Serenity Harbor

Milo seemed to have gone somewhere in his head, or at least he wasn’t in the mood to respond.

“Thanks,” Bowie said after a moment. He looked surprised at the small gesture. Almost...touched, as if the courtesy was out of the norm for him. That was ridiculous. He had a housekeeper who did his shopping, for heaven’s sake. Bowie had to be used to women falling all over themselves to take care of him.

She found his reaction absurdly appealing.

Oh, she really hoped she wasn’t making a terrible mistake by agreeing to help him out. She couldn’t afford the distraction. Money wasn’t everything—or so she tried to tell herself, anyway.

She probably would have stuck to her guns and continued to refuse him, if not for the phone call she’d received that morning from Angel Herrera, the inaptly named attorney representing her in the adoption process. She had found nothing angelic about him from the moment they met. Though he had come recommended by the local representative from the Colombia national adoption agency, he was loud, abrasive, and made her feel stupid every time she talked to him, either because of her halting command of the Spanish language or because she struggled to understand the complicated and unwieldy international adoption process.

It didn’t help that he constantly seemed to approach her with his hand out.

The latest conversation had been the same. He had insisted he needed an extra two thousand dollars because of unexpected costs associated with filing some of the necessary paperwork.

She didn’t understand. How much could it cost to make duplicates of her adoption petition and run them to the adoption office? Did he have to cut down the trees and mill his own paper or something?

After working with him for three months, she was beginning to understand the meaning of the word extortion. Angel knew how desperately Katrina wanted to adopt Gabi, knew that she would pay any cost, try to conquer any obstacle.

She felt completely out of her depth, trying to negotiate the complex process and receive approval from two countries to bring Gabi to the United States.

Herrera made her feel like she was eight years old again, forced to repeat the second grade because of a combination of missed classes and the strong medication that mostly controlled her epilepsy making it tough to focus.

StupidKat. TwitchyKat.

The weirdo.

You can’t invite her to your birthday party. What if she has a fit or something?

No. I’m sorry. My mom says you can’t stay overnight because of your medical condition.

My nana says kids who have seizures shouldn’t be allowed in school with normal kids because you could hurt somebody.

She had spent most of her life trying to quiet those damn voices, with varied levels of success.

She didn’t want to continue playing Angel Herrera’s game, but she didn’t know what else to do. At least with Bowie’s help, she would feel a little more secure if the attorney came to her again with his hand out.

“Wow, that was a good sandwich,” Bowie said, wiping away a little grape jelly at his mouth with a napkin. “I haven’t had one of those in years. Thanks.”

“See? I told you,” she said to Milo. “You’ve got mad PB&J skills, kiddo.”

The boy just gazed at her, obviously not impressed with her assessment. Bowie, on the other hand, smiled for a moment, then looked uncomfortable. “Uh, I know this is a lot to ask, especially on such short notice, but I need to run into the office and sign a few papers that resulted from our meeting today. I was going to take Milo with me, but if I can avoid it, I would rather not. He doesn’t like it there.”

She thought about the check in her pocket and the peace of mind it provided. “I can stay with him the rest of the afternoon. No problem.”

“Are you sure?”

She ought to say no so he didn’t completely take advantage of her. Begin how you want to go on, right? But Bowie looked so relieved, she didn’t have the heart to disappoint him.

“Sure. I can stay until six. After that, I’ve got a thing.” She didn’t really. She just didn’t want him to think she had nothing better to do than get him out of a bind.

“Thanks. Hey, mind if I take that other sandwich you and Milo made? I’m still hungry, and it tasted delicious.”

“It’s yours.”

His smile was sweetly genuine and made her toes curl inside her sandals.

Oh, she did not want to be attracted to him. That was exactly the sort of thing that always seemed to lead her into trouble.

Something told her it was going to be a long three weeks.

* * *

BIG SURPRISE, BOWIE wasn’t back by six.

Katrina glanced at her watch for about the twentieth time in the last five minutes and tried not to let her annoyance filter through to Milo.

They sat on the floor of his bedroom with a whole fleet of little cars in every color scattered around them like little shiny insects. They were his favorite toys, apparently, at least judging by the purple race car that was obviously his favorite. Most of them looked shiny and new, but the purple one he pulled out of the pocket of his shorts was battered, dented in places with the paint worn off.

