Beyond the Misty Shore (22 page)

Bill looked up and saw them. Relief flooded his face. “Hey, you guys come join us. Be warned, though. Leslie’s in a foul mood.”

“Bill!” She swatted at his arm, gave him a solid frown, then grinned at Maggie. “The foul mood welcomes you, Maggie.”

MacGregor held out a chair and Maggie sat down, glad she’d already “informally” met Leslie via phone. “I’d be in a foul mood, too, if I’d lost my backside at auction.”

Cocking his head toward Maggie, MacGregor told Leslie, “She’s been griping for hours about the big boats depleting the stock and making life tough on the small fishermen.”

Both Bill and Leslie looked pleased that Maggie had concerned herself with their plight. “Sinful, isn’t it?” Bill asked.

“It is.” MacGregor motioned, and Lucy came over with two iced teas. “I’ll have whatever you cooked—and cornbread.”

“Me, too,” Maggie added, thinking that what was sinful was the way MacGregor enraged her senses. Why was she so intimately aware of everything about the man?

“Coming right up.”

The phone rang.

Lucy grabbed the receiver and wedged it to her ear with her shoulder. “Blue Moon.”

She listened for a scant second, then rolled her gaze, cupped her hand over the mouthpiece, and looked at Maggie. “Sweetie, will you hold this for me? It’s Beaulah reporting another Seascape oddity sighting, bless her heart, and I just don’t have time to mess with her right now.” Lucy thrust the receiver toward Maggie. “Just say ‘Uh-huh’ every now and again. Don’t worry. You wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise if you wanted to.”

Maggie tucked the phone to her ear.

MacGregor grinned and squeezed her hand beneath the table. When mischief twinkled in his eyes, he was gorgeous. When it didn’t, he was still gorgeous. She inwardly sighed. Carolyn or no, Maggie was in big trouble when it came to this man. It seemed he grew more dear, more important to her with each passing moment. Did looking at her do to him what looking at him did to her?

Their gazes locked and he smiled. She smiled back, heavy-limbed, heat pooling in her thighs, and mentally drifted, mesmerized.

MacGregor poked her in the ribs. “Say uh-huh, darling.”

Darling?
Her heart skipped a full beat, and she mumbled into the receiver, lost in sensual thoughts too rich to not indulge in. “Uh-huh.”

Leslie and Bill were talking. On some level Maggie heard them, but she just couldn’t focus on anything other than MacGregor and the heat in his eyes.

Again, he cued her. “Uh-huh.”

She blinked, then blinked again, forcing herself to snap to and pick up on her surroundings. How had he done that to her? Beaulah was still raving, her tinny voice grating at Maggie’s ears even more than usual, considering where her thoughts had been only moments before. She slid her gaze to Bill. Why did he look amused? Leslie seemed genuinely upset. The phone buzzed a dial tone in her ear. When had Beaulah hung up? And what else had Maggie missed while lost in lust?

She passed the receiver to MacGregor, who stretched and put it back onto its cradle on the bar. While leaning close, he whispered in her ear. “Leslie thinks she’s not accepted by the fishermen because she’s a black woman.” He nuzzled Maggie’s earlobe with the tip of his nose. “Bill’s challenged her to take over the auctioning of their catch and she wants your opinion on whether or not she should take the risk and do it.”

Maggie swallowed hard. Her opinion was that the man in the chair beside her was a furnace—and clearly not as affected by looking at her as she was by looking at him. She patted his thigh, offering her thanks for him catching her up on the conversation, or to hide her disappointment—she didn’t dare to ponder which—then looked at Leslie. “Someone’s got to blaze the trail. Why not you?”

“I could lose everything we’ve got.” Leslie looked excited, and scared half to death.

Boy, could Maggie empathize with that feeling. Stroking MacGregor’s thumb with hers, she looked Leslie straight in the eye. “I think if your heart and mind agree that something is right, you owe it to yourself to at least give it a try.”

Leslie lifted her gaze to the wall behind Maggie’s head, absorbing the advice. Bill winked at her. MacGregor gave her hand the most delicious squeeze. She could get used to him. So damn used to him. So easily.

