Page 3 of The Marine's Homecoming

"Yeah, well." Gary leans forward in his chair and rests his elbows on his knees. "Word is he's not just here for the funeral. Dennis Hargrove had him signing papers yesterday."

My eyes shoot up at that and I feel my jaw drop. "You mean…?"

Gary nods and says, "The whole estate. The house, the land, the marina. All of it—Frank's will, honey."

I'm too hot under the collar to speak for a second. I knew Luke Maddox would come back for the funeral—everybody knew that. I'd prepared myself for it by not thinking about it until I absolutely had to. But I'd assumed he would come, sit through the service, and leave.

"He's taking over the marina?" I ask, wondering if maybe there's a chance he'll still leave. Maybe he's just in charge of selling the land.

"That's what people are saying," Gary says, "though I don't know what he intends to do with it. He's inherited a mess, I tell ya."

"Well this is just a mess," I sigh, brushing hair out of my face. If Luke is taking over, my festival is dead in the water. I can't stand him after what he did, and the whole point of this business and my festival is supposed to be the restoration of this town. Having to go through him will just taint the whole process.

Gary sits patiently while the emotions roil through me, burning up chaff like a forest fire devouring dry brush. It's not right. Luke just murders my brother and joins up to escape the town ridicule—got off Scot-free, too! He shouldn't be here, and he definitely shouldn't be any part of my dream to restore Bandon's economy. When Nick died, my parents went through depression so deep, we lost three of their businesses. It hit the economy hard, and only now, twelve years later, are we finally rebuilding.

"Christ," I mutter, huffing out a sigh.

Gary stands up and pushes his chair back. "I'm just telling you what I heard. Figured you'd want to know before somebody else brought it up." If anyone understands, it's Gary. He's heard me give an earful more than once. Just working with Frank challenged me, but it wasn't Frank's fault Nick died. Frank wasat least compassionate enough to apologize, unlike Luke who ran from his problems.

"You're right, Gary. I do appreciate it."

He walks out and pulls the door shut behind him while I sit there stewing. I try to keep my head on straight. It's very possible that Luke is just here to finish up final expenses and plans to sell the whole marina and both piers. If so, that could take a while and in the meantime, he probably won't care if I host the festival. I just have to go down there and tell him what his father said, and it will clear everything up right away. The fact that Frank was happy to let me host the festival will be enough.

I hope.

When I finally get up the courage to walk down to the marina office and find out what's going on, Luke's standing behind the counter with a stack of folders open in front of him, and he looks up when I walk in, and my God, has he changed.

Ink craws across his arms past the short-sleeve shirt he wears, drawing my eyes immediately. But it's the way the thin cotton stretches over thick muscles on his broad chest that makes me swallow hard and blink a few times. Luke Maddox is all grown up and no longer the twiggy teenager he was when he left.

"Hannah," he says in a flat tone, but I watch his eyes move over me too, like he's noticing I'm not a kid anymore, either. It's an odd sensation for the girl who used to have starry eyes every time this boy would visit her home. But I'm not that hormone crazed, lovesick teen anymore. I'm a woman whose brother is dead because of the man standing in front of her, and I'm not here to remember my childhood crush.

I'm here to do business.

"Luke." I stop a few feet inside the door. "I'm sorry to hear about your father." I clear my throat and try to snap myself out of it. My cheeks are hot—just like grown-up Luke. So damn hot. And I'm a fool for letting any eye candy get my pulse racing. A man is far more than just the skin he's in, and this man is not my type. I already know that.

"Thank you," he says, and his hands go back to the folders on the counter, turning pages as his eyes pore over the contents. "Something I can help you with?"

So he's not surprised to see me here, either. And there's no hint of "how have you been" or catching up. Of course not. He probably doesn't want to remember the past at all. To do so would be to accept blame for what he did, and I know he'd rather run away than admit he's a killer.

So I jump right into the heart of business, because that little stroll down memory lane managed to douse the heat in my chest, and I want to stay focused on the task at hand.

"Your dad and I had an arrangement," I say, "about the Fourth of July festival I'm putting together for the town." I take a few more steps into the office and let the door swing shut behind me. "I've been planning it for almost a year. It's going to be the biggest event Bandon has seen in a decade, and it's going to bring real money into this community."

Luke leans on the counter, shifting his hips as he plants his elbows firmly and looks up at me. His uninterested deadpan is cold, like he'd rather I just leave, but if I do that, nothing gets discussed. I know it's only January, but if we don’t move on planning now, the best food trucks and vendors will be locked into summer plans. I have to have things finalized soon in order to make sure the festival is a success.

"The plan was to use the marina as one of the main venue sites. The waterfront, the docks, the open lot on the south end. Frank agreed to all of it. We shook on it in November and he was supposed to sign the formal agreement this month."

"But he didn't sign it," Luke says, lifting an eyebrow at me, a thick swath of hair that matches the sandy brown mop on his head. The shaved sides make me want to scratch my fingers through it, the way I used to scratch my dad's beard when I was a little girl and wonder how the hairs could be so prickly.

"Well, I mean… before he died, he agreed to." I swallow hard, thinking of what this festival means to me. Nick would want it to go on. I know the best thing for this town is to come together and celebrate life, build tourism back to what it used to be. And my parents need it too. Life has been too heavy for too long.

Luke narrows his eyes as he closes the folder in front of him and crosses his arms. "I don't know anything about a festival, Hannah, though I've only been here two days."

"I understand that. It's why I'm telling you about it now." This is getting frustrating. I suck in a deep breath to expand my lungs, but I'm not counting on his making this easy for me.

"Well, I appreciate it, but I'm not in a position to agree to anything right now. I don't even know what I've got here." He gestures at the folders, the counter, the building around us. "And I'm just not sure if these docks can even handle something like that."

"The docks need work. I'm aware of that." I step closer and press my lips into a line before I continue. "Part of the festival plan includes infrastructure improvements that would benefit the marina directly. I can show you the proposal?—"