“Come here,” Logan said, reaching a hand out to her. “I want you to meet the guy who tried to drown me when we were nine.”
Alex laughed as she took Logan’s hand and let him pull her to his side, and be tucked under one arm. “We already met,” she said, then added, “but if I’d known that, I’d have let him push that dresser all by himself.”
Ben lifted both hands. “In my defense, it was Logan’s idea to take out the two-master. We were only cleared for the little sunfish, but—”
“Oh now, hold on—”
“I hear boys bickering. Ben Campbell must be back in my house,” Hannah said, grinning widely as she came in through the mudroom door and quickly joined the foursome.
Ben folded Hannah in a quick hug and bussed her cheek before letting her go. “I understand another McCrae has been snatched up off the available list,” he told her. “Who is this Blue guy? Do I need to check him out?”
Hannah elbowed her brother in the ribs, making Logan wince. “Are you kidding me? With the police chief as my brother? I’m pretty sure Logan has everything down to the day and hour of Calder’s birth in a file somewhere. There can’t be anything left to check.”
Fiona watched the foursome and the ease with which they laughed and fell into that all-too-familiar pattern of bantering and teasing, as Ben caught up with the two McCraes and effortlessly included Alex in the mix. Fiona knew she could walk over there, insert herself into the conversation, but she stayed where she was, observing, telling herself she was perfectly fine just watching the happy reunion, basking in the laughter that was once again filling Pelican Point.
But instead of watching the happy reunion, Fiona turned her attention back to her coat, thinking she was going to get herself out of it even if she had to just cut the damn loops off.
Yep. Ben Campbell was back and it was like nothing had changed.
Nothing at all.
Chapter Three
Ben dug his gloved hands deeper into the fleece-lined pockets of his canvas coat, feeling the cold already chapping his face. “Looks even more impressive up close,” he said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the wind. “Should have gotten over here sooner.”
“It’s more than I thought I’d see in my lifetime,” Logan told him, hunching his large frame a little as he too sought to find a bit of refuge from the chilling wind. “It’s all Fergus’s doing really. He’s the one who got Alex out here. The rest I owe to her.”
Ben grinned at him. “So, you got the lighthouse and the girl. I always knew you’d end up the winner.”
Logan tugged open the door at the base of the lighthouse. “I didn’t know we were keeping score,” he said, motioning Ben inside.
“Since when?” Ben elbowed him on his way past, then ducked, chuckling as Logan took a mock swipe at his head, just barely missing his favorite wool beanie. “Wow,” he said, as he stared up into the restored lighthouse. “Beyond impressive.”
Logan was looking upward right along with him. “I know. I still can’t get over it.” He motioned for Ben to go up the metal stairs that wrapped around and up the interior walls.
Ben kept on past the floor situated midway, all the way to the top. He stepped into the room where the big lens was housed, but opted not to go out to the widow’s walk given the winter cold. “How long has it been?” he asked, taking in the stunning, panoramic view of Pelican Bay, the harbor on the other side, and even down the inlet, toward Snowflake Bay. He glanced at Logan. “A dozen years? Damn, more than that. How did we get old? Wasn’t it yesterday we were up here, telling ghost ship stories?”
Logan grinned. “I’m pretty sure the last stories we told ourselves had more to do with how to get girls up here than sunken ships.”
Ben’s smile remained, but there was a thread of emotion in his voice now, as he said, “Yet another contest you bested me at.” Logan had spent a lot of time up here with Jessica Tate, his first serious girlfriend and eventual fiancée, then never went in the lighthouse again after she died in a boating accident.
“Well, it is my lighthouse,” Logan replied, tone still light, and no past memories clouding his dark-eyed gaze.
“Lucky bastard,” Ben said, thinking Alex had worked miracles on far more than the lighthouse.
Logan turned his gaze from the horizon, a light twinkling in those wild, topaz-colored eyes of his now. Fiona had them, too, though Ben couldn’t recall knowing or remembering that until seeing her again today.
