Free Beyond the Misty Shore by Vicki Hinze

bitter cold and held a candlelight vigil on the front lawn. Mothers with babies she’d brought into the world, those she’d healed and kept from prematurely departing it. Must have been something.”
    “Mmm, kind of makes you feel if you aren’t as devoted to others as she was, you’re just taking up space, doesn’t it?” Maggie studied Cecelia’s face, as if trying to figure out something. “What do you think it is, MacGregor? Do the rest of us lack some special gene or something?”
    “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it’s got to do with looking out rather than in.”
    She swiveled her gaze up to his. Her brow wrinkled. “Looking out what?”
    “Outside ourselves. Cecelia definitely looked out.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    He hadn’t either for the first couple of months he’d studied the painting. Then as if a light bulb went on in his head, it seemed so simple and clear. He propped his socked foot against the spindle behind him. “It’s like when you’re going to paint something. You see it with your eyes, but you feel it with every fiber in you. It isn’t until you feel it in here,” he cupped his fingers and thumped them against his chest, “that you can paint something and do it justice. For Cecelia, healing was like that. She felt it in here.”
    “Empathy versus sympathy.” Maggie nodded.
    “Yeah.” Quick, and a lot more intuitive than he’d given her credit for being.
    Maggie smiled. “So how did you learn all this—about the house, and them?” She nodded toward the portraits. A shadow streaked across her chin.
    “Miss Hattie. She’s lived here most of her life. Loves this house and everyone in it.”
    “Sometimes I get the feeling she’s reading my mind. Not like a psychic, or anything like that. I don’t know. Like she somehow sees inside me.”
    “I’ve had that feeling, too.” Why had he admitted that? It opened the door to all kinds of questions he didn’t want asked because he’d have to refuse to answer them.
    “It doesn’t bother me, really. It’s just sort of”—she shrugged—“oddly comforting. As if you’re unconditionally accepted as you are and you don’t have to explain anything.” Maggie worried her lower lip with her teeth. “When you painted the gazebo, did you look outward?”
    She knew. He felt his face flush. “Um, no.”
    “But you did when you worked on canvas.”
    It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. He hesitated before answering, certain that if he had any sense, he’d shut this conversation down right now. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did.”
    “You don’t paint on canvas anymore, then?”
    He looked away. “I haven’t for some time.”
    “Why not?” She rubbed her forefinger down the bannister.
    He stiffened. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
    “Sorry.” She sounded as if she truly meant it. “I didn’t mean to pry—and this isn’t another session of Twenty Questions. I’m just curious.”
    “I’ll bet you drove your mother nuts.”
    She grinned. “Just about.”
    He looked down at her coat. “Are you on your way out?”
    She nodded. “I thought I’d walk down to the village and soak up some serenity.”
    Envy, hot and hard, slammed into him. “Enjoy it.”
    He stepped around her, then took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Would he ever again be able to say that—that he was going for a walk in the village?
    “Hey, MacGregor.”
    “Yeah?” He paused and looked down at her.
    “You’re not half bad when you’re civil.”
    He grunted. “Show your appreciation, then. Leave me some hot water.”
    The weak sun felt good on her back. There were no sidewalks in this part of the village, so Maggie stopped on the worn, dirt path paralleling the street and watched all the activity. Across the street, two black boys rode their bikes hell-bent-for-leather, speeding dangerously close to the entry of Landry’s Landing.
    A young woman with a red-and-white bandana circling her forehead like a sweat band