Redemption Bay_Contemporary Romance

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He hesitated for a moment, that exhaustion weighing on him, then he decided he should at least go over and say hello and thank her for her concern the night before. He didn’t remember it all with perfect clarity but he had a feeling he hadn’t been at his most gracious.

  “Evening,” he said, when he reached her terrace.

  “Hello.” Her voice was as clipped as Mr. Twitchell’s hedges.

  She made no move to come closer to him. Indeed, he could sense by her posture and what he could see of her expression in the dim outside lighting that she didn’t seem very happy to see him. He frowned, wondering what he’d done. He was too tired to deal with this tonight. Maybe he should have stayed on his own side of the property line.

  He was here. He should at least do what he came to do.

  “Thank you for listening to me last night. It’s a strange situation and I appreciate the listening ear.”

  “Have you spoken with your mother?” she asked, still in that cool voice.

  “Not yet. I plan to call her tomorrow.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. It would be cruel to leave her hanging too long.”

  “Right.”

  They lapsed into an awkward silence, something unusual for the two of them. Usually he had no problem talking to her but he couldn’t quite gauge her mood right now, maybe because of the fatigue that seemed to have soaked into his bones.

  He was about to tell her good-night, grab Hondo and head back to the vacation rental when she broke the silence.

  “How was your dinner?” she asked.

  He stared at the unexpected question. Was that why she was pissed? That he dared share a meal with the mayor of the town she considered a rival? “The company was a little stuffy but the food was good,” he said calmly. “Catered, I understand, from Serrano’s.”

  “No wonder it was good, then.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “How did you know I was having dinner?”

  “Most people do. Every day, even. It seemed a logical assumption.”

  He sensed more to the story. Somehow she knew where he’d eaten dinner and wasn’t happy about it. He hadn’t been all that thrilled, either, but it was all part of what he had come here to do.

  “Constance Martin stopped into the store today,” McKenzie finally said, her voice cool. “She came in ostensibly to order flowers, but mostly to gloat.”

  He had tried to keep an open mind about the Shelter Springs mayor and his wife but ten minutes into their dinner party, he had decided Wallace seemed the decent sort but Constance grated on him. She was one of those women who pretended to hang on to his every word. After ten minutes, he found her extremely annoying. He had never been the sort who needed the constant ego gratification of relentless simpering.

  “To gloat about what?” he asked McKenzie. “That she and her husband were hosting a stuffy dinner party for me and a bunch of prosy city council members?”

  “Don’t bother pretending.” Now her voice wasn’t simply irritated, it was harsh and angry, a tone he had never heard from her before. Where was this coming from?

  “Constance was delighted to tell me all about the new facility Caine Tech is building in Shelter Springs—which, by the way, she informed me in a rather condescending way would be nothing but good for Haven Point. She told me you’ve made your decision, that you’ve all but signed the deal to set up shop in Shelter Springs.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”

  This was all news to him.

  “You never had any intention of putting the Caine Tech facility in Haven Point, did you? We were never a serious contender. You only came to appease Aidan. Admit it.”

  If he weren’t so tired, he might have been able to handle this in a far more diplomatic way. His usual savvy communication skills seemed to be floating on the night breeze out to the middle of the lake.

  “My position on the matter was never a secret to you or to Aidan,” he finally said.

  “You made me think otherwise! These last few days, you made me hope Haven Point might have a chance. The last thing I expected is that you would go with Shelter Springs!”

  The betrayal in her voice stung—and, worse, made him question everything of the past few days. She had been so sweet to him. Those tender kisses out by the lake, the evening out on his boat with her friend’s sons, that embrace on the dock the night before that had been both comforting and healing.

  He couldn’t help thinking of all the times in school when people only wanted to be his friend because his family was relatively well-off and lived in a huge, sprawling house by the lake, because his father owned the boatworks where many of their fathers were employed.

  Little had changed after Caine Tech exploded onto the high-tech scene. As one of the founders and highest-ranking executives of a multi-billion-dollar company, he was used to people trying to curry favor with him.

  Was she really no different from Constance Martin, just better at hiding her obsequiousness?

  Anger growled to life, probably magnified by his exhaustion. He was used to exhibiting ironclad control—his childhood had taught him that—but right now it seemed beyond him.

  “Is that what these last few days have been about? You just trying to push your cause? I have to say, Mayor, you really go above and beyond for your town.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “I’m not going to justify that with a response.”

  “You seem very quick to make assumptions about my behavior. All I did was have dinner in Shelter Springs. What’s so wrong about that?”

  “It’s not about the dinner! It’s about the deception. You made me think we had a chance. Why did you even waste time coming here in the first place? You never would have considered Haven Point, even though Aidan wanted you to.”

  He didn’t want to do this right now. He wanted to grab his dog and head back into his rental house. No, he wanted to pack up his Delphine and get the hell out of this town that had brought him nothing but trouble.

  Except those sultry kisses.

