Inconnu(e)

by Vicki Hinze

  She listened for a second then rolled her gaze heavenward as if praying for patience. “I’ve been busy, Beaulah. Um, the sheriff?” Lucy gazed over at him.

  Sheriff Cobb frantically waved both hands, gesturing and silently moving his lips. I’m not here.

  Lucy frowned at him.

  The sheriff slid off his stool, reached back for his coffee cup, then nearly ran out the front door.

  A smile dancing in her eyes, Lucy snapped her gum. “Sorry, Beaulah, you just missed him. He left in a bit of a hurry today.”

  Big, burly Sheriff Cobb running from tiny, birdlike Beaulah—a woman nearly twice his age. Maggie grinned at MacGregor.

  He grinned back.

  “I’ll tell him, Sweetie. T.J. MacGregor”—Lucy looked at MacGregor—“is busting the cliffs with his head and ruining the topography because a ghost is after him over at Seascape and won’t let him leave there. Uh-huh. Sure enough, Beaulah. I’ll pass that vital info along to Sheriff Cobb right away.”

  Lucy hung up the phone. “Dang, I’m standing here looking at you, T.J.”

  He shrugged and smiled.

  She gave the phone a soulful look. “Poor woman’s losing it, bless her heart.”

  A ghost? Maggie avoided his gaze, knowing he was avoiding hers, too. A ghost? Her stomach furled in on itself. Impossible. Ridiculous. Absurd.

  The sheriff cracked open the door and peeked inside. “You off the phone yet, Lucy?”

  “Yeah, Sweetie, sure enough. Come on back inside. I’ll even get you a second hunk of pie for sparing my soul. Can’t abide lying. Never could.”

  Looking guilty as sin, Leroy shuffled across the floor, then slid back onto his bar stool. “Near miss. Damn, that woman makes me crazy.” He flushed. “Sorry, Lucy.”

  She waved off his cussing. “No problem, Sweetie. Beaulah has a way of making us all forget ourselves. A shame she’s got no kids to look after her and keep her busy.”

  Maggie polished off the last of her pie. A ghost? No, her and MacGregor’s entity couldn’t be a ghost. She’d considered it could be a multitude of paranormal things, but never a ghost. That was too frightening. A ghost would be totally and completely absurd. Oh she hoped it would. She swallowed hard, stiffened. Of course it would. Wouldn’t it?

  Risking a glance at MacGregor, she saw the same question she’d just asked herself reflected in his eyes.

  “Are those chocolate-chip cookies I smell, Miss Millie?” Maggie walked over to the petite, delicately boned widow about Miss Hattie’s age sitting in her chair beside her Franklin stove. The hem of her simple, forest-green dress brushed against the floor with her every rock.

  She sipped from a delicate, china cup, then smiled up at Maggie and T.J. “They sure are. Hattie dropped by a while ago and said you children were eating your way through the village today, so I thought I’d whip up a batch.” She gave her short-cropped, violet-tinged hair a pat, then waved them to sit down on a rosewood settee opposite her. “Tea’s already steeped, too. You pour, Maggie.”

  As they sat down across from her, she glanced at their clasped hands then gave them a crooked smile. “Tyler, it’s good to see you here.”

  “Feels good to be here, too, Miss Millie. You been feeling okay?”

  Maggie poured the tea one-handed, then passed a cup to MacGregor. Did Miss Millie know he was landlocked at Seascape? She could. She and Miss Hattie had been friends since birth—that Maggie had learned when she’d brought the book here for the Historical Society’s tea—and they talked on the phone every day.

  While MacGregor and Miss Millie chatted, Maggie looked around the cluttered shop. No counter. The business conducted here was settled at a beautiful, old oak rolltop desk by the light from a Victorian lamp with a violet fringe shade.

  “Maggie, help yourself to some cookies, dear.”

  Maggie smiled and lifted one from the plate. “They smell wonderful.” The table beneath the plate was gorgeous. Beveled glass and wood trim that encased a collection of cut crystal figurines worth a small fortune. “You have a lot of lovely things here.”

  “Thank you, dear.” Her gentle blue eyes twinkled.

  “What smells so good?” MacGregor asked. “Aside from these drop-dead, melt-in-your-mouth cookies.”

