Inconnu(e)

by Vicki Hinze

  She eased free of him, then at the foot of the bed into her robe. He still slept, his breathing slow and even. She left the room and softly shut the door.

  On the stairs, she sent Cecelia’s portrait a forlorn look. How I envy the love you and Collin shared. And how I resent that I’ll never know the contentment that comes with that rare kind of love. I think I could have loved MacGregor that way. But as soon as I tell him I’ve lied... No, no, I can’t tell him, can I? Not now, not ever.

  The third stair creaked and Maggie stiffened. Someone was watching her. Instinctively, she looked back up to the landing, expecting to see MacGregor. She didn’t. Though she did sense more than see—something. A flash of pure light...

  The entity? Her heart rate accelerated. “What do you want?” she whispered.

  She waited and waited, expectant, but heard no response and saw nothing more.

  Giving up, she went on down the stairs, crossed the gallery to the ticks of the grandfather clock, then padded on to the kitchen. At the refrigerator, as she reached for the carton of milk, an urge to get outside hit her with the force of a thunderbolt. The entity...

  In the mud room, she grabbed her coat from a peg and slipped it on, then went outside.

  Come to the cliffs, Maggie.

  Trembling head to toe, she wrapped her coat more tightly around her. The night air was cold and crisp, but clear and not biting. The frigid cold came from within.

  She walked around the side of the house and glanced over to the Carriage House, silhouetted and shadowed by the moon. The roofers would be done any day now. Would MacGregor move back over there? What would things be like between them now that they’d taken their relationship to intimacy? Would he still value his privacy most? Or would he forfeit it to be with her? Did she want him to forfeit it?

  She’d never been in this position before with a lover. What did she expect? What did he expect from her? How did she behave?

  One more reason she shouldn’t have done it. She grimaced. No. No. She stepped across the road and climbed the stony walk to the cliffs. She’d promised MacGregor no regrets.

  The blustery wind chilled her face, slicked her hair back against her head. It wasn’t making love with him she regretted. It was that she’d done it when she’d had no right to do it.

  So why had she?

  The ocean roared and the strong wind cut through her. She’d lost her head. Otherwise she’d never have managed to tamp down an entire lifetime of memories of her parents’ situation or to forget all about Carolyn.

  Lust? Passion? Good old-fashioned desire? That just didn’t feel right. She’d wanted to make love with MacGregor. Hell, she’d felt all those things for him, if she were honest. But she’d felt more, too. A lot more. She had before they’d made love, while they’d made love, and she still felt them all now, afterward. So there had to be more to this than just lust, passion, and desire. But what?

  It couldn’t be love. Not with their histories. If it were love, then Maggie would have trusted him enough to have told him the truth about Carolyn, to have let him into her soul.

  And risked losing him? Isn’t that why you haven’t told him, Maggie. You’re afraid he’ll leave you?

  The man’s whisper. She closed her eyes and confessed the truth she’d hidden even from herself. “Yes, I’m afraid of losing him.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He matters to me. I didn’t want him to. I fought it. But he does. He matters. Is that so wrong? So godawful wrong?”

  “Maggie?”

  She spun around and saw MacGregor. His coat was unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. He’d forgotten his shirt.

  Worry creased the tender skin beneath his eyes. “You okay, honey?”

  Her heart wrenched. The time had come for the truth. God, give her the strength. “No, MacGregor. I’m not okay.”

  He stepped closer, lifted a hand to her chin and cupped it in his palm. “Tell me you’re not sorry, Maggie. Please. Can you just tell me that?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not sorry. Not at all.”

  He dragged her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight. His heart pounded against her chest, thudding wildly. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  A wall of fog lay just offshore, headed inland. She eased her hand under his coat to his bare skin. Content. Warm. Safe. Could she tell him the truth, after all? What if he turned away from her? She’d never again feel as she felt this moment. Never again for the rest of her life.

