Serenity Harbor

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Just as they walked into the house, the landline phone was ringing. Her heartbeat gave that stupid little hitch when she saw Bowie’s name on the caller ID, and she felt ridiculously breathless.

  “Hi, Katrina. It’s Bowie,” he said when she answered. “I tried to call your cell. Is everything okay?”

  She decided not to mention her doused phone. “Fine.”

  “How are things with Milo today?”

  The distracted tone of his voice made it obvious the question simply provided an opening to whatever he truly wanted to discuss.

  “Good. We just got home after having lunch with some friends of mine. The Haven Point Helping Hands. Milo did very well. There were a few other children attending. While he didn’t necessarily play directly with them, he played next to them.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “I see it as an encouraging sign, especially since your intention is to start him in school as soon as possible. He didn’t have a single meltdown either. We’ve had a great day so far. But I’m sure you didn’t really call for a status report.”

  She didn’t possess any miraculous insight into the way Bowie’s mind worked, but in the three days she had been caring for Milo—four, counting that first afternoon—he hadn’t called to chat one single time. This anomaly must mean something significant.

  “You’re right,” he said, his tone rueful. “I need a huge favor. I’ve got a bit of an emergency. I know you said you couldn’t stay with Milo in the evenings, but I’m wondering if there’s any chance you might make an exception tonight. We’re in the middle of a major crisis here, and an extra few hours might make all the difference.”

  She mentally scanned through her social calendar. Again, depressingly blank. Well, not completely—if she counted her plans to hide out in her room all evening while her mother and Uncle Mike entertained friends.

  Compared with the alternative, she supposed chilling with Milo in Bowie’s beautiful lakeside house wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice.

  “That should be fine, as far as I know.” She paused, making her voice as firm as she did with a misbehaving second-grader. “Just don’t make it a habit.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She heard relief and a small thread of amusement in his voice.

  “So what time can we expect you?” she asked.

  “I hope no later than eight. I’ll let you know, though. There’s plenty of food in the fridge and freezer. You’re welcome to eat whatever you want for dinner—or call for pizza, if that sounds better. I don’t care.”

  She was currently stuffed from all the delicious potluck salads provided by the other Helping Hands and wasn’t at all ready to think about dinner yet. “We’ll figure something out,” she answered.

  “Thank you. I owe you.”

  After they exchanged goodbyes and hung up, she turned to Milo. “Well, kid,” she said, “I guess it’s you and me for a few more hours. What would you like to do?”

  She should have predicted when he held his hands up to his chest like they were paws, stuck his tongue out and made a panting sound.

  “You want to go see Jerry Lewis?”

  He nodded, and she had to smile. Whether he liked it or not, at some point in the not-so-distant future, Bowie would have to consider adding a pet to his household. The kid responded to animals far more than he did to people.

  “It’s raining right now. Why don’t we play for a while until it passes, and then I’ll call Lizzie and see if she would let us hang out with Jerry Lewis, maybe take him for a walk. How does that work for you?”

  He didn’t answer her—but neither did he have a meltdown at the prospect of having to wait for something he wanted. She considered that progress.

  * * *

  HE WAS IN so much trouble. Katrina Bailey was going to kill him.

  Bowie pulled into the garage of his house, wincing when he glanced down and caught the time on the digital display on the dashboard. It was after ten, more than two hours past the time he’d told her he would be home. She had been doing him a favor, agreeing to stay past her usual time, and he had abused that favor horribly.

  He would be lucky if she stayed in the job at all—and it would be his own damn fault if she quit.

  He had no one to blame but himself. When he was focused on solving a problem, figuring out a new angle of attack, he tended to completely lose track of time—and apparently in this case, of his own obligations. He had been in the zone tonight. His team had finally arrowed in on a pesky software glitch, only a few layers of code away from fixing it, and Bowie hadn’t wanted to stop.

  In some vague corner of his mind, something had tried to remind him he had obligations and responsibilities waiting for him, but he kept telling himself he needed only five more minutes. Then five more minutes and five more minutes. Before he realized it, here he was, two hours past the time he had promised he would be home.

  He was fully aware Katrina was doing him a huge favor in the first place by agreeing to help him with Milo. While he was focusing on work again these last few days without that constant nagging worry about his brother, Bowie had felt centered for the first time in weeks, and it showed in his job performance.

  He didn’t know what he was doing when it came to Milo—that was no doubt crystal clear to anyone who might have seen them interact. This, though—combing through code, coming up with solutions—was his wheelhouse.

  No matter how good it felt to be back in the groove, he should have been more mindful of time. Now he had to hope to hell he hadn’t screwed everything up, sabotaging the best thing that had happened to his crazy world since that unforgettable phone call informing him about his brother.

