by BETH KERY
It had been driving Sophie mad to think of Thomas up there in Chicago without her, giving testimony against a man he’d once loved and respected. She was worried sick that despite FBI protection, the mob would find a way to silence the man who had the power to kill the many-tentacled criminal organization once and for all.
Thomas had insisted that Sophie stay away from him, however, at least until he’d been able to give his testimony and the dangerous players, like Joseph Carlisle, were rendered powerless. He’d also insisted on one other thing before he’d left Haven Lake. Thomas would not accept another bodyguard for Sophie other than Collin Fisk.
That’d all been weeks ago now. So much had happened in the interim. Newt Garnier had agreed to come clean on other members of the criminal organization in exchange for a lighter sentence.
Four days ago, Joseph Carlisle had died of a massive heart attack while under police custody at the Dirksen Federal Building.
Sophie felt as if she’d been dying a slow death of her own being cooped up there in the lake house and watching the heart-wrenching footage of the Carlisle funeral . . . of Thomas holding up his very frail-looking mother, Iris, as she collapsed on the way to the burial of her husband.
God, she couldn’t imagine what Thomas was enduring. She hurt so much for him.
“You said you wanted to stop biting your nails,” Collin said as he flipped one of the pages of the journal and continued to read without looking up.
Sophie grimaced at her fingertips.
“Now isn’t the time to give up bad habits,” she mumbled. She set aside her computer and stood. “What’s taking them so long?”
“It does take time to drive from Chicago to here, Sophie.”
“I know, but they’re past due,” she said, checking her watch.
She nervously went to the window over the sink and checked the driveway. It’d been three long weeks since she’d seen Thomas in person. When he’d said good-bye to her, the two agents who had arrived from Chicago to guard him were standing annoyingly close. They hadn’t gone much farther away when Thomas had barked that they needed a little privacy.
He’d called her on the phone several times, but once again, she got the impression he was either distracted by the stress of giving evidence at FBI headquarters or by tending to his mother, who was not doing well at all since her husband had been charged with so many crimes and taken into custody.
At other times, she got the impression that Thomas wasn’t alone when he called. She imagined from the terse, slightly irritated quality of his tone that his bodyguards were standing nearby.
At least Sophie hoped those were the reasons that Thomas had been so unrevealing in their brief interactions. It might also be that he felt guilty for the way he’d behaved with her during his emotional crisis. Now that he was starting to accept the brutal facts of his life—that the man he’d loved and called “Father” had, in fact, been the man who had murdered his own parents—perhaps he was embarrassed by his acute need for Sophie during his trauma.
She knew from experience that it wasn’t uncommon for people to feel ashamed of their vulnerability during an acute stress response. Thomas was even more used to dealing with his stress in a private manner than most. He’d been accepted, trained, and then had excelled in a military unit that required a high degree of tolerance to stress and danger. He’d been used to overcoming his personal demons in a private manner.
How did he really feel about the fact that his mind had shut out a part of his life that had caused him so much pain? Would he forever associate his short-lived vulnerability with Sophie? Had he called to tell her that he wanted to meet with her this evening because he wanted to apologize once again . . . and then proceed to exit her life once and for all?
The anxious ruminations caused a surge of nausea in her gut. When she heard the gravel snapping beneath the wheels of an arriving vehicle, Sophie couldn’t be sure if she was experiencing intense anticipation or dread.
She flew to the back door, but then stopped several feet away, not wanting to seem too wildly eager. She veered over toward the window, instead. She saw that it was Thomas’s car, and that Thomas himself drove with two agents in the passenger seats.
As soon as the dark green sedan came to a halt, the driver’s-side door flew open and Thomas sprung out of the driver’s seat. He left the door hanging open, just like he had on that first night he’d come to her. His brown hair was slightly mussed and hung on his brow in the fashion in which she’d grown accustomed while he was with her at Lake Haven. He must have come from some kind of meeting, however, because he wore a pair of dark gray dress pants that fell elegantly on his tall, powerful frame and a striped dress shirt with the sleeves rolled back and the collar open.
