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car.
    He’d been trying to stop the pain, she realized sadly.
    The bottle was small, the kind you bought at a gas station or convenience store. She quickly counted the remaining pills, wanting to make sure he hadn’t taken several before she’d given him even more just minutes ago. Only two were missing; not enough to harm him even if he’d taken the two tablets just seconds before he’d staggered onto her dock.
    She snapped the cap on, placed the bottle in the glove box, and secured Thomas’s car.
    The rest of the evening was spent trying to reach Andy Lancaster—which she never did successfully—cleaning up her makeshift studio on the screen porch, and then watching the end of a comedy on the television in her bedroom. When she finally shut out the light to sleep, there was nothing left to distract her from recalling Thomas Nicasio’s presence in her house . . . or from his unexpected embrace.
    She tried to make sense of her potent reaction to his touch. She’d long known that she was attracted to Thomas Nicasio. But the extremity of her current arousal confused her. Did it somehow relate to her knowledge of his life . . . to the fact that though she’d never been invited by Thomas, she’d peered into the secret realms of his private world?
    She was a voyeur, of sorts. Not the sexual kind, but perhaps Thomas would think her knowledge was even more disturbing?
    She thought of their brief, charged meeting just last night, trying to understand Thomas’s sudden appearance at Haven Lake.

    Every time she started to fasten her briefcase, she thought of another item she’d need while she was on vacation. Sophie scowled at the stack of journals on her desk and then irritably shoved the whole pile in her bag. She was sure to need the precise one she’d left behind. Why not take them all?
    She wanted out of this damn office. She craved Haven Lake.
    The only other physician besides Sophie who worked late on Wednesday evenings was Alex Fitzsimmons, their OB/GYN. Andy Lancaster, their psychologist, used to work late on Wednesday evenings, but he was notably absent at the moment.
    Andy wasn’t there tonight, of course, because Rick Carlisle wasn’t there. Sophie thought of how she’d occasionally hear Rick and Andy as they passed her office on the way to Andy’s, Rick bemoaning the Cubs latest loss or teasing Andy about his awful haircut.
    Sophie would never see Rick Carlisle again; nor would she see his adoptive brother, Thomas Nicasio, waiting in the lobby for Rick to finish his psychotherapy appointment. A pang of loss went through her and she chided herself for the selfish thought. Rick Carlisle hadn’t existed for the purpose of throwing Thomas Nicasio in Sophie’s path.
    She had run into Thomas frequently under those circumstances, though. Not every Wednesday evening, by any means, but often enough for her to take note of it.
    Maybe it was her imagination—or plain old wishful thinking? —but it did seem to her that her chance meetings with Thomas were increasing greatly in the past few months. Never enough for her to depend on. Never enough for her to make sure she was in the office toward the end of Rick Carlisle’s regular Wednesday appointment.
    But enough to make Sophie suspect she might not be the only one who was nudging the odds to increase the likelihood of crossing paths with Thomas.
    She thought wistfully of the excitement of those chance encounters with Thomas as she hauled her briefcase onto her shoulder and left her office, casting a sad glance in the direction of Andy’s closed door.
    The flap on her briefcase gave and a sheaf of paper and several journals spilled onto the lobby carpet. A pair of tanned, masculine . . . very capable-looking hands beat her to the task of retrieving the spilled contents.
    She glanced up from her kneeling position. His face was less than a foot away from her own.
    “Thomas,” she exclaimed, surprised. She tensed, knowing from experience that Thomas’s smiles,