Redemption Bay: The ultimate uplifting feel-good second-chance romance for summer 2019

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 the boatyard. After Kilpatrick’s closed its doors five years ago, Ed’s son and family had been forced to move away. She knew he lived in the Pacific Northwest along with Ed’s only grandchildren.

Folks here took the closing of the boatworks hard, especially those who had worked there and been displaced in a single afternoon after Joe Kilpatrick’s funeral.

“So is it true?” Barbara demanded. “Is he really back, after all this time?”

She sighed. “Yes. I can verify firsthand. Ben is in town. He showed up last night, renting Carole’s place next to mine.”

Conversation immediately started up again, animated and annoyed.

“Why is he back? What kind of trouble is he planning to stir up now?” Archie asked.

“How much more damage can he do?” Ed glared at McKenzie as if all this was her fault. That was the problem with being the mayor, she was finding. Everybody expected her to solve their problems, from a neighbor who watered his garden all night to a streetlight that had gone out.

“I don’t know why he’s here,” she confessed. “We only spoke for a moment last night. He did have an old Killy. Maybe he’s here in advance of the boat festival.”

It was a hollow explanation. She couldn’t see Ben hauling a boat from California to the hometown he hated just to show off what even she could tell had been a very fine watercraft.

“What model?” Ed asked. For the moment, he seemed to forget his animosity toward Ben. The people who had worked at the boatworks took great pride in their product—probably why Killy boats were still so sought-after these days.

“He mentioned it was a Delphine.”

“Oh, that is a fine boat,” Archie said, almost reverently.

“One of our best,” Ed agreed, in the same devout tones.

“I can’t see that the kind of boat the man owns matters a good gosh darn,” Barbara said. “I just want to know what he’s doing here with it.”

“I don’t know,” McKenzie admitted. “I can only promise you this. If he plans to cause more damage to this town than he already has, the jackass will have to get through me first.”

“Is that right?”

An instant too late, she realized all conversation in their vicinity had ground to a halt again. She turned at the familiar low drawl and of course, there he was standing just a few feet away. He looked gorgeous, wearing those jeans—buttoned up now—and a tailored polo shirt and fancy high-tech watch that could probably cover her entire mortgage.

The air inside the diner seemed to suddenly plummet thirty degrees, as if a January cold front had just blown across the lake.

No one seemed to know what to say—which she found as shocking as Ben’s presence here, since regulars usually had the opposite problem and never seemed to know when to shut up.

“Hello,” Ben said.

She cleared her throat, grateful the dusky skin she inherited from her mother didn’t show the heat she could feel soaking her cheeks. At least she hoped not.

“Um. Hi.” He knew she didn’t want him there, so she couldn’t see the point in showing outright hostility to the man. Okay, any more than she already had. “Everyone. You remember Ben Kilpatrick, I’m sure.”

Edwin opened his mouth to say something but Archie elbowed him in the ribs. While she would have liked to see them rip into Ben, this didn’t seem the time or the place—and she had a feeling that as resentful as everyone in town might be toward him for his negligence, most people were too well-mannered to throw it in his lap the first time they met.

“Hear you’ve got yourself a Delphine,” Archie said.

“I do. A 1965 model. She’s a beauty.”

“You restore her yourself?” Edwin asked.

“The easy parts. Mostly, I worked with a couple guys in the Bay area, who did the heavy lifting. I’m planning to put her in the water later today.”