Free Beyond the Misty Shore by Vicki Hinze Page A

rushed outside and cupped her hands at her mouth. “Aaron Butler! You and George slow down before you kill somebody!”
    The boys breezed right on, not slowing a bit. Maggie grinned.
    A man stepped out of The Store, next door to Landry’s. “Aaron, George, you heard Miss Landry! Slow it down!”
    He was a plain man in his mid-forties, thin but not frail. His arms covered with dark hair, he propped his elbow atop a gas pump, then reached up and adjusted his green baseball cap. Local Yokel was embroidered above its bill.
    Maggie walked on. Off to her distant right, she glimpsed a white picket fence. Headstones shone through the slats. A cemetery. Right in front of it sat a pristine little clapboard church with a tall, wooden steeple and a stained-glass window that looked pretty new. Looking at that window, feeling calm and restful again, Maggie made a vow. Come Monday, she would not watch MacGregor’s attempt.
    Whatever was happening with him had nothing to do with her and it shouldn’t rob her of peace. Besides, she had her own agenda here. Carolyn.
    Hooking a U-turn, Maggie headed back down the path, back toward the inn. She’d given MacGregor several opportunities to tell her about his troubles, but he’d elected not to do so. And, aside from the odd event that took place each morning on the shore, everything at the inn seemed the same as it had before she’d become aware of anything unusual occurring.
    MacGregor acted like his habitual sarcastic and nagging self, though admittedly he had softened a bit on the civility front earlier today on the stairs. Miss Hattie continued being her usual angelic self. That woman really was a treasure. And Maggie’s conscience pestered her constantly because she hadn’t helped MacGregor. Seeing a stone, she nicked it with the tip of her sneaker. But she just might feel more guilty than pestered because a part of her wanted to help him. That made her disloyal to Carolyn, didn’t it?
    The post office’s shadow slanted across the path. Maggie stepped into it and saw Vic Sampson through the window. Polishing the brass framing the glass fronts of the old-fashioned post office boxes that lined the wall, he glanced up and clearly recognized her from when he’d delivered mail to the inn. She’d never seen boxes with dial combinations before, though she’d heard of them. Quaint, but hadn’t the postal system recalled them all? Mmm, how had Sea Haven Village managed to keep theirs?
    Vic shook the cloth in a greeting and mouthed, “Hi, Maggie.”
    Glad to see a familiar face, she lifted a hand and smiled back, then walked on. Maybe if she just had tried to help MacGregor her conscience would stop badgering her. Turning her back on anyone in trouble reeked of indifference to their suffering, and wasn’t indifference just the worst kind of insult? She’d always respected anyone who—right or wrong—loved or hated and fought for or against anything with the passion of their convictions. It was the bystanders, those who elected not to get involved, those who didn’t care, that she’d held in disdain. She frowned. Now she was one of them.
    The porch of the Blue Moon Cafe was freshly swept and empty of people. To the right of the front door, a blue moon had been painted on the green cinderblock wall. Like everything else this close to the sea and its salt, it had weathered and faded a little. The sheriff’s car was parked in the lot.
    Rounding a rough cedar staircase, Maggie nearly collided with a short, stooped woman who rushed to the cafe’s door on thin, birdlike legs. Her coattail flapping behind her, she muttered something about a Mister High Britches needing a reminder that she’d once been his teacher. She deserved a little respect and he was going to give it to her or she was going to blister his ears.
    Maggie skirted a half-barrel of orange silk flowers, replacing those in the dirt that surely bloomed there in summer, and the biggest anchor she’d ever seen, rusted and