Explosive

by BETH KERY

  When he glanced at her slantwise, she saw the wildness in his eyes, the look of a creature cornered. His pupils were constricted into pinpoints. He was panting again, shallow and fast, like he had been the evening she saw him on her dock. Her breath froze in her lungs as she recognized the acuteness of his anxiety, the evidence of a fight or flight response storming through his blood.

  “Thomas—” she began, but he cut her off.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered thickly before he stalked off toward the house, his posture stiff.

  Sophie found herself staring at a pale Sherman Dolan. His mouth gaped open in amazement at Thomas’s bizarre behavior.

  “Sophie? Should I call the police? Who is that man?” Sherman demanded.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sophie shook her head, feeling guilty upon hearing the tremor in Sherman’s voice. It was strange, to see someone she knew so well suddenly seem so vulnerable. Sherman was a fit man in his early sixties, but he looked somehow shrunken at that moment, shaken. There was little doubt that coming into abrupt contact with the cyclone of emotion that spun at Thomas’s core could subtract a few years from one’s life. It had obviously frightened Sherman as much as it had her. Her eyes burned and she realized they were filled with tears. It had pained her to see that trapped look on Thomas’s face.

  “I’m so sorry, Sherm. I appreciate you coming to check on me. I’m perfectly safe. Thomas is a friend.”

  She understood Sherm’s incredulous look.

  “He’s just experienced a terrible loss,” Sophie explained rapidly. “You’ve heard of posttraumatic stress syndrome? That’s . . . that’s kind of what he’s experiencing.”

  Even though her explanation sounded lame to her stunned ears, she realized what she said was true. Thomas was indeed behaving like someone with posttraumatic stress syndrome. She’d suspected it before, after talking to Andy—and even after her brief conversation with Agent Fisk last night—but the more obvious symptom of amnesia had thrown her off course.

  Sherman pointed up toward the house. “That man nearly attacked me.”

  “I know . . . I’m so sorry. Please try to understand. He’s not himself. People with his condition can suddenly become hyper-vigilant about threat; they’re always waiting for something dangerous to happen. Their body and mind are sort of in a constant overdrive.” She glanced anxiously at the house. What was Thomas doing in there?

  God, what had happened to Thomas that had made him into this coil of twisted, stretched nerves? Was it just Rick’s and Abel’s unexpected deaths plaguing Thomas’s soul?

  It had to be something more . . .

  She thought of the way he’d so carefully locked the doors when they’d arrived last night, the bruise on his head and his abraded knuckles. A nameless, uneasy fear buzzed in her gut.

  “I hope you can understand, Sherm. I should go check on him. I’m so sorry about this.”

  She left her neighbor standing in the yard. She’d go over to the Dolans’ house and try to smooth things over later. Right now, Thomas was her primary concern.

  She hurried into the side entrance of the house and rushed past her untouched painting on an easel into the hallway. The living room was dim, cool, and empty. She heard a noise behind her and spun around.

  “Thomas. What . . . what are you doing?”

  He never stopped walking as he exited the hallway wearing the trousers from his suit. He pulled the rumpled white dress shirt he’d worn last night across his tanned torso and began to button it briskly. Sophie flinched when she saw the blood at his collar.

  “Thomas?” she queried again shrilly when he walked into the kitchen, still not meeting her gaze. His expression looked rigid, like it’d been carved from stone.

  “I’m going.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened in disbelief when, without another word, he began to walk toward the back door. She ran. She barely had time to pass him and block the screen door.

  “No,” she countered bluntly.

  Irritation flickered across his rocklike countenance.

  “Step aside, Sophie.”

  “No. You said you’d stay for a few days. It’s not time for you to go yet.”

  His mouth shaped into an angry slant. “What the hell is up with you?”

  “What’s up with me?”

  “Yeah,” he accused aggressively. “Why do you want me here so much? I almost flattened your neighbor out there in the yard. What, you like getting it good and hard from a crazy guy? Are you really willing to put up with someone who could be dangerous, that into the thrill of going down on a bomb, Sophie?”

