Inconnu(e)

by Vicki Hinze

  Then Maggie looked into his eyes.

  She felt his dread, his desperation, his despair. Sensed his emptiness, his feelings of isolation and regret. So much regret.

  But as clearly as she’d heard the whisper, she sensed his regret didn’t stem from what he had done, but from something he hadn’t done. Something he’d... caused.

  The seeds of doubt she’d had niggle at her before about his involvement in Carolyn’s possible non-accident/accident sprouted and bloomed. But could a man capable of such intense emotions, a man who definitely had a conscience, be involved in such an awful thing—even indirectly?

  Struggling as he was, if he turned out to be innocent, what would asking him if he had been involved do to him? She remembered her mother’s reaction to being questioned about her injury. Her embarrassment and shame. It had nearly pushed her over the edge. With all MacGregor was dealing with already, would asking him push him over the edge?

  Maggie couldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk confronting him with her suspicions. Not without proof. And, as of this moment, she didn’t have any.

  “Maggie?” He prompted her.

  She swallowed hard and looked him straight in the eye. “Are you okay, Tyler?”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again without saying a word, and just stared into her eyes. He blinked rapidly several times. The wind had died down. What burned his eyes? Dust? Dirt? Tears?

  He wished he could lie to her. But how did she know that? How did she know that he wouldn’t do it? He lifted a hand and cupped her face. Cool, work-roughened, it quivered ever so slightly. Or was it her chin?

  “Okay?” He let his fingertips drift across her cheek, then down her jaw. “No, Maggie,” he said softly. I’m not okay.”

  Chapter 4

  He didn’t trust her.

  She didn’t trust him, either.

  He didn’t want to talk to her. She was on a mission. He didn’t know what mission, but if he talked with her, he might find out.

  She had helped him, and he needed to talk with someone. Miss Hattie was holding out on him, and Bill still thought this mess was all in T.J.’s mind.

  It wasn’t. But Maggie might think it was, too.

  Then again, she might not.

  T.J. struggled between the forces of mind and heart. Knees to knees, he sat facing Maggie on the rocks. For the first time in days, the sun broke fully through the barrier of dull, gray clouds and shone brilliantly. Warming temperatures melted the icelets of sleet, and drops glistened everywhere—on the dew-damp ground, the brown grass, the barren trees.

  Maggie stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. “Tyler, I’m not trying to butt in or anything, and I haven’t forgotten our deal either. But I want you to know, well, if you need to talk, I’m here. And I’ll even can the sass.”

  A red-headed, red-nosed, sassy woman bearing an olive branch. Should he grab it? His heart thudded Yes, with both hands. But his mind locked down on a firm and irrevocable, No. She’d swear he was a fruitcake.

  Still, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It couldn’t have been easy for her to offer. He hadn’t exactly endeared himself to her, playing Mr. Congeniality. “I don’t want to talk, Maggie. I need to, but I’m just not sure I can.”

  “If it helps, I’ve watched you out here with the painting for days,” she confessed, glancing at it, lying on the ground on the other side of the boundary line.

  She’d watched? And said nothing? Hadn’t taunted him, or hassled him for explanations?

  She grunted. “You can stop gaping, MacGregor. I’m curious, not crass. I figured if you wanted to talk, you would.”

  He almost smiled. Almost. He felt the skin near his eyes crinkle. “No, you’re not crass. But you are a hot-water hog. Do you know that I haven’t had a warm—forget hot, we’re talking warm—shower since you got here?”

  “Subtle revenge.” She wiggled her brows at him.

  “Not so subtle.” He guffawed. “Trust me.”

  She cleared her throat. “Notice I let you shift the subject, MacGregor. Remember that the next time your attitude threatens to take a chunk out of my hide.”

  He lowered his gaze to her knees. A damp spot circled her jeans at her kneecap, and sand and dirt clung to it. She was so little, and yet she’d dragged him. “I guess I came down pretty hard on you.”

