by Vicki Hinze
True, she didn’t feel insane. She felt calm and at peace. Serene. And, she might as well admit it—if only to herself—on the brink of falling in love.
That alone proved she’d stacked up a brick short. That alone should have her lunging headlong beyond scared stiff and firmly entrenched in mortified.
So why didn’t it?
How she wished she had a clue.
The sounds of the waves lapping against the rocks enticed her closer to the shore. At the boundary line, her stomach fluttered and she hesitated for a mere twinkling. Giving herself a good mental shake, she stepped over the line.
The temperature cooled.
It didn’t plummet, but it dropped enough to chill her through her jacket and raise goose pimples on her arms.
That veil of mist curled at her feet, swirled and swirled, but it didn’t rise higher, and the icy fingers pressed lightly against her neck. Not debilitating, but dizzying.
Her stomach lurched a level deeper with the onset of each event, and she gasped. “Tyler!” The sense of peace she’d felt drained out of her body. “Tyler!”
He didn’t answer but, as quickly as it all started, the sensations stopped. Maggie spun around and looked back toward the house. Slowly, her panic ebbed, but the sense of peace didn’t return.
Strange. A moment ago...
A moment ago, she’d been on the other side of the line. On Seascape lands.
Her heart skipped a solid beat. She gulped in a deep breath, then stepped back over onto Seascape. The peace still didn’t return. “MacGregor,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear her. “Something weird is happening here...”
An image of him filled her mind, and a deep glow of contentment spread through her heart.
The peace was back.
It couldn’t be. But it was. The serenity and calm and peace—the security she sensed when they were together—all of it had come back. She’d associated all those good feelings with the house—with Seascape itself. But—but somehow, those things had shifted... to MacGregor!
Her heart thudded wildly. Frightened, feeling more vulnerable than she’d ever felt in her life, and more resentful, she shunned the truth, afraid MacGregor had been right. She’d waited too long to leave.
She didn’t want those feelings attached to him. Falling for MacGregor was crazy. Something she didn’t understand. Something her mother never would understand. She’d always been devoted to and doted on Carolyn. She’d never forgive Maggie for this. Never.
And Maggie couldn’t help doubting that she’d ever forgive herself.
What was she going to do?
Her ears started ringing. She shook her head, trying to clear them, but the ringing only grew louder... then changed to that godawful whisper.
Stay away from him.
Chapter 9
The woman, damn her, was right.
T.J. snatched up a small stone and hummed it into the ocean. It wasn’t fair, or just, for him to be angry with her because he couldn’t cross the boundary without her. But was that really what had him angry? Or was it knowing she loved driving him crazy like this?
He could just see her. Looking down her sleek nose, snubbing his dependency on her as no more than her due. Flashing him that oh-so-cool and distant half-smile that made him want to punch holes in walls because it degraded him into feeling inferior, then freezing him with that icy blue gaze that held far too many mysteries to interpret whatever emotion, if any, lay behind it. Yeah, he could just see her. Loving every minute of his misery.
Maggie? This is Maggie?
His pricking conscience had him shaking his head to clear away cobwebs of confusion. No, not Maggie. Carolyn. Maggie wouldn’t—hadn’t yet—done any of those things to him. When he’d treated her like dirt, she’d reached out and helped him. She’d dragged him...
Why had he confused them? Apart from both being women, the two were nothing alike. He chewed at his lip. Maybe because he had cared for both of them and hadn’t wanted to care for either of them? Maybe. But the comparison still struck him as odd. They didn’t belong on the same side of the planet.
Carolyn, svelte and blonde and never a hair out of place, had chilled like a quarter moon in winter. Cool and distant. More mysterious shadow than sleek, shining sickle. She invited a man’s gaze yet forbade his touch.
Maggie, vibrant and passionate and full of flaming-red sass, burned hot like the summer sun. Searing. Relentless. Far too brilliant not to lure, and far too blinding not to leave a man scorched and sizzling. A heat-hazed rim secreted the source of her flame, but a man could never be so far away from Maggie to not feel her warmth.
