a man he’d liked immediately upon meeting him—Sawyer Grisham. For the first time since leaving he could see himself making Catalina Cove his home again. The only problem he saw impeding his return was Bryce. Since there was no way the two of them could ever get back together, he figured the best way to deal with her was to ignore her very existence.
After much consideration, Kaegan had accepted Reid’s offer. With the injection of money, Kaegan was able to pay his workers their back pay, call back the men his father had laid off, buy four new boats and update every last piece of his machinery. Reid even gave Kaegan and his crew permission to farm for tilapia and catfish on a tract of land off the ocean that Reid LaCroix owned but never used. That turned out to be an added investment for them both.
With numerous restaurants in the area needing fresh seafood daily, Kaegan’s business began booming immediately. It was still doing well and in two more years he would be able to pay off his loan to Reid. Kaegan had discovered that without his father making his life miserable, he actually loved being on the water with the men. And he felt he had a dynamic office staff.
The one thing he did make clear to the townspeople was that he didn’t want to be called K-Gee any longer. He couldn’t forget it had been Bryce who’d first begun calling him that in first grade when she couldn’t pronounce his name.
Once he’d settled back in the cove, he’d done a pretty good job of keeping his distance from Bryce and vice versa. The only time they would run into each other was when he went into her parents’ café, which he tried limiting. At least he did until he and Sheriff Sawyer Grisham became good friends.
They’d bonded because they’d had a lot in common. They’d both been marines who’d served multiple tours in Afghanistan. They’d even figured they’d been in the area about the same time, although their paths never crossed. They’d enjoyed sharing war stories over beer in the evenings at Collins Bar and Grill, or in the mornings over coffee and blueberry muffins at the Witherspoon Café.
A couple of years later Ray Sullivan relocated to the cove to work for Kaegan. Since he was new to town and hadn’t known anyone, they extended their friendship to Ray, and the three of them would start their workday by meeting at the Witherspoon Café.
Bryce was a Realtor in town but often helped her parents out at the café with the breakfast and dinner crowd. Just like he didn’t want to have anything to do with her, she had the same attitude toward him, which he found crazy because she was the one who’d been caught cheating. He’d also discovered that although most people in the cove knew they were no longer together, no one, not even her parents and brothers, knew the reason why. He figured she’d been too ashamed to admit to anyone that she’d betrayed him and people had known not to ask him about it, so the reason remained a mystery to everyone.
Even though he saw her more often because of his daily breakfast meetings with Ray and Sawyer at her parents’ cafe, he’d made it a point to ignore her. He’d done a pretty damn good job of it until Vashti moved back to town. She was determined to reclaim her two best friends and couldn’t understand why two people who’d once been so into each other could share so much animosity.
Sighing deeply, Kaegan put the box back in the safe and drew in a deep breath. Seeing it was a reminder that long-term relationships weren’t for him and he never intended to trust another woman with his heart again.
“GOOD MORNING, SHERIFF. Good morning, Ray. The usual?” Bryce asked the two men when they sat down at one of the booths.
“Yes, I’ll take the usual,” Ray Sullivan said, smiling up at her.
“So will I,” Sheriff Sawyer Grisham chimed in, smiling, as well.
Bryce walked off while thinking that Vashti and Ashley were two lucky women to have found two men who were such jewels. Maybe one day her luck would change. She recalled an article she’d read just last week in a popular women’s magazine. It stated women outnumbered men four to one. With so few men, she needed to get motivated and find her Mr. Right. She’d once had high hopes for Marcel, a guy she’d met at a real-estate seminar in Atlanta. They’d dated for almost eight months. When his ex-wife had reentered the picture, he’d dropped her like a hot potato. That had been four years ago, and although she dated occasionally, she hadn’t gotten seriously involved with anyone since then.
“You okay, honey?”
She glanced over at her mother and pasted on a smile. “Sure, Mom, I’m okay. Just had a busy weekend. I showed five houses on Saturday and one after church yesterday.”
“How did that go?”
“I think it went well. No buyers yet, but I think one of the couples are really interested in the Flemings’ place.”
“That’s good. Hmm, I wonder where Kaegan is this morning,” her mother said.
Bryce bit down on her lip, coming close to saying that she didn’t know, nor did she give a royal damn. Of course, she wouldn’t say that since the woman standing beside her was her mother, although she’d been mistaken for Bryce’s older sister a number of times. Her mom looked just that good for her age and her father wasn’t bad-looking for his age, either. Good genes.
Years ago when her father, Chester Witherspoon, had graduated from Catalina Cove High School, he had fled to Canada to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War. It wasn’t that he’d been a coward or anything; he just didn’t feel the country needed to go to war. A few years later after the war had ended he returned with a Canadian-born wife and baby in tow. It was then that he’d decided to do his patriotic duty and enlist in the military for six years. During those years Bryce’s parents had another son, Duke. Four years after Duke they had their only daughter, Bryce. Both Ry and Duke lived in Catalina Cove and were partners with their parents in the family-owned café. Her brothers were happily married to wonderful women with two kids each.
Although no one ever said it, if anyone cared to do the math, it would be quite obvious that Debbie Witherspoon had gotten pregnant before she’d married Chester. That fact never bothered Bryce. Her mother had adopted the philosophy that if you lived in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones. That was the main reason why, unlike a lot of the other parents in town, the Witherspoons hadn’t bashed Vashti when she’d gotten pregnant at sixteen and refused to reveal the identity of her child’s father. The Witherspoons had stood up for Vashti and had been quite outspoken in saying it wasn’t anyone’s business what Vashti decided to do and whom she told or didn’t tell.
“I think I’ll go help your dad and brothers in the back. Time to put my pies in the oven for the lunch crowd,” her mother said.
“Okay, Mom.”
Moments later, while Bryce was placing their orders in front of Ray and Sawyer, she felt heat behind her and didn’t have to look to know Kaegan had arrived.
When he sat down she glanced over at him. “Your usual, K-Gee?”
He glared at her and she wanted to smile but managed to keep a straight face. He hated that nickname and she’d only called him that to annoy the hell out of him.
“Yes, my usual, Brycie.”
She momentarily went still, not expecting him to retaliate by calling her that. Brycie had been his special name for her whenever they made love. Not able to deal with