  “I’d say so. You knocked me on my keister—literally.”

  “I meant verbally. That collision was an accident.”

  “Verbally, too.” She swiped at her knee. Tiny flecks of mud and sand sprayed onto the ground and spattered on a patch of weedy grass.

  He rubbed at his neck. God, but it was stiff. “I guess I should explain. I’m really not an arrogant jerk.” He picked up a brown pebble and rolled it between his fingers and thumb. Amazing how much that remark had stung his ego.

  “Right.” A phantom wind gusted, raising goose bumps on her arms. Shivering, she stuffed her hands back into her pockets.

  “Okay. Sometimes, I am,” he confessed. “But honest to God, Maggie, if you’d fended off all the women I have here, you’d be arrogant, too. Miss Hattie is darn persistent.”

  “She’s a doll and you know it.”

  He tossed the pebble down. It pinged against the rocks, then settled. “Did I say she wasn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Look, she’s an angel, but she’s also got a hard head and a will of iron. She’s damn determined to hook me up.”

  Maggie smiled. “Just how many woman has she shoved your way?”

  “Seventeen—not counting you.” He frowned, perplexed and not liking it. “For some reason, she hasn’t said much about you—yet. But I expect she’s just lulling me into complacency so I’ll let my guard down. Then she’ll lower the boom on me.”

  “Seventeen? Geez, MacGregor.”

  “Exactly. See what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do.” Maggie frowned. “My mother pulled that on me all the time. Nearly drove me insane. No matter how many times I told her the last thing I wanted was a man in my life, she—” Maggie stopped mid-sentence and stared at him. “Just how long have you been here?”

  Hell, here it came. He stiffened and swallowed hard. “In three days, it’ll be nine months.”

  She sent him a prudent, sidelong look. “You sound disgusted.”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  The time had come. He either turned back now, or spilled his guts. What difference did it make? If he didn’t tell Maggie himself, she’d just ask Miss Hattie. “I can’t leave.”

  Maggie’s forehead wrinkled. She shoved her hair back behind her shoulder. “Can’t? Like you can’t cross that line you draw in the dirt?”

  His throat muscles clenched. What if she thought he’d lost his mind? He didn’t want to get involved with her. Didn’t want what she thought to matter. But it did. She appealed to him. Her sass, her intuitiveness, her quick mind, her heart. She’d been watching him for days and said not a word. He’d treated her like hell and she’d helped him, anyway. “I draw that line where Seascape lands end. You’ve seen what happens to me whenever I try to step over it.”

  “That happens every time?”

  He heard her shock, and a thread of fear. Why fear? “Every time.”

  She frowned. “Why do you think it’s happening?”

  He sighed. How many times had he wondered? “Hell, Maggie. I don’t even know what’s happening, much less why it’s happening. It just is.”

  That rattled her. Her hands shook and she blinked hard and fast. But just as quickly as he noted those reactions, she seemed to calm down. As if she’d pulled something from deep inside herself and had gotten a grip. God, but he envied her that.

  “It’s a big world, Tyler,” she said softly. “Lots of strange things happen in it.”

  Her words held a familiar ring. Then he pegged the reason. “You sound like Bill Butler.”

  “I should. He said those things to me at the gallery.”

  “The g
allery?” She was from New Orleans. “Lakeview Gallery?”

  She nodded. “I saw the painting there.”

  T.J.’s heart nearly stopped. “That’s why you’re here?”

  She dropped her gaze to his chest and shrugged. “Sort of.”

  She wasn’t being honest—not totally. He couldn’t blame her, though. Trying to explain what happened when looking at the painting was like trying to explain what love felt like. At least on this, he could help her out—and maybe redeem himself a little in her eyes.

  “You looked at it and felt as if your troubles disappeared. They were like huge inkblots that shrank smaller and smaller until they shriveled up to nothing and just weren’t there,” he said. “You got this bubbly feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. It spread everywhere inside you. The bubbles burst. You could hear them—Pop! Pop! Pop!—and, when they stopped, you felt calm and serene and at peace.

