by Vicki Hinze
The magic lives.
Bess groaned and turned, rushed down the stairs, then raced back to the kitchen. She had to get away from here. The sooner, the better. She couldn’t trust herself around John. And certainly not here with him. Strange things happened here.
Something Maggie MacGregor had told her niggled at Bess’s memory, but stayed just out of reach. “No matter,” Bess told herself. “No matter.”
She had to get away. John already had hurt her more than any man should be able to hurt a woman. Yet here she-stood, wanting to heal the sadness from him, having to fight to keep from opening herself up to all that agony and pain again. Hadn’t she learned anything from the last time with him?
Leap—
He’d followed her. “Shut up, Tony.” Bess stuffed a glass under the running faucet and filled it with cold water. Her hand shook so hard that water splashed all over the counter and floor. “I mean it. I’ve got all I can handle right now and then some. I don’t need you or your messages driving me up the wall, too.”
Touchy.
“Damn right.”
Crimney, Doc. You can’t deny the truth. Accept it.
“I can’t. I won’t! It . . . hurts.”
But pain is an affirmation of life. Be grateful you can feel it. Be grateful your situation isn’t hopeless. Be grateful you have a second chance to love.
“But it is hopeless, Tony. Don’t you see? John doesn’t love me. He never loved me.”
The magic lives, Bess. Whether you stay or go, that isn’t going to change because it lives in you.
The full weight of his words hit her. She slid bonelessly down the cabinet to the floor and sat there in the puddle of water. Tears, stinging her eyes, spilled over, then trickled down her cheeks to drip onto her blouse. “Oh God, Tony. What am I going to do? You’re right. It does live. After all this time, I still feel it. I love what he does to a pair of jeans. I love what the way he looks at me makes me feel. I don’t love him—I’d have to be crazy to love him. Worse than crazy. But I want him. I want him so much I ache in places I didn’t know I had.” She bent over and buried her face in her hands. “What am I going to do?”
Jimmy Goodson raised up from under the hood of Bess’s BMW and let his gaze slide from Bess to John Mystic, then back to Bess. They looked scared of each other, and kind of like Jimmy felt every time he saw Nolene Baker over at the Blue Moon Cafe. Jelly-bellied, Miss Hattie called it. When Nolene outgrew being jailbait, he’d be twenty-six. Then he’d ask her out on a date—if she wasn’t still sweet on Andrew Carnegie Johnson. The mayor’s son, whose mama insisted he study to be a lawyer, had a lot more to offer a girl than the grease monkey orphan of a drunk, even if Miss Hattie did say it only matters what a man is inside. ’Course, Nolene’s parents having to get married so Nolene wouldn’t be illegitimate wouldn’t set well with Lydia, Andrew’s mama. She wanted more than for Andrew to be a lawyer. Yeah, that social-climbing snob definitely had her eye on politics for Andy. A wife with parents who’d had to get married might just keep Andrew from snatching up Nolene. But if it did, then did Jimmy still want Nolene? He was crazy about her, no doubt about it. Maybe him hoping she’d be crazy about him was asking for too much, considering his own parents and all. Maybe her just settling for him was the best he could hope for. Might be foolish, him wishing that just once someone besides Miss Hattie thought he was special.
Deflated, Jimmy looked at Bess. “I’m gonna have to take ’er to the shop.”
Bess nodded and shoved her hair back from her face. It was loose and she looked kind of pretty for an older lady.
“Any idea what’s wrong?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Mystic.” Jimmy scratched his head. “Isn’t any of the usual. Starter, plugs, points, distributor—all check out fine.”
“She prefers Bess Cameron, Jimmy.”
His face went hot. “Yes, sir.” He turned to Bess. “Sorry, Mrs. Cameron.”
“It’s no problem,” she said, her gaze sliding to the dirt telling him it was a problem but she didn’t want to embarrass him.
John stepped to the front of the car, between it and the tow truck. “I’ll help you hook it up.”
In minutes, they had the BMW chained up and the safety-catches in place. Good to go, Jimmy headed down the gravel drive, back toward Main Street. He looked in his rearview mirror and glimpsed Batty Beaulah Favish hiding in Miss Hattie’s orange tiger lilies, decked out for bird-watching with her binoculars.
