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“It wasn’t really his fault, anyway. He hired an incompetent crook of a property manager who was supposed to take care of things. It wasn’t Ben’s fault the man embezzled from him and didn’t do the necessary upkeep to maintain the buildings.”
“Oh, come on. Ben Kilpatrick is the chief operating officer for one of the most successful, fastest-growing companies in the world. You think he didn’t know what was going on? If he had bothered to care, he would have paid more attention.”
This was an argument she and Devin had had before. “At some point, you’re going to have to let go,” her sister said calmly. “Ben doesn’t own any part of Haven Point now. He sold everything to Aidan Caine last year—which makes his presence in town even more puzzling. Why would he come back now, after all these years? It would seem to me, he has even less reason to show his face in town now.”
McKenzie still wasn’t buying the rumor that Ben had actually returned. He had been gone since he was seventeen years old. He didn’t even come back for Joe Kilpatrick’s funeral five years earlier—though she, for one, wasn’t super surprised about that, since Joe had been a bastard to everyone in town and especially to his only surviving child.
“It doesn’t make any sense. What possible reason would he have to come back now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s here to make amends. Did you ever think of that?”
How could he ever make amends for what he had done to Haven Point—not to mention shattering all her girlish illusions?
Of course, she didn’t mention that to Devin as she tossed the tarragon into the lemon juice while her sister continued speculating about Ben’s motives for coming back to town.
Her sister probably had no idea about McKenzie’s ridiculous crush on Ben, that when she was younger, she had foolishly considered him her ideal guy. Just thinking about it now made her cringe.
Yes, he had been gorgeous enough. Vivid blue eyes, long sooty eyelashes, the old clichéd chiseled jaw—not to mention that lock of sun-streaked brown hair that always seemed to be falling into his eyes, just begging for the right girl to push it back, as Belle did to the Prince after the Beast in her arms suddenly materialized into him.
Throw in that edge of pain she always sensed in him and his unending kindness and concern for his sickly younger sister and it was no wonder her thirteen-year-old self—best friends with that same sister—used to pine for him to notice her, despite the four-year difference in their ages.
It was so stupid, she didn’t like admitting it, even to herself. All that had been an illusion, obviously. He might have been sweet and solicitous to Lily but that was his only redeeming quality. His actions these past five years had proved that, over and over.
Through the open kitchen window, she heard Rika start barking fiercely, probably at some poor hapless chipmunk or squirrel that dared venture into her territory.
“I’d better go,” she said to Devin. “Rika’s mad at something.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to go, too. Looks like the Shelter Springs ambulance is on its way with a cardiac patient.”
“Okay. Good luck. Go save a life.”
Her sister was a dedicated, caring doctor at Lake Haven Hospital, as passionate about her patients as McKenzie was about their town.
“Let me know if you hear anything down at city hall about why Ben Kilpatrick has come back to our fair city after all these years.”
“Sure. And then maybe you can tell me why you’re so curious.”
She could almost hear the shrug in Devin’s voice. “Are you kidding me? It’s not every day a gorgeous playboy billionaire comes to town.”
And that was the crux of the matter. Somehow it seemed wholly unfair, a serious karmic calamity, that he had done so well for himself after he left town. If she had her way, he would be living in the proverbial van down by the river—or at least in one of his own dilapidated buildings.
Rika barked again and McKenzie hurried to the back door that led onto her terrace. She really hoped it wasn’t a skunk. They weren’t uncommon in the area, especially not this time of year. Her dog had encountered one the week before on their morning run on a favorite mountain trail and it had taken her three baths in the magic solution she found on the internet before she could allow Rika back into the house.
Her dog wasn’t in the yard, she saw immediately. Now that she was outside, she realized the barking was more excited and playful than upset. All the more reason to hope she wasn’t trying to make nice with some odoriferous little friend.
“Come,” she called again. “Inside.”
The dog bounded through a break in the bushes between the house next door, followed instantly by another dog—a beautiful German shepherd with classic markings.