“Of course,” Logan said, “the object of your affections also owned this lighthouse and yet you never did get her up here.”
“How can you be so sure?” Ben shot back.
“Because you’re still alive.”
Ben hooted out a laugh at that. “Hard to believe she’s getting married. Which is dumb, I guess, given it’s hard to believe we all waited this long to tie the knot.”
Logan’s gaze became a bit more pointed then. “So things with Annalise aren’t—”
“No, they aren’t,” Ben said flatly, but easily enough. It felt good to be past all the tougher emotions and on to that place where it was just something that had happened in his past. Or getting close to that place, anyway. “And they won’t be. It’s been over for a long time, longer than I wanted to admit, but we officially broke up almost a year ago.”
“You good?”
Ben half nodded, half shrugged. “I’m good.”
Logan’s expression told him what he thought of that half-assed response. “You aren’t back here because Hannah’s come home, are you?”
“What is it with that?” Ben said, chuckling, sincerely surprised. “No, I’m not here for your sister. Jeez. Fireplug asked me the same thing.” At Logan’s wince, he said, “What?” Then thought over what he’d said, and added, “The nickname? Come on, she knows it’s out of affection. We were kids, and she knew I was just being a jerkface.” He grinned. “I know this, because she told me so. Often.”
Logan’s expression suggested that things hadn’t changed much, but what he said was, “That’s not what I meant, but it doesn’t matter.” At Ben’s hoot of laughter, it was his turn to look honestly surprised. “What was that for?”
“Even all this time later, you’re so damn relieved I’m not going after your sister. I’m a little insulted here, bro.”
“She’s my sister. Hell, she should be like your sister. You grew up here, for God’s sake.”
“Well, you’ve always been like a brother to me, you know that. But I can’t lie and pretend that my thoughts of Hannah were ever—”
His words were cut off by Logan snaking his hand out and cuffing an arm around Ben’s neck, effectively cutting off his ability to speak. Ben elbowed him and in an instant they were twelve years old again, scuffling about like two bugs in a lobster trap.
Ben waved the white flag first, raising his hands in mock surrender, then sucker punching Logan in the gut as he let him go. He frowned, shaking his hand. “Damn, I thought married life was supposed to make you soft. What are you wearing under that thing, Chief, a bulletproof vest?”
Logan chuckled as they both leaned on the lens housing, each a little winded, faces flushed as much from the horseplay as the freezing temperatures. “So, things in Portsmouth are going okay then? I know I haven’t kept up lately. This past year has been a little crazy, but that’s no excuse.”
“No explanations needed. I feel bad about not being here for the big day.”
“Is the magazine out yet?”
“Any day now. I haven’t seen it yet.” At Logan’s raised eyebrows, he added, “The holiday issue is their big deal of the year, so it’s kept under wraps. I’ll get a stack when it hits the stands.” He grinned. “As long as they make Campbell Landscapes look good, I’m happy.”
Logan grinned. “I’m sure they did you justice. That should put a little knot in Annalise’s folks’ starchy undershorts, shouldn’t it?”
“I couldn’t care less what the Mandervilles think about it.” At Logan�
�s raised eyebrows, he let all pretenses fall, wondering why he’d even bothered. He might not have spent much time with his closest childhood friend of late, but his bond with Logan was such that no matter how much time passed between visits, they were family, born and raised, and nothing could ever change that. Any time lapse between them immediately evaporated the moment they were back in the same space. “Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t break my heart if her folks saw it and had second thoughts about their daughter slumming it with a glorified groundskeeper.”
“You’re hardly that,” Logan said. “But why would they want to clutter their closed minds with actual reality?”
“Exactly. Annalise is with some doctor now.”
“What? When did that happen?”
Ben laughed. “We really have been out of touch way too long. She’s been with Dr. Biff Backsley III for almost a year now. Longer actually, as I’m pretty sure they were shacking up before I finally called it quits for good.”