Jimmy guffawed. Crazy old bat. Only birds she ever watched were Seascape guests. Right now, she had her peepers locked on Bess and John Mystic. They were heading toward the cliffs. Tourists did that a lot. Though Jimmy couldn’t recollect any of ’em watching the ocean more than T. J. MacGregor had, before Maggie had come to the village.
Bill Butler’s oldest boy, Aaron, stepped out from behind Beaulah. He had his dad’s antique spyglass in his hand, mimicking her in her ghost-hunting again. Jimmy grunted. “Crazy old bat.”
At the end of the drive, Jimmy toed the brakes and waited for the sheriff to drive past. He was heading down Main Street, toward the village. Too early for his afternoon visit to the Blue Moon. Likely he was keeping an eye on that group of motorcyclists down at the cafe. They were kind of dusty from their ride, but they were good people. Up here from Arizona and on their way to the hill country to do a benefit for charity. Just goes to prove Miss Hattie’s right: When you look at folks, you see what you expect to see instead of what’s true about ‘em.
Jimmy debated. Left to Fisherman’s Co-op? Or right to the garage? He probably should swing by and tell Aaron’s folks he had that spyglass again. Leslie would be gone to the auction most likely, but Bill would be there, running the store and keeping an eye on their other two boys. They were having themselves a time in that mud puddle. Yeah, Jimmy should drop in on Bill and give him the word, but then Bill would be ticked to the gills at Aaron . . .
“Naw.” Jimmy turned right. Best let the kid have fun while he could. Though if he broke that glass, his dad would fillet his backside. Batty Beaulah really ought not be filling Aaron’s head with nonsensical stuff such as ghosts, though. Sure, odd things kind of happened at Seascape. But they happened because Miss Hattie was so good. Hadn’t she always said that good things come to those who try to live right? Shoot, everyone in the village knows she lives as right as a body’s able—and she never lies. ’Course good stuff happens at the inn. She lives there.
At the shop, Jimmy parked then unhooked Bess’s car from the tow. Horace Johnson watched from his old gas pumps next door at The Store, his Local Yokel—emblemed baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Lydia griped about those old-fashioned pumps all the time. Said they made the place look like something out of the Stone Age. But Jimmy kind of liked ’em, just as he did the old glass postal boxes down at the post office. It was comforting, knowing a man could count on some things staying the same.
He looked back at Bess’s BMW. Strange. Out at the inn, its finish had looked stumbled, as dull as dirty brass, but here it shined as if freshly waxed. He scratched at his neck. Strange that the car wouldn’t kick over too. Nothing wrong he could see that ought to keep it from starting . . .
The betting over at the Blue Moon had started, and Bess and John had looked at each other all jelly-bellied. Jimmy stared at the car. Why not? It was worth a shot.
His stomach knurled. He got in, hit the seat lever to get his knees out of his gut, then keyed the ignition. If his hunch paid off, he might just win enough to buy Miss Hattie one of those yellow tea rose bushes she’d been wanting on his run over to Boothbay Harbor. He sure would like making her happy. “Come on, baby,” he whispered from between his teeth, gripped the BMW’s steering wheel, then turned the key. “Come . . . on.”
The car cranked right up. The engine purred sweeter than Candy, the cockeyed cat, when she’d gotten a bowl full of Lucy’s cornbread scraps at the Blue Moon.
A slow smile tugged at Jimmy’s lips then spread over his face. He unfolded his
lanky body, eased out of the car then into the shop, heading straight for the phone.
He dialed and then waited.
On the third ring, Lucy answered. “Blue Moon Cafe.”
“Lucy?” Elbows bent, he leaned against the counter. Was Nolene over at the cafe, or had she and some of her friends hauled it over to the shopping mall? He didn’t much care for her venturing that far from the village with just a bunch of girls. Things happened in the city and, for all her bluster and boasts of being grown-up now, Nolene had been protected her whole life. Lucy Baker was a fine mama. “It’s me, Jimmy.”
“Hey, sugar.”
