They were sipping coffee, a tray of pastries on the table between them, and seemed on the best of terms with Sue.
“Dr. Shaw!” he exclaimed. “And Mayor Shaw.”
They must be related, he suddenly realized as the surname finally clicked. He hadn’t made the connection until right then because they looked nothing alike—the doctor with her pale skin, green eyes and auburn hair and the incoming mayor with the dark hair and complexion that spoke of some sort of Hispanic or Native American heritage. They did share a similar bone structure and their mouths were the same, but the resemblance ended there.
“I’m not mayor until the first of January,” she said. The laughter in her dark eyes faded and she gave him a polite smile.
“How did you make it up the hill to Snow Angel Cove?” he asked them.
Dr. Shaw’s smile was slightly warmer though still not quite cordial. “Best investment I ever made, trading a year of waived office deductibles for Maisy Perkins and her kids in exchange for that old pickup. My nurse and office assistant both told me I was crazy, since Maisy herself is a hypochondriac and out of her six kids, two have asthma and two have brittle bones. Joke’s on them, right? Already this winter I’ve used that old pickup to get to the hospital more times than I can count when my own car was stuck, not to mention saved a fortune plowing the parking lot of my office. Hi, Eliza. Hi, Maddie.”
“Hi, Dr. Shaw,” Maddie said, skipping forward. “Guess what? I have a new best friend named Cinnamon. She’s a red horse.”
“Do you?” The doctor smiled kindly down at the little girl, no more immune to her charms than any of the rest of them.
“Hello,” Eliza said. “You’re sisters. I should have realized.”
“We are,” the physician said.
“Half sisters, actually,” McKenzie offered. “Same father, different mothers. And a long story.”
To him, her smile was the temperature of Lake Haven—colder maybe, since the lake never quite froze over—but to Eliza, her smile was as warm and welcoming as a mug of hot cocoa, with whipped cream on top.
“Devin was saying she wanted to check on you and I offered to tag along.”
“And here we are,” Dr. Shaw said. She reminded Aidan of a much calmer version of her sister, who seemed to vibrate with energy—along with the antipathy toward him he couldn’t miss, even though he didn’t quite understand it.
“I’ve been dying to see inside this place since Mr. Caine here took it over. We played here a lot when we were kids, when the Kilpatrick family used to own it. I hardly recognize the place now. With all the building permits that were railroaded through the town council the last few weeks, I knew it had to be spectacular and I was absolutely right. It’s just stunning.”
He didn’t miss the caustic edge in her tone. What beef did the mayor have against him? Yeah, he had caused an accident in front of her store but she had said herself the road conditions were at least partly to blame.
“I’m sorry you went to so much trouble,” Eliza said, a delectable hint of color on her cheekbones. “Especially unnecessary trouble. I am really doing much better, as you can see for yourself. A phone call could have saved you time and effort.”
Dr. Shaw studied her carefully. “I’m glad to see you’ve got a little color back. Yesterday you were so pale, I thought you were trying to camouflage yourself into the snow. Staying here at Snow Angel Cove appears to agree with you.”
Eliza cast a sideways glance in his direction and he was almost positive her blush intensified.
“It’s a lovely home and Sue is a fantastic cook, as I’m sure you have figured out.”
McKenzie, in the act of choosing another of Sue’s delicious lemon bars, grinned. “You know it, sister.”
“I love it here,” Maddie declared. “Did you know Mr. Aidan has six horses? And one is a pony named Cinnamon who is just the right size for a girl who will be six years old in February?”
“I did not know that,” Devin said. She smiled at the girl, though her gaze seemed sad somehow.
“We just went to see them and Cinnamon ate a carrot right out of my hand. It tickled.”
“Guess what?” McKenzie said. “I have a horse, too. His name is Darth Vader and he’s my best friend, too. Next to my sister, anyway.”
Both women seemed charmed by Maddie, which wasn’t surprising. She seemed to have that effect on people.
“I wish I had a sister,” she said wistfully. “Even a brother, I guess, if he wasn’t a pain.”
“I’ve got five of them and I’m usually more than willing to give a few away,” Aidan offered.
“I want a baby sister or brother,” she said. “Your brothers are probably old like you.”
McKenzie Shaw and Sue both chortled at that and Eliza groaned.
He was only thirty-seven and until that moment he thought he was in the prime of his life—the past few months notwithstanding—but he suddenly felt like he should be looking into buying a Jazzy and investing in denture cream.
“Sorry,” Eliza murmured.
“You’re the one under pressure to procreate, not me,” he said.
Her color returned in a delightful pink tide. “Why don’t you have a cupcake?” she suggested quickly to distract her daughter.
“How are you really feeling?” Devin asked. “I worried about you all night.”
“Oh, I wish you hadn’t. I’m fine. A little achy but that’s all.”
“Would you mind if I perform a quick exam? That’s the real reason I came, because I wanted to check your condition for myself.”
He liked the doctor more and more for her diligence.
“Please?” she pressed.
Eliza sighed. “It’s completely unnecessary, but since you’ve gone to so much trouble, I suppose I can’t say no.”
