Blood Kin Read Free

stared, folded her arms over her ample bosom, and slammed the door.
    â€œYou 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-centuryhouse 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 herleft, 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?
    â€œBailey 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!”
    â€œThat’s Miss Emma,” Maggie said before dashing back the way they’d come.
    â€œEmma Parks?” Bailey asked. “Yes, yes, I’m Bailey Elliott.”
    â€œAbout time you got here.” Emma’s doughy face waslined 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—”
    â€œNo. No.” Bailey laughed. “I’m fine. Do we have far