  And a fledgling friendship that had come to mean something to him, one he had apparently destroyed.

  “You know the worst part?” she said, a wobble of pain in her voice. “I was starting to think maybe you weren’t the evil creature I painted you all this time, when you didn’t bother to pay more attention while your incompetent property manager was shoving this town into an early grave. I can’t believe I was so wrong. You’re worse. You had an unhappy childhood here. I’m sorry for that but I can’t forgive you for punishing the people of this town because of it.”

  “I’m not punishing anyone,” he exclaimed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What does Shelter Springs have that Haven Point doesn’t? Answer that!”

  “Besides bridges that aren’t falling apart, roads that have been better maintained and a wider tax base, you mean?”

  “We would have all those things if not for you!”

  Any last clinging tendril of restraint seemed to have gone to sleep without him. “Okay. You want truth, Mayor Shaw, I’ll give you truth. Constance Martin is crazy. I don’t know where she got the idea I’d settled on Shelter Springs but the reality is, I have no intention of recommending Shelter Springs or Haven Point to Aidan for the new facility. I think moving anywhere near Lake Haven would be a financial and strategic mistake. I am sticking with my original recommendation, that we expand our existing satellite office outside Portland, where we already have a base.”

  “Portland.”

  She sank into a chair looking defeated and small suddenly.

  He ran a hand through his hair. He shouldn’t have sprung it on her like this. He didn’t know how he would have told her—maybe in an email or a memo, or just let Aidan do the honors. But that would have been cowardly. He supposed it was better this way, e
ven though it hurt.

  “On a purely financial basis, it would be a huge mistake to move here, sixty miles from a major airport in a mountain valley with harsh weather and no institute of higher education to cull graduates. Neither town is ideal. In Portland, we already have one facility in place, we own enough surrounding land to expand it and the infrastructure is already set up for our needs. It’s the only logical decision and I’m sure Aidan will see that.”

  She nodded curtly once, twice. “I...see. Well. Yes. That does make sense. Logic is everything, isn’t it? Thank you for being frank.”

  “Kenzie—” He felt terrible, suddenly, as if he’d just kicked several cute, cuddly kittens into the lake.

  “No need to apologize. It’s a business decision. I get it. I suppose it’s some comfort to know you were stringing Shelter Springs along, too.”

  She placed her hands on her thighs as if she couldn’t quite get up without bracing herself, then rose to her feet. “I do wonder how far you were going to let things go between us before you told me the truth. Would you have told me if I’d slept with you?”

  “I didn’t intend for any of this between us when I came here. It just...happened.”

  He had come to care for her, more than any other woman he’d ever met. Yet another thing he was too tired to deal with right now.

  “Many mistakes do just happen,” she retorted. “The only thing you can do is move on and try to make sure they don’t happen again.”

  She grabbed Rika and headed back to her house without another word, leaving him cold, suddenly, though the evening was pleasant.

  Hondo gave a pathetic sort of whine and Ben refused to think how perfectly it echoed the emotions chasing through him.

  What a mess, he thought as he made his way back across the lawn to his house. The hell of it was, he didn’t know what he could have done differently. He had told her, straight up, that he was against moving the facility to Haven Point. If she chose to believe he might be changing his mind, that wasn’t on him, was it?

  Right now he was heartily sick of this town. Could he leave in the morning? No, he realized. Not with everything still out there with his mother. He needed to at least meet with Doc Warrick, to figure out if they could forge some sort of new relationship, after all these years.

  After that, he would load up the Delphine, drive away and leave all this pain behind.

  * * *

  MCKENZIE LET HERSELF into her house, holding tight to Rika’s collar to keep the dog from lunging back outside until she could safely close the door behind them.

  She couldn’t believe she had been such a fool. It was one thing to pin her hopes for the town’s future on the man. It was another thing entirely for her to start secretly wondering if the two of them might actually have a future together.

  A few kisses did not lead to happily-ever-after. She was certainly old enough and experienced enough to realize that.

  She pressed a hand to the ache in her chest. Rika must have sensed her distress with that sometimes spooky intuition she had. The dog nudged against her side and licked McKenzie’s hand until she placed her fingers on the poodle’s curls.

  She was freezing, suddenly, though the temperature outside hadn’t dipped far from the heat of the afternoon. Just now, she wanted nothing but to change into some warm pajamas, wrap a blanket around her and maybe curl up with some Häagen-Dazs she had been saving for a special occasion.

  She hurried into her bedroom with that objective in mind. This wasn’t the end of the world, she reminded herself, for Haven Point or for her. Aidan and Eliza still had big plans for the downtown area. They were working on bringing in new retail outlets and restaurants, and the reconstruction of the beautiful inn that had burned down before Christmas would be finished by next summer, better than ever.

  As for her, she would make it through this. She had survived heartache before. She had lost the mother she loved and then the father she had grown to love. She had walked away from a job and a boyfriend in Chicago and rebuilt herself here. She had a business she loved and good friends, and the people of this town trusted her as their mayor.