“Is there somewhere private we can go?”
She gestured toward the hallway leading to the cook’s quarters. “Back here to the rooms I’m moving into. There’s a comfortable sitting room there.”
“Perfect.”
As soon as they walked into the other room, Sue rose. “I need to take those chicken pot pies out of the oven if I don’t want them to burn.”
“Can I help?” Maddie asked.
“No, but you can keep me company,” Sue said. “Come on, kiddo.”
They headed hand in hand toward the oven. Though they were only fifteen feet away, it felt like a football field as he was now virtually alone with the prickly new mayor.
“Would you and your sister care to stay for dinner?”
“No,” she said abruptly.
The polite thing would probably be to make casual, meaningless conversation. He didn’t have much patience these days for doing the polite thing. “You don’t like me very much, Mayor Shaw. Care to explain what I’ve done to offend you in the twenty-four hours I’ve been in town?”
She looked guilty for a moment before she sighed. “Transference, Mr. Caine. Plain and simple.”
Against his better judgment, he was intrigued. The situation didn’t seem plain or simple to him.
“I don’t like you or not like you,” she went on. “How can I? I don’t even know you. I’m sorry if I’m acting otherwise. I’m just...angry at the person who sold you half of my town.”
“Ben Kilpatrick.”
At the name, she made a face as if she had tasted something particularly nasty in Sue’s lemon bars.
“Yes. Ben Kilpatrick.”
Her animosity toward his old friend was startling. Nearly everybody liked Ben—or respected him, anyway. He was one of the hardest-working men Aidan knew.
“I love Haven Point, Mr. Caine. This has been my home my entire life. I know you haven’t spent very much time here but when you do, you’ll see it’s a magical place, a good town full of kind, decent pe
ople who are struggling to survive.”
“What I’ve seen of it would certainly back you up on that.”
“It’s a nice enough town now, but you should have seen it a dozen years ago. This was a dynamic community with a thriving economy—thanks in large part to the Kilpatrick legacy. After Big Joe Kilpatrick died and Ben inherited his estate, everything started to fall apart.”
Ben never talked about his family. He ignored direct questions and subtly and skillfully deflected the indirect ones. “Why do you say that?”
The mayor frowned. “Before Big Joe was even in the ground, Ben closed the boat manufacturing plant that was our biggest employer around here. Two hundred people lost their jobs in a single afternoon and we’ve never recovered from the blow.”
That must be the large empty factory building he had bought when he wasn’t quite in his right mind. He had walked through the facility a month ago and wondered what the hell he was going to do with it.
“Ben turned his back on this town and everything we stand for,” McKenzie Shaw went on, her features growing more and more animated—and angry. “While he was off doing Lord knows what in California, he let Snow Angel Cove—his beautiful family home that his grandfather had built by hand—fall into complete disrepair. You’ve done wonders with it, by the way. I’ll give you that. The place really does look great.”
“Thank you.” At least she was no longer giving him the skunk-eye. He would have to warn Ben not to make any unexpected visits to town unless he wanted to be hauled out to the middle of the lake and dropped in.
“What he did to this house was a crying shame. What he did to Haven Point was criminal. He owned half the commercial buildings in town. As an absentee landlord, he did nothing to upgrade the infrastructure or even do basic repairs like plumbing or electrical work. One by one, businesses either moved into better facilities on the outskirts of town, relocated to Shelter Springs or folded completely. The rest of us are barely holding things together. Now that the inn has burned down, we’re down to a couple of restaurants, my flower shop, an insurance office, the bank, the copy shop and a few gift stores. It’s pathetic.”
She didn’t seem to expect a response from him, just went on as if she had been rehearsing this speech since the election.
“I love this town, Mr. Caine, and I understand we need investment and smart planning. As the new mayor of Haven Point, I am more than willing to work with you, whatever you decide to do with your property here. I would beg you not to simply sit on it and do nothing. Oh, and if you think you’re going to come in and build some big tourist trap resort that will suck all the personality and life out of my town, I will fight you with every last breath in my body.”
“You don’t want tourists?” he asked, surprised at her vehemence. His hometown, Hope’s Crossing, had a booming economy because of tourism.
“Short-term visitors are fine in moderation. Sure. We welcome and embrace them. Lake Haven is breathtaking and the Redemption Mountains offer endless recreational opportunities. People have been coming here for the benefits of the mineral hot springs since Native Americans first stumbled onto them generations ago. They’re necessary and important to the area but we can’t survive on tourism alone. We need long-term employment, jobs that pay enough to support families.”
She had gone from looking at him like he was Satan’s favorite cousin to gazing at him with a completely unwarranted hope, as if he could step in and solve all the town’s problems.
He had bought a vacation home to escape the pressures and demands of his frenzied life in California, for crying out loud—and he hadn’t been thinking very clearly when he did it. He wanted a place where he could fish and ride horses and be with his family, not another project.
He was trying to come up with a diplomatic way to tell her so when Eliza and Dr. Shaw returned.
