Before she could respond, a pretty redhead turned the corner of the vegetable aisle. He had met Samantha Fremont a few times since he came to town and found her nice enough, though he always left their interactions wishing he were better at small talk.
She appeared surprised to find him and Katrina talking together, then her carefully made-up features shifted into a bright smile.
“Hi, Bowie,” she said, her voice a little breathless, before she turned to Katrina.
“There you are!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been looking all over the store for you. You’re not finished shopping yet? What’s taking you so long?”
“I was just about to check out. We had a little...situation, but it seems to be under control now. Sorry about that.”
“No worries.” She turned back to Bowie. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met a month or so ago at Snow Angel Cove. You work at Caine Tech with Aidan and Ben, right?”
Yes. And they were counting on him to deliver results, as soon as he figured out what to do with his brother. “I remember. Good to see you again.”
“I don’t know this little guy, though. Is this your son?”
Milo, who had reacted with uncharacteristic warmth to Katrina, gave Sam his blank, almost empty stare.
“This is my brother, Milo.”
“Hi there, Milo. My name is Samantha.”
With more of that odd affinity, he sidled closer to Katrina, who gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. Sam is nice. She’s my very best friend in the whole wide world and has been since we were just a little older than you.”
After a moment, Milo handed over another twist-tie creation. Samantha Fremont blinked in surprise at it for a moment, then accepted it gingerly.
“Um. Thanks,” she said, clearly at sea.
Katrina tugged her away.
“We have to go. We’re going to be late for a party. It was nice to meet you, Milo.”
She hadn’t said it was nice to meet him. Bowie told himself not to be disappointed by the omission.
“Think about it,” he said.
“I gave you my answer, Mr. Callahan. I won’t change my mind.”
As she walked away with her friend, he had to hope she was wrong about that. If not, he wasn’t sure how he would survive the next three weeks until the autism specialist could arrive.
* * *
KATRINA’S SHOULDER BLADES itched as she walked away from Bowie and Milo, and she was certain if she turned around, she would find one—or possibly both—of them watching after her.
This was what happened to women who didn’t mind their own business. They ended up having to turn down outrageous job offers they couldn’t for a moment actually be considering.
Sam waited only until they had headed for the checkout line before questions burst out of her. “What was that all about? What are you supposed to think about?”
“Nothing. That looks like the shortest line.” She headed for the checkout line closest to the door, waving at one of her mother’s friends as she went.
“It didn’t seem like nothing.” Sam gave a short laugh that didn’t sound entirely amused. She shook her head. “I turn my back for five minutes to pick up my mom’s blood pressure medication and come back to find you chatting with the hottest guy in town. I should have expected it. Good to see some things don’t change. You’re still the same flirty Kat.”
She wasn’t. The last year had changed her profoundly, in ways she couldn’t begin to explain to Sam.
“Did he ask you out?” Samantha’s voice had a strangely careful quality to it as she started pulling items out of the cart and setting them on the belt.
“No!” Katrina exclaimed, more sharply than she meant to. “No. It wasn’t like that at all. He’s looking for a temporary caregiver for his younger brother. That’s all.”
“Like a babysitter?”
“More like a nanny, I guess.”
“I still can’t believe that’s his brother, though I suppose they do look alike.”
Katrina wasn’t sure she completely agreed. They had the same color hair and eyes, though the boy’s skin was a shade or two darker and his mouth was different.
Not that she noticed.
“He seemed like a cute kid, though I don’t know what this is about.” Sam dangled the little twist-tie sculpture Milo had made for her.
“It’s a penguin. Can’t you tell?”
“No. Apparently you have to have an elementary education degree to fully appreciate the artistry.”
“Apparently.”
“No wonder the man wants you to be his kid brother’s nanny. You’re perfect for it—even though he only met you five minutes ago.”
She was still reeling from the dollar signs that had temporarily danced in front of her gaze when he mentioned the amount he was willing to pay. That would more than pay the rest of her legal costs in Colombia from her grasping attorney.
“I said the same thing. He knows absolutely nothing about me, yet he wants to hand over his brother to me.”
“How did all that happen in the five minutes I was at the pharmacy?”
She replayed the conversation in her head and still couldn’t quite make sense of it. “Milo is on the autism spectrum. He was in the middle of a meltdown in the middle of the produce aisle over some grapes. I was somehow able to divert his attention, and now Bowie Callahan apparently thinks I’m some kind of miracle worker. Anne Sullivan to Milo’s Helen Keller. It’s ridiculous, really.”
But twelve thousand dollars. How could she turn it down?
“You’re not taking the job?”
“I’m only here for a few weeks. I don’t want to spend my whole time taking care of some rich guy’s brother who has autism, no matter how cute he is. The brother, I mean.”
“Are you kidding? You should totally take the job. I would jump at the chance to work for Bowie Callahan.”
“Too bad he’s not in the market to hire a personal shopper or something. Especially one who specializes in women’s fashions.”