She had been right. Rika had been making friends. She and the German shepherd looked tight as ticks, tails wagging as they raced exuberantly around the yard.
The dog must belong to the new renters of the Sloane house. Carole would pitch a royal fit if she knew they had a dog over there. McKenzie knew it was strictly prohibited.
Now what was she supposed to do?
A man suddenly walked through the gap in landscaping. He had brown hair, but a sudden piercing ray of the setting sun obscured his features more than that.
She really didn’t want a confrontation with the man, especially not on a Friday night when she had been so looking forward to a relaxing night at home. She supposed she could just call Carole or the property management company and let them deal with the situation.
That seemed a cop-out, since Carole had asked her to keep an eye on the place.
She forced a smile and approached the dog’s owner. “Hi. Good evening. You must be renting the place from Carole. I’m McKenzie Shaw. I live next door. Rika, that dog you’re playing catch with, is mine.”
The man turned around and the pleasant evening around her seemed to go dark and still as she took in sun-streaked brown hair, steely blue eyes, chiseled jaw.
Her stomach dropped as if somebody had just picked her up and tossed her into the cold lake.
Ben Kilpatrick. Here. Staying in the house next door.
So much for her lovely evening at home.
CHAPTER TWO
FOR A MOMENT, McKenzie could only stare at the man. It took her another minute before she could find her voice.
“This must be a record,” she finally said. “The Haven Point rumor mill actually nailed it, for once. You are back.”
Her sister was usually right but why did she have to be right about this, darn it?
Why was he here? She highly doubted he had come to make amends for all he had done. Judging by history, he was probably here to cause more trouble.
“Hello, McKenzie. Long time, and all that.”
He gave her an almost-smile, though she didn’t miss the rather bleak look in his blue eyes that made her suspect the rumor mill had something else right—Ben Kilpatrick wasn’t any happier to find himself back in Haven Point than she was.
Even with the dark shadows in his gaze, he was far more gorgeous than he’d been when she was a girl. That chiseled jaw was more, well, chisel-y, his eyes seemed more intense, his features masculine and strong.
The last time she had seen Ben in person had been at Lily’s funeral. The sudden realization sent a wave of remembered grief washing over her for her friend and his sister, one of the most courageous people she had ever met. Lily had lost her battle against cystic fibrosis the year they both turned thirteen.
She pushed away the echoing sadness. Lily had been gone a long time. As much as she might despise Ben, McKenzie could never fault him for his care of his sister. In all the years she had been friends with Lily, she had never seen Ben be anything but loving and kind with her, patient under very difficult circumstances.
She had a long list of other sins she could lay at his feet, however, starting with the abrupt way he had left town right after the funeral and taken her idealism and trust with him.
“I’d like to say I’m happy to see you, but I’ve never been a very good liar.”
“Oh, ouch.”
His mouth quirked up in a smile and he appeared more amused than offended.
She had a hundred accusations she wanted to hurl at him, years of helpless frustration as she watched her town die inch by inch.
Instead, she focused on what was really the least important of them all.
“Is this your dog?” she demanded.
“No. Okay. Yes. Sort of. This is Hondo.”
The dog’s tongue lolled out and he appeared to beam broadly at his name.
“Like the John Wayne movie?”
“I suppose. I didn’t name him.”
The dog nosed her hand in a friendly way but McKenzie only frowned, refusing to be charmed by anything associated with Ben. Unlike Rika, she had a few standards. “Is he your dog or isn’t he?”
“Technically, he’s mine, I guess. Until a few weeks ago, he belonged to a good friend. He died unexpectedly but stipulated in his will that I take him. I’m not sure why. It’s a temporary situation. Until I can find him a good home, I guess we’re stuck with each other.”
Naturally, he wouldn’t want to take any unexpected responsibility that had been thrust on him. Why ruin a perfect track record? It was a wonder he bothered to feed and water the dog, if his treatment of the property he inherited in Haven Point was any indication.
