Beside a Dreamswept Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t realize he was also in dire need. Nor did he seem likely to realize it anytime soon. Meriam had been dead for two years, yet he still loved her as if she were alive—or thought he did.
    Tony sighed. The man had yet to face some hard truths about their relationship. And those realizations, Tony well knew, wouldn’t come easily. Learning life’s lessons rarely did. But he and Hattie would do all they could to make the challenge easier.
    A woman began crying.
    Deep inside his own mind, Tony heard her clearly. Yet all the leaf-peepers had gone home. Bryce, his children, and Mrs. Wiggins were the only guests at the inn. Perplexed, Tony let his thoughts drift from Bryce toward the distant sound.
    The vision hazy at first, he focused on a woman driving a rental car, a white Chevrolet Caprice. She was pretty, petite and blond, and crying. Not deep, racking sobs. Silent tears. Ones that sprang from a wound so deep inside her, just looking at her was painful. She was on a highway—Tony scanned the area—near Bangor. The map on the seat beside her had a snaky pink-highlighted path drawn to Nova Scotia—from New Orleans.
    Bryce and the children were from New Orleans.
    Tony tapped into her thoughts. Though scattered enough to make him dizzy, he soon pieced together that she was recently divorced and mourning someone. Not her ex-husband. Someone important to her, though. A yellow carnation was pinned to a floppy hat that lay on the passenger’s seat beside her and, for some inexplicable reason, a phrase ran through her mind time and again: She was the sunshine of our home.
    It seemed associated to someone named Mary Beth. So close to the name of Tony’s own deceased sister, Mary Elizabeth. Was this Mary Beth the woman’s mother? The woman mourned?
    Mary Beth.
    The carnation.
    She was the sunshine of our home.
    The divorce . . .
    Criminy, this was Bryce’s mysterious Mrs. Tate! And she was here in Maine.
    To meet Bryce? Was that why Tony had heard her crying?
    As she drove, Tony checked the street signs. Sea Haven Highway. The road to Sea Haven Village from Bangor. Well, that clinched it. Where it’d lead, he hadn’t a clue—never before had he been lured like this to a potential special guest—but already he’d been warned these special guests were different, so he’d follow through and see to it that the mysterious Mrs. Tate would have the opportunity at least to come to the inn and meet Bryce Richards.
    Concentrating hard, Tony urged her to turn, mentally luring her to the inn as he had so many others—and he met with surprisingly strong resistance.
    Wonderful. Just wonderful. Not only mourning. Not only wounded from the divorce. Caline Tate faced even more challenges. Thanks to that ex-husband of hers—Bryce’s client, no less—the woman was sure to be reluctant if not in downright refusal mode. With Bryce’s realizations about his marriage to Meriam yet to come, and Cally’s own emotional demons to be confronted, this was going to be a doozy of a case. But, by gum, Tony and Hattie had faced challenges before, and Suzie was worth the extra effort. Bryce and Caline, and Jeremy and Lyssie, too. Tony just prayed his and Hattie’s guidance would be enough. Though they always tried their best to aid special guests, unfortunately, they weren’t always successful. And he couldn’t shake that image of himself from Suzie’s dream. The one of him as powerless.
    “Tony?” Suzie called out. “Tony, are you here?”
    The Doubting Thomasette had awakened. He paused a second longer, and glimpsed Caline Tate taking the turn to exit onto Sea Haven Highway. Ah, she had chosen to come to the inn. Good. Good. He could lure, encourage, but the special guests had to make their own decisions, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
    “Tony?”
    Smiling, he returned to Suzie. “I’m here.”
    “I know Seascape has magic.” Sober-eyed, she nodded against her crisp white pillowslip.
    Just this moment, he was happy to