He lined all twenty-five cars on the floor, then drove the purple car through them, scattering the others in all directions.

“That purple car is tough,” she observed. “Does it have a name?”

He ignored her, driving it in circles around the carpet mat.

“What other car do you like?” she asked. “Do you like this blue race car or this red pickup truck?”

He looked at them briefly, then continued driving the purple car around the floor with a low humming sound that resembled a car engine.

He could make sounds. The afternoon had amply demonstrated that. So why couldn’t he form words? Katrina needed to know his background and any actual diagnoses so she could do a little research to find out the best way to reach him.

Yes, Bowie had hired her simply to be a nanny to the boy, not come up with an individualized education plan for him, but she was a trained elementary education teacher. It was second nature to her to want to find solutions.

Before taking off with Carter, she had actually been working on her special education certification. Probably because of her own learning difficulties, she had always been drawn to the children who struggled more than their classmates. While she cared for all her students, Katrina found a greater degree of satisfaction in helping those who had to work harder to learn.

It was one of the things that had first drawn her to Gabi when Katrina first decided to volunteer at the orphanage near the school where she found a job teaching English after she had been stranded in Colombia. Some of the children had been apprehensive around Katrina, but Gabi had come right up to her, handed her a flowering weed she’d plucked from the garden and started jabbering away in a combination of Spanish and her own Gabi-speak. Katrina had fallen in love instantly.

Now she watched Milo make sounds with the car, then hold another car, headlight-to-headlight, against the purple one as if they were talking to each other.

He had receptive language skills, he could make sounds and he understood the concept of language. Why didn’t he speak? What she really needed was a long conversation with Bowie so she could figure out how best to help his brother during her time with him.

As if her thoughts had conjured him, she suddenly sensed movement by the door, and she glanced up in time to see Bowie walking into the room.

Again, her stupid heart rate kicked up a notch and her palms went clammy with nerves. Her thoughts seemed to scatter like those cars Milo had plowed through.

Her instinctive reaction to him both embarrassed and dismayed her as she rose to her feet, needing to be on a little more equal level.

So the man was gorgeous. She wasn’t in the market for gorgeous anymore, especially since it usually came hand in hand with arrogance and conceit.

His mouth twisted into a regretful frown. “I told you six and it’s half past. I’m sorry. I was helping one of the software engineers work out a problem and we both lost track of time. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Somehow she doubted the veracity of that particular statement. Most gorgeous men of her acquaintance seemed to think the world existed for their convenience—though, okay, that might be a gross generalization. She didn’t know Bowie Callahan well enough to automatically make that assumption.

“It was fine this time,” she said. “We had fun, didn’t we, Milo?”

The boy ignored both of them, busy lining up all his cars again in the same carefully ordered row.

“How did it go?” Bowie asked.

With a careful look to make sure Milo was still occupied, she rose and walked out into the hallway, out of earshot.

“Fine, for the most part. He seemed happy to have me there for the first few minutes and then ignored me most of the afternoon. We had one meltdown when I tried to have him leave his car out with the other toys when he had to use the bathroom, but we made it through.”

“He doesn’t do anything without that stupid, manky purple car. I tried to give him a bunch of new cars with no luck. That’s still his favorite. I don’t have actual proof of this, but I’m guessing he loves it because Stella gave it to him.”

“Stella. Is that your mother?”

“Yeah. That’s Mom.”

A hundred questions flashed through her mind at his sudden hard tone. Why did merely the mention of his mother’s name upset him? And why hadn’t he known about his brother until the last few weeks?

“I’m puzzled about why he doesn’t speak,” she said slowly. “Do you know what sort of speech therapy he’s had in the past?”

Bowie shook his head. “That seems to be the big mystery to the specialists we’ve seen. To be honest, I’m not sure whether he’s had any therapy. Knowing Stella, I highly doubt it.”

Katrina frowned at the bitterness in his tone. What sort of history did those seemingly casual words conceal?

“What about since you became his guardian?”

“I have an appointment next week with one in Shelter Springs but was thinking about postponing it. I’m thinking maybe we should wait until the autism specialist arrives before we start any intensive therapy, so she can be involved at the outset.”

The frustration and weariness in his voice pulled at her. She could only imagine how difficult it must have been for him to take over guardianship of a child with Milo’s kind of developmental challenges.

