“Fine. You’re passionately indifferent, though I don’t know how it’s possible not to love it here. Haven Point is a beautiful place filled with good, hardworking people who care about this town and about each other.”
He leaned back in his seat. “That may be true but I can’t see that as a basis for investing millions in a new facility here. I’ll be honest. I see real problems with Haven Point. For one thing, the distance to a major airport is a real concern. Boise is almost two hours away. It’s fine for Aidan, who has his own private jet, but everybody else will have to travel here from Boise. Then you’ve got the matter of your inadequate infrastructure and few housing opportunities. All are negatives.”
“Are there any positives?”
He remained stubbornly silent and she wanted to point out a hundred wonderful things about her town. Besides the kind neighbors and beautiful surroundings, she could have cited the relatively low cost of living, the well-educated population, the favorable tax conditions.
“I see,” she said when his silence stretched out. “That’s clear enough.”
“It’s a very pretty lake town, McKenzie, but when it comes to business decisions, that can’t be enough. From my perspective, the negatives outweigh the positives. But I’m here and I’m keeping an open mind.”
She doubted that was possible for him but she didn’t see the point in arguing.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“It seemed only fair. I should also let you know, part of my responsibility here is to study the possibility of placing the facility in Shelter Springs. It’s larger, with better infrastructure and a bigger existing real estate market and commercial base. If we did that, Haven Point would probably see some trickle-down positive impact.”
The waitress was heading in their direction and she used that as an excuse to jump from the booth. “I’ve got to go so I can open my store. Thank you for telling me why you’re really here. I guess it’s good to know what we’re up against. You’re going to change your mind. Mark my words. After you spend a week in Haven Point, you’ll have no choice but to see we’re the clear winner among all your contenders.”
She had no idea how she was going to prove that to him, but she darn well intended to try.
CHAPTER FOUR
BEN WASN’T AT ALL SURE he liked that sudden militant gleam in the mayor’s lovely dark gaze as she looked at him.
“I admire your confidence,” he murmured. He considered it completely misguided and without merit, but he appreciated her determination and her loyalty.
“You’ll see,” she repeated, then grabbed her go-cup off the table and turned around and headed for the door.
He hated to disappoint her but he truly felt as if Haven Point was the weakest of the contenders. He intended to make a decision based on logic and reason. He was doing his best to keep an open mind but it wasn’t easy.
He had offered up the town’s greatest shortcomings, from his perspective. What he hadn’t told her was that everywhere he looked in Haven Point, the past seemed to crowd him.
Being here again left him itchy, on edge. All the dark, ugly memories he thought he had firmly and succinctly dealt with long ago seemed to be creeping back to life, like skeletal, decomposing fingers suddenly poking over the side of an opened grave.
The waitress reached him finally. She poured coffee without asking and pulled out a notebook. “Have you decided yet?” she asked, her tone just shy of belligerent.
She looked familiar, a woman about his age and on the plump, comfortable side. Her name tag read Sharon and he suddenly placed her. Sharon Lowell. She had been in his grade and had dated one of his friends.
“Hi, Sharon. Good to see you again.”
“Likewise.” She offered a smile that didn’t look close to genuine. It took him a moment to remember her brother and father had both worked at the boatworks.
McKenzie Shaw wasn’t the only one in town who hated him. He wasn’t used to that but he supposed he couldn’t really blame them. Closing Kilpatrick Boatworks had been a necessary but difficult decision, when the business was steadily losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
“Have you had time to look at the menu or do you need a few more minutes?”
“I’m ready. I believe I’ll have a Greek omelet and a side of whole wheat toast.”
“Right. You want hash browns or anything?”
“No. Just the eggs and toast.”
“Got it.” She nodded and walked away without even bothering to make the customary server small talk.
As soon as she left, he once more became conscious of all the gazes aimed in his direction, some simply curious, others openly hostile.
It was awkward all the way around. He and Aidan both should have expected this. He was apparently the least popular person in Haven Point.
At least in one respect, he was carrying on his father’s legacy.
After looking out the window for a while at the desultory traffic passing by, he turned to the reliable diversion of his cell phone and started scrolling through and answering messages and emails.
After a few moments, a voice intruded into his digital distraction.
“Ben! I thought that was you.”
He looked up and knew the man instantly, though he hadn’t seen him in years. Probably not since Lily’s funeral, when he had left Haven Point.
Dr. Russell Warrick, their family’s longtime physician, was still handsome, though in his late fifties. He had brown hair threaded with gray, warm blue eyes and a trim, athletic build.
Lily had quite simply adored the man. As far as Ben’s younger sister had been concerned, Dr. Warrick could do no wrong.
He had always been so calm and patient with her, Ben remembered, even in those difficult last days of hospice.
He stood up and held out his hand. “Dr. Warrick. Hello.”
“Wow. It’s great to see you, son! It’s been far too long since you’ve been back this way.”
