, which had only just registered the shock of bad news, now narrowed with irritation. “Now, hold on a minute. I haven’t missed a single month paying my rent. For your information, Millie stopped collecting my checks. She said she didn’t need the money. Told me to hold on to them and send a bunch all at once when she asked for them.”

      “Why would she do that?”

      He turned away from her and sat back down in his desk chair. “You’d have to ask Millie about that, which might be difficult at the moment, but I would suspect it had to do with a little something called trust.”

      “She trusted you?”

      He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a short stack of checks held together with a paper clip. “She did, and for good reason.” He thrust the checks at Sara, holding them at the level of her chest until she took them. “Those are my rent checks, every one of them for the last year, dated by the month. They’re all there in chronological order. Go ahead, see for yourself.”

      She flipped through them. They were dated consecutively, made out to Millicent Thorne and signed “N. Bass.” She looked up. “Bass? That’s your name? After the island or the fish?”

      “Pick one. It’s only a name.”

      Sara returned her attention to the checks. Suddenly Mr. N. Bass’s name wasn’t important. The amount of the rent he paid each month was. “One hundred dollars?” she said. “You only paid my aunt one hundred dollars a month?”

      He shrugged. “That’s what she asked for.”

      The accountant’s hackles on Sara’s neck prickled. “That’s ridiculous. You live here practically like a king of your own private domain, in a cozy little inn, which, by the way, you’ve allowed to fall into pitiful disrepair, for the sum of one hundred dollars a month?”

      He nodded. “I’m not complaining about the deal.”

      She thrust the checks and the deed into her shoulder bag. “Obviously not. Then I guess you won’t mind if I raise your rent to help cover the cost of repairs around here.”

      He met her self-assurance with cool disdain. “Sorry. You can’t do that.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I’ve got a twenty-five-year lease, with a clause СКАЧАТЬ