“Listen, how’s the betting going on Bess Cameron and John Mystic?” Jimmy wiped a grease spot off his knuckle with a red shop rag, then tossed it onto the scuffed counter. In the breeze, the fan belts hanging on nails slapped against the far wall and ruffled the pages on the girlie swimsuit calendar that gave Pastor Brown hissy fits. The smell of the salty sea mixed with that of oil. No matter what Lydia Johnson said, it was a pleasing scent.
“Betting’s been brisk.”
Jimmy had expected that. “What’s Lydia Johnson down for?” Horace’s uppity wife was as snooty a woman as they come—nothing like Miss Hattie. ’Course, Miss Hattie was the finest woman God ever put on this earth, and measuring up to her was impossible. But, for all her faults, Lydia did have a nose for smelling romance; Jimmy had to give her that.
“Twelve dollars and twenty-one cents.”
Hefty bet for Lydia. “For or against them getting back together?”
“Against.” Lucy sighed. “A shame, but I’m inclined to agree with her, Jimmy. They’ve been separated a long time, and when he showed up here this afternoon, Bess went as stiff as a plank and as white as one of Bill Butler’s sails. Miss Millie’s betting for ’em, though, bless her heart. I think she’s missing Lance. It’s close to what would have been their anniversary, and she’s waxing a little on the sentimental side.”
“Don’t you worry about Miss Millie. Hatch will perk her up,” Jimmy said confidently. About the only time Hatch ventured from the lighthouse over to Miss Millie’s Antique Shoppe was when she was feeling down. Vic said Hatch had a built in radar that went off whenever Miss Millie was out of sorts. After seeing it prove true time and again, Jimmy believed it.
“Saw Hatch headed that way not more than an hour ago. He stopped by Landry’s Landing and got some of Miss Millie’s favorite tea.”
“That should do it, then.” Miss Millie loved her tea. Jimmy looked out through the left, big bay door. It was open. The right one remained closed. The BMW gleamed in the weak sun. He rubbed at his chin. The light stubble of his beard grated against his hand. Maybe Lydia was right this time. Bess had been dying to leave Seascape and, if her car had started, she would’ve left. But, out at Seascape, nothing Jimmy had worked on had gotten the BMW fixed, and yet he comes back to the shop with it and, without him so much as putting a wrench to it, the car cranks right up and runs sweeter than honey.
That was proof enough for him. “Put me down for twenty, Lucy—for them getting back together.” If this worked out, Miss Hattie would be tickled with her yellow tea rose bush. He smiled at that. Even when his own mother had been alive, she hadn’t been half the mother to him Miss Hattie had been. He’d never figured out why Miss Hattie had taken to him, but because she had, he loved her more than anybody else on earth.
“That’s pretty steep. You sure, sugar?” Lucy sounded worried.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” The glimmer on the car grew to a gleam that darn near blinded him. When he’d brought John’s bags upstairs and given him the tour, and he’d seen that Miss Hattie had put John in the Cove Room, just across the hall from Bess in the Great White Room, Jimmy had been suspicious. That, the car not starting up with its dull paint all glossy again now, and those jelly-bellied looks between them . . .
Inspiration struck. He’d keep the car out of commission for a spell, just to help things along. A little insurance never hurts, Miss Hattie says. So long as he didn’t lie to Bess, things should work out fine. “In fact, make it twenty-five.”
Jimmy grinned. Shoot, with her stuck here, how could he lose?
Chapter 5
John sat at the kitchen table. Hatch, a bent and little, crusty salt of a man with leathery skin, a stubbly chin, and eyes as wise as the ages sat on the opposite chair, finishing the last of a cup of coffee that still steamed. A yellow bandana tied at his throat, he tucked its ends under the collar of his white shirt.
“I think Miss Millie’s all right. We had a little tea and a long chat.” Hatch looked over to Miss Hattie, near the fireplace. Her old rocking chair squeaked and, on her forward rocks, a string from the worn red-and-white-check cushion dragged low, touching the floor.
“I’m so glad you dropped by to see her.” Miss Hattie looked at John. “Millie gets a little sad this time of year. She’s a widow now and it’s close to what would have been her wedding anniversary.”
“That can be rough.” John let his gaze drift from her to the empty fireplace grate. He’d learned that first through Elise and then, after Bess had left him, firsthand. He’d suffered through anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas celebrations alone for six years. But Elise had been a widow for a long time. She’d withstood all he had a lot longer—and because John had failed to find Dixie—without her daughter there to offer her comfort. A wave of regret grew to a gale in his stomach and wrenched his heart. Did Miss Millie have children?