They were smiling together and neither of them looked particularly worried, which he had to assume meant the doctor hadn’t found any unexpected problems in the impromptu examination.
“Since I know you’re only going to hound me to tell you after they left,” Eliza said to him, “I’ll save you the trouble. You’ll be relieved to know, everything checks out.”
He glanced at Dr. Shaw, who nodded. “She is in amazing condition for someone who was hit by an SUV yesterday.”
“Barely tapped,” Eliza muttered.
“Thank you for coming out all this way to make sure,” he said, ignoring that. He still broke into cold chills whenever he thought of it. “I appreciate your dedication. I asked your sister if you would like to stay for dinner. She declined but I will repeat the invitation. We would love to have you.”
The two sisters exchanged an unspoken communication. “We can’t,” Dr. Shaw said reluctantly. “I have a few other patients I wanted to check in on during the storm. Thank you, though. And thank you, Sue, for the coffee and delicious treats.”
“I enjoyed the visit,” Sue said. She came over carrying a white paper bag. “I wrapped up some of the nibbles for you to take with you.”
“Wow! Thanks!” McKenzie Shaw exclaimed, looking far too fresh-faced to be on the brink of assuming the town’s mayoral position.
“You’re welcome. You two be careful out there.”
“We will. Can I use your ladies’ room before we hit the road?” McKenzie asked.
“Certainly. I’ll show you where it is,” Eliza said. She led her toward the front of the house to the guest powder room.
“Mr. Caine, could I speak with you for a moment?” Dr. Shaw said when the other two women were out of earshot.
Was he about to get another lecture on his responsibilities to the town? He sighed but didn’t know how to avoid it. “Certainly.”
She glanced over to the kitchen where Sue was pouring Maddie a glass of juice. “Somewhere private?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”
He led the way through the house to his office. “Actually, I’m glad for the chance to speak with you, Dr. Shaw. I know Eliza said she was fine but do you still have any areas of concern about her physical condition we should know about?”
“You know I can’t tell you anything more, Mr. Caine. Confidentiality laws and all. If it sets your mind at ease, I can let you know I told her I see no reason to schedule a follow-up.”
He felt as if a weight the size of one of his horses had just been lifted from his shoulders. “That helps. Thank you.”
“I asked to speak to you because I wanted to ask how you are.”
He picked a pen up from the desk and idly twirled it through his fingers. “Fine. I was completely unhurt. Shaken up, maybe, but physically fine.”
“I’m not talking about the accident,” she said, her voice quiet.
His fingers tightened on the pen. “I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.
“Don’t you?” Though she spoke the words quietly, he saw firm knowledge in her eyes. “I saw the incision at the hospital yesterday when you ran your fingers through your hair. It’s quite well hidden by your hair but not completely concealed. Tumor?”
He could bluff here and lie to her. It would be the safest route because of the secrecy that had been so carefully maintained for the last three months. What would be the point? She wasn’t a stupid woman.
“Before I say anything else, I must demand absolute discretion from you. You cannot mention this conversation to anyone. By some miracle, we have managed to keep it a secret from the media and I intend to keep it that way.”
“I would lose my medical license if I casually chatted about my patients’ medical history, Mr. Caine. And before you tell me you’re not my patient, you live in my town now. That makes you mine, whether you ever come into my office or not.”
In her way, she was as committed to Haven Point as her sister, the mayor, he realized. “I appreciate that.
I’m sure you understand that I cannot be too careful in my circumstance.”
“I do. So was it a tumor?”
He had kept this a secret for so long, he found it difficult even to form the words. “Yes. Benign meningioma.”
“Ah. Benign. That must have been a relief.”
He thought of those two weeks of hell when he hadn’t been sure. The entire time as they waited for tests, he hadn’t been able to shake the dark memories of his mother’s lingering, horrible cancer death. He just figured he would buy a one-way-ticket to Africa, wander into a veldt somewhere and let the lions have at him.
In those two weeks, everything in his life had come into sharp, raw focus and he had come to the stark realization that though he had achieved incredible material and professional success, he still had hollows and spaces inside him he didn’t know how to fill.
“A relief. Yes. It started growing quickly and affecting function, which is how it was discovered in the first place, so the decision was made to remove it in September.”
“What sort of residual side effects have you seen in the last three months? Headaches?”
“Sometimes.” He considered headache a relative term for those moments when he wanted to rip his scalp right off his skull.
“Blackouts? Seizures?”
“You mean did I pass out when I was driving yesterday and endanger innocent pedestrians?” He didn’t bother to keep the testiness from his voice.
“I didn’t say that.”
He knew that hadn’t happened. He remembered each instant of the accident with vivid clarity, something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he had passed out.
“Since the surgery, I haven’t had any. Beforehand, yeah. The tumor was kind of a tangled mess. It made life...complicated.”
“I can imagine.”
She was quiet, green eyes filled with compassion. With that calm, trust-inducing bedside manner, she must be an extraordinarily good physician, he thought. He feared she would be one of those doctors who burned out quickly from caring too much for her patients.
“I’ve been cleared to drive again for the last six weeks.”
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