Blood Kin (2 page)

“Pretty, ain't she?” Creed asked. “Gives me the chills ever' time I come in.”

Two little boys crabbing off the first dock looked up and waved.

Creed waved back. “Make sure them jimmies is legal size!” he shouted. “Don't want the law on you.”

The smallest child, a freckled redhead, reached into a bushel basket and held up a huge wiggling blue claw. “Got half a basket already, Cap'n Creed!”

Creed grinned and touched the bill of his cap in mock salute. “Time was only poor folks bothered with hard crabs,” he said. “Soft crabs, now, there's a different story. Finest eatin'to be had. Dust your crab in flour, fry it up golden brown . . .” He rubbed his thumb and fore-finger together. “Add some salt and pepper, a little 'mater and lettuce if you got it, and slap it between two pieces of homemade bread.”

“Oh, look,” Bailey exclaimed. A brown duck paddled out from under a dock with a string of fuzzy yellow and brown babies in her wake. “There must be a dozen of them.”

“Hey!” A barefoot girl in denim cutoffs and a green John Deere T-shirt lowered her net and waved from the shallows.

“Hey, yourself, Maggie!” Creed replied.

She laughed, revealing a missing front tooth. Water dripped from her net, and Bailey could see a mass of wiggling creatures inside.

“Grass shrimp,” Creed said. “Maggie's planning on going fishing.”

Bailey glanced around for an adult but saw no one except a man unloading crab pots from a boat a few
hundred feet away. “Those children really should be wearing life vests,” she said. “This water looks deep.”

“Deep enough,” Creed agreed, “but they're island young'uns. Swim afore they can walk, most of'm. They look out for one another.” He cut his engine and let the boat drift slowly against a weathered post. “This is it, far as I can take you.”

Pigtails flying behind her, Maggie ran out on the dock to catch Creed's bowline, pulled it taut, and wrapped it around a cleat.

“Obliged,” the skipper said. “Tell your mama I said thanks for that mess of green beans she sent over.” He set Bailey's overnight bag on the dock. “Be a good girl and show the lady where Miss Emma's house is.”

“That's her, ain't it?” The laughing innocence vanished, replaced by a hostile wariness.

“Mind your manners,” Creed admonished. “Ma'am, she'll show you to the boardinghouse.” He stepped up onto the dock and offered Bailey a calloused hand. “I usually make a run two, three times a week to Crisfield, but if you need a ride sooner, get Miss Emma to let me know.”

Bailey thanked him and smiled at the frowning child. “I'm Miss Bailey Elliott. I'm pleased to meet you, Maggie.”

Silence.

Bailey tried again. Nine years of teaching fourth grade had taught her how to break the ice with shy children. “Are you having fun on your summer vacation?”

Maggie spun and retreated down the dock. Bailey glanced over her shoulder at Creed, but his back was to them, so she picked up her case and followed her reluctant guide. Maggie trotted down three steps to a grassy path between two crumbling frame structures
with boarded-up windows. Behind the buildings, a wider path led across an open lot to a narrow oystershell street lined with trees and modest Victorian-style homes. Clapboard two-storied farmhouses with wide porches, white picket fences, and yards bursting with flowers, small garden plots, and grapevine trellises added to the picturesque charm and atmosphere of the village.

Bailey stopped and stared in astonishment at a brown-and-white Shetland pony and yellow, two-wheeled cart standing in front of a tiny brick house with a steep roof and smoke drifting from a wide chimney. Horse-drawn wagons? Was this a town or a movie set?

In her brief telephone conversation with Attorney McCready, he'd warned her that Tawes had no automobiles, no hotels, restaurants, not even a police force, but what that meant really hadn't sunk in. How was it possible that such isolation existed so close to Baltimore, Washington, and the increasingly populated Eastern Shore? “Do people really use horses to get around on the island?” Bailey asked.

Maggie pouted and marched on. A flop-eared hound, tail wagging, materialized from a boxwood hedge and barked at them.

A front door opened and a shrill voice called, “Belle! Come back here!” Obediently, the dog turned back toward the house. Bailey smiled and waved, but the gray-haired woman in the flowered housedress and apron only stared, folded her arms over her ample bosom, and slammed the door.

“You must not have a lot of tourists here,” Bailey said.