  Her life was happy and fulfilled and she refused to let Ben ruin that, as he had ruined so many other things.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “THAT IS REALLY ADORABLE,” Barbara Serrano exclaimed as she looked at the quilt in browns, pinks and lavenders stretched out on a rack in the back room of McKenzie’s store.

  “You’re so good at putting colors together. I wish I shared your skill. It must be the florist in you.”

  “I’d like to take credit but Louise Pennybaker at the fabric store over in Shelter Springs helped me figure out what would go well together.”

  “The poor kids being treated at the emergency room will love it,” Samantha said. “A little bright bit of sunshine in the midst of a scary experience.”

  The Helping Hands were gathered for an unusual midweek potluck project, tying small child-sized quilts to be handed out at Lake Haven Hospital. It had been Devin’s idea, an urgent request as activity at the emergency room always increased in the summertime.

  “We need all the sunshine we can get. Holy Toledo, this rain! Where did it come from?” Linda Fremont exclaimed.

  “Do I have to explain the whole condensation-evaporation-precipitation cycle to you again, Mom?” Samantha asked with an eye roll that usually would have made McKenzie laugh.

  She wasn’t finding very many things amusing. A little sunshine, both literal and figurative, would be very welcome right now. The heavy rains forecasters had been predicting for the area had hit with a vengeance shortly after midnight the night of her confrontation with Ben and showed no sign of letting up. Already, Haven Point had surpassed July rainfall records and at least another day or two of rain was expected before the storm passed over.

  The world seemed bleak and gray to her right now, and only partly because of the unusual summer storm.

  When she awakened to find rain steadily falling outside her window the past two days, she had half expected to find that Ben had returned immediately to California, but she had seen lights on next door and his big SUV was still parked in the driveway. Before she and Rika drove into work—an unusual event for them in summer but a necessity so the dog didn’t track mud from the trail all over the store—she had seen Hondo out in the yard.

  The same scenario repeated itself this morning. She woke up, expecting him to be gone, only to see that light and, later, his dog.

  Other than that, she hadn’t seen any trace of Ben.

  He was still in Haven Point, then. For how long?

  She didn’t care, she told herself. Her stupid infatuation with him was completely done.

  “These are so beautiful. I would like one for my new grandbaby.” Anita Robles, her assistant at city hall, admired one with little ducks and bunnies marching across it.

  “Why don’t we save a few of our favorites to auction at the dinner tonight?” Megan Hamilton suggested. “It looks like we’ve got plenty to cover immediate needs at the ER and this will give us an excuse to meet again in a few weeks so we can make more.”

  “That’s a terrific idea,” McKenzie said. She should have thought of that herself, if Ben Kilpatrick hadn’t messed with her brain.

  In theory, the service auction was supposed to be exactly that—volunteer work offered for other people to bid on. But many people didn’t feel they had a skill like that so they brought goods instead. Beaded jewelry, hand-dipped chocolates, even gorgeous tooled leather saddles.

  “Are you taking a certain Caine Tech executive?” Lindy-Grace asked with a teasing smile. Apparently her boys had been full of information about the trip the four of them took out on Ben’s Delphine. They were completely enamored with him, Lindy-Grace informed her, and wouldn’t stop talking about him. Ben this, Ben that,
Ben-and-Kenzie, as if they were one unit.

  Lindy-Grace had been teasing her about it since she and her husband came back to town after their quick getaway.

  McKenzie could feel her face heat. “Why would I do that?” she asked, keeping her gaze determinedly down at the needle and yarn in her hand.

  “Are you kidding?” Linda Fremont exclaimed. “I thought we were all supposed to be trying to show him Haven Point in the best light, weren’t we? That’s what you told us to do.”

  “Right,” Megan piped up. “How many towns do you know that have a service auction where people donate their time and talents to help other people?”

  “He has to come!” Samantha echoed. “What better way to convince him he won’t find a better place for whatever he and Aidan Caine are doing together?”

  How could she tell these dear ladies it would be a complete waste of time, even if Ben came to the auction? He had made up his mind long before he ever came to town. Nothing any of them did would make the slightest difference.

  That hurt washed over again, sharp and stinging, like the relentless rain.

  Maybe she never should have told them anything, even as vague as she had been about the whole thing. Now everyone would be as disappointed as she was when it never materialized.

  “Yes. You have to take him with you tonight,” Barbara Serrano said. “Great food, wonderful conversation and people volunteering of their time and talents. It’s the perfect opportunity.”

  McKenzie swallowed. “I’m sure Ben has seen all he needs to of Haven Point and the good people who live here.”

  “It can’t hurt to give him another push,” Anita insisted.

  “If you don’t invite him to go with you tonight, I will,” Hazel said with a lascivious grin. “That man is hot.”

  This sent the other women chortling. Even McKenzie managed a tiny smile that quickly slid away. He might be gorgeous but his heart was as cold as the deep waters in the middle of Lake Haven.