“Nothing comes with guarantees,” Leslie told Bill. “I’ll do it.” She pivoted her gaze to Maggie and it grew soulful. “Though the fishermen accepting me as one of them likely never will happen. Tight, closed-ranks, you know?”

Bill clasped her hand, lifted it to his lips, and gazed at her through a husband’s adoring eyes. “They’ll love you.”

Just like me.

Bill didn’t say the words, but Maggie sure felt them. Oh, but to have a man look at you that way. To show such belief and support. Such... love.

Leslie pecked a kiss to her husband’s brow, then pushed back her chair, her eyes glistening. “We should go home and... check on the kids.”

“Yeah, we should.” Bill nodded and stood up. “You guys enjoy your meal.”

From MacGregor’s tender expression, he realized, too, that Leslie and Bill were feeling tender and wanted some privacy, and it didn’t escape her notice that the pang of envy she felt that they could have that privacy while Maggie and MacGregor couldn’t reflected in MacGregor’s eyes.

Lucy brought out platters of coleslaw, fried cod, and beans. Then she made a second trip from the kitchen and set a paper-lined red plastic basket of cornbread wedges down on the center of the table.

MacGregor grabbed one, firmly pressed his thigh to Maggie’s, then released her hand and slathered the steaming cornbread with butter. The corner of his lip curled.

Maggie frowned. “Why does Leslie feeling unaccepted amuse you?”

“I wondered how long it’d be before you asked.”

“Your attitude doesn’t usually extend to being an ass.”

“Maybe you’re corrupting me.” MacGregor grinned, not looking at all offended.

She’d misread this situation. “Okay, her feeling unaccepted doesn’t amuse you.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Well, what does then?” She cut into a wedge of cornbread. Steam spilled out over her fingertips and she blew on them to cool them down.

“It’s her being so far off-base. Her acceptance has nothing do with her being black or a woman.”

“Really?” Maggie wiped . butter sheen off her finger onto her napkin.

“Really.” MacGregor sipped at his drink. The chilled glass sweated. “Fishermen are a special breed. They hang tough no matter what. They respect their families, their boats—they’re sacred. But the sea... Ah, the sea, sweet Maggie, is like a seductive mistress. If Leslie wants to belong, then she has to do to them what the sea has done.”

Maggie nearly choked. “You mean she has to seduce them and become a mistress to the fishermen?”

“Not hardly!” MacGregor dabbed at his mouth, chuckling, then leaned closer. “I was speaking poetically, Maggie. Doing it poorly, too. Leslie has to earn their respect and her place among them, just as the sea did. That’s what I meant.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Maggie didn’t bother to hide her relief. “Oh, wait. I get it. She needs to see things in the familiar.”

“Exactly.” MacGregor rewarded her with a heart-stopping smile. “You worry too much.”

Maggie planted an icy chill in her tone. “Some things are worth worrying over, MacGregor.”

“True.” He sipped from his glass then set it back down to the table and met her gaze, not a trace of humor left in his eyes. “But some things just are, Maggie, and, sooner or later, you’ve got to accept them.”

Like us.

He hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. The words hung between them, no less clear because they’d gone unspoken.

Maggie looked away, slid a half-full bottle of ketchup across the table. It clanked against the salt and pepper shakers. He was no more talking about Leslie than about his work. He was talking about them and their relationship, and the awful man was letting her know he’d recognized her pang of envy for Leslie and Bill and their privacy, too. “Why doesn’t Bill just tell her?”

MacGregor grunted. “Because he’s not crazy.”

“Why would—”

“Think subtle revenge, Maggie.” MacGregor interrupted. “A man telling a woman how she feels is bound to earn him tons of it.”

He had a point. Still...

MacGregor smiled at her over a forkful of cod. “Besides, when Leslie figures it out for herself, she’ll be happier about it, anyway.”

And so, too, would Maggie.
Again unspoken, but not unheard.

MacGregor laughed. “Don’t look so forlorn, sweetheart. Nothing will happen between us that you don’t want to happen.”