“He’s a beautiful dog. Unfortunately, the owner doesn’t allow pets at the vacation rental. I’m sure the property management company informed you of that fact. As usual, you probably think the rules don’t apply to you, right?”
His eyes widened a little at the direct frontal attack. Okay, she hadn’t meant to add that last bit. She probably should have tried for politeness first but the hostility had sort of slipped out.
“Actually,” he answered, a little stiffly, “when I was looking for a place to stay with Hondo while I’m in town, Carole was kind enough to make an exception to the no-pets rule.”
McKenzie could just bet Carole would make an exception. She had always liked the other woman and considered them good friends for the short time Carole had been her next-door neighbor before the divorce, but she knew Carole was eager to add another husband to her collection—even one several years younger than she. A man with an amazingly attractive portfolio would only sweeten the deal.
Not to mention that sinful mouth and eyes the same deep blue as Lake Haven on a calm August morning.
She frowned. She didn’t care about his sinful mouth, for heaven’s sake.
“I’ve discovered in the few weeks since Hondo here came to live with me that he isn’t crazy about hotels—and, quite frankly, vice versa. Since I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town, a vacation rental seemed the most logical option. The dock was definitely a bonus.”
“I saw the boat out front when I came home. It’s a Killy, isn’t it?”
His family’s boatworks had been famous across the world for making beautiful wooden boats. Many older models were considered classics and were highly sought by collectors for their tight construction and classic lines. In only a few days, Haven Point would be hosting its annual wooden boat festival as part of Lake Haven Days, when collectors came from all over to share their love for the elegantly crafted boats.
“Yes. The Delphine, named for my grandmother.”
The Delphine was one of the most expensive and hard-to-find of the older Killy models, she knew. While McKenzie wasn’t exactly an expert on the boatworks and its history or products, she had chaired the Lake Haven Days committee three years in a row at the request of the previous city administration and had come to know more than she ever expected about wooden boats and the passionate fans who adored them.
She never would have expected Ben to be the sentimental type, especially considering he was the one who made sure Kilpatrick Boatworks would never manufacture another Killy.
In one single afternoon five years earlier, he dealt a crippling blow to the town and his family’s legacy when he closed the factory and put two hundred people out of work.
She curled her fingers into fists at the reminder. How dare he show up in the town he had irreparably damaged, towing behind him bold and painful evidence of all he had taken away? Was he trying to rub everybody’s faces in it?
Grrr.
The words he had spoken suddenly penetrated the fog of anger around her.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town.
Was he talking days, weeks, months? All of it spent next door to her?
How would she endure it, when some heretofore unknown violent part of her wished she could drag him behind his family’s beautiful boat for two or three hours?
Having him next door was going to be torture. Her comfortable little house on the lake was her sanctuary. She desperately needed the calm oasis she found here on Redemption Bay, overlooking the raw, craggy mountains reflected in the vivid blue waters of the lake.
With him staying next door, she wouldn’t be able to relax for an instant. She would always be aware he was there, just a few shrubs away.
She couldn’t bear it.
Okay. Gloves officially coming off now. The idea that he had brought one of his family’s boats back to town to float in Lake Haven in front of everyone like some kind of taunt was the last straw. Why bother being polite?
“I’ll admit, I’m surprised to see you here. Last I heard, you despised Haven Point and never wanted to see the place again. You’ve certainly done your best to see us obliterated off the map.”
He frowned. “I never despised Haven Point. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, wouldn’t you say?”
“What else would you call it? You deliberately let the downtown fall into ruins.”
“I did?”
The jerk actually had the nerve to look surprised at the accusation.
“You must have driven through town on your way here. You had to have seen all the boarded-up buildings and vacant properties in your buildings.”
“Not mine now,” he pointed out. “Aidan Caine owns them.”
“For five years they were yours!” she exclaimed. “And for five years you did absolutely nothing to take care of them except hire a completely incompetent property manager, who robbed you blind along with the tenants of your buildings.”
He glowered at her, looking suddenly as dark and forbidding as thunderstorms over the Redemptions.