  “Potpourri.” Miss Millie motioned toward the back wall. “In fact,” she stood up, “come with me, Maggie, and we’ll make you a sachet.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to. A little thank you for bringing the book to the tea for me.”

  Maggie swallowed. Did she dare to let go of MacGregor’s hand? She looked at him for guidance.

  He nodded and whispered, “Let’s try it.”

  Well, at least the man was sitting down. He wouldn’t crack his head on the rocks. Imagine Beaulah saying he was ruining the topography. What about the man’s skull? She released his fingers then waited a long moment. “Anything?”

  “No,” he said uncertainly, slowly. Then more sure of himself, he added, “I feel fine.”

  “Then why are you frowning?”

  “This is baffling me. I just don’t get the pattern.”

  “Me, either.” She started to touch his face, but pulled back. “Sure you’re okay?”

  He shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Maggie?” Miss Millie called out from the back of the shop. “Come choose your colors and scent, dear.”

  Feeling torn, Maggie. hesitated.

  “Go on.” MacGregor nodded toward the rear of the store. “I really am okay.”

  Maggie wound past a sleigh bed, then threaded her way through the maze of expensive clutter to the back of the store. Wide-mouth glass jars lined the wall on two wooden shelves, and bolts of colorful tulle and fine lace stood on end in a dowel-stick bin.

  “We need one color lace and one of the netting.” Miss Millie sat down at a work table. “And your fragrance, of course.”

  Maggie fingered the fine netting in rich jewel-tone colors. The dark teal really appealed, but so did the royal blue. “Teal tulle,” she said. “And ivory lace.”

  “That’ll be pretty.” Miss Millie smiled. “Can you bring the bolts over here?”

  “Sure.” Maggie put the two bolts on the worktable. It was a well-crafted piece of furniture with heavy, dark wood and claw feet. The surface gleam showed not a scratch. For a worktable that seemed impossible, but this clearly wasn’t a typical worktable. It’d been pampered and well-tended. “Very attractive table.”

  Miss Millie looked pleased by the compliment. “Thank you, dear. My husband, Lance, made it for me a few years before he died. I had it in my kitchen, but I spend more time here than there, so I had Hatch and Vic and Jimmy move it over here where I can enjoy it.”

  She cut an eight-inch square of tulle, then one of the lovely antique lace. “Vic oils it for me twice a year. A good man, Vic.”

  Maggie returned the bolts of fabric to the bin. “I think he has a crush on Miss Hattie. At least, when he comes by to deliver the mail, he seems flustered around her.”

  “Guilt’s what’s got him flustered.” Miss Millie pulled a spool of deep teal satin ribbon from the shelf, then unwound a length of it.

  MacGregor came up behind Maggie and put a possessive hand on her shoulder. “Why should Vic feel guilty?”

  “Why, he’s loved Hattie for years.” Miss Millie snipped the ribbon then returned the spool to the shelf, the soft fabric of her dress swishing at her calves. “He and her soldier were best friends, you know. It still upsets me so that he had to die before he could marry Hattie. She was crazy about that man.”

  “She still is.” MacGregor polished off the last of a cookie.

  Miss Millie nodded her agreement, sad-faced at her friend’s misfortune. “Have you chosen your potpourri, Maggie?”

  “Not yet.” Maggie walked over and sniffed at the jars, one by one. Why had MacGregor avoided talking about the possibility of their entity being a ghost? Likely for the same reason she had. It was a ridiculous idea. Gh
osts weren’t real. Paranormal events were possible, though she still hadn’t ruled out psychological in this case—despite the whisper insisting this wasn’t psychological because that whisper could have been psychological, too. But not ghosts.

  A strong whiff of Winter Rose had her threatening to sneeze. She twitched her nose and read the label on the jar next to it. Seashore Secrets. Mmm, wonderful. Inhaling it, she grew dreamy, almost dazed, and visions of MacGregor filled her mind. Visions of them walking along the cliffs hand-in-hand. Of them bathing together in the big garden tub. Of them lying together in the Great White Room’s blue-coverlet-draped bed.

  Knowing she shouldn’t, she pulled the jar off the shelf and brought it to Miss Millie. Her hands weren’t quite steady and her body temperature had definitely spiked at least ten degrees. Of all men, why did it have to be MacGregor who made her feel all these wondrous things?