He refrained from asking. If she didn’t, then she still had suffered as had Elise and, if Miss Millie did, he didn’t want to know it right this second. He was depressed enough.
Hatch set down his cup. “Dropping the mail off for Vic today gave me a good excuse to stop by.”
“Danced too much at the Grange last night again, didn’t he?” Miss Hattie’s emerald eyes sparkled. “My, but that man is hard on his feet.”
John smiled. She was a special woman; an innate sense of goodness and caring emanated from her.
“Yep, he sure did.” Hatch grinned. “We took Millie over, to get her out of the house. And he dipped her one time too many. Ain’t his feet hurting him this time. He threw his back out of whack. Probably be down a couple days.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll have to take over some—”
“Now don’t start your fretting, Miss Hattie. Since you have guests, Lucy’s seeing to him.” Hatch stood up, hiked his pants, then tossed Vic’s worn mailbag onto his shoulder. “I’d best be getting on over to Beaulah’s before she makes her afternoon run down to the Blue Moon to test the sheriff’s good nature.”
“Hatch, don’t be unkind. Beaulah is just a little . . . persistent.”
“She’s nuttier than Lydia Johnson’s fruitcake and that’s the truth, Miss Hattie.”
She didn’t dispute him, but she didn’t agree with him either. John thought her the soul of diplomacy—and that Hatch must be right.
He headed toward the back door. “John, bring your wife over to the lighthouse and I’ll give you the tour. I can’t be lighting the lamp. The Coast Guard would pitch a fit. I’m summercating, but I’ll tell you the history of it—if you bring me a couple of Miss Hattie’s blueberry muffins.” He grinned from under the brim of his hat. “I’m partial to ’em.”
“Thanks.” John smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.” The muffins would be far easier to bribe than Bess’s agreement to go anywhere with him.
Hatch gave them a gap-tooth grin, then left through the mud room. Whistling a jaunty tune, he limped past the kitchen window, a youthful spring in his step.
John watched him round the edge of the house. “He’s a good man.”
“Yes, he is. Very wise, too. People are often deceived by his rustic looks. Some foolish souls even have called him ‘Popeye’.”
With his weathered, wrinkled skin and virtuous ways, John could see that, though Miss Hattie’s lip curling told him that neither reason had solicited the nickname. “Why ‘Popeye’?”
“He loves the sea and smokes a corncob pipe.” She paused, tilted her head, then grunted. “I have to say, though, it’s been a good ten years since I’ve seen it lit.”
“My great-grandmother used to smoke one of those. Mortified my Uncle Max. She died when I was really young, and I haven’t thought of that in years.” He couldn’t honestly say he’d thought of her much either. It’d just been too long. And too much pain had clocked in between losing her and losing Elise.
“May I say something, Jonathan?”
Jonathan. His senses went on alert. Now where had she heard him called Jonathan? “Yes, ma’am.”
“One of the challenges in aging is that we watch the numbers of those we love—and of those who love us—dwindle. That’s a hard thing about life, and going on.”
“Yes, ma’am, it is.” His grandparents, his parents, Elise. All he had left now was Selena and his Uncle Max and, busy with their own lives, they had little time for him. Honestly, because of the secret, he had to admit, he hadn’t made much time for them either. Or for Bess . . . and getting him to see that had been Miss Hattie’s intent.
Subtle, but effective. A special woman. Noble. Her chin dipped to her sewing, he stared at her white-bunned crown. “May I ask you a question, Miss Hattie?”
“Certainly, dear.” She smiled up at him.
“Why didn’t you ever marry?”
She stopped rocking. Her eyes glazed over and, in her mind, she’d left her Seascape Inn kitchen for a journey into her past; John knew it as well as he knew he sat in her kitchen.
Her eyes went sad and her voice took on a faraway tone. “I was engaged to a wonderful man.” She brought her gaze to John, and he sensed her reluctance to leave the memories of her fiancé behind her. “He was a soldier.”
And a good man. Her cadence reeked of pride. “Why didn’t you marry him?” She obviously loved him.