  Silence fell like a thick, toxic fog, only the sound of Thomas’s rapid, irregular breathing breaking it.

  Sophie shook with rising anxiety and anger. His nostrils flared as he stared down at her. She could see his pulse throbbing rapidly in the opening of his collar.

  “Why are you doing this, Sophie?” he repeated in a rasp.

  “I have my reasons. And don’t talk to me like that. Ever,” she bit out in a low voice.

  The seconds dragged by in the charged silence. He abruptly clamped his eyes shut.

  “What if I hurt you?” he asked through a tight jaw, his eyes still closed.

  “I wouldn’t let you stay here if I thought you’d hurt me.”

  When he opened them after a taut few seconds, he slowly . . . carefully . . . spread his hand along her collarbone, his long fingers touching her neck. He leaned down until their ragged breathing mingled. Sophie thought her heart had leapt straight into her throat, just beneath Thomas’s palm.

  “You shine like an angel in my eyes, Sophie, but everything feels so dark right now,” he said through a throat that sounded as if it were surrounded by squeezing fingers. She saw his face flinch briefly in a concentrated agony of pain, but then it vanished.

  “I’m sorry,” he said starkly.

  He dropped his hand and backed away from her. He stared blankly at her kitchen and shook his head once, as if to clear it. “Something’s wrong,” he mumbled.

  “Tell me what, Thomas. What’s wrong?” If only he could say it, she thought desperately.

  His brows knitted together, as though he searched for the answer to her question but came up short.

  “I feel like . . . the ground has dropped out from under me.” He threw her a furtive glance before he looked away, but he couldn’t hide the shadows in his eyes. “I never would have suspected it; that Rick’s death would do this to me.”

  “Are you sure it’s just Rick’s and Abel’s deaths that have you so upset? What about what’s happening with your father?” Sophie asked cautiously.

  His expression became shuttered. “That will pass. It has to.” He sighed heavily. The heavy atmosphere of the room seemed to recede as the tension slowly eased out of his muscles.

  “That reminds me,” he mumbled, “I need to call my father about the warehouse explosion. The Feds have probably already contacted him about it.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you believe you’re . . . safe?”

  His jaw swung around. “That I’m safe?”

  She nodded her head.

  “Why would you ask me that?”

  “That . . . that way you responded to Sherman Dolan. It was like . . . like you thought someone was going to come here to . . . to hurt you,” she finished shakily.

  “Why would anyone want to hurt me?”

  “I don’t know, Thomas. I’m just going by your reaction.”

  He pressed his fingertips to his shut eyes. “Jesus. I don’t know why I acted like that, Sophie.” He dropped his hand and pinned her with his stare, looking a little desperate. “Why did I act like that?”

  “You’re ill,” she whispered. “That’s why you overreacted. You’ve experienced a great deal of stress in a short period of time. You’re not yourself. Why don’t you go take a shower and clean up. I’ll make us some lunch.”

  He looked undecided. “That man . . . Dol
an? Is he gone? I should apologize.”

  “He left. He’s all right. If you like, we’ll walk over to their place later, and you can apologize.”

  “Yeah. I should do that. I should definitely do that.”

  Not until he’d walked out of the kitchen did Sophie fully exhale. She stepped over to the counter and steadied herself while she gulped for air. His emotional state was so powerful that it affected everyone around him like a drastic drop in the barometric pressure and the threat of a storm rolling in, dark and fast.

  Are you really willing to put up with someone who could be dangerous, that into the thrill of going down on a bomb, Sophie?

  Was there any truth to his bitter accusation? Why was she insisting he stay, when he was so volatile and unpredictable? What the hell did she really know about Thomas Nicasio?

  She stared down the hallway, suddenly realizing she was in the same position she’d taken after she’d left him in the bedroom when he’d first arrived. She took a long, restorative inhale and stepped away from the counter.