He let his gaze drop down below the tree line to the angry waves thrashing against the rocks and swamping the beach. If he had to cross the boundary with someone, why not with Bill, or someone safe like Miss Hattie? Why Maggie? Why someone he could hurt—or kill?
He refused to need her. He’d never need any woman.
Or be needed by any woman.
That sobering truth fueled the resentment that had become as much a part of him as the enamel on his teeth, and left him snarling, then hollow.
The roar of the ocean and the soothing scent of its spray drained his anger. He lifted his face to the mist-laden wind, feeling it cut across his skin, hearing it moaning through the pines. A gull squalled, sounding lonely. T.J. empathized, and accepted the truth winging through his heart. Pure and simple, he missed Maggie.
The woman was an enigma. One minute he thought her brave, the next, a fool. She should leave here—that certainty sank down to the marrow of his bones. Leaving might not do any good but, then again, it might. She should at least try.
An empty ache arrowed down his center and spread. Shunning it, he tensed his muscles, clenched his jaw, fisted his hands. He wanted her to leave. He really did.
A phantom wind stirred and whipped, whistling in his ears.
All right, all right. That was a lie. Part of him wanted her to leave. But, God forgive him, part of him wanted her to stay. The selfish part who couldn’t see him making it through another exiled day without seeing her face and hearing her laugh.
He stared at the top of the lighthouse. A strong sense of urgency attacked him and the hairs on his neck stood on end.
Jerking back, he looked through the dull gray haze toward the Co-Op. No sign of Bill, Leslie, or their boys—or of anyone else. Toward Seascape, a sliver of weak sun broke through the heavy clouds and glinted on the attic window. A raccoon raced across the widow’s walk, clearly looking for mischief—or running away from it. T.J. frowned. Odd, it was midafternoon. Raccoons are nocturnal—and they rarely race anywhere. Still, nothing evidenced a physical sign of distress anywhere.
The sense of urgency intensified... and attached itself to Maggie.
Not pausing to puzzle it out, T.J. hurried over the jagged rocks to the slick stone path, then headed down to the road at a breakneck clip. When his feet hit the paved street, he gained speed, reached the sloping lawn in a dead run. Then he saw her. Stumbling toward the house, she looked as if she’d seen a ghost.
His heart tripping over its own beat, his sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his body, he ran over to her. “Maggie?” Her face was pale, her eyes as blank as a zombie’s. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Stiff-spined as a sea urchin, she kept walking. Didn’t look at him. Didn’t blink.
“You don’t look okay,” he said, falling into step beside her. “You look upset.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Tyler.”
Tyler not MacGregor. This was serious. A confirming rush of impossibly warm air blew over the back of his neck. More chilled by it than by any frigid cold, he shuddered. “All right.” A strong gust of wind threatened to knock him back. He shifted against it, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and looked up toward the house. Something had rattled Maggie deeply, but unlike before she had no intention of turning to him with it. Why? What had changed?
Bereft, he cut around the corner of the
house then twisted the knob on the mud room door. It creaked open. Maggie breezed past him without slowing down. If he hadn’t opened the door, he had the distinct feeling she was so preoccupied she would have walked right into it. She hooked her coat on a peg, then went on into the house and headed for the stairs.
T.J. followed her. When he passed Cecelia’s portrait, he whispered, “If you’re feeling the least inclined, a little insight here would be majorly helpful.”
Upstairs, at the shadowy landing, he nearly collided with Maggie. She’d been to her room. Shoeless, she clutched her pink robe balled at her stomach. Her pale face now bleached a milk-white that had him feeling sickly. What the hell had happened to her? “Headed for the bath?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t stop walking.
Hating her deadpan tone, he stepped aside, off the edge of the white rug, and hugged the wall to let her pass him. “I’ve noticed something about you. Whenever you get upset, you take to water like a duck.”
