With him staying next door, she wouldn’t be able to relax for an instant. She would always be aware he was there, just a few shrubs away.
She couldn’t bear it.
Okay. Gloves officially coming off now. The idea that he had brought one of his family’s boats back to town to float in Lake Haven in front of everyone like some kind of taunt was the last straw. Why bother being polite?
“I’ll admit, I’m surprised to see you here. Last I heard, you despised Haven Point and never wanted to see the place again. You’ve certainly done your best to see us obliterated off the map.”
He frowned. “I never despised Haven Point. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, wouldn’t you say?”
“What else would you call it? You deliberately let the downtown fall into ruins.”
“I did?”
The jerk actually had the nerve to look surprised at the accusation.
“You must have driven through town on your way here. You had to have seen all the boarded-up buildings and vacant properties in your buildings.”
“Not mine now,” he pointed out. “Aidan Caine owns them.”
“For five years they were yours!” she exclaimed. “And for five years you did absolutely nothing to take care of them except hire a completely incompetent property manager, who robbed you blind along with the tenants of your buildings.”
He glowered at her, looking suddenly as dark and forbidding as thunderstorms over the Redemptions.
Rika whined a little and suddenly planted her haunches at McKenzie’s feet. McKenzie highly doubted Ben would pose any sort of threat to her but she appreciated the moral support, anyway.
“I might have been less...attentive than I should have been,” he said stiffly. “I’ve been a little busy the last few years. And, again, I haven’t owned the property since I sold everything to Aidan.”
“Regardless, the problem was created by you. Haven Point is practically a ghost town, with almost half of the businesses closing or relocating outside the city limits to Shelter Springs since Joe died. I’m the mayor of Haven Point. Did you know that?”
“I did not. Congratulations?”
“Condolences are more in order, thanks to you. It’s a rough job, especially with our constantly plummeting tax revenue. It kills me to know we could have a thriving, active downtown filled with shops, restaurants, hotels, entertainment—if the man who owned most of the real estate in this town hadn’t completely ignored his responsibilities for the last five years.”
His jaw clenched for only a moment before his features smoothed out. “Wow. This is an interesting way to welcome someone to your town. Go directly on the attack.”
She refused to feel guilty. He deserved every ounce of her hostility and more. “I’m very welcoming to newcomers, in general.”
“Just not to me.”
Could he honestly blame her? He had created a huge mess and even with Aidan’s cooperation now, she didn’t know how to help her town find its way out.
“Let’s be honest. You’re not my favorite person right now.”
“Message received, loud and clear, Mayor. I’ll try to stay out of your way while I’m here. That might be a touch difficult, considering we’re next-door neighbors and share a boat dock, but I’ll do my best.”
If it hadn’t been such a long day—and if she weren’t so darn angry at the man—she might have been able to muster a facsimile of politeness, but right now it didn’t seem worth the effort. “How long are you staying?”
“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “A week. Maybe two. Depends.”
On what? His mood? The moon cycle? The futures market?
Why was he here?
He didn’t seem inclined to be forthcoming about that particular question on his own and she couldn’t figure out a way to ask, especially considering she had just unloaded years of frustration on him.
His reasons for being here were none of her business, really. He could travel anywhere he wanted. She was the mayor, not some petty megalomaniac who could demand to see his papers once he crossed over her town boundary.
McKenzie fought the urge to press a hand to her suddenly shaky insides. She had never been very good at confrontations and now that the heat of this one with Ben had passed, she felt a little quivery and unsettled. At the moment, she only wanted to go home, lock the door, run a hot bath and try to pretend the past fifteen minutes never happened.
She certainly wasn’t going to bring her chicken breast out to the terrace to grill now. She would just have to sauté it or something, which wasn’t nearly as good.
Darn the man for ruining what had promised to be such a beautiful evening.
“Good night, then. I’ll do my best to keep Rika on my property.”
“I don’t mind her. I get the feeling the boundary between the houses has been fairly fluid. I see no reason to change that. She’s welcome over there.”
She nodded, but gripped her dog’s collar tightly so her poodle wouldn’t be tempted to go sniffing after Hondo again.
Cheap tart. Okay, so he was big and beautiful, with all those muscles. That didn’t make him good for her.
The dogs, of course. She was talking about the dogs.
“Come, Rika.”
After considerable effort, she managed to convince her dog to leave her new BFF and return to the house. The dog immediately plopped down onto her favorite spot on the rug in the sunroom.
Usually the room was McKenzie’s favorite of the house, too—but with those glass windows, she was entirely too aware of her new neighbor’s presence next door. She closed all the blinds before she turned around and marched into the kitchen.
Her hands were shaking and her knees felt as weak as the first time she had gone backcountry skiing with her friend Paulo and they had nearly been caught in an avalanche when a cornice above them had broken free.
They had managed to ski out of the path just in time. Right now, she didn’t feel as lucky as that day. She felt as if thousands of tons of snow and ice and rock had just tumbled over her head.
Ben Kilpatrick. Here, in Haven Point, after all these years, and tougher, harder, more sexy than ever.
Oh, she used to have such a crush on the man. It was humiliating, really, when she remembered how she had pined for him. He barely knew she was alive but she had watched him with almost stalker-like intensity. When she would visit Lily at Snow Angel Cove to bring her homework or hang out and talk about boys, McKenzie used to pray he would be there. She hoped every time that he would come into Lily’s room—which had become basically a hospital room in later months as her condition regressed—to check on her at some point during the visit.
When he did stop by, he barely noticed McKenzie. She knew that. He plainly adored his ill younger sister and probably didn’t know McKenzie existed.
He had been brooding and angry back then. Though she had never been quite sure why, she sensed the atmosphere at Snow Angel Cove hadn’t been exactly nurturing and warm. She had always liked his mother, Lydia, but Joe was a serious A-hole most of the time, cold and cruel, especially to Ben.
Why was he here? And why now? It was the worst possible timing. She was heading into her busiest few weeks of the year. Lake Haven Days, the boat show, the Fourth of July town celebrations. She didn’t expect to have five minutes to even breathe in the next week to ten days and now