  There was little doubt that sex with Thomas Nicasio was unlike any experience she’d ever had. It was quite possible he’d at least partially spoken the truth when he’d accused her, Sophie thought as she flashed back to what they’d done together behind the boathouse, how she’d gotten turned on to unprecedented levels just by letting him use her for his pleasure.

  She’d trusted implicitly that he wouldn’t hurt her, even in the midst of raw lust.

  But sex wasn’t what was primarily motivating her. Something else was guiding her, some deep instinct she’d learned to trust long ago.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thomas toyed with his BlackBerry as he stood in the living room, staring out at the golden, rippling lake through the window. Sophie emerged from the hallway wearing a floral green and white haltered sundress that set off the peachy-gold tan she’d acquired this morning on the dock.

  Earlier they’d eaten the salad she’d made them out on the front porch. Slowly, without him being entirely aware that it was happening to him, a measure of peace stole back over him as he looked at Sophie’s luminous, calm face while they ate and talked of inconsequential things, the lake winking out of the corner of his eye. He still felt a sense of deep shame for the way he’d behaved earlier—couldn’t begin to comprehend why he’d flown into a rage at the sight of a man penetrating the boundaries of Sophie’s peaceful home—but Sophie’s kindness went a long way in smoothing his frazzled emotional state.

  He knew he was a jerk for taking advantage of her hospitality, not to mention her gorgeous body, but he couldn’t seem to turn away from her. Something wouldn’t let him. He didn’t entirely trust his response to her, but he couldn’t deny it. He didn’t completely trust her, either, even though he wanted to. She was hiding something from him. Her behavior for the past several days made no sense whatsoever.

  Or maybe he was just being paranoid? Wasn’t it possible that she was having just as strong a reaction toward him as he was experiencing toward her?

  Given how worked up he’d been lately, it wouldn’t surprise him to be accused of paranoia.

  “Did you get a hold of your father?” Sophie asked, breaking through his whirling thoughts. She stepped into the living room and nodded down at the phone he held in his hand.

  “Damn battery is dead, and I don’t have my car charger. Could I use your phone?”

  “Of course.”

  “You don’t have to get it now,” he said quickly when she started toward the hallway.

  A flash of guilt went through him when she turned around and he saw her earnest puzzlement. The truth was . . . a cancerous dread had been growing in him. He was avoiding talking to his family. It pained him to think of Joseph, Iris, and Kelly. The knowledge of their suffering was like a festering wound, something he needed to ignore for the moment in order to survive.

  But he couldn’t ignore it. The wound cut too deep. He knew he had no comfort to offer his family.

  He was an empty shell.

  He glanced down at Sophie’s smooth cheeks, incandescent wavy gold hair, and full, parted lips. His body perked up in awareness, and he begrudgingly altered his opinion.

  He still possessed the animalistic aspect of his manhood. Was that why he wanted to be around Sophie so much? She reminded him that he was alive, if only in the feral, primitive form of a rutting beast?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, realizing she stared at him strangely.

  “Thomas, you’re sweating. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he muttered irritably as she reached out and touched his brow. Her fingers felt cool . . . comforting. He hadn’t even realized he’d started to sweat as he stood there with his phone in his hand. His fragmenting control over his body frustrated him. He tossed the BlackBerry onto the couch. Sophie’s stroking fingers stilled on his jaw as his irritability bubbled to the surface. She started to drop her hand, but he caught it.

  “Do you still want to walk over to the Dolans’?” she asked as he pressed her knuckles against his lips.

  He noticed the uncertainty in her tone and felt like shit all over again.

  “Yeah. I do,” he said, forcing the civilized façade to the forefront. It wasn’t a total lie. He did feel bad for the way he’d behaved earlier with Sherman Dolan, even if the part of him that wanted to drag Sophie off to bed like a caveman felt a hell of a lot stronger at the moment.

  He inhaled, shoving his intrusive urges to the background and took Sophie’s hand.

  “Aren’t you going to lock the door?” Thomas asked her sharply a moment later when she just pulled the door shut behind them.

  Her smooth brow furrowed. “I never do.”