  Miss Millie sprinkled the potpourri onto the tulle, pulled up the corners of it, and of the lace beneath it, then secured it with hands far too deft for their many blue veins by tying the satiny ribbon into a pretty bow. “There you are, my dear.” She passed it to Maggie.

  “It’s lovely.” Maggie smiled. “Thank you.”

  Miss Millie gave her a crooked grin, then winked. “I’ll make you another on your wedding day.”

  Maggie laughed and stepped closer to MacGregor. He glided his arm around her waist, and she felt more at ease. “I’m afraid that could be awhile.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve no intention of ever marrying.”

  “Oh my,” Miss Millie blinked then shifted her focus to MacGregor.

  “Me, either,” he answered before she could ask.

  “I see.” She stared down at MacGregor’s arm circling Maggie’s waist.

  “We’d better get going,” he said, shifting his feet. “I promised we’d go for a walk before dinner.”

  “Burn off some calories.” Maggie nodded, not liking Miss Millie’s look a bit. It was that same too-seeing one Miss Hattie gave her all too often. The women were the best of friends, and Miss Millie had Miss Hattie’s “they’re in love” look in her eye. “Thanks again for the sachet.”

  Millie watched them leave the shop then walk on down the street toward the church. When they stepped from her sight, she lifted the phone receiver from its cradle on the old rolltop desk, then quickly dialed.

  Lucy answered on the third ring. “Blue Moon.”

  “Afternoon, Lucy. It’s me, Millie.” She wound the phone cord around her fingertip. “Put me down for five dollars on Maggie and Tyler.”

  “Sure thing. What day?”

  “Mmm.” Millie looked at her wedding band. A widow for years, she still hadn’t been able to bring herself to take it off. As long as she wore it, a part of Lance remained with her. It glittered in the sunlight streaming in through the window. “What day did Jimmy Goodson pick?”

  Lucy chuckled. “December twenty-fifth.”

  “A Christmas wedding?” Millie worried her lip. Just as Hattie’s was to have been. “I’ll take the twenty-fifth, too. Four o’clock. No, make that two.”

  “Jimmy’s already got two o’clock. How about two-fifteen?”

  Mmm, Millie considered it. Were they in Pennsylvania, there wouldn’t be a need to pause. There, weddings are always on the clock’s upsweep—the half-hour and funerals on the hour. But here... “No, I need two o’clock.” Same as Hattie’s. “I’ll split with the boy. I’m not greedy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lucy dropped her voice. “Can you believe Lydia Johnson is betting that they won’t marry at all?”

  “Oh my.” Millie frowned. “This isn’t good news. Lydia is a bother I simply can’t abide, but she’s got a good nose for smelling love in the air.”

  “Rarely misses.” Lucy agreed. “’Course, Jimmy wins the bets more often than not. Mmm, I guess this one could go either way, couldn’t it?”

  “It seems so.” Millie glanced out the window. What was Aaron Butler doing with that spyglass? Bill had waited nearly a year for Millie to find the perfect one for him and, if the boy broke it, he’d pitch a fit. “Does Hattie know about Lydia’s bet?” Hattie would be devastated if another Christmas wedding failed to come to pass. Especially if it were Tyler and Maggie’s. Hattie had been so excited about them...

  “I don’t know. She was in earlier today, checking on Jimmy, but I can’t say for sure whether or not she got a look at the bulletin board.”

  “Well, I’d best phone her straight away.” Millie sighed, wishing she could avoid the task. But if her best friend faced possible heartbreak, she just had to prepare her as best she could. “This doesn’t look good at all, I fear. Not good at all.”

  Chapter 11

  “Tyler, I don’t feel well.”

  T.J. looked at Maggie. In the bright sunlight, her skin paled to a pasty pallor and her forehead felt clammy cold. He looked around but there wasn’t movement on the street or so much as a bench this close to the cemetery. A horn tooted and Jimmy waved as he passed them, heading on down Main Street in his old truck. Obviously, he’d eluded Miss Hattie. “Let’s go sit in the church for awhile.”

  “But I wanted to see whose graves—”

  “Later, honey. They aren’t going anywhere.” Was it the entity making her sick? If so, why? They were on a harmless walk. Together, which seemed to be what the entity wanted. And T.J. himself felt fine. “What do you think is wrong?”

  “Too much sugar, most likely.”

