Redemption Bay_Contemporary Romance

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Ben knew that was one of the reasons his friend had encouraged him to take this assignment to spend a few quiet weeks in Haven Point after Marsh Phillips’s unexpected death.

  It was working, at least when it came to McKenzie. Right now, he wasn’t thinking about Caine Tech. Instead, he had a sudden fierce urge to be out on the water with her, kayaking through golden-hued ripples and sending those Canada geese into flight.

  “Have you had dinner?” he asked on impulse. “I was about to throw a steak on the grill. It would be no trouble to toss on another one.”

  She blinked at him in the fading sun, obviously caught off guard by the invitation.

  Another thing he enjoyed about McKenzie—she wasn’t very good at shielding her emotions. In her eyes, he saw surprise and confusion and, if he wasn’t mistaken, an unwilling but unmistakable attraction.

  So she felt this little sizzle between them, too. The realization heightened his own awareness of her.

  “I haven’t had dinner,” she admitted. “A steak sounds delicious. Maybe I can whip up a salad and cut up some vegetables.”

  Just as she finished the sentence, Hondo suddenly gave his deep-throated stranger-danger bark and planted his paws in a protective stance in front of both of them.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” a familiar woman’s voice called.

  Tension suddenly gripped his shoulders, strengthened a moment later when his mother walked around the side of the house.

  She looked lovely and feminine, as always, well-dressed in a sundress and scarf with strappy sandals and big Jackie O sunglasses. She always looked to him at least a decade younger than her true age, with only a few laugh lines at the corners of the blue eyes he had inherited.

  She must have gained those after she divorced his father and walked away, because he didn’t remember her laughing much during his childhood.

  As always when faced with his mother, he was filled with that conflicting jumble of emotions—resentment and love and frustration, all wrapped into one big, delightful ball of angst he hated.

  Lydia’s face brightened when she spotted him standing with McKenzie. “Here you are. I rang the doorbell but you didn’t answer. I thought you weren’t here, even though that must be your vehicle in the driveway, and then I thought I heard voices back here and a dog. I’m so glad I caught you.”

  Lydia approached them, smiling brightly. He tried to hide his discomfort as he dutifully kissed her cheek.

  “Mom. Hi.”

  “Hello, my dear. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to town? Imagine my surprise when Russ called me a few days ago and told me he bumped into you at Serrano’s. I waited for you to call. When you didn’t, I decided to take matters into my own hands, since I’m meeting someone in town for dinner.”

  He had no reason to feel guilty. He had seen his mother just a few months earlier when he flew down to San Diego for her birthday. “I wasn’t sure you would be here,” he answered. “Didn’t you tell me you were heading to Tuscany over the summer? Some kind of extended art history class, wasn’t it?”

  She made a face. “It sounded like fun but it didn’t quite happen the way I planned. My friend Cynthia backed out at the last minute after she was lucky enough to be blessed with new twin granddaughters. They’re absolutely darling, by the way. Not that I’m hinting or anything.”

  Right. She had hinted plenty that she thought it was past time he started looking for something a little more stable than his steady string of short-lived relationships.

  “Anyway, I didn’t want to go to Italy by myself—what’s the fun in that?—so I decided to spend July here at the condo, where I could see my sisters.”

  He did not understand at all how his mother could feel such a connection to this place. Yes, she had grown up in Haven Point and several of her multitude of siblings had chosen to settle in the area. Maybe that connection to her younger life compensated somehow for the memories she must have of her unhappy marriage.

  “I stopped by yesterday but you weren’t here. We must have missed each other.”

  Yet another layer of tension and guilt knotted the muscles in his shoulders. He loved his mother and would love the kind of relationship Aidan Caine had with his father, Dermot, but every time he was with her, he couldn’t seem to shake all those difficult memories of the times she stood by and didn’t protect him.

  He suddenly remembered his manners. “Mom, you remember McKenzie Shaw, I’m sure. She used to come around the house sometimes to hang out with Lily.”

  His sister’s name seemed to shiver between the three of them, as heavy and dangerous as a claymore. McKenzie drew in a quick breath and Lydia’s mouth tightened for a moment before she straightened it out into a warm smile she aimed in McKenzie’s direction.

  “Of course!” she exclaimed. “I should have recognized you instantly. It’s been years, but I still remember those beautiful dark eyes and long eyelashes of yours. You were such a good friend to Lily.”

  McKenzie smiled, though it looked a little sad around the edges.

  “Lovely to see you again, Mrs. Kilpatrick. I would hug you but I just came off the kayak and I’m drenched.”

  “Please. Call me Lydia. And I certainly don’t care about a little damp.”

  Before McKenzie could back away, his mother stepped forward and embraced her. McKenzie looked startled at first and then touched as she hugged Lydia back.

  His mother often had that effect on people. Most saw her as a calm, lovely person who drew people to her.

  He did his best to see her through that prism but it was sometimes difficult when the view was obstructed by murky pain and disappointment.