  Thomas scowled, his eyes scanning the driveway and surrounding foliage. “I’d appreciate it if you started.”

  For a second she hesitated, swaying in her sandals. “All right,” she conceded finally, reaching for the door to go to retrieve her keys.

  Sophie studied him surreptitiously from beneath her lashes as they approached the Dolans’ white-sided Victorian house. She’d been alarmed at his appearance when she’d walked into the living room a few minutes ago. It reminded her of the evening she’d seen him on her dock. He looked like a man who had a fever raging in his body and mind.

  Or a battle.

  He seemed calmer now as they walked down the lake road that was so little used it was more like a country path than a major thoroughfare. He was less agitated, but more thoughtful and withdrawn as well.

  Was he dreading having to apologize for his earlier behavior to Sherm Dolan? His stoic profile told her little.

  “Thomas?”

  He glanced over at her.

  “Sherman and Daisy grew up in Beverly, Illinois. They still have a lot of family there,” Sophie said, knowing that Beverly and Morgan Park were next to one another, and that the histories of the neighborhoods were long intertwined. Knowing he had some common history with the Dolans might help to smooth over any awkwardness that had arisen from his earlier erratic behavior.

  His mouth opened to respond but Daisy Dolan herself stepped out about fifty feet ahead of them through an opening in the hedge that lined the gravel driveway. Sophie smiled and waved and Daisy waved in return, her shoulder-length brown hair blowing in the breeze. As she walked forward to greet them, Sophie spotted a smudge of dirt on her neighbor’s nose.

  “Have you been in your garden?” Sophie asked with a smile as she bent to kiss Daisy’s soft, pale cheek in greeting. Daisy spent a great deal of her time outdoors, flitting about in her garden or tending to her landscaped yard. How her skin remained so unaffected by the sun was a mystery to Sophie.

  When she’d first met Sherman’s wife, Sophie’d thought she’d be more aptly named Lily. When Daisy smiled, however, Sophie’d realized the name suited her very well.

  “Yes, how did you know?” Daisy asked as she cast an uncertain glance at Thomas. The contrast in the two people she stood on the gravel drive with
struck Sophie at that moment. Thomas was male vibrancy and power personified, while Daisy was thin, fragile, and delicate. Sophie knew that Daisy’s heart wasn’t strong. Her ill health was one of the reasons the Dolans had retired early and lived a stress-free, peaceful life at Haven Lake.

  Sophie wiped the dirt from Daisy’s nose and spoke lightly. “I know the signs, that’s all.”

  “Is everything all right, Sophie? Sherman and I . . . We were worried ...” Daisy trailed off as she glanced at a brooding Thomas warily.

  “We wanted to come over and assure you that everything is okay. Daisy, meet Thomas Nicasio,” Sophie murmured, her arm surrounding Daisy’s thin shoulders.

  Thomas nodded politely. “I’m sorry for causing you any worry and for overreacting with your husband. Is he around? I’d like to apologize in person.”

  Daisy’s mouth dropped open at Thomas’s deep voice and solemn manner. Her dove gray eyes—easily her most lovely feature—softened in her heart-shaped face, and Sophie knew Thomas had already won Daisy over. Sophie wondered if it was the shadow of genuine regret on Thomas’s features or his sheer male potency that had swayed her. The latter must have affected her the other evening, as well, when Daisy had so trustingly given Thomas directions to her house.

  “He’s out on the dock fishing,” Daisy told Thomas.

  “That’s a surprise,” Sophie chuckled.

  Thomas nodded, his green eyes meeting Sophie’s briefly before he turned toward the lake.

  Sophie went inside with Daisy to collect her mail, thankful that her neighbor didn’t force her to elaborate on her earlier visit to Sophie’s house.

  “Is your Thomas going to be staying with you for a while?” Daisy asked when they eventually retired out onto the front porch and both sat on the large white swing. Sophie smiled at Daisy’s turn of phrase. Her Thomas? Thomas didn’t belong to anything much, at the moment, aside from his grief, she thought sadly.