“If he needed my particular skills, I would figure out a way. I’m not the only one. Half the women in town are in love with the man. When Eppie and Hazel saw him for the first time, I was afraid they would go straight into cardiac arrest.”
Yet another reason she didn’t want to take the job. She’d had enough of good-looking men to last her a lifetime.
She had learned her lesson well after what happened in South America with that idiot Carter Ross.
“You’re totally going to do it. I can see you wavering.”
“I’m not,” she protested.
Before Sam could argue, the shopper ahead of them picked up his receipt and bag from the checker and it was their turn.
“Hey, Katrina!” The checker, an older woman with unnaturally blond hair and nicotine-stained teeth, beamed at her. “I thought that was you when you first came in earlier. My line was backed up and I didn’t have time to come find you to say hello.”
Her smile felt tight and forced. She genuinely liked Filene Harding, but their encounters were always a bit awkward. Katrina had dated Filene’s son a few times in high school, and Filene always acted as if they had a much closer bond than Katrina thought.
“Hi, Filene. How are you?”
“Good. Good. How are you, hon? I heard you’ve been in Mexico or some crazy thing like that.”
“Colombia, actually. A little village about an hour from Barranquilla.”
Filene didn’t seem to care about the details. “You know, it’s the funniest thing that you came in today. I was just looking at a picture of you at the prom with my Bryan the other day. You two were so cute together! I always thought so. I’ll have to tell him you’re back in town.”
Bryan Harding had been renown
ed for his octopus hands in high school. Once she figured that out after the second date, she tried her best to avoid the guy. “How is Bryan these days?” she asked to be polite, then could have kicked herself for encouraging the woman.
“Good. Good. He’s working construction with his brother. He was living with a gal, but they broke up a few weeks ago. She kicked him out, if you want the truth. I don’t know why, because they seemed so happy together. So now he’s back living in my basement.”
“Didn’t he have a little boy a few years back with some girl in Boise?” Sam asked.
The red-painted corners of Filene’s mouth turned up as she scanned their groceries. “He’s got two. Different mamas, of course. Six months apart. They’re the cutest little things. Spittin’ image of their daddy. You should see them.”
She doubted that would happen, since she and Bryan Harding didn’t run in the same social circles. They never really had, she supposed.
When she was about thirteen, Bryan had been one of the first guys who noticed she was finally starting to grow into her features and had begun to develop some curves. They had flirted a little, just in fun, and she sneaked out of the house to go to the movies with him a few times, until she figured out he only wanted to see how lucky he could get with StupidKat.
She supposed Bryan was the first in a long line of dumb decisions she had made when it came to the male of the species. No more. She was done wasting her time and energy on the players of the world.
“I’ll be sure to tell Bryan I ran into you,” Filene said as she rang up the last of their groceries. “You staying at your mom’s place while you’re in town?”
“For now,” she hedged as she swiped her debit card, ever mindful of the depleting balance in her account. “Thank you. See you.”
She scooped up one bag while Samantha grabbed the other and hurried out of the store.
She didn’t want Bryan to find her. Or any other guy, for that matter.
In a few months, she would have everything she never knew she wanted. Everything else seemed unimportant.
CHAPTER THREE
“THANKS SO MUCH for offering to host the party here, Jules.”
Julia Winston smiled, though it didn’t quite push away that subtle air of sadness that encircled her. “My pleasure, really. Especially since McKenzie is doing all the work. This house needs more parties.”
Julia lived in one of a handful of gorgeous Victorian mansions about a block off the water that had been built by early mining and business magnates, in the days when the area around Lake Haven had been an exclusive retreat renowned for the healing nature of the hot springs in abundance around the area.
Katrina had always loved this neighborhood. Steeped in history and beauty, it always felt graceful and elegant to her, even when she was a girl.
“How are you doing?” her mother, Charlene, asked Julia with a concerned expression. “How’s your mom?”
The town librarian gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She had lived here with her elderly mother until Mariah Winston had a stroke a few months earlier. Mariah was now in a rehab center in Shelter Springs, the same one where Katrina’s father had spent the last few years of his life.
“Fine. Every day she seems to be showing a little improvement. Or at least I would like to think so. It’s hard to be sure.”
Oh, Katrina remembered those difficult days after her father had suffered a debilitating brain injury after being shot on the job. How many hours had she sat by his bedside, watching for a blink or a facial tic or anything that might indicate the man she adored was still inside the shell lying on that hospital bed?
She squeezed Julia’s hand. “I’m sorry. Hosting a bridal shower is probably the last thing you felt like doing.”
“Not at all. I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t wanted to do it. I needed the distraction, if you want the truth. The house seems too quiet sometimes.”
“It’s such a lovely home. Every time I come here, I feel like I’m stepping back into another era,” Kat said.
Julia made a face. “Your great-grandma’s era, maybe.”