  “Somehow you knew that if you’d just come here, to the actual inn, then you’d heal. It lured you and, intoxicated by all you were feeling that was good, you couldn’t resist its charm. You had to see, to know firsthand, if all those good feelings were possible to feel. Your mind warned you they weren’t, that you were a fool to traipse up here on a peace pilgrimage, but your heart promised that if you could summon the courage and take the risk, then you’d find the truth and feel the feelings yourself. And so you came.”

  Her jaw hung loose. She stared at him, awestruck.

  “You felt as if the weight of the world you’d been carrying on your shoulders had grown feather-light. As if your heart had been set free. You didn’t need to walk on the ground, you could float above it. You felt as if you could find answers here that would put you at ease for the rest of your life.” He blinked, then blinked again, remembering so well, so vividly. “Is that why you’re here, Maggie? Is that how you felt?”

  “How,” she stammered, and started again. “How did you know?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He couldn’t tell her after all. “What troubled you so deeply?”

  Lowering her gaze, she seemed to focus on the placket of his shirt. “It’s not a pretty story.”

  “Ones that cause us that kind of turmoil never are.”

  She raked her lower lip with her teeth. “My mother fell down some stairs. I think my father pushed her. She denied it, and likely will until the day she dies.”

  Something dark twisted in T.J.’s stomach. “Did you confront him?”

  “Couldn’t.” Maggie snatched a blade of dead grass up by the roots and dragged her fingertips down its length. “He took off the day it happened. We haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “So you took care of your mother.”

  She nodded. “I’d moved to Baton Rouge after college and hired on as a marketing rep at Maison’s. Shortly before the accident, I’d been promoted to Senior Account Executive.”

  “Pretty young for that, weren’t you?” T.J. straightened one leg and propped his elbow on the other.

  “Youngest in Maison’s history.” Her pride in that accomplishment was obvious. “Luckily, I had inherited money from my grandmother and had gotten lucky at investing it. So when Mom got hurt, I took an extended leave of absence, went home, and took care of her.”

  Maggie was modest, too. No one got lucky at investments these days. They either knew what they were doing or they became shark bait. “Only child?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Me, too.” She looked close to tears and he wanted to comfort her. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. It trembled. “Her fall wasn’t your fault, Maggie.”

  She snapped her head up, looked at him, pain radiating from her eyes. “It was.”

  God, did he recognize the hurt in her. “He abused her, you didn’t. The blame belongs at his front door.”

  She shook her head and looked out to sea. “You don’t understand.”

  A gull cawed overhead. He glanced up at it, saw it swoop low over the ocean, then watched her emotions shift with the same ferocity that the waves thrashed against the rocks below them. “Explain it to me, then.”

  “I suspected it, MacGregor. For years, I thought he was hurting her. He’d do things to make her think she was going nuts, then belittle her and tell her she was crazy.”

  “What kind of things?”

  Her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapped around her bent knees, Maggie rocked back and forth, tapping her toes in the dirt on each forward roll. “The first time I remember catching him, she was cooking this green bean casserole. The kind with mushroom soup and canned french-fried onions. She had everything out on the counter and was heating up the soup. She poured it over the beans, then reached for the can of onions. It was gone. She looked and looked, knowing it’d been there. She checked everything. Even went outside and dug through a weeks’ worth of garbage, looking for that damn can.

  “She came back into the kitchen and there it was—on the counter right where it had been before it’d gone missing. She looked devastated, MacGregor. Really weary and scared. So scared.”

  “Did she just miss seeing it the first time?”

  Maggie sent him a level look. “The can was empty.”

  “Empty?”

  She nodded. “Mom checked the casserole. No onions. It’d been a new can. By this time, she’s shaking, muttering that they couldn’t have just disappeared.

  “Dad comes in, wanting to know what she’s so upset about. Now she’s nearly in tears. She’s looking everywhere for the onions—even in the fridge. He’s nagging at her, giving her a hard time.

