Embers by Antoinette Stockenberg Page B

won't breathe a word of this morning's visit with Mr. Tremblay to anyone. I need time to think."
    "Fine with me," Allie said, shaking her head skeptically. "I think the whole thing's a fantasy, anyway." 

Chapter 6
     
    D usk, and the mosquitoes, had come and gone, and Meg was on the porch swing, alone. No one came out to sit with her, and she couldn ' t blame them. She ' d been scary to be around ever since the day Orel Tremblay had first summoned her. Jumpy, irritable, all her senses heightened — she ' d never felt such edginess, as if something momentous or horrible or shocking or joyful — or all of the above, for all she knew — was about to happen. She thought of animals in the field, jittery before a storm: that was how she felt.
    She pulled her shawl more closely around her and gave the worn gray floor of the porch a shove with her foot, sending the wooden seat swinging and squeaking on its chains.
    It was Orel Tremblay ' s fault. He ' d summoned her from a very busy, very useful, very ordinary life and handed her a dilemma she couldn ' t possibly resolve.
    If she went after Gordon Camplin, a prominent member of Bar Harbor society, she ran the very real risk of being sued for slander. Like all business people who dealt with the public, Meg had a healthy fear of liability. The ceilings of the Inn Between might need a new coat of paint, but all the smoke detectors worked, and the fire exits were clearly marked.
    On the other hand, if Meg ignored Orel Tremblay ' s story, then Gordon Camplin would go free. Well, obviously he ' d been free, for all of his — what? Seventy-five years now ? Was it worth it to deny one old man a few years of freedom just to satisfy another old man ' s dying wish to avenge a woman whom Meg had never even known?
    She wasn ' t sure. Maybe that was where the jitteriness came from. Indecisiveness wasn ' t Meg ' s thing. She sighed, aware that the decision, when it did come, would be hers alone. The rest of the family had too many concerns on their minds than to go rummaging in the past looking for more: Comfort had the twins to worry about, and Lloyd had Comfort, and Everett Atwells had his advancing age. Allie had Tom Wyler. And Meg? Meg had all of them to worry about.
    And now Margaret Mary Atwells as well. That might make one too many generations for Meg to handle. She shook her head, laughing under her bre ath. Where had all this mother- hen-ness come from, anyway? She told herself that she ' d merely stepped into the void left by her mother ' s death. She told herself that if her mother hadn ' t died so young, Meg Hazard would be living on a houseboat on the Intracoastal Waterway and earning her living as a wildlife photographer.
    Meg gazed out at the moon, silver and solitary and somehow cruel, that hung in the late-evening sky. Trouble is, she thought, I ' m too young to be matriarch of this clan. On a night like this, with a moon like that, I ' m definitely too young.
    The sound s of a man ' s voice, and laughter, low and melodious, drifted through the darkness to mock her thoughts. It was Allie ' s laugh, with something new in it, something ... surprised and delighted. Allie didn ' t surprise easily. She ' d had too many men cut open their veins and spill their desire at her feet. What could Tom Wyler possibly be saying that surprised and delighted her?
    Meg gave herself another push on the porch swing. Creak, creak. Creak, creak.
    " Whoops ... occupied, " she heard Allie say.
    And then the voices turned and faded, hers and the lieuten ant ' s , and Meg sat alone for a long while, wondering how it was that Allie could feel so convinced that he was the one.
    ****
    Allie had risen before dawn for the long drive down to Boston to interview at a Days Inn there. She was trying to save on travel expenses whenever she could, and Meg appreciated that. She just hoped Allie didn ' t get an offer to interview at the Maui Prince Hotel. They ' d have to take out a third mortgage on the Inn