The Hometown Hero Returns

Her gaze leaped to meet his. Was he a mind reader?

“All right,” she whispered. “But I can't guarantee anything. And I want to take things slowly…test out the waters.”
See what kind of effect our being seen together has on our family and friends,
she added privately. She grimaced at her thought, realizing Marc was right to suggest she considered everyone else before she did herself.

He pulled her closer. He didn't say anything, but she found herself wondering if he thought the same thing she did. They'd learned fifteen years ago that life was tenuous. People who thought happiness was guaranteed, that security was a certainty, were living in a dream.

But did that mean the dream wasn't worth seeking?

Dear Reader,

I hope you will enjoy this romance of love lost and reclaimed set against the emotional backdrop of torn loyalties and the struggle to find meaning in the aftermath of tragedy. Marc and Mari's story is very personal to me, but I believe it will strike a chord in any reader who believes, as I do, that love and hope can truly conquer all, if given a chance.

I would like to thank my agent, Laura Bradford, for believing in this story, and Susan Litman, my editor, for being patient with me as I have attempted to learn the art of writing category romance. As always, I'm grateful to my husband for his unfailing support and the inspiration I get from him in so many different ways.

Beth Kery

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

H
e'd followed her for three blocks, undecided whether he would call out or just fade back into the shadows of their mutual memories. The weight of the past had frozen his vocal cords, but the sight of her graceful figure drew him like a magnet.

He repeatedly told himself there was no reason for so much trepidation. There was nothing between Mari and him now. The common ground they once shared was shadowed by his shame for his father's actions as well as the bitterness he felt toward Mari for refusing to see or speak to him for half a lifetime.

He nearly did a complete turnabout in the revolving doors of the Palmer House Hotel, telling himself it would be best to just walk away. But at the last second, impulse drove him to speak her name.

“Marianna.”

She glanced around.

Mari's eyes—God, he'd forgotten their power. The
sounds in the bustling, luxurious hotel lobby faded as the color washed out of her cheeks. He felt a stab of regret. It'd been the sight of her breathtaking face that'd compelled him to pull up short and call her name.

For a few seconds, they remained motionless. The single word he'd uttered had been the first they'd shared since they'd both lost loved ones in one cruel swipe of fate's hand.

“Marc,” Mari mouthed.

“I was at your performance and I followed you,” he explained rapidly. When she continued to stare at him, her expression rigid with shock, he realized how strange that sounded. “I just wanted to say…you were wonderful.”

She set down her cello case and straightened, seeming to gather herself. Her small smile seemed to give him permission to step closer. “Since when does Marc Kavanaugh listen to anything but rock music?”

“Give me some credit, Mari. A lot can change in fifteen years.”

“I'll grant you that,” she replied softly.

He couldn't stop himself from devouring the sight that had been ripped away from him so long ago. She wore the black dress that was standard apparel for a symphony member. The garment was simple and elegant, but it couldn't hide the fact that womanhood had added some curves to Mari's slender form.

In all the right places,
Marc acknowledged as his gaze lingered for two heartbeats on her full breasts. He glanced down at her hands and noticed she was twisting them together, betraying her nerves. Mari was a cellist—a brilliant one. She had the hands of musician— sensitive and elegant. Even though she'd been young and inexperienced when they'd been together so long ago, she'd had a magical touch on his appreciative skin.

“Look at you. Marianna Itani, all grown up.”

“You, too.”

Maybe it was his imagination, but her lowered glance seemed almost as hungry as his inspection of her had been.

She returned his smile when she looked into his eyes. “Every inch the newly elected Cook County State's Attorney.”

“How did you know about that?”

She shrugged. “I read about it. I wasn't surprised. It was a foregone conclusion you'd excel at whatever you did. You always got what you wanted, once you made up your mind about it.” She swallowed and glanced away. “I was sorry to hear about your divorce.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I'm sure that didn't make any headlines. How
did
you know about that?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I still have a few contacts in Harbor Town. I keep in touch.”

Not with me though, Mari. Fifteen years of silence.
Marc banished the flash of frustration, knowing how fruitless the emotion was.

“Right.” He nodded, understanding dawning. “I wouldn't be surprised if Walt Edelmann over at the Shop and Save was the first person to know about my divorce outside of Sandra and myself. It's almost supernatural the way that man acquires gossip.”

Her radiant smile made a dull ache expand in his chest. “Do you think Walt still works at the Shop and Save?”

“I know he does. I don't go back to Harbor Town often, but, when I do, I always see Walt. He's a standard fixture. He and my mother chat almost every day, which is code for exchanging juicy news.”

Her glance ricocheted off him at the mention of his mother. The light from the lobby chandeliers made the
dark gold highlights in her brown hair gleam when she lowered her head. “Well…you know how small towns are.”

“Yeah, I do,” he replied gruffly.

She stirred beneath his stare. The moment wasn't as awkward as it was tense. Charged. He waited, wondering what she would say. He was having trouble finding words himself. He and Mari were almost strangers to each other now. It was odd, the paradox of connection and distance he felt with this woman, as though they each stood on the opposite side of a great chasm of grief, joined only by a thin, ephemeral thread.

Still, that cord was strong enough that it had tugged at him this afternoon when he'd seen the newspaper article about the San Francisco Orchestra playing at Symphony Hall; it had made him ask his administrative assistant to buy him a ticket to the performance. It had fueled his impulsive decision to follow Mari to her hotel.

He nodded in the direction of a crowded lounge. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She hesitated. He was sure she was going to say it wasn't a good idea. He might have agreed with her five minutes ago, before he'd been stunned by the visceral impact of standing so close to her…of seeing her face.

“I have a suite. There's a separate room where we could have a drink and talk. I mean…if you'd like,” she added when he didn't immediately respond.

Seeing the slight tremble in her lush lips had mesmerized him.

He blinked, wondering if he was seeing things he wanted to see, not reality. In eyes that reminded him of rare cognac, he saw the glow of desire, a heat that hadn't been entirely stamped out by the weight of tragedy.

“That sounds like a great idea.”

She nodded, but neither of them moved. The bond
he'd shared with Mari since they'd been sunburned, carefree teenagers in Harbor Town—a bond formed by love and battered by grief—chose that moment to recall its strength and coil tight.

He stepped forward at the same moment she came toward him and enfolded her in his arms. A convulsion of emotion shook her body.

“Shh.” His hand found its way into her smooth, soft hair. He fisted a handful and lifted it to his nose. Her scent filled his head. Desire roared in his blood.

“Mari,”
he whispered.

He pressed his mouth to her brow, her eyelid and cheek. He felt her go still in his arms when he kissed the corner of her mouth. She turned her head slowly, her lips brushing against his. Their breaths mingled. A powerful need surged up in him, its primal quality shocking him. He possessively covered her mouth.

When he lifted his head a moment later, she was panting softly through well-kissed lips.

“Lead the way, Mari.”

“I can think of a thousand reasons we shouldn't do this,” she whispered.

“I can only think of you.”

She put her hand in his and they headed toward the elevators that led to the rooms.

Five weeks later

M
ari understood, for the first time in her life, the full meaning of the word
bittersweet
when she returned to Harbor Town after nearly fifteen years. The feeling strengthened when she left the empty office complex on the north end of town and saw Lake Michigan shimmering through the trees.

“We're not far from Silver Dune Bay here, are we?” she asked Eric Reyes as he paused beside her. She waved goodbye to Marilyn Jordan, the real estate agent who had just shown them the commercial property.

“Fancy a swim, do you? It's hot enough for one, that's for sure.” His grin faded. “Mari? Are you okay? You're very pale.”

She brushed a tendril of hair off her sweaty brow and steadied herself by leaning against the wall of the build
ing. She swallowed thickly, trying to calm the nausea swelling in her belly.

“I'm fine. I think I caught a bug. The guy who sat next to me on the plane was coughing nonstop for the whole trip.”

Eric studied her through narrowed eyes. Mari was suddenly reminded that her friend was a doctor, a very gifted one by all accounts.

“It's nothing, Eric,” she assured him. “It comes and goes. I'm sure this heat isn't helping matters any.”

She stepped away from the wall, willing her queasiness to ease. She didn't have time for illness. This was a trip she'd needed to make for a long time, and she'd planned to complete her mission in a quick and dirty fashion. Because of her impulsiveness with Marc Kavanaugh five weeks ago, her desire to take care of business and get out of Harbor Town as soon as possible only intensified by the hour.

She forced a smile and walked with Eric toward his sedan.

“Were you one of the daredevils who used to jump off Silver Dune? It's got to be a forty-foot drop to the bay,” she reflected as Eric unlocked the passenger door of his car. In her mind's eye, she pictured her summertime best friend Colleen Kavanaugh leaping off the tall dune without a backward glance, her long blond hair streaming out behind her like a golden cape.

Mari had always been a little in awe of the Kavanaughs' fearlessness. All the children had seemed to possess that indefinable, elusive quality that Mari thought of as American royalty—the golden, effortless beauty, the easy confidence and quick smile, the love of a dare, a fierce temper and an even fiercer loyalty to those they loved.

“It's fifty feet, actually,” Eric replied once she was
seated in the car. He shut her door and came around to the driver's side. After he flipped the ignition, he immediately turned the air conditioning on high to cool the stifling interior. “And yeah, I took the leap plenty of times in my day.”

Took the leap.

Mari had only had the nerve to leap once in her life. She still could see Marc staring down at her, his mouth quirked in a sexy, little smile even as the rest of his features were softened in compassion for her fear.

Stop thinking so much, Mari. Just jump.

She
had
jumped, back when she was eighteen years old. It'd been the summer her parents had been killed.

Foolishness had caused her to take a similar reckless leap five weeks ago in Chicago. As a thirty-three-year-old woman, Mari hardly had the excuse of a girlhood infatuation any longer, yet something fluttered in her belly as she clearly recalled Marc pinning her with the blazing blue eyes as he fused their flesh. She heard his desire-roughened voice in her ear.

I've waited for this for fifteen years, Mari.

She clenched her eyelids shut and placed her hand on her stomach, not to soothe her nausea this time, but to calm the thrill of excitement and wonder the memory evoked. When she opened her eyes, she saw Eric's curious glance raking over her.

“So are you going to keep me in suspense or what?” he asked as he pulled onto Route 6.

“What do you mean?” she asked warily, still under the influence of the carnal memory.

Eric gave her a bewildered glance. “I'm wondering what you think of the property, Mari.”

“Oh!” She laughed in relief. For a second there, she'd thought those physician's eyes of his had x-rayed straight into her skull and read her thoughts. “I
do
like the office
space. Very much. It's in a private area, and I love all the sunlight. It's nice that it's so close to the woods and the lake. There's plenty of room for The Family Center to grow as we get new funding and programs. Thank you so much for doing all the preliminary groundwork before I got here, Eric. You and Natalie have done a hundred times more than I'd expected.”

“It wasn't that much, especially with all the research and ideas you sent us. Plus, you'd already compiled most of the paperwork for the state.”

“Most people will think I'm nuts for doing this—a cello player opening up a facility for victims of substance abuse,” she muttered.

Eric's dark brows quirked upward. “Good thing the Reyes aren't
most people
then.”

Mari smiled. Of course the Reyes weren't most people. Eric and Natalie had been just as impacted by the effects of substance abuse as Mari and her brother, Ryan, had.

And the Kavanaughs…

It'd been fifteen years since a drunk Derry Kavanaugh, Marc's father, had gotten behind the wheel of his car. Marc's father had caused a three-way crash that night, killing himself, both of Mari's parents and Eric's mother. The accident had left Eric's sister, Natalie, scarred—damage both physical and psychological.

This was the old wound that Mari had felt compelled to return to Harbor Town and try to heal. Not just for herself or Eric or Natalie or Marc, but for anyone who had ever been impacted by the devastating effects of substance abuse.

Eric grabbed her hand as he drove. “Nat and I are right here in Harbor Town, and we're one hundred percent behind you on this. Are you
sure
you don't need any of the money from the lawsuit? Do you really think
it was the best idea to transfer all of it over to a trust for The Family Center?”

“Of course I'm sure. You know I've planned to start this project with money from the lawsuit for years now. I never could touch that fund for anything else. It just seemed like—” she paused, trying to find the right words “—that money was meant for something bigger than me. I just haven't had the time to get things moving until now. Besides, I'm selling the house on Sycamore Avenue. That'll give Ryan and me a nice nest egg.”

She glanced out the window at the rows of perfectly maintained lakeside cottages. Each and every one looked to be occupied with vacationers. The population of Harbor Town swelled in the summer months.

She smiled wistfully as she watched a little girl with a dark ponytail run around the corner of a house. She'd sported a pink bikini and an inflatable green dragon around her waist.

“I'm not sure I'll ever have the time I need to do what needs to be done,” she murmured.

Eric wiggled her hand in his before he let go. “You know what I think you need? I think you need a little fun and relaxation, Harbor Town-style.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“The Fourth of July festivities, of course. Don't tell me you've forgotten the downtown parade.”

Mari laughed warily. “How could I forget such a spectacle?”

“Let's go have a peek, get an ice cream, goof off. There's plenty of time later to sit down and talk about the plans for The Family Center.”

“Eric…” Mari hesitated, hating the idea of being seen in such a public place. Marc had mentioned five weeks ago that he rarely returned to Harbor Town, but she knew that his sister, Colleen, still lived here, as did their
mother, Brigit. At the thought of running into either of them—especially Brigit—dread rose.

“Mari,” Eric said gently. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Isn't that one of the reasons you wanted to start up The Family Center, to get past the pain of our history, to make something positive come of it? You can't do that by hiding in your house the whole time you're here.”

Her eyes felt moist as she stared blankly out the window. Eric was right. Surely it was part of her own healing to remember not just the bitterness but the sweetness associated with the quaint lakeside community.

“All right,” she replied softly. “Let's go to the parade.”

 

Mari stood next to Eric on the curb of Main Street. A boisterous crowd of locals, vacationers and day-trippers surrounded them. A trombone blared off-key, startling her. She glanced up at Eric, and they shared a smile.

A huge sailboat float, surrounded by the smiling, waving men and women of the Arab-American Business Council, followed the marching band. Harbor Town was one of many quaint Michigan towns that lined the lakeshore, drawing vacationers from Detroit and Chicago and everywhere in between. A small population of Arab-Americans had settled in many lakeside communities over the past several decades. Harbor Town was often held up as a banner example of how a minority group could not only blend with a community, but enrich and improve it. Her parents had belonged to a Lebanese faction of eastern orthodox Christianity—the Maronites. Despite the minority status of their religion among Arab-Americans, Kassim and Shada Itani had taken comfort in having others around who shared so many common cultural elements.

“Oh, look! It's Alex Kouri,” Mari exclaimed as a distinguished man in his sixties marched past. His eyes widened incredulously as his gaze landed on her, and he waved and mouthed her name.

Mr. Kouri had been one of her father's closest friends. Both of them had been Detroit-based businessmen who had brought their families to Harbor Town for summer vacations. Mr. Kouri and her father would frequently drive back and forth together from Harbor Town to Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday and Sunday evenings, leaving their families to idle away the hot, summer weekdays while they worked at their corporate jobs.

Mari noticed how gray Mr. Kouri's hair had become. That's how her father would have looked, had he lived.

She saw a woman standing at the curb, her rapt attention on Mari and Eric, not on the parade.
Still as nosey as ever,
Mari thought with a flash of irritation, recognizing Esther Fontel, the old neighbor from Sycamore Avenue. The woman had once ratted her out to her parents when she observed Mari sneaking out her bedroom window and down the trusty old elm tree to join Marc on his motorcycle one hot summer night. Mari still recalled how angry her father had been, the hurt and the disappointment on her mother's face.

Until she'd turned fifteen, Mari hadn't fully understood the impact that her parents' ethnicity and religious views would have on her. Her brother had dated and enjoyed any number of summertime, teenage dalliances in Harbor Town. When Mari became a young woman, however, she'd learned firsthand that Ryan and she would not be treated the same when it came to dating. Especially when it came to Marc Kavanaugh.

Marc and Ryan had been close friends since they were both ten years old. Her parents had actually both
been very fond of Marc, and he was a regular visitor in the Itani vacation home.

But the summer Mari had turned fifteen, everything had changed—and Marc Kavanaugh had quickly moved to the top of her parents' list of undesirable dating partners for Mari.

Mrs. Fontel looked pointedly across the street, and Mari followed her gaze. She stared, shock vibrating her consciousness. Two tall, good-looking men with healthy, golden tans and dark blond hair stood in the crowd. Her gaze stuck on the one with the short, wavy hair. He had a little girl perched on his shoulders.

He looked just as good in shorts and a T-shirt that skimmed his lean, muscular torso as he had in the gray suit he'd worn in Chicago, Mari thought dazedly.

Her glance flickered to the right of Liam and Marc, and Brigit Kavanaugh's furious glare struck her like a slap to the face from an ice cold hand. Marc's stare was fiercer, though. It seemed to bore right through her across the span of Main Street.

It felt like someone had reached inside her and twisted her intestines. He'd said he only returned to Harbor Town a few times a year, she thought wildly. What were the chances he'd be here for the same handful of days she was?

She shivered despite the heat. It was Independence Day. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of the crash. Perhaps the Kavanaughs had gathered to visit Derry Kavanaugh's grave. Why hadn't she considered that possibility?

She jerked her gaze back to the parade, making no sense of the flashing, moving, colorful scene before her eyes, still highly aware of him watching her. He'd always been able to melt her with those blue eyes. She could
only imagine the effect they had on the people he'd cross-examined in the courtroom.

Mari had certainly felt the power of his stare during that night in Chicago.

He must be furious at her for not showing up at their agreed-upon lunch, for not returning his calls…especially after what had occurred between them in that hotel room.

 

“Well, if it isn't Mari Itani,” Liam Kavanaugh drawled under his breath.

Marc followed Liam's gaze, too surprised by his brother's statement to comment at first. He immediately found Mari in the crowd. She wore her long hair up and a casual, yellow dress that tied beneath her full breasts in a bow. The garment set off Mari's flawless, glowing skin to perfection. Not to mention what that innocent-seeming ribbon did to highlight the fullness of her curves.

“Mari Itani?”
Marc's sister Colleen asked incredulously from behind him. “Where?”

“Stop pointing, Liam,” Brigit Kavanaugh scolded when Liam tried to show his sister where Mari stood.

“Did you know she was back, Mom?” Marc asked sharply.

“I knew it. She's just here to get the house in order before it goes on the market. Can't believe she and Ryan have waited this long to sell it, but obviously they haven't been hurting for money,” Brigit replied bitterly.