  Katrina was amazing with his brother. Creative, insightful, endlessly patient. He had no idea how she did it, especially when Bowie found himself completely drained from dealing with Milo for only the few hours before bedtime each day.

  It was pitiful, really. He thought he was in excellent condition. He hiked, he mountain biked, he could kayak across the lake and back and barely break a sweat. So why did a few hours with one autistic boy leave him feeling as if he had just competed in an Ironman Triathlon?

  As if on cue, he suddenly yawned and had a momentary wish that he could sleep right here in the garage for a few hours.

  No. He had to go inside and face the music. He slid out of his SUV, a weird mix of apprehension and anticipation rippling through him like the lake against the shore.

  The apprehension part he completely understood. The woman was a lifesaver, and he didn’t even want to imagine what he would do if she quit, like the other caregivers had.

  He understood the anticipation, too—but that didn’t necessarily mean he liked it.

  He was attracted to Katrina Bailey. Fiercely attracted. Every time he was with her, it swirled through him like the night breeze that rustled the leaves of the aspen trees scattered across his property.

  He didn’t know what to do about it. He certainly couldn’t act on the attraction—not when she was easily the best thing that had happened to Milo in weeks.

  Attraction or not, the woman was a mystery to him. What was her story—the reason behind those shadows he had glimpsed in her eyes? Why had she left her teaching job in Haven Point the year before, right before the school year was to begin? What had taken her to South America in the first place?

  And what was so important that she intended to hurry right back to Colombia after her sister’s wedding?

  The questions burned through him. He wanted to ask—but that would require an actual conversation between them, and he had been careful to keep those as brief as possible and focused mostly on Milo and his needs.

  With a sigh, he climbed out of his SUV and headed into the house.

  The only sound was the quiet hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen and a muted
murmur coming from the open-plan family room next to the kitchen.

  He followed the sound down the hall and then stopped dead. Milo and Katrina were cuddled up on the sofa, both sound asleep while one of Milo’s favorite movies played on the big screen, animated figures flickering in the darkened room.

  A weird softness lodged in his chest as he watched them sleep, a nameless...something.

  Yearning. That was it.

  Assigning a name to it didn’t make the feeling any less frightening.

  He had never really thought about having a family, too busy trying to prove himself for his whole freaking life, first in school, then at Caine Tech. If he did think about it, he quickly shoved aside any inkling that the whole family-life thing might be a good idea for him.

  What the hell did he know about being part of a normal family? His childhood had been such chaos. To him, the word family held only ugly connotations. His mother used the word when referring to whatever counterculture, free-living, drugged-out group she connected with at the moment.

  He had always figured he was better off alone, where he could focus on the things he knew and found comfortable. Mutually satisfying casual relationships filled the void for a little human closeness.

  Lately, though, especially since he had come to Haven Point, he wondered. As he watched Aidan and Eliza together with their children or saw Ben and McKenzie laughing together, he had discovered an aching little hollow in his chest, a spot he never realized was empty.

  Both Ben and Aidan had been his friends for a long time—the closest thing he had to brothers, really, before Milo came along.

  They had worked together in the computer lab at MIT, then all three had been on the ground floor of Caine Tech. Aidan was the idea genius, Ben was the organizational whiz and Bowie liked to think he was the one who really made the magic happen. Without his contribution, working out all the details and fine-tuning the software, none of Aidan’s ideas would ever be ready for market.

  Both men had changed over the last few years, becoming more centered somehow. He thought they would be distracted, splitting their time between their lives in Haven Point and the company’s California operations, but that hadn’t been the case at all. Both actually seemed more focused.

  That was fine for them, Bowie had told himself. He was happy that they were happy. That didn’t mean he needed to join their little happily-ever-after club.

  He might accept that on an intellectual level. That didn’t do jack to fill the stupid little hollow in his chest.

  Heartburn, he told himself. Maybe he should have thought to eat something instead of just pounding coffee all afternoon.

  Trying to figure out how to tactfully wake her up, he moved closer to the two sleeping figures on the sofa. Maybe she subconsciously heard him or he stirred the air or something. Whatever the reason, Katrina’s eyelashes fluttered briefly, then opened. For the space of a heartbeat, he thought he saw something flash in her half-asleep gaze when she first spotted him—something hot and hungry that instantaneously stirred an answering response from him.

  Could she be attracted to him, too? The possibility staggered him. She hadn’t given any hint of it in their interactions. Instead, she treated him with a polite coolness that always left him wondering if she disliked him.

  She quickly closed her stunning blue eyes. When she opened them again, any hint of momentary awareness was gone, replaced by that polite reserve. He might have thought he imagined the whole thing if he didn’t see a soft blush climbing her cheeks.