He couldn’t say he agreed but he smiled anyway, remembering a hundred different kindnesses over the years.
He gestured to the table across from him. “Join me, won’t you?”
“I just finished but I’ll sit for a moment to catch up. I’m due at the hospital for rounds but not for a while yet.”
“How are you?” Ben asked when the physician sat down. “How’s your family?”
Warrick had two sons, one a few years younger than Ben and another who had been around Lily and McKenzie’s age.
“The boys are good. They both live in Boise and between the two have given me three beautiful grandchildren.” He paused and sadness slanted across those blue eyes. “You may not have heard but I lost my wife a year ago.”
He remembered the other woman as kind and matronly. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“She was a good woman and I miss her every day, even a year later. I try to stay busy but, well, you know. I have cut back, though. I’ve taken on a go-getter young partner and she’s doing most of the work these days. You may remember her from school, though I think she was a bit younger than you. Devin Shaw.”
McKenzie’s half sister, he recalled. He had never known her well but he remembered her as being scary-smart.
“So how long are you back in town?” Warrick asked him.
“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “A week, maybe. Ten days.”
“You’re still working with Aidan at Caine Tech?”
“I am.”
“He’s a good man,” Warrick said with a smile.
Ben still found it odd that his best friend had a life here that he loved. It was more than a little surreal that the world where he had lived his first seventeen years had merged with the world he had created since leaving—and he still felt more than a little guilty about sell
ing Aidan his holdings here.
If he’d had any idea Aidan had a brain tumor when the other man offered an exorbitant amount for Snow Angel Cove and his commercial holdings in Haven Point, Ben never would have agreed to the deal. The whole situation still left a bad taste in his mouth, even though he had sold the property for far less than market value.
In the end, Aidan had come out ahead—as he usually did—but Ben knew the other man never would have even made an offer for property in this obscure corner of Idaho if the tendrils of a benign tumor hadn’t been pressing on key decision-making areas of his brain at the time.
After Aidan’s diagnosis, Ben had tried to back out of the deal and invalidate the sale but Aidan refused to let him. For reasons Ben still didn’t understand, Aidan had fallen for this place and for Snow Angel Cove.
“You’ve done well for yourself with Caine, haven’t you?” Warrick said.
“He’s a good man,” he answered.
From their first encounter when Caine Tech was just a start-up like thousands of others in Silicon Valley, they had clicked. They made a damn good team. Aidan was inarguably the tech wizard behind the success of the company but Ben liked to think he was the business genius.
“I could always tell you had big things ahead of you,” Warrick said, with an odd note in his voice that almost sounded like pride.
Ben didn’t know quite how to answer that so he remained silent.
“Your mother must be thrilled to have you back in town, even if it’s only for a few weeks.”
The band of tension around his shoulders seemed to ratchet a notch tighter. “I haven’t had the chance to tell her,” he said curtly. “I don’t believe she’s around, anyway. Last I heard she was going to Tuscany.”
He should have called her, anyway. The moment he gave in and agreed to come to town on this assignment, he should have dropped her an email. Technically, Lydia lived in Shelter Springs—well, she had a condo there anyway, purchased after Big Joe died, but she lived there only in the summer months. Most of the time, she lived in the San Diego area, near one of her sisters, where she had moved after the divorce.
He wasn’t estranged from his mother. They spoke on the phone or emailed weekly but theirs was a strained relationship.
Though he might tell himself he was over the past, he could never quite forgive his mother for the choices she made and he supposed that was the reason he preferred a casual, superficial relationship between them. Over the years, she had given up trying to forge a closer bond.
Dr. Warrick gave him a long, thoughtful look. “Shelter Springs is only a ten-minute drive, son. If she’s in town, I’m sure she would love to see you.”
He didn’t want to be rude to the man but he also didn’t particularly care to discuss with him the complicated relationship he and his mother shared. Especially not in a crowded diner.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said in a noncommittal way.
The doctor seemed to sense he had overstepped. He gave a kindly smile and stood up.
“I should probably head to the hospital. Injured and sick people aren’t always the most patient people on earth. Pun intended.”
Ben forced a smile. “Good to see you,” he said. It was the truth. Russell Warrick was at least a friendly face in a town that didn’t seem very inclined to look favorably at his return.
Warrick studied him with that intense expression he sometimes wore when he looked at Ben. “I would love a chance to catch up more while you’re in town. Maybe we could arrange dinner sometime.”
“I would enjoy that,” Ben answered. “I’m staying in a rental on Redemption Bay. The old Sloane house.”
“I know it. Perfect. I’ll drop by one day soon so we can make arrangements.”
The doctor reached out a hand and shook Ben’s. “Good to see you, son. I mean it.”
With another of those kindly smiles, he walked out, leaving Ben alone with his memories and a restaurant full of people who didn’t want him there.