“Biff Backsley? Seriously? Now you’re just making shit up.”
Ben spread his arms out and laughed as he shook his head. “My imagination runs more toward creative landscaping solutions. I couldn’t make that up if I tried. Oxford undergrad, Harvard Medical School. His family is both old New England money and old actual England money.”
“You seem to know a fair amount about the guy,” Logan said, eyebrow lifted.
“What, like I went and Googled him? Please. Annalise made sure I knew. I’m happy for the guy, truly. Now she can focus on fucking up his head instead.”
Logan chuckled and nodded. “I won’t get into the ‘I told you sos’ since I gave that up when you got back together after the first time she cheated on you.”
“Yeah, fool me once, shame on her, I know, I know,” he said. “But all the lessons have been learned now. Trust me.”
“So, the Mandervilles won the son-in-law lottery after all,” Logan said. “I wonder if Annalise got a finder’s fee.”
Ben laughed at that, happy he was finally at a place in his life that he could truly find it funny. It had taken a good long while, but Annalise was no longer the one who got away. More like the one he was thankful to have lost.
He glanced up to find Logan looking at him again, in that way only brothers or other family could.
“You really are past it, aren’t you?” he asked, relief clear on his face.
He nodded. “I won’t lie. I wasn’t the most fun guy to be around for a good while, but yes, well done and past.”
“Do you and Annalise communicate at all? No chance of things becoming—”
“On again?” Ben shook his head. “None. And that’s a very good thing.” And that was all that needed saying.
Logan held his gaze a beat longer, then nodded, accepting the truth of it. “Anybody else on the radar?” Ben shook his head. Logan turned and leaned back on the rail that surrounded the lighthouse lens, folding his arms as he shifted his gaze back to the horizon.
“It’s good to be back up here,” Ben said, after a moment of companionable silence. “Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”
Logan nodded. Another minute passed, and then he said, “So, your folks. What’s up with your dad? I’m trying to picture the discussion that ended with him willingly moving south and away from the farm, but I just can’t imagine it.”
Ben grinned, even though he wanted to rub at the twinge in his heart. His grip tightened slightly on the rail that surrounded the lens housing. “You can thank my mom for that little miracle. Me, the doctors, we all talked to him until we were blue in the face. She takes him quietly aside and suddenly they’re packing up and it’s all like it was his idea and what the hell are we sitting around for, can’t we see there’s packing to be done?”
Logan chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, even from my limited experience, I feel I can say, with a fair amount of authority, wives are like that. And yet, with your dad? I still can’t see it.”
They both laughed, and as the sound faded back to comfortable silence, Ben thought about all the changes happening in his parents’ lives, and felt that prickle of guilt again, for feeling so burdened by the issues their retirement was creating in his life. He was fortunate to still have a father, to have both his parents. He thought about all the guy sitting beside him had lost, and it made him feel even more ungrateful.
“Your dad going to be okay?” Logan asked quietly.
He started to say yeah, sure, it was all going to be fine, which was what he’d told the countless folks who’d asked after his parents, both in Snowflake Bay and here in the Cove, even in Portsmouth, as many of his friends and employees had met his parents on their visits down to see their only son. But this was Logan, his brother in every way but blood, and not only would he be pissed if Ben was anything other than honest with him, but Ben was grateful there was someone he could talk to about the truth of the matter. “For the time being, yeah.”
Logan glanced over, surprise and concern equally in his eyes. “What’s going on?”
Ben paused, took a breath, and said the words he hadn’t said out loud to anyone. “He’s in the early stages of Parkinson’s.”
“Shit.”
“Pretty much.”
Logan put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, squeezed hard. “I’m sorry.”
Ben shrugged, but didn’t shrug off the support. “It’s a thing, you know? Shit happens. We’re dealing with it. They’re dealing with it. So far, it’s not creating a lot of issues. And who knows, maybe now that he’s away from the stress and physical demands of the farm, it will progress more slowly and they’ll have a lot more time together. I think that was the argument my mother made. Which did he want more time with? The trees, or with her?”