It would. It already had in her heart and her mind. Unable to meet his eyes, fearing he’d see that truth in them, Maggie looked past his shoulder, let her gaze drift to the wall, to the infamous bulletin board, hanging under the Budweiser clock. A shiver raced up her spine. Jimmy had taken the condom request off the shopping list. So why were her and MacGregor’s names on it now? And what was that scribbled beside them? She squinted to see more clearly.
Dec. 25
^th
, 2 p.m.—Millie $5, Jimmy $20, Lydia “No Way” $17.52.

Maggie stared at the board. Miss Hattie had explained that when Jimmy went to pick up auto parts in Boothbay Harbor or New Harbor, he also ran errands for the villagers who posted their lists on the board. But why were their names there? What did the names, the money, and Lydia Johnson’s “No Way” mean?

The night air was clear and cold.
Though T.J. didn’t look forward to being confined at Seascape again, he didn’t linger on the walk back to the inn. Maggie seemed fine, but she was shivering, huddled beneath the crook of his arm and in her jacket, and he feared whatever had made her feel bad earlier might come back again.

He opened the mud room door and Maggie scooted past him. “Boy, a cup of hot coffee sounds good, doesn’t it, MacGregor?”

He closed the door, slid out of his jacket, then pegged it on a hook beside Maggie’s. “Yeah, it does.”

Miss Hattie evidently had gone on up to bed, so they had the first two floors of the house to themselves. He was glad of it, though he damn well shouldn’t be, but he wasn’t ready for their day together to end.

Minutes later, they settled down on the salon sofa holding steaming coffee mugs. The room was comfortable, inviting, and small enough to be intimate without seeming crowded. A television was near the far wall, in a corner, and a white fireplace centered on that wall. Floral paintings, brass sconces, and a gold-leaf branch centered between two windows lined the white walls. And two wing-back chairs covered in soft damask not only looked comfortable, but sat comfortably. He liked this room. Always had. But even more so now, being here with Maggie and them not at odds.

She dropped her shoes on the eggshell carpeting and curled her feet up under her. “You know, I love these Mainers’ wit. Dry, but hilarious. And they seem to know instinctively what’s really important.”

“They do.” T.J. stretched out his legs and crossed them at his ankles. His thigh brushed against Maggie’s knee. “And they’re as opinionated as heart attacks on matters of consequence to them.”

“Aren’t we all?” Maggie sipped from her cup, a smile tugging at her lips. “Do you think Leslie will do better than Bill at representing their catch at auction?”

“Bill thinks so, or he wouldn’t have suggested it. He’s a shrewd businessman.”

“I asked what
you
thought.”

T.J. shrugged. “Maybe. It depends on if she sees what’s really there, or what she expects to be there.”

“I suppose so.” She stared across the room at the blank television screen, looking thoughtful, as if she wondered if she, too, saw what was really there or what she expected.

“I sat in on a few council meetings here. Spirited affairs.”

“That spirit is part of their passion, MacGregor. People should be impassioned.”

More than a little curious, he looked directly at her. “What impassions you?”

She glanced down into her cup and studied its contents. “A lot more than when I first came here.”

She didn’t sound happy about that. “Would I happen to be included?”

“Yeah, you would. But I’m fighting it.” Maggie lifted her knee atop his thigh. How could she not fight it? Keeping the truth about Carolyn away from him? “We don’t really know that much about each other.” Even to her, that sounded lame. She knew a lot about MacGregor from their talks, from their time together, from their bond. And, right or wrong, blessing or curse, she especially knew how he made her feel.

“I know everything I need to know about you, Maggie.” He dropped his voice, soft and intimate.

Her heart welcomed that intimacy, but her mind refuted the joy of feeling so connected to him. She’d lied. How could she feel connected with him with lies between them?

She set her coffee cup down on the oak table at her elbow. “You don’t, MacGregor. You really don’t.”

“I do.” He reached over and set his cup beside hers. The handles kissed and clanked, bumping together. Rearing back, he lifted his hand and twirled a lock of her hair between his forefinger and thumb. “I know how you make me feel.”