  Could it be that simple? He led her up the wide, wooden steps, taking more of her weight. A distinct possibility with the pie and the cookies. But she’d eaten more sweets before—half a pie, once—and not been bothered. “Too much sugar? You, of the cast-iron constitution?”

  “Shut up.” She leaned against him.

  Feeling her shaking, he led her through the big wooden door, then into the last row pew. “Charming, honey.”

  Deathly pale, she collapsed down onto it and sprawled. “I feel... awful.”

  Pastor Brown came in behind them. He paused and tilted back his head, admiring the window. His close-cropped beard gleamed blue-black in the sunlight streaking in through the stained glass. T.J. liked the young pastor. He was single, which meant he suffered the same malady here T.J. suffered. Half the women in the village were after him, the other half were trying to hook him up with a favorite niece, a daughter, or a cousin’s child. Pastor fended them off pretty well.

  He was a bit progressive for the anti-progressive village, although on most issues they seemed to have found a workable balance. On drinking and such, Pastor was too stiff-lipped for the locals, and that likely would remain a bone of contention for a long time to come. No small part of the workable balance was due to Pastor’s excellent rapport with Andrew Carnegie, the son of Mayor Horace and the snobby, social-climbing Lydia Johnson. Lydia wanted the boy to be a lawyer and shoved it down his throat. Horace didn’t, but he knew that a man who opposes his wife is a man who enjoys precious little peace. Pastor talked to Andrew Carnegie often, telling him he could be whatever he wanted to be—not in front of Lydia, of course. She’d cut him off at the collection plate. But Horace knew of the good deed and, being of the opinion that one good turn deserves another, he smoothed the pastor’s path, listening to his progressive ideas with a kind ear—before promptly forgetting them.

  The pastor walked over and stopped beside them. “Glad to see you two here—and that you’ve reconsidered on that shopping list.”

  “Maggie’s sick,” T.J. said, in no mood for lectures.

  She pressed a hand to his forearm. “Tyler, I need some water.”

  “Tyler” not “MacGregor.” T.J. shot the pastor a worried look.

  His expression turned concerned. “I’ll get it.”

  T.J. stroked her hair back from her face until Pastor Brown returned with a full paper-cone cup. Taking it, T.J. pressed the edge to her lips. “Drink, Maggie.” His voice shook and his hand trembled, none too steady.


  She sipped at it. Then sipped again. “Thank you.”

  “Are you all right?” Her color was coming back, but she looked weak. Really weak. Had she started to suffer the boundary-crossing symptoms? They had been holding hands at the time she’d gotten sick, but that didn’t mean much, since they’d let go of each other at Miss Millie’s and they’d both been fine. Nothing was consistent anymore.

  “Much better.”

  “Good.” The pastor smiled. “I’ve got to run over to see Hatch. If you think of it when you’re ready to leave, lock the door. Still some tourists roaming around and the sheriff’s had a wicked day with those kids from Boston. Sure made a mess over at Indian Point, I hear. No sense tempting them here. Churches are easy targets for mischief these days.”

  T.J. didn’t remind the pastor that they were tourists, nodded that he would lock up, and watched Brown leave.

  “Can’t do that in New Orleans.” Maggie mumbled and took another sip of the water. Her hand trembled atop T.J.’s on the cone-shaped paper cup.

  “New Orleans is a little bigger than Sea Haven Village, honey.” She looked almost normal again, thank God. “What happened to you?”

  “I guess I overdosed on sugar. Until I decided to go into the cemetery to see the Freeports’ graves, I felt fine. It’s kind of weird, but as soon as I decided, wham, major sugar crash.”

  More likely timing, rather than any decision, spurred the sugar crash—unless for some reason, the entity didn’t want her to see those graves. Could that be what had prompted this? What difference could seeing a few graves make about anything?

  No, it had to be the sugar.

  She licked at her lips. “Quit staring at me, MacGregor. I’m really okay.”

  What if she wasn’t? How could he check it out? See if there was an entity connection? He couldn’t do much without Maggie—including leave Seascape. That presented an obstacle he’d have to think on for a while. “Could it be that you overdosed on worrying, too?”

  “It’s possible,” she agreed.

  Highly probable, he figured. Feeling guilty about his no small part in that, he grimaced. “Are we going to talk about it, or continue to pretend we didn’t hear what Beaulah said through Lucy?”