  “Maggie, please. Don’t shut me out.” He whispered against her ear. “I’m having a hard time here with you. I didn’t want to care about you, but I do. A lot, Maggie. And that scares the hell out of me. You scare the hell out of me.”

  The doubts about him being involved in Carolyn’s death had steadily grown in Maggie—until now. Now, they’d twisted on her. Could the man who had loved her with such gentleness, the man who held her now with such tenderness and care, have been involved? She wasn’t so sure he could. “I care about you, too, MacGregor. So much. And I’m scared of caring at all for anyone, but especially for you.”

  The fog rolled ashore, obscuring everything around them. It swirled up to their waists then to Maggie’s shoulders. She shivered and stepped away, feeling the cold mist settle on her face. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “Something I should have told you a long time ago.”

  An Arctic blast of cold air cut through her like a knife and cold fingers pressed gently against her mouth, blocking her words. Blinking rapidly, Maggie looked back over her shoulder. A man stood there. He looked both aged and ageless, not threatening, but intent and determined. Curly golden brown hair, kind eyes and, through the mist and fog, she saw he wore some kind of old-fashioned clothes: a dark green suit with shiny buttons.

  He looked into her eyes, and lowered his hand from her mouth.

  “Tyler?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  From his tone, she knew he didn’t see the man. “N—nothing.”

  “Maggie, I just want you to know that whatever this something is...” MacGregor talked on.

  Maggie heard only a mumbled drone. The strange man behind her commanded her full attention, and it was his voice that she heard clearly.

  Look not beneath the veil, Maggie.

  His lips hadn’t moved. She responded telepathically. What veil? Who are you? Are you our entity?

  My name is Tony. Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you, only to bring you a warning.

  Maggie blinked hard. To look not beneath the veil.

  Yes. It’s not yet time.

  Dear God. She swallowed hard. You’re a ghost!

  He smiled, and the truth slammed through her with the force of a sledge. Her knees went weak and spots formed before her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be happening!

  Chapter 13

  Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “Um, nothing.” Maggie glanced at MacGregor. He’d been right here and yet he hadn’t heard or seen anything. Should she tell him about Tony? MacGregor would swear she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had lost her mind. Insanity would be a lot easier to explain than— Good grief. Was she actually saying she hoped she’d gone insane?

  “Maggie, what is it?” He grasped her left arm. “You’ve gone so pale.”

  “I’m just... tired.” She darted her gaze back to Tony.

  He was gone.

  Had he ever been there? Maybe she had lost her mind.

  Get a grip, Maggie.

  Not the whisper. Her conscience, thank God. Get a grip. Right. Right. Maybe the man had been a villager caught on the cliffs by the fog. It had rolled in very quickly. Oh, she liked that idea much, much better than insanity or... or the other. Of course, that had to be it. It stood up to reason, made sense, and sounded logical and believable. He had to have been just a villager. And MacGregor had been so worried about her—he’d come after her in such a hurry he’d forgotten his shirt, hadn’t he?—that he just hadn’t seen the man.

 
; He talked without his lips moving, Maggie.

  Her conscience. Definitely her conscience. Whose side was it on? Had it conjured the man?

  Good grief. Now she talked to and answered herself. Well, was it any wonder? A ghost! For pity’s sake. If she had any sense she’d just faint. She’d never escaped her troubles that way before, but well, if this oddity didn’t warrant a good faint, she sure as spit didn’t know what would warrant one.

  And as much as she would like to ignore the possibility of... the other, there was a preponderance of evidence she couldn’t explain away. Hadn’t MacGregor said Aaron Butler hung onto Batty Beaulah’s every word, fascinated that her tales about Seascape might be true? Hadn’t Beaulah told Lucy that a ghost kept MacGregor landlocked here? Hadn’t Maggie herself seen Aaron on his bike down in the village and asked him if he’d ever heard any weird stories about Seascape, and hadn’t he spent ten minutes relaying Beaulah’s stories and ended with a shiver-inducing: Oh, yeah, Miss Wright, Seascape and all the land around it is haunted. And that’s the truth.

