Free Blood Kin by Judith E. French

grapevines arched on a frame so seasoned by weather and time that it seemed almost part of the living branches. The salt breeze that blew off the water smelled as sweet and invigorating as fresh dark roast, and the drone of bees and the occasional
rat-tat-tat
of a woodpecker eased the tension in the back of her neck and lifted her spirits.
    She felt sixteen again, full of giddy anticipation without knowing why. “Tawes really is a magical place, isn’t it?”
    â€œMmm.” Daniel pulled a nail from the half dozen held between his lips, set it, and drove it home with sure, powerful strokes.
    God, but he had nice shoulders. He didn’t have thebulky muscles of a gym jock, but his Hard Rock Café T-shirt left little to her imagination. It wasn’t such a leap to consider what it might feel like to be held in those strong arms. “You were born here?” she asked in an attempt to divert her thoughts from damp sheets and heavy breathing.
    He nodded. “Born and bred, as Tawes folk say.”
    â€œSo you know my great uncle?”
    He removed the nails. “I suppose. As well as anybody.”
    â€œCould you take me to meet him?”
    â€œNope.” Daniel tucked the nails back into his mouth.
    It was the second time he’d turned her down, and the rejection stung. “I know I’ve already met him, but it wasn’t under the best of circumstances. I really think I need to ask him some questions.”
    Daniel turned away, sorted through several cedar lengths, and lifted one into place. He eyed it for length, then took it down and began to saw off about three inches.
    Determined not to be put off, Bailey laid a hand on the handle of the saw. “Why not?”
    His dark eyes hardened. “Because he’s as apt to take a shot at you as not. He doesn’t like visitors. Guards his property lines like a pit bull.”
    â€œI’m not trying to offend anyone. I think I have a right to know the facts about my mother—about who my father was.”
    He stood up. “You know who they are. They raised you.”
    â€œIt’s not the same,” she protested. “You can’t understand what it’s like to grow up without knowing anything about your grandparents—aunts and uncles, cousins. I don’t even know what my heritage is. Am I German? Dutch?”
    â€œEnglish. Maybe some Welsh. A little Nanticoke. The Taweses came from Cornwall, same as the Catlins.”
    â€œNo one will tell me anything. I warn you, I’m going to talk to my uncle Will, with or without your help.”
    Daniel shrugged. “Suit yourself, but don’t ask me to be part of your getting your head shot off. Will’s a hot-head, and stubborn. He’s not about to change for a woman—even if she can claim Tawes blood.”
    â€œMaybe.” She rose to her feet and tried to keep from showing the anger she felt at his indifference. “But I won’t know until I make an attempt, will I?”
    Bailey found Matthew Catlin on his knees weeding around the tombstones in the far corner of the church cemetery. “It used to be that each family kept up its own plots,” he explained. “But lots of our younger generation have left to work on the mainland now. They find Tawes too . . . What is that expression? Laid low? Laid-back? Too slow and old-fashioned. Fishing and crabbing have fallen off. Some say the bay is dying, killed off by pollution and overfishing. I can show you first-person accounts from the seventeenth century, in which men claimed they’d found oysters the size of dinner plates, and fish were so thick you could walk from island to island without ever getting your feet wet.”
    â€œSo caring for the cemetery falls to you?”
    â€œNo, no, I wouldn’t say that. No need to worry about the Tawes family, or the Parks, the McCreadys or a half dozen other families. Just some, and it wouldn’t do to let those forgotten