The Men of Thorne Island

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 prohibiting rent increases, and I’ve only lived here six of them.”

Mr. N. Bass must have thought he was dealing with an idiot. “That’s absurd,” she said. “My aunt had an attorney, and even if you had tried to talk her into such a financially unsound arrangement, he would never have allowed—”

Mr. Bass leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. “You talking about Herb Adams?”

Herb? “You know Mr. Adams, too?”

“Sure. He was present when I signed the lease. He did, in fact, advise Millie against such generosity, but she insisted.”

N. Bass had the nerve to follow that statement with a short burst of laughter. Sara quickly changed the shocked expression on her face to one of outrage. His cocky smile faded, but his attitude did not.

“Never mind asking a bunch of questions I have no intention of answering,” he added. “I’ll just tell you that Millie and I were friends. I helped her out once, and she repaid me.” That odd little grin, which under other circumstances might have been interpreted as somewhat endearing, twisted his mouth again. “Millicent was a fair woman. But then, you know that.”

Sara spied a chair a few feet from her. She stepped over to it and sank into its plump floral cushion. She had to think rationally. Sara prided herself on her ability to get to the fundamental truth of a situation. Finally she said, “Mr. Bass, this all may be true…”

“It is true.”

“All right. I don’t question your story, but the island belongs to me now, and any agreements you had with my aunt are no longer applicable. If I see fit to raise your rent, I am well within my right to do that.”

He clasped his hands in his lap and shook his head slowly. “Nope. You’re not. Millie assigned all lessee’s rights to her tenants in the event a new landlord took over the property. I’ll let you take a look at my lease. You might be able to fight it, but it would be expensive and time-consuming.”

“And with my luck someone actually would kill you before I won the case,” Sara said. “It wouldn’t be any fun unless I had the satisfaction of seeing your expression when I beat you.”

A genuine grin split his face for the first time, and Sara found herself disliking him a little less. But if she had to accept this man’s living arrangements on Thorne Island, then she and he were still a long way from bridging the gap from dislike to tolerance.

“Cheer up, Mrs….?”

“It’s Miss. Miss Sara Crawford.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “There you see, things could be a lot worse between us.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You could be married or ugly. And you’re neither one of those things. I think we’ve got a future, Miss Crawford.”

She gritted her teeth. “I think we’ve got a problem, Mr. Bass.”

“Nick! Nickie! Everything all right up there?”

A low, booming voice rolled up the staircase and down the hall to Mr. Bass’s room, and Sara nearly jumped out of her skin. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Dexter Sweet, former linebacker for the Cleveland Browns. He’s a big man with thighs the size of tires, but don’t let him scare you. The goodness in his soul could make nightingales sing. And that yelling thing he just did—that’s how you enter someone’s house.”

“Oh, please, will you—”

“Everything’s fine, Dex,” Nick Bass called. “We’ve just got company.”

An African-American male filled the doorway. Sara couldn’t tell anything about his soul, but the rest of Nick’s description was absolutely accurate, though he might have mentioned Dexter Sweet’s height. It was just shy of a California redwood.

Dexter spared her a quick, astonished glance before settling a worried gaze on his friend. “I heard Captain Winkie’s boat and thought something was wrong. He’s not due back till day after tomorrow. Then I couldn’t find Ryan, and Brody was still snoring when I looked in on him.”

Nick extended his hand to indicate Sara. “Dex, meet Miss Sara Crawford, our new landlady. Sara, this is Dexter Sweet.”

Amazingly, despite his size, there was something about the man’s round boyish face that made his last name seem appropriate. She stood up, offered her hand and looked into Mr. Sweet’s perplexed brown eyes. “Did you say ‘Captain Winkie’?”

He nodded.

She couldn’t stop herself. Exhaustion and shock had taken their toll. Laughter bubbled from her throat and she could barely get her next words out. “I’m standing here with Mr. Sweet and Mr. Bass, and we’re all talking about Captain Winkie. Somehow I feel like I’m in the middle of a Saturday-morning cartoon.”

The two men exchanged a look that was part male commiseration and part she’s-a-woman-that-explains-it. Sara wouldn’t have been surprised if they both put a finger to the side of their heads and made circles.

“Tell me something, Mr. Sweet,” she said through a continuing fit of laughter, “do you pay rent on this island?”

“Yeah.” He dragged the word out with caution. “Been here almost six years now.”

“And how much do you pay?”

“A hundred a month.”

“Terrific. And are your checks stored in a drawer somewhere?”

“Yeah, Nick’s.”

Nick Bass opened the desk drawer, withdrew a stack of checks similar to his own and brought them to her. Each one was dated and signed by Dexter Sweet.

It wasn’t even enough to cover the back taxes, but it was a start. “Thank you, gentlemen,” Sara said. “Now I think I’ll go find a room for myself. Do we have any fresh linens?”

“I’ll let you use mine,” Nick said. “The cupboard down the hall that they’re sitting in is yours. But the spare sheets belong to me. Share and share alike I always say. Pick any room you like, Miss Crawford. Make yourself at home.”