“I’ll be out later.” She walked right by, stepped inside and gave him a look so sincere it curdled his stomach. “Hopefully before the turn of the century.”
The door closed and T.J. frowned at the nail centered in it. She’d seemed almost... hopeless.
Though no open windows or doors or central heat register provided a source, again he felt that confirming rush of impossibly warm air breeze over his neck. The entity?
The water pipes groaned, filling the tub. When she turned the tap off and he heard splashing, he opened the outer door. She hadn’t thought to turn on the light but she’d shut the inner door that separated the dressing room from the one housing the tub and shower. He flicked on the switch. A rosy glow flooded the dressing room, lifted from the pink-tinge streaking through the tan marble vanity. Pausing at the step up to the tub room, he listened at the door.
No muttering. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
Had he lost his mind? When irked, Maggie muttered. Furious, she shot visual daggers at him, raised sassy hell, and muttered. Terrified, as at the bench when she’d felt what he’d felt on crossing the boundary, she’d clammed up.
Clamming up was definitely a bad sign.
He lifted his hand to knock, but didn’t do it. He was invading her privacy. Yet she had forgotten to put out the sign...
At war with himself, he touched his fingertips to the smooth wood. The defeated slump in her shoulders, the absence of fire in her gaze, and her ghostly pallor had him imagining all kinds of godawful things. If she’d just talk to him, reassure him that she was all right. Damn it, he was worried about her.
He pressed his hand flat against the cool door. “Maggie?”
Water sloshed. “Geez, MacGregor. Are you going to interrupt every bath I take in this house?”
“Maybe.” Oddly relieved by her cranky tone, he sat down on the step and stared at the brass light fixture above the mirror that stretched wall to wall. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, then grumbled, “I already told the man that once, didn’t I?”
“Okay, but that just leaves my mind wide open to all sorts of wild imaginings.” It did. He hadn’t exaggerated a bit. And those imaginings had to be worse than anything that had happened to her in the village. “Did someone give you a hard time about the condoms?”
“No one mentioned them. But Miss Millie, bless her heart, blushed until I thought she’d have a stroke.” Maggie sighed. “I intended to go to the Blue Moon and erase them off the bulletin board, but the sheriff’s car was out front and Batty Beaulah had him cornered on the porch—having a field day, nagging at the man. The cafe was crowded, too, so I figured maybe when it wasn’t so busy would be a better time.”
He studied his nails, a smile curling at his lip. Beaulah had zip to do with it. “Embarrassed, huh?”
“Yeah.” More grumbles. “Why does he do that? God, but I hate it when he does that.”
She loved it, pure and simple. He propped his forearm on his bent knee, one foot on the step, the other on the floor. Smelling mint, he spotted an open box of green dental floss near the sink. “You realize I’m going to sit here until you tell me what’s up, so you might as well—”
The door opened, surprising him. He looked over his shoulder, back at her.
Her shoulders hunched beneath her fluffy pink bathrobe, she stared at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Without a word, she bent down and kissed him.
Her lips were warm and tender, if not quite steady, and her hand at his shoulder trembled. He tasted her fear, her regret, and her longing. Their combined power shook him to his soul.
She straightened back up, let her fingertips drift down his face to his chin, then leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest. Was she shutting him out or locking herself in, distancing herself from him emotionally?
“That was for me. Because I needed it and it was my turn to get what I needed.” She lifted her chin. “But it can’t happen anymore, Tyler. In fact, nothing can happen anymore—and it shouldn’t have happened, anyway.”
What the hell was she talking about? “Could you put this in English, please?”
“I care about you.” Her chin quivered. “I didn’t want to. I even knew I was crazy to let it happen, and I swore to myself a hundred times that I would put a stop to it.” Her expression crumbled and she bunched bits of her robe in her hands. “I did try. I really did. But it didn’t work.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “It just didn’t work.”
She cared. And she knew he cared. And he knew what happened to women he cared about, but still couldn’t make himself not care.