“It makes sense from an outsider’s perspective,” she assured him.

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” He smiled, and she was vaguely aware of her toes curling again.

Oh, good grief. She had to get out of there.

She looked through the doorway at Milo, who was now jumping his purple car over all the others like Evel Knievel was behind the wheel.

“What time do you want me here in the morning?”

“I have a staff meeting first thing. Would eight work?”

She mentally scanned her calendar, which took all of about half a second. “That should work great.”

“Thank you.” He smiled again. This time she forced her toes to stay firmly planted inside her shoes. “You can’t imagine the weight you’ve lifted from my shoulders.”

She thought of Gabi, fragile and needy—and now a few steps closer to their new life together. “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement,” she said.

“I hope we can continue to keep it that way.”

They could, as long as she managed to hold on to her perspective. She was doing a job here, that was all. She didn’t want to become embroiled in their lives, to let herself care for the troubled Callahan brothers.

Keeping both Milo and Bowie at arm’s length over the next few weeks just might be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She made her way past him, back into the boy’s bedroom. “I’ll see you in the morning, Milo. I have to go home now.”

That seemed to catch the boy’s attention. He looked up from his cars and she saw confusion flash in his eyes for a moment, followed quickly by disappointment and frustration and what looked like the genesis of a meltdown.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to play with you all day,” she said quickly in an effort to check the tantrum before it could begin. “I have a job for you while I’m gone. See if you can pick out all the vehicles that are the same color as your favorite.”

He looked stymied for a moment, then picked up another purple car and a third one.

“That’s an excellent start,” she said, pleased. “Good job.”

“We’ll look for more purple cars in a moment,” Bowie told him. “We can come back later, but first we have to walk Katrina out to her car and say goodbye to her. That’s the polite thing to do when you have a lady over. Come on, Milo.”

She thought the boy would ignore him, but after a moment Milo climbed to his feet, tucked his favorite car in the pocket of his cargo shorts and hurried over to them.

When they were nearly to the door, Bowie made a low exclamation. “I totally forgot. You walked over here earlier. We’ll give you a ride. Or, as I said earlier, you’re more than welcome to use something out of the garage.”

“Not necessary,” she assured him. “I left my car over at McKenzie’s house in Redemption Bay, which is only a five-minute walk from here along the lake trail.”

“We really wouldn’t mind driving you.”

“I’d rather walk. It’s a lovely evening and I need to stretch my legs a little.”

That answer didn’t appear to his liking. To his credit, Bowie didn’t argue. “Your choice, I suppose. Have a good evening, then.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you in the morning. Bye again, Milo.”

The boy didn’t wave but did appear to nod his head. She decided she would take it. Water lapped against the shore and birds twittered through the branches above her as she hurried along the path that wound through sweet-smelling pine trees. She hadn’t lied to him. She did like to walk and she adored these beautiful summer evenings along the lake—with the sun beginning to sink beneath the Redemption Mountain Range, casting long shadows.

Mostly, though, she needed a little distance from the entirely too-attractive Bowie Callahan and his brother.

* * *

KATRINA PARALLEL-PARKED about a block away from Point Made Flowers and Gifts—never an easy task, but made much more challenging because the somewhat battered sedan she was borrowing from her stepfather during her stay had a loosey-goosey power steering system that swam a little more than she liked.

“Here we are. Are you excited?”

Milo, fiddling with the strap on his booster seat in the back, didn’t answer. Not that she expected him to. Katrina was quickly discovering it was one thing to understand the challenges of autism in academic terms and something else entirely when dealing with it for hours at a time.

She and Milo had been together nonstop for the last three days and had finally settled into a routine of sorts. In the morning, she fixed him breakfast, they did a few basic chores around the house like washing the dishes or emptying the trash, then they took a long walk, either around the lake or along one of her favorite easy trails along the Hell’s Fury River.

After lunchtime, she would read to him while he played cars—though she wasn’t entirely certain if he truly enjoyed the stories or merely tuned her out to do his own thing. She insisted he rest in his room for a little quiet time, then they would take another walk or go to a nearby park or merely sit on the patio overlooking the lake and throw pebble after pebble.

