by Vicki Hinze
He nodded, looking a little amused.
She scanned the sculptures, the paintings lining the walls, then looked back at Maggie. “I’m a little worried about all this stuff I’ve been telling you—seriously, you have to agree that my life’s a cesspool right now—and, frankly, I’m not in much of a humoring mood.”
“I’m sympathetic, Bess. Honest. But would you just trust me and do it?”
Bess lifted a hand toward the painting on the wall—T. J.’s masterpiece, according to Maggie—but held her gaze on her friend. “Frankly, I don’t see why you’re so enamored with it.” Bess inwardly groaned at that less than diplomatic remark, then cast T. J. another apologetic look. “No offense, T. J., but in my opinion some of your other works are much more powerful.”
“None taken.” He looped a strong arm around Maggie’s shoulders. “But you might as well give in, or my darling wife will resort to blackmail next.”
“Maggie?” Bess guffawed. “She wouldn’t.”
“She would.” Digging into the box, Maggie pulled out a cracker, lifted her chin, then crunched down on it. “I’ve already lost five dollars on this ordeal of yours. We heard Tony’s call and I bet MacGregor here,” she lifted her elbow to brush against T. J.’s ribs, “you’d come over to talk about this right away. He bet you’d fight it alone and come after work.”
“So you lost a bet. That’s not my fault.” Bess smoothed her rumpled beige crepe skirt, then flicked at a cracker crumb on her lemon silk sleeve.
“The heck it isn’t. If you were a tad less stubborn, friend, he’d owe me the five.” Grunting, Maggie swiped her hands together, ridding them of cracker crumbs. “No options can be ignored in a bet with MacGregor—not even a little friendly blackmail.” She pointed to the painting. “Now quit stalling—remember my delicate condition—and just look at it.”
“All right, all right.” Bess frowned. “But I have to say that you using this pregnancy as an excuse for being contrary is wearing thin.”
“Amen to that.” T. J. crossed his arms over his chest, rumpling his red-plaid shirt.
Maggie slid him a killer glare, then grunted. “You adore me, MacGregor, and if you don’t start helping me out here, I’m going to have to get drastic. Maybe even cry.
“Oh, hell.” He turned to Bess. “If our friendship ever meant anything to you, please, look at the painting. When Madam Prego gets wound up—”
“Would you two quit teasing here?” Bess propped her hands on her hips. “I’m telling you that this Tony guy was weird. What he said was weird. And what he knew went beyond weird and launched straight into spooky. It wasn’t normal.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, cursed the tremor in her voice, then looked back at her friends. “Ordinarily, I love your banter, but I’m dying here. Between the divorce, Millicent threatening to fire me, and this weird stuff with Tony haunting me every waking minute, I’ve maxed out.” The words she’d been trained from the cradle never to utter, never to admit even to herself, poured out of her mouth. “I need . . . help.”
The teasing light faded from Maggie’s eyes, left them riddled with worry and with something else . . . hope? Yes. But hope for what? And, why was Bess’s looking at the Seascape Inn painting so important to Maggie? It was important—Bess’s intuition hummed it.
“Just look at it, Bess,” Maggie said. “Please. Just do it.”
Bess gave in and looked at the canvas. It was just a house. A huge gray Victorian with stark white shutters, sitting atop an oceanside cliff. A common turret and widow’s walk, a typical front porch that stretched end to end across the bottom floor. Pretty, but just a house.
“There.” Bess looked back at Maggie. “I did it. Satisfied?”
“No,” Maggie said sharply. “Really look at it.”
Really feel it, Tony had said. Now, really look at it from a desperate-sounding Maggie. Apprehensive with the similarity, Bess wheeled her gaze to T. J. Stone-faced, he nodded and, no less apprehensive but certain now that something weird was occurring, Bess stifled a shudder and forced her focus back to the painting.
Sometimes hope alone isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to leap upon a mystic tide and have faith the sand will shift and an island will appear.
Her heart hammered, thudding against her ribs, and she whispered on a brush of breath, “Tony?”
