Her mirth faded.
“Rick said that was just my lame excuse not to ask you out,” he finished.
Sophie swallowed thickly. This situation just kept getting more and more bizarre. She knew from her friend Andy how close Thomas had been to his brother, Rick Carlisle. Not that she wouldn’t have already guessed it the few times she’d witnessed the two men’s easy camaraderie when she’d glimpsed them together in her office or in the building.
“You must be upset, Tom,” she whispered. “Is that why you’re here? Are you hurting . . . after your brother’s and nephew’s death?”
His eyes glittered with emotion in an otherwise masklike countenance.
“Come inside.” She tightened her hold on his hand and guided him down the dim hallway to the kitchen. The windows there faced east, depriving them of the sunset light. She flipped a switch, chasing away the dark shadows.
If she’d thought that electric lights and her cheery, homey kitchen would bring a sense of normalcy to this surreal situation, she’d thought wrong. One glance at Thomas’s tall, whipcord lean body and rigid features and she existed in the Twilight Zone all over again. Perhaps it was the thick, nearly tangible cloud of tension that surrounded him that contributed to her sense of floundering for familiar territory.
She released his hand and headed toward the refrigerator, trying to shake off her sense of unease.
“I made fresh lemonade earlier today. Would you care for some?”
“Do you have anything harder?” he rasped.
She glanced back over her shoulder. “I have some wine in the pantry.”
“Never mind. Lemonade is fine.”
She studied him anxiously. Under the bright fluorescent lights, she could more easily see that a fine sheen of sweat covered his face.
Fever, she thought.
“Why don’t you sit down at the bar,” she suggested before she headed toward the refrigerator. She filled two glasses with ice and lemonade and handed him one. He hadn’t taken her advice to sit down and still stood in the precise spot where she’d left him. He took the glass and drained the contents in two seconds. When he’d finished, she took the empty glass and gave him the other one. While he drank, she encircled the wrist of his free hand with her own.
He swallowed the second glass of lemonade almost as quickly as the first. When he’d finished, she sensed him watching her from above, his head lowered while she concentrated and counted the beats of his rapid, strong pulse while watching the seconds pass on her kitchen clock.
The silence seemed to press on them like a thick cloak.
“Would you like some more?” she asked after she’d finished and dropped his wrist.
“No. I’ve had enough.”
“Tom, you’re ill,” she said, looking up at him.
He blinked. He glanced around her kitchen with a slight scowl on his features. His confusion seemed to fade when he looked at her face again.
“You might be right. I’m not sure how I got here.”
She took the glass he held from his stiff grip and set it along with the other one on the kitchen island.
“Do you mean you don’t remember?”
For a few seconds he seemed uncertain. “I remember driving here. I had to get away.”
“Had to get away from what?” she asked slowly.
He just stared at her with those brooding green eyes flecked with gold. Sophie supposed that given everything that had happened to Thomas Nicasio lately, he had plenty of reasons for needing an escape.
He remained immobile when she reached up to touch his forehead and cheek. His skin felt clammy. She mentally cursed when she recalled she didn’t have a thermometer in the lake house. Still, she’d guess that if he ran a fever, it wasn’t an alarming one.
Her fingers delved through thick, surprisingly soft hair, searching for wounds on his scalp. A shiver coursed through him when her hand reached the base of his skull. She caught his scent. Despite his obvious illness and uncharacteristically disheveled state, Thomas Nicasio smelled good.
Cautiously, she met his stare.