“I love it,” Sam declared. “You’ve got that classy, retro vibe going on. That’s really in right now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with old-fashioned,” Charlene assured Julia.
“I agree,” Kat said. “I wish I had been able to see Haven Point in its heyday.”
“Totally,” Sam said. “All those rich dudes coming here to soak in the hot springs. I’d be all over that.”
Before Julia could answer, Eliza Caine walked into the room. She looked around them as if wondering if someone else was hiding behind the grandfather clock in the entryway. “You don’t happen to have brought the guest of honor with you, did you? She’s fifteen minutes late, and that’s totally not like our Wynona.”
“She’ll be here,” Katrina assured her. “She called us before we left the house and said she had to help Cade with something.”
Samantha gave an inelegant snort with a distinctively naughty edge.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, young lady,” her mother, Linda, said, glaring at her only daughter.
“What? I didn’t even say anything,” Sam protested.
“Something at the police station,” Charlene said quickly. “I think one of the cases she investigated last summer when she still worked for the police department is going to trial, and he had some questions for her. She’ll be here soon. She said she was on her way.”
As if on cue, an old-fashioned doorbell chimed through the graceful entryway.
Kat was closest to it. She opened the door and was the first to hug her sister.
“Sorry I’m late,” Wynona said. “I didn’t mean to keep everyone waiting.”
“You didn’t,” Katrina assured her. “We just arrived ourselves.”
“Everyone’s in the back, if you’d like to follow me.”
Julia led the way through the house, filled with antiques and collectibles. It really was like a museum. How did Julia walk down for a midnight snack without worrying about breaking some sort of priceless family heirloom? she wondered.
This neighborhood was set on a hill some distance from downtown, but the huge screened sunroom Julia led them to offered spectacular views of the lake and the Redemption Mountains.
“Oh, look what you’ve done to this place,” Charlene exclaimed. “It’s absolutely stunning, Kenzie.”
McKenzie Kilpatrick, the Haven Point mayor and floral shop owner who loved nothing so much as throwing a big party—except maybe her husband, Ben—had pulled out the perfect bridal shower decor for Wynona. Though Wyn had been a police officer, she was a girlie-girl at heart, and the decorations reflected that, with large paper parasols in soft pastel shades hanging from the ceiling and heart-shaped balloons in the same shades in every corner.
“I had a lot of help. Katrina and Sam were here for several hours this afternoon.”
As maid of honor, Katrina probably should have handled many of the shower details. She had participated in the planning with Julia, Eliza and McKenzie via Skype and email, but it was a little hard to do much more from another country.
“I hope you didn’t go up on the ladder to hang those parasols, honey,” Charlene said to Katrina. “With your luck, you’d fall off and break something. Wouldn’t that be a sorry state of affairs, if you had a broken arm in a cast to go with your bridesmaid dress?”
She managed to refrain from rolling her eyes—which she wanted to think was a sign that she was indeed maturing at least a little bit. “Yes. Terrible.”
“Although, maybe if you had a broken arm,” her mother said tartly, “you would have to stick around home longer than a few weeks.”
As Katrina was well aware of her mother’s negative attitude about her return to Colom
bia, she opted to ignore that broad hint. “I’m going to go set this salad over on the table and say hello to Hazel and Eppie,” she said, then escaped before her mother could call her back.
She adored the two Brewer sisters, sisters ten months apart who had married twin brothers and spent their entire lives living next to each other. She and Samantha often said they wanted to grow up to be just like them, sassy and funny and full of spice.
She set the salad down and hugged each of them in turn. “How are my favorite troublemakers? What have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”
“Why, there’s our favorite world traveler,” Hazel said. “It’s about time you came back.”
“I’m so happy you made it in time for the wedding,” Eppie exclaimed.
Surely they knew she wouldn’t have missed Wyn and Cade’s wedding, no matter what. Even if she had been stuck in a tiny village on the Amazon River without a boat, she would have swum through barracudas to be here if necessary.
“Sit here by us,” Hazel insisted. “We want to hear every juicy detail. What sort of hunky guys have you been hanging out with down there?”
“I can picture you now, lounging around on the beaches of Rio or living it up in some penthouse apartment in Bogotá.”
For one moment, she could vividly picture Gabriela’s orphanage, where she had been spending virtually all of her free time when she wasn’t teaching English at the nearby secondary school. She saw the run-down facility as clearly as if she had just left—the peeling paint, the bare mattresses on the floor, the plain, dangling light bulbs overhead.
She had to get Gabi out of that environment, no matter what.
The dedicated staff at the orphanage tried to shower love on the children, but they had limited time and even more limited means to make a real difference.
Her heart ached all over again at the confusion and sadness in Gabi’s sweet face when Katrina had hugged her goodbye the week before. Though she wasn’t yet four, she had already been disappointed twice when previous adoptions fell through. Children with Down syndrome could be difficult to place in developing countries, especially when they already struggled with complicated medical conditions that could accompany that diagnosis.
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