Sophie sat in front of her laptop computer and scowled at the screen. It was a hopeless cause. She might as well face it. She would not be turning in her journal articles on the holistic treatment of Type II diabetes.
Not this year, she wouldn’t.
She glanced over at Collin Fisk, who sprawled on her couch and was reading The New England Journal of Medicine as though he actually found it interesting. Sophie had gotten to know the young agent very well over the last three weeks—ever since Newt Garnier had attacked her at her lake house; ever since Joseph Carlisle had been arrested on multiple criminal accounts, including conspiracy to commit murder.
Thomas had returned to Chicago with several federal agents who had been charged with protecting him. The FBI had offered to put him in a witness protection program until he was able to testify against Joseph Carlisle, but Thomas had refused.
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.