He seemed comfortable with their routine, and she was leery about messing it up. This was the first time she had brought him along to a gathering like this, but McKenzie had scheduled a meeting of the Haven Point Helping Hands to finish Wyn’s wedding favors, and Katrina didn’t know how she could avoid it. She was the maid of honor, after all.

“Don’t worry. It’s going to be fun, especially since there will be other kids your age there.”

She crossed her fingers on the steering wheel. She’d yet to see Milo truly interact with others his age. Twice when they had gone to the city park, other children had been playing there, but they seemed much younger than Milo. He had largely ignored them all while he made a road in the sand for his purple car.

As was typical, he didn’t respond to her assertion and she couldn’t tell how much he understood. She had adopted the philosophy the first day that his level of understanding didn’t really matter. She would simply talk to him all the time about everything: her thoughts, concerns, Gabi, the awkward situation at her mom’s house. He didn’t appear to be bored, and she had to think that exposure to words and more words had to be beneficial.

“I need your help carrying some things in,” she told him after she unhooked his booster. It wasn’t really true, since she had only one salad and a few stray supplies Kenzie had asked her to grab, but she also had learned early that Milo seemed to like being helpful.

She handed him the small bag of craft supplies, picked up the salad, then took off for McKenzie’s store, Point Made Flowers and Gifts.

Downtown Haven Point seemed busier than Katrina had seen it in a while, bustling with tourists and locals alike. Since Ben and Aidan had moved a new Caine Tech facility to town, new stores and restaurants had begun to open up in the previously shuttered businesses in town.

It still wasn’t as busy as nearby Shelter Springs, which suited her just fine.

Before they crossed the street, she reached down to take Milo’s hand. He tried to wriggle his hand free, but she held fast. “You have to hold my hand while we cross,” she told him, her voice firm. “Then you can let go.”

He gave a heavy sigh but kept his hand in hers until the moment they reached the sidewalk on the other side, then he yanked it free, though he stayed close to her side.

Despite Bowie’s warning that first day, Milo hadn’t yet tried to wander away from her.

Bowie.

Katrina tried not to match Milo’s heavy sigh of a few moments earlier. She had worked in his house for three days and had seen him maybe a total of thirty minutes that entire time, basically five minutes in the morning as he headed out the door, then five minutes in the evening prior to her leaving for home.

Her face still felt hot and her stomach a tangle of nerves whenever she saw him, but she was working on it. Honestly.

Ten minutes a day didn’t give her much time to figure out a guy, which was probably a good thing in this case. She didn’t need to know anything about him, other than that he worked hard and wanted the best for his brother—whatever that might be.

When they reached the door of McKenzie’s store, Milo hung back a little and seemed wary about going inside. He was nervous, she realized. Had she done that to him, with her talk about other children?

“Hey, buddy,” she said softly. “You don’t have to play with the other kids if you don’t want to. It’s just fine if you would rather stay close to me the whole time.”

His shoulders seemed to relax at that, and she gave him a reassuring smile. “Let’s do this,” she said, then pushed open the door.

Inside McKenzie’s store, the scent of cinnamon and vanilla swirled around and a furry greeter instantly padded over to them.

“Hey, Rika,” she said to the elegant cinnamon-colored standard poodle who came to investigate the newcomers to her domain.

Milo, she saw, did not look nervous around the dog. No surprise there. While he might be apprehensive about children and other humans, he had a deep and abiding love for anything furry or feathered.

“Milo, this is my friend, Paprika. She is McKenzie’s dog. Remember McKenzie? You met her the other day over by the lake.”

The boy nodded and reached a hand out to pet the dog. He smiled a little when his fingertips found the texture of her curly, wiry hair.

“She feels funny, doesn’t she? Poodles don’t have hair like other dogs, you know, the long, sheddy sort. They were originally water dogs and the curly hair helps them dry off faster. Just like in people, curly hair has to do with genetics and the shape of the hair shaft opening.”

“Do you really think he understands anything about genetics or hair shafts?”

She glanced over to find Linda Fremont watching her from beside the counter, wearing her usual sour expression. She tried reminding herself to be patient with Linda. The woman had things tough after her husband died young. She had raised Samantha while running a small business by herself.

Despite her gruff exterior, she had also been as kind as her nature would allow toward Katrina at a time when other parents in town hadn’t been nearly as welcoming. Because of that, Kat generally gained a lot of practice biting her tongue around her.

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