  She hadn’t believed him then. MacGregor warned her Aaron was a good kid but he was also the home-of-the-whopper storyteller of Sea Haven Village. Could that be true and at the same time Aaron and Batty Beaulah also be right about the haunting? If Maggie had seen what she thought she’d seen, then they were right. Question was, had she seen what she thought she’d seen?

  Maggie worried her lip. The heavy fog made it so difficult to tell. She could barely see MacGregor and yet she stood less than two feet away from him.

  Tony had stepped back, much farther away than two feet. Maybe he truly had been just a well-meaning villager out for a late night stroll and MacGregor hadn’t seen him because of the fog—and, for the same reason, when he’d talked, she hadn’t seen his lips move. Fog and mist certainly could distort perception.

  At best, the hypothesis rated unlikely. Tony had known her name. But then so had Lucy and Miss Millie. Gossip traveled fast around here, and the condom tidbit had been juicy. Heck, after the bulletin board incident, there likely wasn’t a soul in the village over the age of twelve who hadn’t heard her name. With that second posting—whatever it was for—her name remained posted even now.

  Furthermore, ghost or man—God, how she prayed he’d been a man—his voice belonged to someone. Mist and fog and that little bit of distance didn’t distort sound. MacGregor hadn’t heard the man, but Maggie sure had. And according to him, his name was Tony.

  Had he claimed himself Collin, she’d really have something to worry about here. But he hadn’t. So there was a strong possibility that this was a totally explainable occurrence and entirely non-entity related. It certainly couldn’t hurt to ask Miss Hattie if she knew of a Tony. That shouldn’t have the dear angel worrying and wanting to lock Maggie in a padded room with the white-jacketed inkblot studiers who ask too many questions about mothers.

  “Maggie, where are you?” Holding her by both arms, MacGregor increased the pressure of his fingers. “You seem so far away. I hate it when you drift off like that and leave me in the dust.”

  She looked up and saw that worry chiseled into his expression. “I’m sorry, I’m just so... confused.”

  He circled her shoulder and pulled her close to his side. “Just please don’t cry, Maggie. I can take anything but tears.”

  “I don’t cry.”

  He stared at her strangely, started to say something, then stopped and clearly said something entirely different. “We’ll sort through all this, but we don’t have to do it right this second. Sooner or later, we’ll get a firm grip on everything, okay? So long as you don’t regret what happened between us, there’s no reason to panic.”

  For the sake of her sanity, she hoped they resolved this matter sooner. “I don’t regret it. Didn’t I tell you that already? I know I did.”

  “Lord, but I love a feisty woman.” He grinned. “Let’s go back inside, mmm? You’re trembling.”

  “I’m cold.” She was. She shook like a leaf caught in an infamous Maine nor’easter. But it had nothing to do with the icy wind. This cold was internal. “Tyler, something has occurred to me and I want to talk about it.” Heading back to the inn, she stepped onto the stone path and followed it on down to the street.

  Seeing nothing but fog and darkness, they crossed over to Seascape’s lawn and Maggie huddled closer to MacGregor’s side. “When we’re together and not angry with each other, it’s usually sunny. But when we aren’t—like that week the entity told me to stay away from you—or when we’re at odds, then the weather turns foul.” She paused at the back door to the inn. “Have you noticed that?”

  When they were inside and putting their coats on the pegs, he answered. “From our earlier discussions, I think I know where you’re going with this, but I don’t believe Mother Nature is our entity, Maggie. Maine weather just changes like this. It’s normal here.”

  In the gallery, the clock ticked steadily. Maggie focused on the sound and climbed the stairs. “Okay, I agree the weather here can spike both ends of a thermometer in a single day, but you have to agree that when we stick together this entity seems, I don’t know, more content.”

  “That, I’ve noticed. It doesn’t hassle us as much. When we’re at odds, it lets us know it’s ticked.”

  She stopped on the landing. “Any idea why?”

  “’Fraid not. You?”