When she saw how he walked purposefully toward the house with that familiar long-legged stride, Sophie forgot her self-consciousness and barreled out the back door.
He stopped abruptly at her appearance, his leather dress shoes causing the gravel to pop and scatter beneath them. Their gazes met across the fifteen feet that separated them. Sophie stood frozen, one hand on the screen door. He seemed just as disarmed by the sight of her.
“Why don’t you try hugging him?” Collin asked wryly from behind her.
Sophie glanced back, a smile pulling at her lips. She saw that Thomas didn’t seem as amused as he took in Agent Fisk standing behind her. Her foot hit the sidewalk when Fisk gave her a soft shove from behind.
Thomas came toward her as she approached him. She studied him but she couldn’t decipher his expression.
Then he wrapped her in his arms and the familiar feeling of being encompassed by Thomas Nicasio—of coming home—overwhelmed her. She wasn’t sure how long they remained like that—just hugging, pressing their bodies close, so that Sophie could feel his strong, steady heartbeat pounding next to her own.
Eventually, she turned her face into him, covertly wiping her tears on his shirtfront.
“You’ve lost weight,” she said shakily into his chest.
“I haven’t had the benefit of your good cooking,” he replied in a low voice near her ear.
Sophie leaned back and felt herself sinking into the depths of Thomas’s fiery green eyes. Someone cleared his throat from behind them.
“Agents Hargrove and Ellis and I will occupy ourselves out here for a while,” Fisk said levelly. He stepped out of the screen door and waved Thomas and Sophie inside the house. Sophie smiled gratefully at Fisk and grabbed Thomas’s hand.
“Wait,” Thomas said gruffly from behind her when they neared Fisk. He addressed the young agent. “I told you that I had something for you, many weeks ago. I want to give it to you now.”
Fisk’s brows rose in interest. “The tape of Bernard Cokey?”
Thomas nodded.
“We have enough evidence to put away the major players for good, thanks to you,” Fisk told Nicasio. “But if that tape exists, it’d be the icing on the cake.”
“It exists. It’s what my brother and nephew died for,” Thomas said soberly. Much to Sophie’s surprise, he tightened his hold on her hand and led her into the kitchen. He stopped once Fisk had followed them into the house and the screen door had closed behind him.
“Where’s your briefcase, Sophie?” Thomas asked.
“My . . . what?”
“Your briefcase,” Thomas repeated. “The one with all your journal articles inside it?”
“It’s right there, next to the chair,” Sophie said bemusedly, pointing to the supple brown leather bag that was nearly as stuffed as it had been that evening a month ago, when Thomas had helped her to retrieve her spilled papers.
Thomas released her hand and picked up the briefcase. He deposited it on the kitchen counter. Agent Fisk and she watched as Thomas searched amongst the pouches, finally extricating a journal—The Lancet. Sophie’s mouth opened in wonder when he opened the magazine, tapped it on the counter, and a tiny cassette fell out.
He picked it up and handed it to A
gent Fisk, who looked nearly as surprised as Sophie.
“It . . . it’s been there? All along?” Sophie asked Thomas.
Thomas nodded. His gaze flickered over Agent Fisk before it settled on Sophie. He must have read the stunned question in her eyes, because he shrugged.
“I guess part of me trusted you with the truth all along, Sophie.”
Sophie broke out of the trance of Thomas’s eyes when Agent Fisk spoke.
“This is great, Thomas. Thanks. Like I said before, icing on the cake. I’ll take good care of it.”
Sophie continued to stare at Thomas as Fisk left, shutting the back door behind him.
She and Thomas stood alone for the first time in weeks. It seemed like an eternity.