Rika whined a little and suddenly planted her haunches at McKenzie’s feet. McKenzie highly doubted Ben would pose any sort of threat to her but she appreciated the moral support, anyway.
“I might have been less...attentive than I should have been,” he said stiffly. “I’ve been a little busy the last few years. And, again, I haven’t owned the property since I sold everything to Aidan.”
“Regardless, the problem was created by you. Haven Point is practically a ghost town, with almost half of the businesses closing or relocating outside the city limits to Shelter Springs since Joe died. I’m the mayor of Haven Point. Did you know that?”
“I did not. Congratulations?”
“Condolences are more in order, thanks to you. It’s a rough job, especially with our constantly plummeting tax revenue. It kills me to know we could have a thriving, active downtown filled with shops, restaurants, hotels, entertainment—if the man who owned most of the real estate in this town hadn’t completely ignored his responsibilities for the last five years.”
His jaw clenched for only a moment before his features smoothed out. “Wow. This is an interesting way to welcome someone to your town. Go directly on the attack.”
She refused to feel guilty. He deserved every ounce of her hostility and more. “I’m very welcoming to newcomers, in general.”
“Just not to me.”
Could he honestly blame her? He had created a huge mess and even with Aidan’s cooperation now, she didn’t know how to help her town find its way out.
“Let’s be honest. You’re not my favorite person right now.”
“Message received, loud and clear, Mayor. I’ll try to stay out of your way while I’m here. That might be a touch difficult, considering we’re next-door neighbors and share a boat dock, but I’ll do my best.”
If it hadn’t been such a long day—and if she weren’t so darn angry at the man—she might have been able to muster a facsimile of politeness, but right now it didn’t seem worth the effort. “How long are you staying?”
“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “A week. Maybe two. Depends.”
On what? His mood? The moon cycle? The futures market?
Why was he here?
He didn’t seem inclined to be forthcoming about that particular question on his own and she couldn’t figure out a way to ask, especially considering she had just unloaded years of frustration on him.
His reasons for being here were none of her business, really. He could travel anywhere he wanted. She was the mayor, not some petty megalomaniac who could demand to see his papers once he crossed over her town boundary.
McKenzie fought the urge to press a hand to her suddenly shaky insides. She had never been very good at confrontations and now that the heat of this one with Ben had passed, she felt a little quivery and unsettled. At the moment, she only wanted to go home, lock the door, run a hot bath and try to pretend the past fifteen minutes never happened.
She certainly wasn’t going to bring her chicken breast out to the terrace to grill now. She would just have to sauté it or something, which wasn’t nearly as good.
Darn the man for ruining what had promised to be such a beautiful evening.
“Good night, then. I’ll do my best to keep Rika on my property.”
“I don’t mind her. I get the feeling the boundary between the houses has been fairly fluid. I see no reason to change that. She’s welcome over there.”
She nodded, but gripped her dog’s collar tightly so her poodle wouldn’t be tempted to go sniffing after Hondo again.
Cheap tart. Okay, so he was big and beautiful, with all those muscles. That didn’t make him good for her.
The dogs, of course. She was talking about the dogs.
“Come, Rika.”
After considerable effort, she managed to convince her dog to leave her new BFF and return to the house. The dog immediately plopped down onto her favorite spot on the rug in the sunroom.
Usually the room was McKenzie’s favorite of the house, too—but with those glass windows, she was entirely too aware of her new neighbor’s presence next door. She closed all the blinds before she turned around and marched into the kitchen.
Her hands were shaking and her knees felt as weak as the first time she had gone backcountry skiing with her friend Paulo and they had nearly been caught in an avalanche when a cornice above them had broken free.
They had managed to ski out of the path just in time. Right now, she didn’t feel as lucky as that day. She felt as if thousands of tons of snow and ice and rock had just tumbled over her head.
Ben Kilpatrick. Here, in Haven Point, after all these years, and tougher, harder, more sexy than ever.
