Beyond the Misty Shore (19 page)

“You swear?”

Feeling that tender hitch he felt every time he recalled her dragging him, he crossed his heart with his fingertip and smiled. “It’s the best I can do. I wasn’t a Scout.”

She laughed. “I’ll take it—but only if you promise to toss salt over your shoulder as soon as we get back to the house.”

“Salt?”

“Forget it.” She rolled her gaze. “Family joke.”

“Well, it’s lacking.”

“So was the family.” As if only realizing she’d spoken aloud, she attempted a quick recovery. “Charming, MacGregor. Totally charming. And I’m taking notes.” She gave his arm a yank. “Come on.”

Sassy, head to heel, and a zero intimidation factor. Loving that, he twisted the wrist of their linked hands, then laced their fingers together. They stepped over the line, then stopped. Feeling nothing at all odd, he looked at Maggie. “Anything happening?”

A long second crept by, then she answered. “Nothing.” She sounded relieved.

“Good.”
Understatement of the millennium.
His throat as dry as a dust pit, he swallowed hard. “Me, neither.”

“Ease up on the death grip, MacGregor. You’re about to crack my bones.” Maggie winced. “I won’t forget and let go.”

“Sorry.” He loosened his hold on her hand, rubbed at the white marks he’d left imprinted with his thumb, and stepped onto the worn path beside the sand-dusted road that led into the village.

As quickly as they’d come, the claustrophobic feelings disappeared. Amazing. Had they been naturally or psychologically induced? He caught the fleshy part of his inner cheek between his teeth. Or maybe... entity-induced?

Regardless, they were gone now and, breathing easier, he squinted against a glare reflecting off a pothole puddle. The sun was shining. That hit him like a sledge. When had the clouds disappeared? “This is the first time in a week the sun’s been out.”

“Nice, isn’t it?” Maggie stretched her step to match his, her expression tight and worried, and in direct conflict with her light tone.

“What’s wrong?” Was she feeling effects of crossing, after all?

“You’re not serious.” She slid him an incredulous look. “What
isn’t
wrong?”

“Look, I agree it sounds like a stupid question, but it really isn’t—unless...” His stomach knotted. “It told you to come, didn’t it?”

She looked out over the water, avoiding his gaze.

“Maggie,” he growled from deep in his throat.

“I’m not sure.”

She hadn’t done this for him, or because she’d missed him. The entity had intervened. Again. Disappointment shafted through T.J. like a sharp arrow.

“I heard a whisper, but I can’t honestly say whose it was, MacGregor.” She sidestepped a large rock, took to the more level dirt path, then focused on the sheriff’s car. Rolling down Main Street, it headed toward the Blue Moon Cafe. “You know, this whole thing scares me in a way. Not in a boogeyman kind of way, because I don’t think the entity means to hurt us so long as we don’t cross it.”

“Hell, Maggie. If this didn’t scare you, I’d be worried about you. It’s bizarre.”

“You’re worried anyway.” Passing an oak, she plucked off a dead leaf. “What I mean is that this whole situation scares me because I feel as if it’s... life-altering.”

A shiver shot up his spine and a warm wind crawled over the back of his neck. She was right. He sensed it. Tasted its bitterness on his tongue. She crumbled the leaf in her free hand. It crackled and crunched.

“Life-altering,” he said, “can be good or bad.”

“I know.” She sighed and tossed the crumbled leaf onto the ground, then wiped the dust from her hand against her thigh. “That’s why I tried to leave here.”

Surprise followed the shiver, bolted up his backbone, then stung the roof of his mouth. “Tried? As in tried and failed?”

She nodded. “Three days ago.”

Why hadn’t she told him? Had she planned on leaving without even saying good-bye? “Car trouble?”

“No.” She looked away, stared at the big, rusty anchor leaning against the wall of the Blue Moon Cafe. “Closet trouble.” Underneath the outside staircase leading to a rooftop dining area, she paused and looked up at him. “I went to get my suitcase so I could pack. But when I tried taking it out of the closet, the door slammed shut and wouldn’t open.”