  “How are you?” Lydia asked, folding her fingers around McKenzie’s. “I understand you’re the one who bought that charming floral and gift shop in town. My sister Janet was telling me the other day she can’t walk out without spending a fortune.”

  “Just what I like to hear. You’ll have to stop in while you’re in the area.”

  “I’ll definitely do that. Is this handsome fellow yours?” She scratched Hondo’s chin and the dog immediately became enamored of her, too.

  McKenzie shook her head, looking a little surprised. “Actually, he’s your son’s.”

  His mother’s jaw dropped and she stared at him in disbelief. “You got a dog, after all these years? This is huge! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He’s not mine,” Ben said stiffly. “A friend passed away a few weeks ago and I temporarily ended up with Hondo. I’m looking for a good home for him before I head back to California. You’re not looking for a German shepherd, are you?”

  “No, though I would love a handsome boy like this. Yes, I would. I would. I’ll ask around.”

  “Thanks,” he answered stiffly.

  Most of the time, Ben felt as if he handled his life pretty well, other than the tendency to work too much. He had friends, a good life in California, an amazingly successful career.

  So why did he have so much trouble forging a healthy adult relationship with his mother? He always felt suffocated by her expectations and choked by her disappointment when he was unable to meet them.

  Sometimes he worried that something fundamental had been crushed out of him after his father stopped loving him, as if some healthy emotional development had been stunted along the way.

  “Was there some reason you stopped by?” he asked.

  Only when McKenzie frowned at him did he realize how cold, almost hostile, his words and tone sounded. For an instant, he felt uncomfortably like his father, wielding words like a samurai sword to jab and wound, always aiming for the weakest spot.

  Lydia only smiled, though some of the delight in her eyes seemed to have seeped away. “When my only son shows up in the same zip code, of course I’m going to stop by to say hello. Your aunt Janet a
nd I were hoping you could come for dinner with us while you’re here.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment—too long a moment. The hesitation was obvious to all three of them.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’m here on business and my schedule is quite packed while I’m here. Mayor Shaw and I were just working out the details of all my obligations. I don’t know when I’ll have a moment to spare. I’m going to have to check my calendar but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I see. Of course. I know you’re a busy man.” She wore that same calm smile he hated, the one that reminded him painfully of the polite facade she used to exhibit to the world during his childhood, even during the worst times with Lily. That smile was carefully crafted to give no evidence that behind it their life was quietly falling apart.

  “Do let me know. Your aunt would love to see you while you’re here.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch, then. I should run. I have a...date, if you can believe that.”

  He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to that.

  “Not a date, I suppose. Just an outing with an old friend. Russell Warrick. We’re meeting for dinner.”

  “Have fun, then.”

  She gave a short laugh. “I’ll try.”

  After an awkward moment, she reached out and hugged him and he was instantly awash in her familiar apple-scented shampoo and the perfume she still used, after all these years.

  “Goodbye, son,” she murmured “It really is wonderful to see you. Please call.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “No need. I can find my way. I’ll call you.”

  She hurried away as if she were escaping rising floodwaters, leaving behind a thick silence.

  “You lied to your mother,” McKenzie finally said.

  He made a face, though he felt ridiculously guilty about it. “I’ve heard people do, on occasion.”

  “You didn’t have to drag me into it. I only asked you to attend the Lake Haven Days celebrations on Saturday. You could have spent any one of the other evenings you’re in town having dinner with your mother and aunt Janet.”

  “And I probably will.”

  He would call her in the morning and set up something else, he told himself. Even if it was an evening filled with awkwardness and the resurrection of memories he preferred to stuff down most of the time.

  “Are we still on to grill tonight?” he said, trying to change the subject. “I’m starving.”

  She looked as if she wanted to say more about his mother, but to his relief, she only smiled. “Sure. Let me go change into dry clothes.”

  “Great. I’ll grab the steaks and meet you here in a few moments,” he said, grateful he had acted on the impulse and asked her to share a meal with him.

  An evening with McKenzie Shaw was guaranteed to keep him from thinking about his mother and the ball of emotion that wouldn’t stay submerged, no matter how hard he tried.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE COULD HANDLE THIS.

  She was a strong, competent, professional woman, chief executive for a town of four thousand people and owner of her own successful business.

  A simple meal on a lovely summer evening posed no challenge, as long as she focused on her goal—to convince Ben Kilpatrick he was completely wrong about Haven Point, that the aging infrastructure could be quickly and easily updated and that this would be the absolutely perfect location for Caine Tech’s new facility.

  All while ignoring the unwanted attraction that simmered just under her skin and made stringing two thoughts together at a time a daunting endeavor.

  What did a woman wear when she was taking on an impossible task?

  McKenzie sighed as she slipped out of her board shorts and her swimming suit. Board shorts. Good grief. And not even cute ones. These were a raggedy pair she had bought off the closeout rack of a big-box store in Boise last fall. The evening had seemed too warm for the wetsuit and this had been the next best thing—but had she really just talked to the elegantly put-together Lydia Kilpatrick dressed like a surfer chick?