* * *
RUSS WALKED OUT of the diner into the beautiful blue of an Idaho summer morning feeling shaky, off balance at the unexpected encounter. He walked a few dozen steps on autopilot, then turned into the small alley next to the restaurant used by delivery trucks. When he was sure no one could see him, he rubbed a hand over the ache in his chest.
Lydia’s quiet, thoughtful boy had grown into a tall, handsome man. A man any parent would be proud of.
But, oh, the shadows in those blue eyes.
When he woke that morning and decided to grab a bite to eat at Serrano’s before work, he never expected to find Ben drinking coffee and looking out at the lake.
How could he have? As far as he knew, Ben hadn’t been back since the day of his sister’s funeral.
He stood, lost in indecision, while the lake sparkled in the distance and the peaks of the Redemption Mountains gleamed white in the sunlight with snow that hadn’t melted yet.
This had been easier when his wife was still alive. Joan had provided a necessary buffer, somehow, to keep him from doing something stupid.
She was gone now, bless her. After a year, he was finally learning to make his way without her, one baby step at a time.
Perhaps it was time he took a giant step into the unknown and finally faced all the murky secrets of the past.
He picked up his cell phone. A quick web search revealed the number he had purposely avoided looking up for a year.
He was ridiculously aware that his palms were sweating as he selected “call” on the phone options.
It rang four times. Just before he was certain the call would go to voice mail, a slightly breathless voice answered. “Hello?”
He swallowed. “Lydia. Hello. It’s Russ Warrick. Is this a bad time?”
After a long, awkward pause, she spoke again, clear surprise in her voice. “Russ. Hello. No. No. It’s not a bad time. I was in the middle of yoga.”
He tried not to picture her, limber and prettier at fifty-four than she had ever been.
“Sorry to interrupt. You can call me back when your class is over.”
“No class. Just a video at home. I paused it. Really, this is fine. Is something wrong?”
“Why would you say that?”
“I haven’t talked to you in forever,” she said calmly. “You’re not a man who calls out of the blue just to chat.”
That was true enough. He had stayed away from her on purpose, hadn’t called her once since Joanie died, even though he had been tempted a hundred times.
This was a stupid idea, he thought. Her relationship with Ben was none of his business. She was none of his business. But stupid or not, he had called her and couldn’t just make an excuse now and hang up.
“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. I had some information I thought might interest you.”
“Oh?”
“I just bumped into Ben at Serrano’s.”
“Ben? My Ben?”
The singular pronoun sent pain clutching his heart. “Yes. Your Ben. I thought you might want to know.”
Her tone shifted from shock to crisp disbelief. “That’s impossible. I’m sure you’ve made a mistake. Ben will never come back to Haven Point. He’s made that abundantly clear.”
“No mistake. I spoke with him for a good ten minutes.” A wonderful ten minutes. It had been so very long, he had absorbed every word, memorized each mannerism and vocal tone. “He’s in town to help Aidan Caine with a project. Apparently he’ll be here for a few weeks. I thought you might want to know.”
“What makes you think I didn’t already know?” she asked in a haughty tone. The essence of Lydia, bristly and distant on the outside but so very vulnerable beneath all the layers.
“Your reaction just now was a good giveaway.” He fought hard to keep the dryness ou
t of his tone. “He also seemed reluctant when I suggested he call you.”
“So you thought you would step in to make things right between us by calling me, anyway. How very helpful of you.”
Her hostility stung, though it wasn’t unexpected. Lydia had erected a wall between them long ago, so high and so wide one would never guess they’d once been best friends...and much more.
“I’m sorry I bothered you,” he said stiffly. “I know if my son were in town, I would want to know.”
She didn’t answer for a long moment, a silence thick and murky with secrets. Why wouldn’t she tell him the truth, even after all these years?
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, her voice subdued. “You’re right. I’m a bear today. I think it’s the low pressure system coming in. It’s left me edgy. I was hoping the yoga would help center me. Perhaps I’d better get back to it. Thank you for telling me, Russell. You’re right. I do want to know. I doubt Ben would have called to tell me himself, even though he knows I’m in the area for the summer. I appreciate that you stepped in.”
“You’re welcome.”
He should say goodbye but he didn’t want to hang up. Not yet. A cool and distant Lydia was better than nothing.
“How are you doing?” she asked after a moment. “I’ve been wondering.”
She sounded genuinely interested, which was more than most people did when they asked that question. His standard response was to say he was fine then deflect the inquiries with a change in topic but that didn’t seem right with Lydia.
Somehow there seemed more freedom here on the phone, when she wasn’t standing in front of him with those deep green eyes.
He looked out at the lake, silvery in the sunlight. “It’s been a year and a few weeks now,” he answered, his voice low. “I’m done with all the firsts now. First Christmas without her, first birthday, first wedding anniversary. There’s an odd sort of relief in that, you know? In making it through. I believe I’m finally starting to get used to coming home to a quiet house.”
“I’m so sorry, Russell,” she said, her tone soft and rich with empathy.
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