The closet didn’t have locks. No doubt she knew that, too. “How’d you get out?” He stopped walking and joined her under the stairs. When she responded, he wanted to see her face. The experience had to have rattled her and to accurately gauge how much he needed to see her eyes.

“I finally figured out it wasn’t me our entity objected to leaving the closet. It was my suitcase.” She pulled a blade of dead grass off his sleeve. “It was sending me a message, Tyler.”

“It’s not going to let you leave.”

“Right.” The pulse point at her throat throbbed. “No more so than it’s going to let you leave.”

He frowned down at her. “Yet, together, we have left.”

“And now you see why I’m worried. Why did it let us go? Do you have any idea?”

“No.” Unfortunately, that was the truth. But he suspected that, for some unknown reason, the entity wanted them together.

She stepped closer, away from the cobwebbed underside of the stairs. “Would you hate me if I admitted that in a way I’m glad it wouldn’t let me go? I know I shouldn’t admit it. You’ve got a godawful track record, what with dashing the hopes of seventeen possibles Miss Hattie’s offered up to you, but, well, would you hate me?”

His heart damn near burst. “No, Maggie, I wouldn’t hate you.” Did she mean she wanted to be with him? It sounded as if she did but, unsure of her answer, he didn’t dare to ask. “And those mismatched possibles have nothing to do with you.”

Her cheeks flushed. The sun shone brilliantly, dappling her in the slatted shade of the step rungs. “I don’t mind if you don’t like me, MacGregor. I just don’t want you to hate me, you know?”

She would mind, the beautiful little liar. He caught up her hand in his, saw marks in her palm from where she’d fisted her hand and dug in her nails. “Would you hate me if I admitted that part of me—a very selfish part—is relieved that you can’t go? I’m the one with the awful track record, and I know it.” His mother. Carolyn. Seventeen mismatches. He gripped Maggie’s upper arm with his free hand and rubbed it shoulder to elbow, sliding his hand up then down her smooth sleeve, stirring her sweet scent and praying for the right words. “I want you to be safe, but I don’t want to be here without you.”

“Me, too.” Her face burned brighter red. “Despite all the weirdness, for some goofy reason, I’m at peace here. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that luxury, and I don’t have to tell you how needing peace gnaws at your mind.”

“No, you don’t.” Had a peace pilgrimage been her mission here, then?

“Tyler, I—I—”

“Me, too.” Sensing they both needed it, he closed the circle of his arms around her slender shoulders and kissed her lips.

It touched him in a way no woman’s kiss had ever touched him. No eager kiss, this. No passion or desire evidenced, just unity. An expression with lips and tongues and gentle hands and tender pressings of bodies of all the things they couldn’t, wouldn’t, give each other with words. Reassurance that what was happening to them might be insane, but they were not. Recognition of their bond, of how much courage it’d taken her to get past her father’s ill treatment and let herself be vulnerable enough to admit to them both that she wanted to be with T.J., of how much courage it’d taken him to get past what had happened to the other women in his life and trust that it wouldn’t also happen to Maggie.

She kissed him back, tenderly, almost shyly, without the heat or desperation or fear she’d shown him before, sighing softly against his mouth, the vibrations from it coursing through her chest to his. This kiss acknowledged the gentler, more fragile, side of their feelings. The side that realized them caring for each other was forbidden, yet carried an awareness that, though they should not care for each other and there would be stiff consequences to pay for the privilege, they cared anyway, hopeful that whatever recompense demanded would be worth the price of them being together now—at least, for a time.

He let his hand glide down to her forearm. Giving her cool hand a light squeeze, he raised his head, dizzy from all the emotions churning from what to others would appear as a chaste kiss, then pulled her out from under the open staircase and into the sunlight.

A tear slid down her cheek.

A knot slid up into his throat.

She looked up at him, her eyes turbulent. “I—I—”

She cared. “I know, honey.”

They stared at each other fearful, in awe, then Maggie swallowed hard, and they walked on.

In comfortable silence, they passed Miss Millie’s Antique Shoppe, City Hall—which also housed the post office—then paused at the wooden-steepled church. T.J. frowned up at the window, high in the steep eave. “When did they put in that stained-glass window?”

Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet the pastor’s happy.” T.J. felt amazingly happy himself, though he knew it foolish with everything going on here. “He’s wanted one for a long time.”

“Well then, I’m glad he’s gotten it.” Maggie looked toward the cemetery. “Isn’t that Miss Hattie?”

“Where?”

“Over there, in the graveyard.”

A flash of something yellow caught his eye, and T.J. looked past the squat, white-picket fence. Such a different atmosphere from the above-ground tombs in New Orleans. Bending over, Miss Hattie put yellow flowers on the graves. “She does that every Tuesday, on her way to The Store. I told you that before, though, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. But I’d forgotten.” Maggie swung their clasped hands. “Whose graves does she visit?”

“I’m not sure.” He freed his hand, let it wind up her arm, then slipped his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll ask Lucy at the Blue Moon. She’ll know.”

Maggie arched a brow and curled her arm at his waist, inching her fingers up under the hem of his jacket. “We’ll erase that note off the bulletin board, too—unless Jimmy’s delivered your goods and some kind soul’s taken pity on us and already erased it.”

She wanted to touch him. To feel him rather than his clothes. Was it another unconscious touch, or an intentional one? Intentional, he hoped, but those were darn rare. “Are you going to start hassling me about that, too? I’ve heard enough from Vic, Hatch, and Bill.”

“Really? What are they saying?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

She gave him a look that agreed he was likely right. “Tell me about the note instead, then.”

“It’s still there. I know it’ll break your point-deducting heart, but don’t blame me. Blame Miss Hattie.” T.J. slid Maggie a mock warning frown he had to work at—her fingers were kneading at his waist, and her touch felt really good. “She gave Jimmy strict orders. Bed rest for his cold. So he hasn’t yet made it over to Boothbay Harbor.”

“Ah, geez.” Maggie let out a frustrated huff and promptly stumbled on a loose stone, then righted herself by leaning on him. “If it’s been up there a week, everyone in the village has seen it.”

“Hell, Maggie. Everyone in Sea Haven Village saw it, or heard about it, within an hour.”

Aaron and George rolled down the street on their bikes. Jacky Landry rode with them. She squealed and yelled out, “Hey, look, Aaron! I did it—no hands!”

T.J. smiled. Some people never grew up, the lucky stiffs. “It’s too early for dinner, but how about a piece of pie?”

“Sounds good.” Maggie grinned. “All this walking has given me an appetite.”

“Right.” T.J. grunted. “You’ve always got an appetite.” He pulled her closer to his side and eased his arm down around her waist. “Damn shame it’s for food instead of me.”

She slid him a consoling, also-ran grin. “You have your appeal, too.”

His heart lurched. Of course, she thought it, but he never imagined she’d admit it. “Does that mean I can look forward to you attacking me at some time in the future with the same zeal you attack Miss Hattie’s blueberry pie?”

“Maybe.” She laughed, deep and throaty. “Depends on how much I get chewed out today for
not
using your razor.”

He smiled. “If that’s the deal, we can forget all about the razor. What’s a little slit throat between friends?”

She tweaked his chin. “You’re so easy, MacGregor.”

“I’m not.” Why was he doing this? He knew what happened to women he cared about, and yet he was encouraging this relationship with Maggie. Had he lost his mind? He looked away.

No, not his mind. His sense maybe, and his control definitely. He wanted her. More than wanted her. And that scared the hell out of him. But did it scare him enough to put a stop to this?

That question, he couldn’t honestly answer.

Though smaller than most
efficiency apartments, the Blue Moon Cafe clearly served as the village hub. It bustled with sounds of people, clanking silverware, music, and a menagerie of welcoming, homey scents. Cornbread dominated.

Maggie walked in, holding MacGregor’s hand. They wound through a maze of red vinyl-seated chairs and wooden tables, on past the jukebox which belted out a Willie Nelson tune that had the nets hanging on the walls vibrating. The corks and sea shells and starfish inside the nets clunked together.