Daddy Wore Spurs (Mills & Boon Cherish) (Men of the West, Book 32) (17 page)

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SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

McKenzie Shaw works harder than anyone as the
mayor of her hometown, Haven Point. But all of her hard work might be for nothing when her long-ago crush, Ben Kilpatrick, shows up again, about to wreak havoc in Haven Point—and on McKenzie’s heart.

Read on for a sneak preview of
REDEMPTION BAY,
the latest book in
New York Times
bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne’s heartwarming series,
HAVEN POINT.

On sale now!

Redemption Bay

by RaeAnne Thayne

CHAPTER ONE

T
HIS
WAS
HER
favorite kind of Haven
Point evening. Mckenzie Shaw locked the front door of her shop, Point Made
Flowers and Gifts. The day had been long and hectic, filled with customers and
orders, which was wonderful, but also plenty of unavoidable mayoral
business.

She was tired and wanted to stretch out on the terrace or her
beloved swing, with her feet up and something cool at her elbow. The image
beckoned but the sweetness of the view in front of her made her pause.

“Hold on,” she said to Paprika, her cinnamon standard poodle.
The dog gave her a long-suffering look but settled next to the bench in front of
the store.

McKenzie sat and reached a hand down to pet Rika’s curly hair.
A few sailboats cut through the stunning blue waters of Lake Haven, silvery and
bright in the fading light, with the rugged, snowcapped mountains as a
backdrop.

She didn’t stop nearly often enough to soak in the beautiful
view or enjoy the June evening air, tart and clean from the mighty fir and pines
growing in abundance around the lake.

A tourist couple walked past holding hands and eating gelato
cones from Carmela’s, their hair backlit into golden halos by the setting sun.
From a short distance away, she could hear children laughing and shrieking as
they played on the beach at the city park, and the alluring scent of grilling
steak somewhere close by made her stomach grumble.

She loved every season here on the lake but the magnificent
Haven Point summers were her favorite—especially lazy summer evenings filled
with long shadows and spectacular sunsets.

Kayaking on the lake, watching children swim out to the
floating docks, seeing old-timers in ancient boats casting gossamer lines out
across the water. It was all part of the magic of Haven Point’s short summer
season.

The town heavily depended on the influx of tourists during the
summer, though it didn’t come close to the crowds enjoyed by their larger city
to the north, Shelter Springs—especially since the Haven Point Inn burned down
just before Christmas and had yet to be rebuilt.

Shelter Springs had more available lodging, more restaurants,
more shopping—as well as more problems with parking, traffic congestion and
crime, she reminded herself.

“Evening, Mayor,” Mike Bailey called, waving as he rumbled past
the store in the gorgeous old blue ’57 Chevy pickup he’d restored.

She waved back, then nodded to Luis Ayala, locking up his
insurance agency across the street.

A soft, warm feeling of contentment seeped through her. This
was her town, these were her people. She was part of it, just like the
Redemption Mountains across the lake. She had fought to earn that sense of
belonging since the day she showed up, a lost, grieving, bewildered girl.

She had worked hard to earn the respect of her friends and
neighbors. The chance to serve as the mayor had never been something she sought
but she had accepted the challenge willingly. It wasn’t about power or
influence—not that one could find much of either in a small town like Haven
Point. She simply wanted to do anything she could to make a difference in her
community. She wanted to think she was serving with honor and dignity, but she
was fully aware there were plenty in town who might disagree.

Her stomach growled, louder this time. That steak smelled as if
it was charred to perfection. Too bad she didn’t know who was grilling it or she
might just stop by to say hello. McKenzie was briefly tempted to stop in at
Serrano’s or even grab a gelato of her own at Carmela’s—
stracciatella
, her particular favorite—but she decided she would be
better off taking Rika home.

“Come on, girl. Let’s go.”

The dog jumped to her feet, all eager, lanky grace, and
McKenzie gripped the leash and headed off.

She lived not quite a mile from her shop downtown and she and
Rika both looked forward all day to this evening walk along the trail that
circled the lake.

As she walked, she waved at people walking, biking, driving,
even boating past when the shoreline came into view. It was quite a workout for
her arm but she didn’t mind. Each wave was another reminder that this was her
town and she loved it.

“Let’s grill some chicken when we get home,” she said aloud to
Rika, whose tongue lolled out with appropriate enthusiasm.

Talking to her dog again. Not a good sign but she decided it
was too beautiful an evening to worry about her decided lack of any social life
to speak of. Town council meetings absolutely didn’t count.

* * *

W
HEN
SHE
REACHED
her lakeside house,
however, she discovered a luxury SUV with California plates in the driveway of
the house next to hers, with boat trailer and gleaming wooden boat attached.

Great.

Apparently someone had rented the Sloane house.

Normally she would be excited about new neighbors but in this
case, she knew the tenants would only be temporary. Since moving to Shelter
Springs, Carole Sloane-Hall had been renting out the house she’d received as a
settlement in her divorce for a furnished vacation rental. Sometimes people
stayed for a week or two, sometimes only a few days.

It was a lovely home, probably one of the most luxurious
lakefront rentals within the city limits. Though not large, it had huge windows
overlooking the lake, a wide flagstone terrace and a semiprivate boat
dock—which, unfortunately, was shared between McKenzie’s own property and
Carole’s rental house.

She wouldn’t let it spoil her evening, she told herself.
Usually the renters were very nice people, quiet and polite. She generally tried
to act as friendly and welcoming as possible.

