Read Redemption Bay (Haven Point Book 2) (Contemporary Romance) for Free Online

coffee at Serrano’s but she and Rika stopped, anyway.
    The small columned city hall on Lake Street might be the political apex of Haven Point, with the old city library next door serving as the literary hub, but Serrano’s, in its weathered redbrick building, was the social center of Haven Point.
    The diner took up both stories of one of the downtown’s oldest buildings and was founded by the current owner’s great-grandparents, immigrants from Italy.
    She tied Rika up in the small fenced grassy area Barbara Serrano and her husband had created just for visiting animals, then strolled through the glass door.
    She loved walking inside the diner, that sense of slipping into an Old West time warp. From the mirrored wall behind the counter to the stamped-tin ceiling to the red leather chairs and old tables, Serrano’s likely wasn’t that different now than it had been a hundred years ago when it was founded. In the morning, the place smelled of pancakes, bacon and the best coffee in central Idaho.
    Even more than the decor or the alluring scents, McKenzie loved the friendly welcome she always received when she walked inside.
    A chorus of hellos rang out, almost as if people had spent hours practicing it together.
    She waved to friends in general but made her way to the table of old-timers who had breakfast there each day, mostly to have somewhere to go and shoot the bull. She found them all completely adorable, BS and all, and always stopped to chat.
    “Why, if it isn’t the prettiest mayor west of the Mississippi.”
    “Morning, Ed.” She smiled at Edwin Bybee. He was just about the happiest guy in town, with a kind word to everyone. It was remarkable to her, especially considering he was fighting stage-four liver cancer.
    “How are you this morning?” she asked after kissing him on his wrinkled cheek.
    “Oh, I can’t complain. I’m still ticking, aren’t I?”
    “Was that you out on the lake this morning?” his constant companion, Archie Peralta, asked her.
    He used to be the manager of the grocery store but retired when she was still in high school. She had worked for him in her first job as a bagger and cart retriever and had a deep fondness for him.
    “It was indeed.”
    He gave a raspy laugh. “Thought so. That pink life jacket is a dead giveaway.”
    She grinned. “I hope I didn’t scare the fish away.”
    “The cutthroat biting this morning?” asked Paul Weaver, whose family had a small dairy farm on the outskirts of town.
    “You’ll have to ask Archie here. He was the one with the line in the water that didn’t seem to be moving much. I was only kayaking.”
    “Not this morning. They weren’t going after the bait,” Archie answered. “Don’t know why anybody would bother going out on the water without a fishing rod.”
    “I’m only out there so I can watch you not catching anything,” she retorted, which made the whole table bust up.
    She spent a few more minutes talking to the group and was about to go order her coffee and head to the store when Barbara Serrano headed over with a go-cup for her all ready.
    No wonder she loved the woman.
    “Is it true?” Barbara asked, holding the coffee just out of McKenzie’s reach as if they were playing a particularly cruel game of Monkey in the Middle.
    “I don’t know. I hope not,” she answered automatically. “Is what true?”
    “People have been talking all morning. Word is, Ben Kilpatrick is back in town.”
    Instantly, the diner seemed to go deathly silent, as if somebody had flipped a switch. The comfortable buzz of conversation, the occasional laughter, even the clatter of silverware seemed to shut down as everybody in the vicinity stopped as if Barbara had just doused them all with McKenzie’s coffee.
    “Kilpatrick. That son of a—” Ed bit off whatever harsh name he wanted to call Ben. His usually kindly, wrinkled face tightened into a scowl that shocked her, until she remembered that Ed as well as his only son had worked at