“Smart woman.” Logan pushed away from the rail, turned to look at Ben, leaning back on the glass panes that surrounded the tower room. “How is she holding up? Will she tell you when it’s too hard for her, when she needs help? You know if there’s anything I can do—your parents were like a second set of parents to me, and there’s nothing—”
“I know, man.” Ben looked up at Logan. “I know. And I appreciate it. They do, too. I—for now, it’s good. But in time . . . I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
“I’m always here. We all are. Whatever you need.”
Ben stood, and the two men shared a quick, tight hug. “Thanks. Just saying it out loud helps.”
Logan led the way back down the stairs. “What does this all mean for you?” he asked as they reached the bottom.
Ben shook his head. “I’m still not sure. Mom wants me to sell the place, choosing a good buyer, of course, who will carry on the business, and go back to my life.”
“Is it financial? Do they need—?”
“No, they’re fine. It’s not about money. At least, not at this point, anyway. I think she just doesn’t want to burden me. They figured out early on I probably wasn’t going to be the one to take over. I think maybe Dad was holding out for a grandchild to come along and maybe . . .” He let that drift off, then smiled, shook his head again. “Not in the cards, I guess.”
“So, are you thinking of selling?”
Ben paused after they reached the base of the lighthouse, before they headed back outside and into the wind. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to. I know, despite what they say, that neither Mom nor Dad wants to see the farm go to someone else, no matter their future plans for it.”
“Can you get someone to run it for you?”
“That’s one of the possibilities, yes. It’s all—”
“New,” Logan said, then grinned. “I know all about new and sudden life changes.” He clapped Ben on the shoulder. “Turns out some of them are pretty damn amazing. Who knows, maybe this will turn out to be an opportunity in disguise.”
Ben chuckled and nodded as he followed Logan out of the lighthouse and back across the property, toward the main house, and to where his truck was parked around front. His thoughts, however, weren’t so
optimistic. He honestly had no idea what to do about this recent turn of events. More to the point, he didn’t know what he really wanted to do about it, speaking just for himself, and not his parents, or the generations of folks who were dedicated Campbell Christmas Tree Farm customers. He knew what they wanted him to do. Come home. Take over the farm. He thought about his life in Portsmouth. His company. How hard he’d worked to build it into something he could be proud of, and how that was all finally coming together in ways he hadn’t even anticipated.
Come home. Take over the family business.
And do what with the life and business I already have?
Chapter Four
“Earth to Fiona. Maid of honor. Party planner extraordinaire.”
Fiona turned from the dormer window where she’d been watching Ben drive off in his family’s company pickup truck. Supposedly she was doing her last-second brainstorming on how to approach her big sister about her change-the-date plan. Hannah and Alex had unloaded all the binders and magazines she’d lugged upstairs and were spreading them out on the bed, already excitedly chattering about all things wedding. Of course, with Alex being a newlywed herself, the two were both in their element. So much for using Alex as backup.
Even so, Fiona hadn’t given up on her plan, but her musings had once again been derailed when her attention was snagged by Logan and Ben as they rounded the side of the house. They were laughing, smiling, all hearty handshakes good-bye that turned into another round of back-slapping guy hugs. It was stupid, really, to feel the pangs she was feeling. She was a confident, talented, mature woman. A woman who took life by the horns. “Yeah,” she muttered under her breath. “Drop your guard for two seconds though and life gores you right in the gut.” Or the heart, as the case may be.
“Fi?”
She looked over at the other two. “Sorry, lost in maid-of-honor thoughts,” she lied. The very adult things Ben Campbell made her think about were anything but honorable.
Hannah’s beatific smile didn’t so much as flicker, and Fi thought maybe what they said was true. Brides had a special glow. Like pregnant mothers. Lit by the inner warmth of an upcoming blessed event. Gah.
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