It wouldn’t bother her at all except the two properties had
virtually an open backyard because both needed access to the shared dock, with
only some landscaping between the houses that ended several yards from the high
watermark. Sometimes she found the lack of privacy a little disconcerting, with
strangers temporarily living next door, but Carole assured her she planned to
put the house on the market at the end of the summer. With everything else
McKenzie had to worry about, she had relegated the vacation rental situation
next door to a distant corner of her brain.

New neighbors or not, though, she still adored her own house.
She had purchased it two years earlier and still felt a little rush of
excitement when she unlocked the front door and walked over the threshold.

Over those two years, she had worked hard to make it her own,
sprucing it up with new paint, taking down a few walls and adding one in a
better spot. The biggest expense had been for the renovated master bath, which
now contained a huge claw-foot tub, and the new kitchen with warm travertine
countertops and the intricately tiled backsplash she had done herself.

This was hers and she loved every inch of it, almost more than
she loved her little store downtown.

She walked through to the back door and let Rika off her leash.
Though the yard was only fenced on one side, just as the Sloane house was fenced
on the corresponding outer property edge, Rika was well trained and never left
the yard.

Her cell phone rang as she was throwing together a quick
lemon-tarragon marinade for the chicken.

Some days, she wanted to grab her kayak, paddle out to the
middle of Lake Haven—where it was rumored to be so deep, the bottom had never
been truly charted—and toss the stupid thing overboard.

This time when she saw the caller ID, she smiled, wiped her
hands on a dish towel and quickly answered. “Hey, Devin.”

“Hey, sis. I can’t believe you’re holding out on me! Come on.
Doesn’t your favorite sister get to be among the first to hear?”

She tucked the phone in her shoulder and returned to cutting
the lemon for the marinade as she mentally reviewed her day for anything
spill-worthy to her sister.

The store had been busy enough. She had busted the doddering
and not-quite-right Mrs. Anglesey for trying to walk out of the store without
paying for the pretty hand-beaded bracelet she tried on when she came into the
store with her daughter.

But that sort of thing was a fairly regular occurrence whenever
Beth and her mother came into the store and was handled easily enough, with
flustered apologies from Beth and that baffled “what did I do wrong?” look from
poor Mrs. Anglesey.

She didn’t think Devin would be particularly interested in that
or the great commission she’d earned by selling one of the beautiful carved
horses an artist friend made in the woodshop behind his house to a tourist from
Maine.

And then there was the pleasant encounter with Mr. Twitchell,
but she doubted that was what her sister meant.

“Sorry. You lost me somewhere. I can’t think of any news I have
worth sharing.”

“Seriously? You didn’t think I would want to know that Ben
Kilpatrick is back in town?”

The knife slipped from her hands and she narrowly avoided
chopping the tip of her finger off. A greasy, angry ball formed in her
stomach.

Ben Kilpatrick. The only person on earth she could honestly say
she despised. She picked up the knife and stabbed it through the lemon, wishing
it was his cold, black heart.

“You’re joking,” she said, though she couldn’t imagine what her
sister would find remotely funny about making up something so outlandish and
horrible.

“True story,” Devin assured her. “I heard it from Betty Orton
while I was getting gas. Apparently he strolled into the grocery store a few
hours ago, casual as a Sunday morning, and bought what looked to be at least a
week’s worth of groceries. She said he didn’t look very happy to be back. He
just frowned when she welcomed him back.”

“It’s a mistake. That’s all. She mistook him for someone
else.”

“That’s what I said, but Betty assured me she’s known him all
his life and taught him in Sunday school three years in a row and she’s not
likely to mistake him for someone else.”

“I won’t believe it until I see him,” she said. “He hates Haven
Point. That’s fairly obvious, since he’s done his best to drive our town into
the ground.”

“Not actively,” Devin, who tended to see the good in just about
everyone, was quick to point out.

“What’s the difference? By completely ignoring the property he
inherited after his father died, he accomplished the same thing as if he’d
walked up and down Lake Street, setting a torch to the whole downtown.”

She picked up the knife and started chopping the fresh tarragon
with quick, angry movements. “You know how hard it’s been the last five years
since he inherited to keep tenants in the downtown businesses. Haven Point is
dying because of one person. Ben Kilpatrick.”

If she had only one goal for her next four years as mayor, she
dreamed of revitalizing a town whose lifeblood was seeping away, business by
business.

When she was a girl, downtown Haven Point had been bustling
with activity, a magnet for everyone in town, with several gift and clothing
boutiques for both men and women, restaurants and cafés, even a downtown movie
theater.

She still ached when she thought of it, when she looked around
at all the empty storefronts and the ramshackle buildings with peeling paint and
broken shutters.

“It’s his fault we’ve lost so many businesses and nothing has
moved in to replace them. I mean, why go to all the trouble to open a business,”
she demanded, “if the landlord is going to be completely unresponsive and won’t
fix even the most basic problems?”

“You don’t have to sell it to me, Kenz. I know. I went to your
campaign rallies, remember?”

“Right. Sorry.” It was definitely one of her hot buttons. She
loved Haven Point and hated seeing its decline—much like old Mrs. Anglesey, who
had once been an elegant, respected, contributing member of the community and
now could barely get around even with her daughter’s help and didn’t remember
whether she had paid for items in the store.

“It wasn’t really his fault, anyway. He hired an incompetent
crook of a property manager who was supposed to be taking 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.