The painting seemed to come to life. The scent of its pines wafted over her and the cool sea spray crashing against its cliffs gathered on her heated skin. The gull flying through the fog in its misty sky cawed in sync with its ocean’s rhythmic roar. Bess scanned the horizon. Her stomach rocking with the white-capped waves, she cruised with them to the shore, then up the steep and craggy granite cliffs. She let her gaze linger on the house itself, on its graceful turret, and on the narrow widow’s walk that aroused such intense emotion in her, tears stung her eyes. She then looked on, to the attic room just under the eaves, and the cryptic sensation grew stronger.
The temperature plummeted.
An icy veil of a chill shivered up her spine.
And all the tension and pressure and strain she’d been feeling inside shattered.
Warm heat, energy as pure and tranquilizing as summer sun, seeped-into her pores, and liquid, flowing sensations of peace and comfort and contentment spread through her, limb to limb, until she felt calm and at ease.
“How . . . odd,” she mumbled. Absurd. Ridiculous. Impossible.
Wonderful.
Awed, Bess sucked in a wisp of a gasp. She’d never felt so empowered, so satisfied, such sheer joy in just being alive.
T. J. gave Maggie’s arm a gentle squeeze. “That was it, honey. She had to admit she needed help.”
Maggie pressed a fingertip over her lips. “Shh!”
He lowered his voice to a barely discernible whisper and eased toward the back room. “I’ll call the airline and Miss Hattie.”
Why did T. J. need to phone their friend from Maine and the airline now? How could he bear to miss experiencing this? Bess wanted to ask him, but the lure of the painting . . . She couldn’t look away. Why hadn’t she noted before its raw power, its soothing majesty? How could she ever have looked at this and felt it anything but magnificent?
Gingerly, as if being careful not to obstruct her view, Maggie stepped to Bess’s side. “You don’t want this divorce, do you, Bess?”
Captivated, she mumbled the truth. “It’s inevitable.”
“But is it what you want?”
“Does it matter? It’s going to happen. Acceptance is positive growth.” Bess’s focus remained fixed on the canvas. “You know, Maggie, I look at this, and all my problems, even the divorce, seem insignificant. It’s almost as if it’s touched by . . . magic.”
“You feel healed.”
Bess smiled, spared Maggie a glance. “That’s it exactly.”
A look of empathy, of understanding, and—unless Bess mistook it—of relief flashed through Maggie’s eyes. Relief seemed rather peculiar.
“You need a vacation,” Maggie murmured. “Time away to just let go and to get things into perspective.”
That sounded like heaven. And, looking at this house, possible. “Yes.” The magnetism proved stronger than her will and Bess again mentally drifted into T. J.’s masterpiece. When her gaze lit on the turret room, certainty rippled through her heart. “More than anything else, I want to go there.” It had been so long since she’d felt at peace. Six long years . . .
“Marvelous.” Maggie sighed contentedly, stepped between Bess and the painting, then rested her arms on her distended belly.
Bess blinked, feeling almost as if she’d been under a spell and it’d been broken. That healed feeling disappeared, and she wanted it back. Desperately. “It is a real place, isn’t it?” An anxious fear that it might not be gripped her.
“Oh, yes.” Maggie nodded. “It’s real. It’s the bed-and-breakfast T. J. and I visit in Sea Haven Village, Maine. Seascape Inn.”
“Your friend, Miss Hattie?”
<
br /> Maggie nodded. “She’s the innkeeper.”
Bess’s mouth felt stone dry. She licked at her lips. “I can’t explain this, Maggie. I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I have to go there. Now. Today.”
“You don’t have to explain—not to me.” Maggie smiled. “T. J.’s making arrangements for you right now.”
Bess vaguely remembered T. J. saying something about him calling Miss Hattie. How had he known?
Maggie cocked her head. A frown creased the smooth skin between her brows and she glanced off into space as if she were listening to something only she could hear. Seconds passed, and the strangest expression formed on her face. Worried, Bess clasped Maggie’s arm. “Are you okay? Is it the baby?”
“No, no. We’re fine.” She patted her stomach, a fleeting smile touching her lips.