Maggie kept walking without saying a word.

The yards grew wider, and the simple homes gave way to more substantial ones of brick. One eighteenth-century
house with shutters, a sweeping lawn, and massive oak trees was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. A small bronze nameplate on the gate read, FOREST MCCREADY, ESQUIRE. The only sign of life was a boy cutting the side lawn with an old-fashioned push mower.

Bailey glanced curiously at the elegant stone steps and white pillared porch. She was tempted to go up and knock at the door, but her appointment with the lawyer wasn't until three o'clock. He might be with another client or still at lunch, and besides, she really needed to freshen up after her boat ride. She didn't want to appear rude by arriving an hour and a half early.

The thought of lunch made her realize how empty she felt. She hadn't had anything to eat since she'd grabbed a cup of coffee and a muffin at the Wawa in Dover, and she was starving. “I've come to see Mr. McCready,” she said. Maggie might have been deaf for all the reaction she offered.

They passed several more homes that could easily have been on the National Register of Historic Places, one that had obviously been uninhabited for years. Another, a Greek Revival, had a large sailboat on blocks in the backyard.

The street meandered along the shoreline so that the homes on Bailey's right now faced the water. A wide side street opened on the left, but the houses along that way were smaller, less imposing, and set back from the road. They hurried past a lovely old redbrick church and enclosed cemetery, another row of frame houses, and a grove of cedars that ran down to the beach. The street forked, with one branch narrowing and spanning a wooden bridge over a creek on her
left, while the main thoroughfare continued on past a hard-packed dirt parking lot and a square two-story brick building with a weathered sign that proclaimed:

Dori's Market
Groceries, kerosene, tobacco and feed
Fishing tackle, jeans, boat parts, and seed
Bait, crab nets, shells, and whatever you need!
Authorized John Deere dealer
And if you bellyache my price is too high,
Do your dealing in Crisfield, like my brother Ty!

Two middle-aged men in worn ball caps stood on the wide concrete stoop outside the general store. Both turned to stare pointedly and whisper to each other before touching the bills of their hats and hurrying inside. Bailey felt her cheeks grow warm. She could have sworn they were talking about her. This odd behavior was making her uncomfortable, and she wondered if she should have insisted Elliott come along with her. Even if she had been born here, she didn't know a soul on the island, and they certainly couldn't all know why she was here. Could they?

“Bailey Elliott?”The screen door opened and a stocky woman stepped out. Her graying hair was twisted into a no-nonsense bun, and she wore a gingham apron over a blue checked housedress and knee-high rubber boots. “God a'mighty, Creed's getting slower and slower. I expected you here for dinner, girl!”

“That's Miss Emma,” Maggie said before dashing back the way they'd come.

“Emma Parks?” Bailey asked. “Yes, yes, I'm Bailey Elliott.”

“About time you got here.” Emma's doughy face was
lined and weathered, her whiskey voice as husky as a man's, but Bailey was instantly charmed by the older woman's warm smile and the mischievous sparkle in her guileless blue eyes. “Need help with your suitcase?” Emma shifted a bulging grocery bag from one arm to the other and extended her free hand. “I'll be glad to carry it for—”

“No. No.” Bailey laughed. “I'm fine. Do we have far to—”

“Just down a piece.” She hurried down the steps, wiped her hand on her apron, and offered it. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Bailey.”

She murmured something in reply as Emma's calloused hand closed on hers in a visegrip.

“I hope you're hungry. I've got fried chicken, biscuits, green beans, and red potatoes keeping warm on the back of the stove. And a fresh-baked blueberry pie. I didn't make it, mind you. I'm not the pie baker my mama is—Mama does all the baking—but I'm not a bad cook. Not a soul on Tawes can match my crab cakes, but my pie crust . . .” Emma shook her head. “Not fit for pigs. I hope you like fried chicken.”

“I love chicken,” Bailey assured her. “But I didn't expect you to serve me lunch. I thought . . .” She glanced at the store. “Perhaps the grocery has sandwiches.”

“Nonsense. Can't have it said my guests go hungry. Mary Wright opened a bed-and-breakfast two years back, but she never did get any guests. Mary can't cook worth a darn. Not that I get many myself. Just you and Daniel this month, and you can't count Daniel as a regular paying guest.” Emma chuckled heartily as she led the way down the unpaved street, past a young man painting a boat and a fenced pasture where a boy and a black-and-white dog herded a flock of sheep toward
a red barn that seemed like the backdrop in a Norman Rockwell illustration.