  “None whatsoever—aside from the obvious.”

  “It wants us together.”

  She nodded.

  “That’s about how I see it, too.”

  Standing at the top of the stairs in the dusky hallway, MacGregor looked as uncertain as she felt about where to go from here. He lifted his brows in silent question, asking her preference. Not knowing the proper protocol for lovers sharing a house these days—or any days, for that matter—she paused. At least about this she should just talk straight to the man. “Tyler, I—” Her throat muscles locked tight.

  His expression turned solemn. “I want to be with you, Maggie.”

  The weight on her shoulders lifted and, oddly, her muscles relaxed as if massaged. “Me, too.”

  Feeling that warm, sourceless breeze blow across her skin, she sensed approval, clasped their hands, then walked back to her room.

  The shades were up at the turret windows. Pale moonlight beamed into the room and slanted across the floor. Maggie didn’t pause to turn on the lamp, just stopped beside the rumpled bed and took off her robe, then slid between the sheets, nude and shivering.

  MacGregor was still undressing, and she cursed the darkness keeping secrets of him from her. Could his body really be sculpted as perfectly as it had felt to her hands?

  He lay down beside her, then pulled the sheet and coverlet up over them. “Come snuggle me, Maggie. I forgot my shirt and I’m freezing.”

  “I noticed.” Boy, had she. The man was walking temptation. Even from her side of the bed, she felt his heat, but since she wanted a good snuggle herself, she didn’t mention his warmth, just slid over, rolled onto her side, and into his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder. “MacGregor, can I ask you something, mmm, personal?”

  “Anything.”

  She pecked a kiss to his neck to thank him for that openness, and that earned her a gentle squeeze. “You won’t take it wrong?”

  “I can’t say for sure, since I don’t know what it is.”

  “Well, it could be taken as an ego stab—but I don’t mean it that way.”

  “This would be easier if you’d just define it.” He stroked her hair, scalp to ends.

  “It’s about when we made love.”

  “Finally, a little praise. No offense, Maggie, but you do leave a guy feeling wounded by not telling him whether or not you’re pleased.”

  Spit. How could she ask him after that remark?

  “Um, you’re not saying anything.” He swallowed hard. “This is about praise, isn’t it?” His voice reeked an uncertainty that tugged at her heartstrings.

 
“Not exactly.” He went stiff as a board, and she gave his chest a soothing pat. “I think I’d better try to explain, after all.”

  “That would be... appropriate.”

  Inwardly, she sighed. His tone couldn’t be any more formal if he were participating in a UN diplomatic debate. “You were

  wonderful—”

  “Of course.” He expelled a long breath she bet he hadn’t realized he’d held.

  “Arrogant jerk.”

  “That’s not praise, sweetheart.”

  “Really? You usually think it is.”

  “This isn’t usual.”

  She propped her chin on his chest and looked him in the eye. “You really were wonderful... physically.”

  His cocky expression turned to a glare.

  “Don’t even think about snarling, MacGregor. I said it was wonderful. That’s praise.”

  “You said, physically. That’s a qualifier. One that deals a man’s ego a pretty hard blow, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I knew you’d take this wrong. I just knew it.”

  “I’m still trying to determine what this is. How can I take it wrong when I don’t what it is? And you can’t toss in a qualifier on something like that and not—”

  “Okay, here it is,” she interrupted, her face hot with a good mix of temper and embarrassment. He wasn’t making this easy for her, damn him. “When we made love, did it feel... right to you?”

  Right? T.J. held off a grimace by a nail’s width. She sounded worried. What was she getting at? She had been satisfied. He’d seen to it. “What do you mean, right?”

  She twirled the hair on his chest, let the heel of her hand graze his nubbed nipple. “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t.” He looked down into her upturned face, not sure he wanted to know. He’d been too needy for a stellar performance, but she had been satisfied. Evidently, though, only physically. He sighed.

  “I’m asking if you were... Never mind. Forget I brought it up.” She looked away.