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.It only means I didn't marry young the way you two did.""Yeah, and I know why," Meg said with an ironic smile."Because the minute you say yes to someone, ninety-nine other men are sure to cut their throats, and you can't bear the thought of all that blood on your hands."Allie's violet eyes turned a deeper shade of perfection."That isn't why I've never married, Meg, you know that," she said in a soft voice."I just haven't found the right one."Meg sighed heavily and said, "Whereas I, on the other hand, married my one and only suitor — and then lost him."Allie shook her head."Paul wasn't the right one for you, Meg.You know he wasn't."Meg's brow twitched in a frown, but then suddenly she smiled and said: "Was too.""Was not.""Was too!""Dammit, Meg!" Allie grabbed a short brown curl of her sister's hair and yanked it hard, then said in a voice endearingly wistful, "It's good to be back, Margaret Mary Atwells Hazard.I've missed you.""And I," said Meg softly, "have missed you too, Allie-cat."They sat there for a long moment without speaking, content to watch the kaleidoscope of reds and pinks that streaked across the morning sky.On a good morning — and this was one of them — the view of the sea from Cadillac Mountain went on forever."Maybe you're right, Meg," Allie murmured at last."Maybe money isn't everything."Meg nodded thoughtfully, then stood up and stretched."Let's go home, kiddo.We've got work to do."****Homicide Lieutenant Tom Wyler was stuck in a traffic jam as thick and wide as any he'd ever had to cut through back in Chicago.But at least there he had resources: a siren, a strobe, a hailer to warn people to get the hell out of his way.Here, creeping along the main drag through Ellsworth, Maine, he was just another tourist, without authority and without respect.And without air conditioning.In a burst of economic caution he'd decided on Rent-a-Wreck instead of Hertz or Avis at the airport.The three- year-old Cutlass they gave him ran perfectly fine; if it were, say, January, he'd have no complaint.But he was dressed for the Arctic, which is roughly where he thought Maine was, and with the midday sun beating down on a dark gray roof on a hot June day, he felt like complaining plenty."Go heal somewhere else," his surgeon had advised him."Away from the bloodshed.Somewhere cool, somewhere quiet, somewhere where every citizen isn't armed up to his goddamned teeth."Wyler was shell-shocked, and he knew it.He needed time to think, time to heal, time to decide whether he even wanted to go back to the bloody fray.So he'd chosen a small, very small, resort town with a reputation for quiet evenings and grand scenery.He didn't need theme parks, topless beaches, casino gambling, or all-night discos.All he needed, all he wanted, was a little peace and quiet.So why, having fled to this supposedly remote chunk of granite coast, was he feeling his blood pressure soar and his temples ache?Because this isn't what it was supposed to be, he realized, disappointed.Because he'd pictured the route to Bar Harbor as a quiet country road lined with gabled houses with big front porches, and laundry billowing from clotheslines out back.Instead, he found himself inching past a more familiar kind of Americana: Pizza Hut, Holiday Inn, Dairy Queen, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonald's, all vying with one another for his tourist dollars — that is, if the fella on the curb selling Elvis-on-velvet paintings didn't get them first.Shit.He'd picked a tourist trap after all.His disappointment lasted right through Ellsworth and over the causeway onto Mount Desert Island.The island, too, was pretty developed.The road that fed into Bar Harbor was lined with campgrounds and cabin rentals and, eventually, big motels perched high on a ridge to his right, presumably with views of the ocean he knew was somewhere to his left.The motels must be what had replaced the string of Bar Harbor summer mansions that he'd read were lost in the Great Maine Fire of 1947.All in all, he wasn't impressed.Shifting his wounded, aching leg into a more comfortable position, he reflected on how thoroughly he'd failed to follow his surgeon's advice.He'd plunked down good money to spend at least half a summer in a place that wasn't cool, wasn't quiet, and as far as he could tell — judging from the number of gun shops he'd passed along the way — where every hunter-citizen was armed up to his goddamned teeth.****"Unseasonable, ain't it, de-ah?" The mailman handed Meg a bundle of mail, pulled out a handkerchief from his hip pocket, and mopped his beaded brow.Meg put down her watering can and took the packet."I don't mind," she said, stepping back to admire her new flower boxes
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