Oh, she used to have such a crush on the man. It was humiliating, really, when she remembered how she had pined for him. He barely knew she was alive but she had watched him with almost stalker-like intensity. When she would visit Lily at Snow Angel Cove to bring her homework or hang out and talk about boys, McKenzie used to pray he would be there. She hoped every time that he would come into Lily’s room—which had become basically a hospital room in later months as her condition regressed—to check on her at some point during the visit.
When he did stop by, he barely noticed McKenzie. She knew that. He plainly adored his ill younger sister and probably didn’t know McKenzie existed.
He had been brooding and angry back then. Though she had never been quite sure why, she sensed the atmosphere at Snow Angel Cove hadn’t been exactly nurturing and warm. She had always liked his mother, Lydia, but Joe was a serious A-hole most of the time, cold and cruel, especially to Ben.
Why was he here? And why now? It was the worst possible timing. She was heading into her busiest few weeks of the year. Lake Haven Days, the boat show, the Fourth of July town celebrations. She didn’t expect to have five minutes to even breathe in the next week to ten days and now she had to worry about Ben Kilpatrick living next door.
It was enough to make a woman want to tear her hair out—or want to curl up in her bed under the blankets and pretend she didn’t have a business or a town to run.
* * *
AFTER THEIR NEIGHBORS went inside their house, Ben led Hondo next door. The dog immediately found a stick under the big birch tree, carried it to the water’s edge, then flopped down on his belly and started to chew it.
Ben watched him for a moment, then took a few more steps to a double swing overlooking the water just a few yards from the dock.
It was beautiful here. Wispy clouds encircled the tops of the Redemption Mountains and the setting sun painted them pink and coral and lavender, a scene perfectly reflected in the clear waters of the lake.
Because of the way the shoreline curved, he could see the lights of downtown begin to twinkle in the twilight and with a piercing cry, a red-tailed hawk suddenly soared from one of the tall pines that grew in such abundance around the lake, lending their crisp, tart scent to the scene.
Haven Point was an idyllic spot, really. How had he forgotten that over the years? Somehow he must have let the darkness and despair of his home life swallow the memory.
Yes, it was pretty. That didn’t make him any happier at being forced to come back.
He could have said no.
He wasn’t exactly an indentured servant. When Aidan asked him to take on this assignment after Marsh’s sudden fatal heart attack, Ben could have told him to kiss off, to send someone else at Caine Tech.
Yes, they were facing a top-level decision but he could have picked two or three others on his team or Aidan’s, people he trusted, who were likely to be more objective about Haven Point than he was.
It would have been the logical move—and Ben was nothing if not logical.
So why hadn’t he? Why was he here on a beautiful late-June evening gazing out at a couple of colorful wood ducks swooping in to land on the water?
He didn’t have a clear answer to that, even inside his own head. Something was tugging him back here and had been for some time. Closure, maybe? Some sense of unfinished business? He had left town so abruptly, the afternoon of Lily’s funeral, and he hadn’t been back since.
Whatever the reason drawing him to Haven Point, he was here now. Aidan had wanted him to take over for Marshall Phillips on this fact-finding assignment and Ben had agreed.
“I think it will be good for you to go back,” Aidan said three days earlier when he came to Ben’s house personally to ask him to come. “Take it from a man who survived a brain tumor. At some point in your life, before it’s too late, you have to grab your ghosts by the throat and tell them to back the hell off. The only way to do that is to face them head-on.”
He hadn’t seen the point in arguing with Aidan that he didn’t have ghosts, unless he were counting the painful memories of the younger sister he adored.
He didn’t hate Haven Point. It was merely a small, beautifully situated town where he had once lived—one he had intended to spend the rest of his life without ever stepping foot in again.
“Besides,” Aidan had continued with that logic that was always so damn hard for Ben to refute. “You were just saying how that Killy you’ve been working to renovate for the last year is done and ready for her maiden voyage. It seems fitting that you put her in the water for the first time at Lake Haven, where she came from.”