Despite her assurance, something concerned Maggie; it shone in her eyes. “I’m getting the strongest feeling that you’re protecting me. I don’t need that from you. Now, be honest. Are you two okay?”
“We’re fine. I promise. It’s, um, about Seascape Inn.” Maggie brushed her gleaming red hair back from her face, clearly avoiding Bess’s eyes. “When you get there, you might, um, see a man in an old Army uniform—one with a yellow carnation here in his lapel.” She touched a fingertip to her dress, just above her left breast.
A shudder rippled up Bess’s backbone. Why did this disclosure strike her as significant as Tony’s message? “Okay.”
“Trust him,” Maggie said. “He’s trying to help you.”
“This has something to do with the painting.” Certainty flooded Bess. “That’s why you had me look at it before. You were hoping then—” Bess drew in a sharp breath. “This man—he’s the reason this strange stuff is happening now, isn’t he?”
Maggie nodded.
Her wariness alerted Bess. “Is there something . . . different about him?”
Looking as guilty as sin, Maggie shrugged, stepped back to the tall column behind her, then sat down on the padded bench circling it. “To some. But I—I don’t think I’m supposed to say anything more, Bess. Just trust him, okay?”
“You’re sounding as weird as Tony.”
“I know.” Maggie grimaced, rubbed at her stomach, and rotated her swollen ankles. “Can you just trust me, too?”
For a long minute, Bess stared at her friend, not sure what to make of all this. But considering every aspect of her life lay in shambles already, what did she have to lose? “Why not? I always have.”
Maggie swallowed and stilled, again as if listening. “Bess,” she said, “I know this is stretching the bounds of friendship, but you might . . .” Her voice trailed.
“Might what?” Lord, but she hated to see Maggie distressed—
especially in her condition. The baby was due in November, just five months away.
She turned away. “You might hear the man without actually seeing him.”
A bolt of fear rocketed through Bess. Tingling head to heel, she stiffened her shoulders and stared hard at Maggie’s narrow back. “Is he telepathic?” Tony was telepathic. Was there a connection?
“Sort of.” Maggie looked back over her shoulder at Bess. “You’ve nothing to fear from him, though. Honest. If I thought for a second you did, I’d tell you.”
Nervous. Evasive. Cryptic. So unlike Maggie MacGregor. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked back in front of her, toward the white-carpeted floor. “It’s . . . complicated.”
Complicated. Well, that was comforting. “This man,” Bess gave her instincts free rein. “He’s not like us, is he?” Speaking her feelings aloud had her skin prickling.
Maggie twisted her lips and shifted on her feet, clearly uneasy. “If I say no, will you change your mind about going to Seascape?”
“No,” Bess insisted with absolute certainty. The pull for those good feelings tugged more mightily than anything she could imagine. Nothing would keep her from going to Seascape Inn. “There’s something special there, luring me. I have to see what it is.” She couldn’t explain her feelings fully; she didn’t understand them herself. But the sense of mystery, of urgency, of irresistible allure was there, and so strong. It oddly promised that at Seascape Inn she could do what she hadn’t been able to do here: sort through the remnants of her life and plan her future—a future without John.
“No, then,” Maggie said softly. “He’s not like us.”
Bess had known it. But knowing and hearing it confirmed were two different things. Gooseflesh raised on her arms and she had the hardest time catching her breath. “Does this man have a name?”
“Yes, of course. But—”
T. J. breezed into the show room. “You’re all set, Bess. Miss Hattie’s expecting you.”
“Great.” Bess glanced at Maggie and, seeing the lines of tension creasing her brow, backed off. Mystical events occurring or not, extra stress during pregnancy was bad for Maggie and the baby. If she said that this—whatever this proved to be—was all right, then certainly it would prove exactly that. “You can relax, Prego. No more questions. I said I’d trust you, and I will.”
Maggie slumped against T. J. in obvious relief. “Thanks.”
Bess smiled, kissed Maggie on the cheek, then stretched up to place a peck on T. J.’s jaw. When she drew back, she stared at him, long and hard. “For you, I have one question. How did you know I’d be going to Seascape before I knew I’d be going to Seascape?”
His mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. He gave Maggie an inquisitive glance then, clearly not liking her nonverbal response, he returned a worried gaze to Bess. “Just a guess.”
“Hmmm.” Something told her not to push. And she decided to go with it. T. J. too had earned her respect and trust. “As it turned out, a darn good one.”
“Appears so.” Conspicuously happy to be off the hot seat, he grinned. “Your tickets are at the airport reception desk. American. Three o’clock flight.”
“I’d better hurry, then.” She moved toward the gallery’s entrance door.
“Bess,” Maggie raised her voice to be heard, “Don’t forget to phone Francine. She said you’ve been ducking her calls, and she needs to talk with you. It’s urgent.”
“With Francine, it’s always urgent.” Bess paused at the glass front door. “Thanks,” her gratitude stuck in her throat, “for everything.”
“Be careful, okay?” Maggie had that worried gleam in her eye again.
It warned Bess what she didn’t know could hurt her. Still, on looking at the painting, those good feelings had been so strong. Once she got to Seascape, things would settle out okay; she just knew it. She waved, then left Lakeview Gallery.
The bell on the door still tinkling in the back rooms, Maggie watched Bess disappear beyond the tinted-glass windows at the end of the riverfront walkway.
T. J. joined her. Looking out through the glass onto the busy street, he grimaced. “Think she’ll call Francine?”
“Nope.” Maggie looked up at her husband, her eyes shining. “But finally Tony’s interceding.”
T. J. rubbed their noses. “Did you tell her about him?”
Maggie ran her fingertips up and down the soft placket of his plaid shirt, between the second and third buttons. “Not exactly.”
“Honey, you should have told her. Remember how you reacted to Tony? He scared the bejesus out of you.”
He had. He’d gotten MacGregor’s attention too. Cranky because he failed to mention that fact, she lifted her chin. “I hinted.”
He looked at her with too-seeing eyes. “Okay, ’fess up. Why didn’t you tell her?”
Maggie snuggled against him. “Worrying about Tony drew us together. I figured—”
“Matchmaking.” T. J. grunted and clasped her shoulders. “I should have known. You’re as bad as Miss Hattie.”
“Miss Hattie’s an angel, and you know it.”
“Did I say she wasn’t?”
“No, but you sure implied it. You sou
nded perfectly snotty, MacGregor, and you know I like snotty about as much as I like nagging.”
“Facts are facts, honey. Have you forgotten those seventeen possibles she tried pairing me up with?”
“Not hardly. But she didn’t know then you were there waiting for me.”
“Point is, she still tried.”
“Shut up, darling.”
“Maggie.” He leveled her with a warning look.
She snorted, not at all intimidated. “All right, MacGregor. So maybe I should have told Bess about Tony.” She rubbed her nose against the side of his neck and whispered close to the shell of his ear. “But you’ve got to admit, we had some—”
“We had lots of,” he agreed, then kissed her hard. When he lifted his head, he looked dreamy-eyed. “But you’re forgetting a couple of minor details.”
Maggie lowered her hands from his broad shoulders to his waist, then looped her arms around him and scooted closer, until they stood belly to thigh. “Like what?”
“For one, John and Bess are divorcing. As in, they don’t want to be married to each other anymore. And, for another, they’re not divorced yet. Bess isn’t going to get involved with another man while she’s still married to John.”
“She’s been involved with that yachter.”
“Miguel Santos?” MacGregor grunted. “Come on, Maggie. Don’t fall for gossip. They’re just friends.”
Maggie shrugged, then shot a worried look at the painting. “Bess is still crazy about John. She doesn’t say it—she never has. But when I asked if she wanted the divorce, she said it was inevitable. Not that she wanted it. They belong together, MacGregor. I feel it down to my bones. Maybe that’s what Tony’s doing—stopping the divorce.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s not supposed to stop. Maybe Tony’s helping them get through the divorce so they can move on with their lives.”
It could be they were supposed to divorce. Not everyone who visited Seascape Inn discovered, or rediscovered, love. “Maybe,” she agreed. “But I sure hope not.”
“Bess has been under a lot of stress. I think you should have warned her about Tony.”