“I was really out of it after Rick and Abel’s funeral,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know what to think about what I’d heard on that tape . . . about Cokey’s allegation that Joseph Carlisle had given the order for my father to be executed.” He hesitated for a moment, seeming unsure of his words. “I know I told you on that night we met in your office lobby—the night you were leaving for Haven Lake—that I was looking for Andy Lancaster, but I was lying.”
Her eyebrows rose on her head in puzzlement. She took a step toward him.
“I was looking for you, Sophie.”
His deep, husky voice seemed to linger in the air around her after he’d spoken. She couldn’t help but think of that first night he’d come to Haven Lake, when he’d been so disoriented and traumatized . . . how he’d told her the same thing.
I came looking for you, Sophie.
“The amount of stress you were under was extraordinary, Thomas. I’m not blaming you for putting the tape in my briefcase. I just . . . I just don’t understand why you did it.”
“I don’t know,” he said, and she knew the incredulous query hadn’t faded from her expression. He sighed and threw up his hands in a helpless gesture.
“It’s okay, Thomas,” she whispered when she saw his bewilderment.
His gaze sharpened on her. “What’s okay?”
She swallowed thickly and tried to infuse her voice with a measure of firmness she was far from feeling.
“It’s okay. I’m . . . I’m glad I was here for you, when you needed it. I’m so thankful that you’re on the mend. Andy told me that you’d been seeing a friend of his, Dr. Cassetti?”
“Yeah,” he replied gruffly. “He’s a good guy.”
Sophie smiled tremulously. “I want you to know that I don’t regret it. Not any of it.”
His expression turned wary. “What do you mean by that—that you don’t regret it?” he asked slowly.
“I know that what happened between us was a . . . a sort of side effect of your trauma. You needed an outlet for all the volatile emotions you were experiencing, emotions you couldn’t put a name to. You found an outlet for your anguish by . . . by—”
“Fucking you like an animal, again and again?” he supplied quietly when she floundered.
She flushed with heat at his graphic language. His eyes looked hot as he studied her, but Sophie still couldn’t entirely comprehend where he was coming from.
Or what he was feeling.
“Sophie?”
“Yes?” she whispered when he stepped close. Close enough for the fabric of his dress shirt to just touch the fabric over her breasts. Close enough for her to sense the coiled strength of his muscles and the hardness at his groin.
“If your theory about why I wanted you so much before were true, then it wouldn’t make much sense for me to want you even more right this minute, would it?”
She stared up at him, her breath stuck in her lungs. She shook her head.
He joined her, shaking his head as well.
“Because I do. I want you even more than before. I’m going to take you back to your bedroom in a second and show you firsthand just how much. So the thing of it is,” he muttered, his rough tone highly at odds with the deliberate gentleness with which he caressed her jaw and cheek, “there must have been some other reason that even when I was losing it, I trusted you with that tape; why later, I trusted you with all of me while I was falling apart. There must be some other reason that I sought you out, some other cause for why I can’t get enough of you or why I’ve gone nearly as nuts for the past three weeks, being away from you,” he murmured through lips that tilted with amusement.
Sophie blinked the tears out of her eyes, determined that he not see her vulnerable. “You were in the midst of a trauma reaction, Thomas. Don’t feel like you have to say these things.”
He paused in caressing her. His mouth settled into a grim line.
“I don’t feel like I have to say anything.” He suddenly pulled her tightly against him, making her hyperaware of his hard, masculine length. “Don’t even try to do it, Sophie.”
“What?” she asked, confused by his hard tone.
“I have all of my memories back. I remember everything. Well, almost all of it.”
“What’s that supposed to mea—”
“I remember you specifically telling me that you were falling for me. Are you going to deny it?” he interrupted, green eyes flashing. Sophie cried out in surprise when he suddenly lifted her into his arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him as he headed down the hallway.
“I’ll make you tell me again. I have my methods,” he said determinedly.
She laughed even though tears wet her cheek—tears of joy, at knowing he didn’t regret seeking her out in the midst of his anguish and pain.
