Free On Deadly Tides (A Wendover House Mystery Book 3) by Melanie Jackson Page A

were admiring my path?” he asked, holding the door open. His gaze was direct, but I thought that it would be helpful if he came with some sort of translator that could explain his expressions and silences. With Bryson, menace might come with a smile. “Everett and I laid it last summer. The pattern is more common in Boston than up here.”
    I met his stare, surprised at his candor. My face probably looked frozen as my brain sorted through responses.
    “I was admiring it. Mind you, it isn’t a patch on the crazy one I have in my backyard.” My voice was so light. I was proud that there wasn’t a trace of that nasty suspicion anywhere.
    The inside of the cottage was as pleasant as the outside, sort of bachelor shabby chic. There were some carved ducks but no hunting or fishing trophies. We sat in what might have been called a parlor once but which was now a kind of office/breakfast nook. The table was new but the chairs were old and covered in some kind of animal hide. I smelled horsehair when I sat and it made me think of my grandmother and her old and very uncomfortable sofa.
    “You take it black?” Bryson asked.
    “Yes, please.”
    “Miss MacKay, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but you are inconveniently smart. Sometimes it’s annoying.” He brought me a white mug that had red roses on it. It was too small for his hands and I was sure that it had belonged to his mother.
    “I need to brush up on my poker face,” I said. “And thank you for the coffee. This smells delicious.”
    It did. I sipped and found it to be flavorful but not so robust that it etched tooth enamel.
    “I have been sitting here this morning, contemplating my mortality, and I have decided that I can’t afford to die yet. Not if there is any chance of hell being real,” Bryson said.
    “Isn’t that a little morbid before nine o’clock, especially for a younger man?” Of course, mortality had been on my mind too. Only not my own.
    “A bit, but I’m creeping up on fifty, did you know that? And I have found that fairness in life isn’t always in the cards, that sometimes life really is about choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea. I’m thinking this may be one of those mornings.”
    “Does the sea usually win?” I set my mug down on the white tile table. A part of me was nervous, but I was also relieved to have it out in the open. Being closer to home had revived me.
    “Usually. It’s tradition in these parts.”
    We both sipped. It was my move and I considered what to do.
    “You know that my parents died when I was young and that my grandmother and I were very close?”
    He frowned a little at my sideways approach.
    “Yes.”
    “Yet, close as we were, she never said one word—not one—about the state of affairs here in the islands. She didn’t tell me about Kelvin, or the family history. And I think that is because some situations don’t have good answers. Some realities defy rational explanation to people who haven’t lived them. A smart person makes allowances for the moral context in which decisions are made. I guess that maybe makes me a relativist. Bryson, I am not all that young anymore either, and I have found that sometimes life just comes down to choosing whatever option will let you sleep nights.”
    “Even if it’s a morally indefensible choice?” He sounded only mildly interested, but I wasn’t fooled. He was listening oh so carefully.
    “If it was totally indefensible, I doubt you’d do it.” His smile was crooked but at least it was there. “And we are speaking of personal morality, not legality. That is something else entirely, as I am learning.”
    He raised a brow at me.
    “Everything the Nazis did was legal,” I reminded him. “Doesn’t mean it was right. What Martin Luther did was illegal—doesn’t mean it was wrong.”
    He nodded thoughtfully.
    “You make concessions yourself then.” It was more statement than question.
    I snorted. He didn’t know how many, since