“Daniel's doing some carpentry work for me in trade for his lodging until he gets his cabin finished,” Emma continued. “He's got property out on the point, his mama's family's old farm. Daniel's a Catlin, but his mother was born a Tilghman. The old Tilghman home-place burned years back. Hit by lightning. All gone but the original summer kitchen. That was brick. It would have gone too, but the rain put the fire out before it got that far.”

Bailey switched her overnight bag to her other shoulder and hurried to keep up with Emma's determined stride.

“Daniel cleared the site and built over the old half cellar, adding three new rooms and a porch to the old kitchen,” Emma said. “Pretty as you ever seen. Daniel's a real craftsman.” She stopped to wait for Bailey to catch up. “Pay no attention to these nasty boots. I was tending crabs in my shedding house. I sell soft-shells on the side. Anyway, the time got away from me, like it does, and I just headed down to Doris's for bread crumbs. I wanted to make crab cakes for supper. You like crab cakes?”

Bailey nodded. “I like almost anything but sushi. I prefer my seafood cooked.”

“So do I, girl. So do I. I hear sushi's all the fashion in Baltimore.”

The way Emma said it, it sounded like
Balt-mer
, and it was all Bailey could do to suppress a giggle.

“Not on Tawes. Course, most islanders love raw oysters and clams, but with all the pollution in the bay, they're not safe to eat anymore. Why take the chance, I say.”

Emma stopped for breath. “That's it.” She pointed to a white two-story house with blue shutters and a wraparound porch. A painted sign on a lamppost read simply,
MISS EMMA'S B AND B
. “I thought ‘B and B' sounded better than ‘boardinghouse,' more welcoming, but nobody's ever called it anything but Emma's Boardinghouse, so . . .”

“I'm surprised that there isn't more commercial development,” Bailey said. “You're so close to the metropolitan areas.”

“Oh, people get offers. But money isn't everything. Folks that do sell generally sell to other islanders. We like things the way they are.” Emma motioned to the wide front door with the etched-glass panes and the pretty grapevine wreath. “Go right on in. Make yourself at home. I'm going around to the back door and get rid of these muddy boots before I track up my clean floors.”

“Thank you,” Bailey managed before Emma chattered on.

“If you want to freshen up before you sit down to the table, there's a private bath off your room. Upstairs. The Robin's Nest. I like to name all my rooms. Can't miss it. Down the hall. Last room on the right.”

Emma was still talking when Bailey pushed open the front door and stepped into the foyer. The interior of the house was cool, bright, and spotless, with gleaming antique furniture, starched white curtains, and a faint scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. She stood still and listened, soaking in the peaceful atmosphere. For a moment there was no sound but the faint tick of a mantel clock.

“Ouch! Son of a . . .” A male voice broke the silence. “Damn it to hell!”

Bailey looked into the living room. Beyond, in the
connecting archway, a lean figure stood on the fourth step of a ladder.

“Don't laugh,” he said. “It hurts.” He shook one hand in the air. “Fetch me that bag of finishing nails, will you? On the floor there, beside the drill.”The voice was deep, clear, and slightly tinged with the island flavor.

Amused, Bailey set down her overnight case and crossed the living room. She couldn't tell whether the carpenter was young or old, but from the way his long legs filled the worn blue jeans and his shoulders stretched against the green plaid shirt, she assumed he hadn't reached his dotage. The workman's hair, clean, and dark brown with a slight curl, was snugged back into a short ponytail and secured with a rough leather tie.

“Do you mind passing me the nails?” he asked impatiently. “Before I bleed to death?”

“Not at all.” Bailey picked up the small paper bag of nails and handed them to him.

“I just have the . . .” He glanced down. Dark brows, straight nose, nice chin, in the tanned face of an outdoorsman. For a split second, surprise registered in his dark eyes, and then white, even teeth flashed, the charm in that boyish grin making his face intriguing. “Ouch again. You must be Miss Emma's guest, the one with the name like the drink.” He took the nails, removed three, and handed the bag back before tucking two between his lips.