  She fought down embarrassment as she jumped in the shower fast and hurriedly changed, opting for a favorite pair of capris and a red cotton knit shirt, simple but flattering. As she dressed, her mind continued to stray toward Ben and his mother.

  What was the reason for the tension percolating between them? It had been impossible to miss, from the sudden tightness in Ben’s posture to that yearning she had glimpsed in his mother’s eyes when she looked at her son.

  Add in the fact that he hadn’t bothered to let his mother know he was in town and it was obvious the two of them had issues. Did the chasm have anything to do with the divorce of Lydia and Big Joe? Or maybe it was related to the reasons Ben clearly didn’t like Haven Point and hadn’t been back since Lily’s funeral.

  Not that it was any of her business, McKenzie reminded herself as she yanked a brush through her hair and quickly twisted it into a casual updo.

  She had a tendency to try to repair other people’s relationships. Some people played tennis or liked to knit. She liked to fix people and mend fences.

  All her girlfriends came to her for relationship advice—and she had been the one to suggest to Lindy-Grace that a night away might be the ticket to reigniting the spark she and Mac seemed to have extinguished along the way.

  She didn’t have to dig very deeply to understand why she liked to fix things. She had grown up in such chaos, first with a struggling single mother, then being thrust into the life of a father who hadn’t known she existed for the first decade of her life.

  Standing by so helplessly and watching her mother slip away, day by day, and then moving here with the Shaws and struggling to find acceptance in their home had created a deep urge in her to help people heal their relationships while they could.

  Ben didn’t need or want her interference, she reminded herself as she carefully touched up her makeup. She heard a sound and looked down to find Rika in the hallway outside the bathroom, gazing through the doorway at her with a quizzical sort of look.

  “What? You’ve never seen me put on mascara before?”

  Her poodle seemed to shrug, settling down on her front paws to watch the interesting proceedings.

  Okay, maybe it had been a while since she took such care with her appearance. In her position as mayor, she actually tried to go easy on the girlie stuff. It was hard enough as a reasonably attractive young woman—emphasis on young—to prove her competency when it came to city business.

  She generally went out of her way to look professional, not soft and pretty.

  She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, tempted for a moment to break out the eye makeup remover, scrub her face clean for the night and forget the whole thing.

  This wasn’t a date and she needed to remember that.

  Of course, it had been so long since she’d been on an actual date, no wonder Rika looked confused.

  One of the downsides of living in a small town—the dating pool of available men was a little on the shallow side. The pool of attractive available men in the area was more like a puddle.

  It was a little depressing to realize her last serious relationship had ended three years earlier, when she left Chicago to come home and they had both decided they didn’t care enough to cope with the headaches of a long-distance thing.

  These days, most of her interactions with members of the opposite sex involved taking complaints from citizens like Darwin Twitchell, arm-wrestling the four Good Old Boys on the city council—the GOBs, as she thought of them in her head—or consulting with the fire and police chiefs.

  While both men definitely had a yum factor, the fire chief happened to be married to one of her close friends and she had dated the police chief in
high school, before they both decided they made better friends than anything else.

  She could handle a simple dinner with Ben Kilpatrick. She might be attracted to the man on a purely physical level but she still hadn’t forgiven him for all those years when he had neglected her town.

  She could still be polite, she told herself as she quickly threw together a salad, then let Rika out the back door and followed her.

  The evening air was sweet and lovely. She heard the soft slap of waves against the dock and the peeps and coos of night creatures on the lake.

  He had switched on all the exterior lights to his house against the gathering darkness and also had turned on the gas fire pit on the patio. It sent flickering light and shadows across the trees and bushes around the yard.

  Ben stood at the gas grill, illuminated clearly by one of the lights on the house. He looked dark and gorgeous. When he caught sight of her, he smiled and a host of butterflies suddenly started flapping wildly inside her.

  Okay, this was ridiculous. She could be professional, mayoral, polite. She had left her giddy teenage years behind her a long time ago.

  Rika bounded ahead of her to brush noses with Hondo—the little traitor. The two of them romped and danced around as if they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. It would have been adorable if she wasn’t suddenly nervous.

  Get a grip. It’s only dinner. McKenzie drew in a calming breath and walked the rest of the way across the lawn, wielding the salad bowl and the other small bag she carried like a shield.

  She told herself she was completely misreading the flash of appreciation in his eyes. It was a trick of the low light conditions. Even if it was truly there and not just a figment of her overactive imagination, she couldn’t afford to pay attention to it.

  “I was afraid you might have changed your mind and decided you weren’t in the mood for steak.”

  She should have changed her mind. It would have been the wiser choice, to make some excuse and heat up a frozen dinner, her usual culinary option.

  Try as she might, she had a feeling she was going to have a very tough time remaining professional around him.