  “She starts crying. Goes to the sink and washes her hands so he doesn’t see her tears, but he knows. Her shoulders are shaking. And while her back’s turned, I see him pull a bowl out of the oven and dump the stuff in it into the casserole.”

  “The onions.”

  Maggie nodded. “The onions. Then he says, ‘Christ, Elizabeth. What’s wrong with you? The onions are already in there.’

  “She’s shocked, of course. Swore they hadn’t been there a minute ago. And do you know what he does?”

  T.J. shook his head that he didn’t.

  “He tells her that if she keeps this up, he’s going to have her committed.”

  T.J.’s stomach soured. “Why?”

  A tear rolled down Maggie’s cheek. “Because he was an untrustworthy bastard, MacGregor. Because he got his jollies hurting her. Because it made him feel powerful and strong and in control. He really had a thing for control.”

  “Did you tell her what you’d seen?”

  “Yes.” Maggie clamped her jaw and nodded. “I told him, too.”

  And she’d been terrified. Even now her fear trembled in her voice.

  “I never caught him again, and Mom never admitted to further incidents, but I expect they happened. She told me it had been a game.”

  “Protecting you?”

  “Yes. I think that’s why he left. Because of me.”

  “You?” Surprised, T.J. failed to school his voice.

  She blushed, embarrassed. “When I got the job at Maison’s, I warned him that if he ever put a hand on her, or played mind games with her again, I’d kill him.”

  Instinctively, T.J. knew Maggie wasn’t the type to make idle threats, and she certainly wasn’t the kind to threaten a life without serious provocation. But he understood her threatening her father in this situation, and that the threat had been sincere. Obviously her father had known it, too.

  Another flicker of respect for her flamed to life inside T.J. Confronting her father had to be terrifying. He could’ve just as easily as not turned on her. Still, she’d done it. In the same situation, though T.J. couldn’t know for sure what his reaction would be, he liked to think he’d do the same thing. “I’m surprised your mother didn’t kick him out.”

  “No,” Maggie said, looking sad. “She would never do that—which is exactly why I didn’t just threaten to have him arrested. She’d never allow it, and he’d see to it that she didn’t.r />
  “One of the tragedies of abuse, Tyler. Abusers work on their victims’ self-esteem until the victims think they deserve the abuse. It’s their fault, see? Men like my father are very clever and very manipulative. Hell, they’re twisted. But they’re good at this stuff. And before the victims know what’s happened to them, they end up like my mother. Where they’ll put up with anything because they deserve nothing, and anything—even abuse—is better than being alone.”

  T.J. gave Maggie’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry you and your mother had to go through that.”

  “Me, too.” She patted his hand and gave him a watery smile. “But at least it’s over now. He’s gone, and we survived. She’s safe.”

  T.J. nodded. Why hadn’t Maggie included herself? Wasn’t she, too, safe? “So what happens now?”

  “We pick up the pieces and go on.”

  “Back to Maison’s?” He really shouldn’t be asking. What she wanted to tell him was different. Quizzing her, he was butting in.

  She shrugged, seemingly unoffended. “I don’t know. I love marketing, and Maison’s has been great to me. They refused my resignation and put me on an extended leave of absence so I could keep my benefits.”

  “Sounds like a good company.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but you know, MacGregor, I’ve been thinking. What I was doing there, well, in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. I think I’d rather do something that matters.”

  He lifted his brows. “Solid marketing matters. It can make or break companies, and that makes or breaks the people working for the companies—and their families. Execs need straight-talking, bottom-line info to get to the public. They depend on marketing gurus like you to get it there efficiently.”

  “True.” She rubbed at her shin. “Maybe I just need to be more selective about what I market, eh?”

  He shrugged for show. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  Looking a little wrung out but a lot more at ease, she gave him a nervous laugh. “Hey, I’m supposed to be the listener here, not the soul-barer.”

  “Works both ways.” He smiled.