God help them both.
Guilt swarmed in his stomach like angry bees. From the step, he looked up at her. “Maggie, I know this bond of ours hits us both pretty close to the bone, but—”
“It hits a lot deeper than that.” She shoved away from the door jamb, then pulled herself up straight and smoothed her rumpled robe over her thigh. “But it’s finished as of now. It—it has to be. From here on out, I have to stay away from you, Tyler. I—I have to.”
She’d been hesitant and she hadn’t liked issuing the edict—her shaky tone made that clear. But there was more to this than that. She didn’t just fear caring about him, she feared something deeper. Something not at the village. Something... mystical?
Squelching the urge to shout the truth out of her, he frowned. “What happened to you?” How had he gotten himself into this quagmire? “Did our entity pull something?”
She lifted then lowered her gaze from the ceiling to him, a glimmer of sass fringing her tone. “You’re going to nag me until I tell you, aren’t you?”
“Damn right, I am.” Nag, beg, whatever it took.
“Okay. I’ll save us both some heartburn, but I want to go on record that I really hate being nagged.”
Didn’t everyone? “Noted,” he said, preparing for another installment of her not-so-subtle revenge.
Lowering her pointed finger, she looked him straight in the eye. “When I crossed the boundary alone, I felt what you feel.” She rubbed her arms as if her bones were cold and she feared they’d never again feel warm. “Not as strong as you feel it—I didn’t pass out or anything, but I got dizzy, and I felt so... desolate.”
A knot of fear exploded in his stomach. “You’ve got to leave here. Now. Please, Maggie.” It was too late for that. He knew it. Yet if she went and he stayed, maybe the entity would be satisfied. Maybe—
“There’s nowhere to go!” She pressed her hands to her temples, shook off some frustration by ruffling her hair. “How many times do we have to go through this, MacGregor? Ten? Twenty? Two hundred?”
He forced himself to calm down and think. There had to be more to this than what she’d told him. She’d felt the symptoms at the bench and then she’d turned to him for comfort and solace. Now she was turning away from him. Why? There had to be more...”You heard another whisper, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer, just
stared at him.
“Maggie, damn it, tell me the truth.”
“Yes.”
His heart nearly stopped. Please, please don’t let it be that she could die, too. Please! “What did it say?”
Her voice cracked and her chin trembled. Her eyes looked too big for her face, too small to hold all her fears. “To stay away from you.”
T.J. stilled. That didn’t make sense. It had told her to help him. Warned her. Now it’d done a one-eighty and told her to stay away? “Honey”—he softened his voice—“are you sure it wasn’t your conscience?”
“I’m sure.” She looked devastated. “It’s told me the same thing, but it has my voice. This message had the man’s whisper.”
She’d been afraid of facing this entity alone, but she’d chosen to do it, and clearly there was no way he could sway her decision. T.J. knew it. Just as he knew she’d made that decision to protect him.
He stood up, so humbled and rattled his knees felt weak. He wanted to hold her, to reassure her, but he couldn’t. Against this entity, they were helpless. How could they fight an adversary without knowing even its form?
They couldn’t. That was the bottom line. But if she stayed away from him, her odds of staying safe had to be better. Yet just the prospect of her being distant with him had his chest feeling as tight as his throat. “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me, Maggie. That, um, means a lot to me.” She meant a lot to him. More than even he had realized, until now. He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and kept all he would have told her, if he’d had the right, locked inside him. “I think we’d better listen to it.”
Her eyes wide and glossy, she nodded her agreement.
And because he needed it, as she’d needed it earlier, he kissed her. This time—God give him the strength—goodbye.
Maggie stared out the kitchen window. Bleak and dreary. Again.
“Well, I can see my banana pudding doesn’t rank nearly so high as my blueberry pie or apple cobbler.” Seated in her rocker, Miss Hattie kept her gaze on the knitting in her lap, the needles quietly clacking with her stitches.