Free The Secret Gift by Jaclyn Reding Page A

been confronted with that first night, who had threatened her with the gun in the rain.
    Angus noticed her staring. “Is something wrong, Miss Hutchinson?”
    “Who is that?”
    “That would be Mr. Mackenzie. The village’s latest incomer.”
    Libby watched as he turned the Land Rover to park in front of the hardware store and got out. He was taller than she remembered, six-foot-three-at-least tall, and lanky in build as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. Dark hair, in need of a cut, curled loosely at the collar of his canvas outdoor coat. He wore jeans that were well lived in, and a black sweater under his coat that fit loosely over his body.
    And then he looked at her, as if sensing her stare. And he frowned.
    Libby felt a flush rise to her cheeks despite the chill air. She couldn’t look away.
    It was he who broke the stare first, as he turned and disappeared inside the hardware store.
    Libby sat staring for several moments afterward, until out of the corner of her eye she noticed Angus getting up from the bench to leave. She realized then how incredibly rude it had been of her to sit there gawking at the other man while the constable had been sharing a lunch with her.
    “It was nice to meet you, Mr. MacLeith.”
    “And you, Miss Hutchinson.”
    “Please,” she said, smiling in apology for her behavior, “just call me Libby.”
    He smiled, nodded. “Well, Libby, if there is anything I can do to make your stay in the village more pleasant ...”
    “Thank you.”
    She got up and watched as PC MacLeith headed down the street in the opposite direction.
    Tossing the remnants of her lunch into the waste bin, Libby turned and cut a path toward where the black Land Rover was still parked.

Chapter Five
    Libby decided she had every reason to want to check the mysterious Mr. Mackenzie out further. He had, after all, threatened her with a gun. Well, he hadn’t actually
threatened
her. But he certainly could have.
    She completely ignored the fact that if she had been so inclined, she could have just reported the incident to the constable and been done with it.
    The bell above the door of the M’Cuick’s Hardware and Everything store gave off a tinkly sound as she pushed her way into the store. Mops and brooms and tall, narrow shovels stood like the queen’s guard just inside the door beside bins of screws, nuts, bolts, and nails. There was a paint mixer with splashes and drips of color, and shiny metal buckets, the sort you rarely saw anymore except perhaps outside antique stores with bunches of petunias growing in them. Libby stopped just inside the door when she saw the man, Mackenzie, standing at the counter, obviously paying for whatever he’d come for.
    He turned to leave—and came face-to-face with her.
    “Excuse me,” she said quietly.
    He stared at her. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.
    She blinked at him.
    The hardware store owner interrupted. “Is there something I can help you with, miss?”
    Libby stepped around him and realized that her heart was pounding. “Yes. Hello. I was looking for a voltage converter.”
    She’d decided while she had been going through the church records that she could help Sean MacNally by recording the parish data while she went through it into an easily indexed and searchable database, similar to the one she used for her book searches. She didn’t actually expect that such a small, remote shop would have something as sophisticated as a voltage converter for her laptop. In fact, she’d only used the errand as an excuse to come into the shop.
    “U.S. to U.K.?” the store owner asked.
    “Yes.”
    “What’s it for then? Hair dryer? Curling iron?”
    “No,” Libby replied. “A laptop computer. I suspect it wouldn’t be something you normally carry—”
    “Got one right here. Just let me see ...”
    She heard the bell tinkle behind her, indicating that Mackenzie had left. She chanced a glance just as he was ducking into the Land