скачать книгу бесплатно
Whatever the reason drawing him to Haven Point, he was here now. Aidan had wanted him to take over for Marshall Phillips on this fact-finding assignment and Ben had agreed.
“I think it will be good for you to go back,” Aidan said three days earlier when he came to Ben’s house personally to ask him to come. “Take it from a man who survived a brain tumor. At some point in your life, before it’s too late, you have to grab your ghosts by the throat and tell them to back the hell off. The only way to do that is to face them head-on.”
He hadn’t seen the point in arguing with Aidan that he didn’t have ghosts, unless he were counting the painful memories of the younger sister he adored.
He didn’t hate Haven Point. It was merely a small, beautifully situated town where he had once lived—one he had intended to spend the rest of his life without ever stepping foot in again.
“Besides,” Aidan had continued with that logic that was always so damn hard for Ben to refute. “You were just saying how that Killy you’ve been working to renovate for the last year is done and ready for her maiden voyage. It seems fitting that you put her in the water for the first time at Lake Haven, where she came from.”
Through the well-landscaped shrubs and trees, he caught sight of a figure moving past the window of the pretty little lake house next door.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to tolerate living next door to Haven Point’s vociferous mayor, even for a few days.
He remembered McKenzie. Those long-lashed dark eyes in her dusky skin, the inky hair, the dimples, which tended to flash equally, whether she was angry or happy.
How could he forget her, when she had been Lily’s dearest and most loyal friend? While his sister’s other friends seemed to have dropped off the edge of the earth after her condition deteriorated and she was forced to curtail most activity outside Snow Angel Cove, McKenzie had come faithfully at least two or three times a week, bringing homework and goodies and movies for the two of them to watch.
Yeah, he had been a self-absorbed, angry teenager, just trying to survive living in his father’s house until he could graduate from high school and get the hell out. But even he had been able to see that McKenzie had made Lily’s last year far more bearable—even enjoyable—than it would have been otherwise.
He would have liked to be able to thank her for that—but considering her animosity toward him, he wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything he had to say.
He inhaled deeply then let out a sigh. What had he expected? He had burned every bridge he’d ever crossed here and had walked away without looking back.
Now here he was again, fully aware that his history here with the people of this town—the difficult heritage he didn’t like to remember—would make the job much harder than it would have been for Marshall.
Вы ознакомились с фрагментом книги.
Для бесплатного чтения открыта только часть текста.
Приобретайте полный текст книги у нашего партнера:
