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.

CHAPTER THREE

“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.