“As if I could ever deny a force of nature like you,” she said against his neck.
He paused next to her bed and urged her head back so that he could look into her eyes. When she saw his expression, her smile faded.
“What, Tom?”
“I remembered all the crap about Joseph Carlisle—all the shit that had become my life for one reason. Do you know what it was?” he murmured.
“Why?” she mouthed, overcome by emotion.
“Because I couldn’t sacrifice you to the darkness that was taking over my mind. You were this one exquisite, shining, beautiful thing set amongst all those awful realities. I couldn’t have gone on forgetting you, forgetting the first night I ever touched you . . . forgetting the first night I felt you shake in my arms ...”
“Thomas,” she whispered. She pressed a finger to his lower lip, and then kissed his mouth softly.
“Why didn’t you remind me of that night, Sophie?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I was afraid if I pushed you it would dislodge other memories of what had happened in that same time period. It had become all tied together in your unconsciousness. I didn’t want to worsen your condition.”
“How did you know, though? What made you realize that I didn’t remember being here with you, on that first night?”
She traced one of his eyebrows and cast herself back into her own memories.
“I knew when we made love in my office. Afterwards ...” She swallowed thickly. “You apologized for making love to me so forcefully for the first time.”
She met his gaze. He winced.
“Jesus, Sophie. I’m so sorry. When I look back on it, it seems so strange. I remember what it was like not remembering, but it’s like I was someone else. No . . . more like the pieces of my life were removed and replaced, but out of sequence. I remember almost everything now . . . although I can’t really recall how I got back to Chicago after coming here on that first night, or what I was thinking in returning to work as though nothing had ever happened.”
“I didn’t understand what was happening to you at first, either,” Sophie admitted. “I thought you were just amnesic—possibly because of your head injury, possibly because of grief . . . maybe both. It wasn’t until I’d been with you for a while and spoken with Andy that I realized your amnesia for that period of time was just one of the many symptoms that come from a trauma reaction. You returned to work that next morning
as if nothing had ever happened because part of you wanted that, needed it . . . to forget what had happened when you confronted your father, to erase the horror of what he’d done to you.”
“Another part of me wanted to remember that period of time,” he said gruffly. “I wanted to remember you.”
“I know,” she replied. “I could see it in your eyes at times when we made love. I knew the memories would come back when you were ready. All I could do was wait . . . and pray for you.”
He dried a tear on her cheek with a blunt-tipped fingertip. “You called me Tom on that night.”
“You told me to,” she whispered.
“It was what my parents and friends called me, when I was young,” he said huskily. “I became Thomas with the Carlisles. For some reason, I wanted to hear my old name—my real name—on your lips on that night.”
He lay her down on the bed and sank down over her. She closed her eyes briefly, cherishing the sensation of his long, hard body pressing her down into the mattress.
“I want to hear it again. I want to hear you scream it, Sophie.”
He leaned down and seized her mouth in an explosive kiss, making speech, let alone a feeble thought, an utter impossibility.
EPILOGUE
FIVE WEEKS LATER
Thomas didn’t have anything against Andy Lancaster and his wife, Sheila, per se. He’d just never wished two people would vanish so much as he did this easygoing, amiable couple.
He watched Sophie climb up on the ladder attached to the dock with a narrow-lidded gaze, took in every nuance of her shifting body weight, the slight sway of her breasts in the bikini top, the erotic manner in which rivulets of water ran across her golden, apricot-hued skin.
It was the first weekend in September, and it was a hot one. Just days ago, the FBI had finally, finally said that Thomas no longer required constant surveillance for his safety. Thomas had insisted he didn’t need a bodyguard practically since day one. He had become even more vociferous about it since Joseph Carlisle had passed away and Newt Garnier had provided testimony that led to the arrests of every high-ranking lieutenant in the Outfit that the FBI had ever hoped to put behind bars.