  “I didn’t realize you were home. How long have you been here?” she asked, her voice low, with a sexy, thready note that she cleared away.

  “Only a minute or two. I didn’t want to wake you, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t be very happy with me in the morning when you woke up on my sofa with a stiff neck.”

  “You would be right,” she murmured, looking down at his sleeping brother. “I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

  “You don’t have to tell me how tiring Milo can be.”

  She stood and stretched a little, arms stretched above her head, with probably no idea how the movement accentuated her curves and made him suddenly ache.

  He should get out of here before he embarrassed both of them. “I’ll take Milo to his room. Do you mind waiting?”

  He owed her an apology, one he didn’t want to have to deliver in these same hushed tones they were using so they didn’t wake up Milo.

  Besides, a few moments away from her should give him a chance to regain a little control over his wayward thoughts.

  She nodded. “I can wait a few minutes.”

  “Thanks.” Bo carefully scooped Milo up, aware as he did of how small the boy was for his age.

  As always, the boy’s small size left him feeling frustrated and guilty. Bowie should have tried harder to find Stella. If he had, he would have discovered she’d had another child and could have stepped in earlier to protect Milo from the chronic malnutrition he had suffered during his early years.

  Bowie knew what hunger pangs could be like. He had always been small for his age, until he received a full-ride scholarship to MIT that included a meal plan and access to workout facilities at school.

  When he wasn’t in the computer lab in college, he could usually be found in the cafeteria—and then in the gym, trying to add muscle tone. He wasn’t the scrawny nerd anymore, but no matter what he ate or how much he worked out, he still suffered from fifteen years of scrambling to have enough to eat.

  That was one reason his charitable foundation’s primary focus was on eliminating child hunger.

  His brother would never know hunger again. Yeah, Bowie wasn’t great at most of the whole family thing and was struggling to know how to deal with Milo’s autism. But at least he would always be able to provide well for his brother.

  As Bowie set him down in the bed, Milo opened his eyes. They were bleary and unfocused, but Bowie wanted to think they lit up a little when Milo spotted him. When his brother first came to live with him, he had looked around his world with a resigned sort of insecurity, ready for his circumstances to change again at a moment’s notice.

  Milo was beginning to seem more settled than he had at first. Bowie wanted to think his brother was beginning to accept that he intended to be a permanent fixture in his life. Who knew what was really going on inside his head, though?

  “Good night, partner. Time to ride the rainbow to dreamland.” He spoke the words by rote, then had to stop as the echo of them sounded in his head. That was something his mother used to say to him, one of the few maternal-type memories he had.

  It was good for him to remember Stella wasn’t completely terrible. She had loved him, in her way. She just had no business being responsible for another human being. Not when she wasn’t at all competent to take care of herself.

  Milo gave him a sweet, sleepy smile, rolled over and closed his eyes. Bowie tucked the purple car on his pillow next to him, pulled the blanket up, then went down to face the music with Katrina.

  He found her in the kitchen, putting away the dishes from the dishwasher that must have finished its cycle.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “The housekeeper can do it tomorrow when she comes.”

  Katrina shrugged. “I don’t mind. Mrs. Nielson has osteoarthritis in her back, and sometimes it can be tough for her to reach down to the bottom rack.”

  That was news to him. Mrs. Nielson hadn’t said a word to him about arthritis, and he’d never noticed any hitch in her step.

  Then again, he wasn’t always the most observant of men. Just today, he had congratulated one of the team members he saw on a daily basis for having a cast removed from the guy’s broken wrist—only to be informed it had actually been off for a month.

  Sometimes Bowie wondered if he was on the spectrum. Every once in
a while the thought would poke at him like a sore tooth. Some of the signs fit, he had to admit. Since Milo had come to live with him, he had read numerous books on autism and had wondered if he would have been diagnosed as having a mild form of Asperger’s.

  He had always preferred safe, reliable computers to dealing with the whims and vagaries of people. He knew he could be brusque and impatient and wasn’t always aware of the mood and underlying emotion behind a comment.

  Just because he preferred to make decisions using his higher brain function and not his emotional reactions didn’t necessarily mean he had Asperger’s, he reminded himself. In his situation, his behavior was only logical. He had spent his childhood with a parent who let her emotions do all her thinking for her. If she wanted something, Stella wouldn’t let little things like reason or common sense get in the way.

  And that was enough thinking about Stella or autism for the night, Bowie decided.

  “Did he stay asleep?” Katrina asked.

  “Yes. He opened his eyes for about half a second, but that was it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Thanks for helping Mrs. Nielson,” he said. “And I owe you an even bigger debt of gratitude—not to mention a deep apology—for keeping you here later than I promised. I don’t really have an excuse, other than that time slipped away from me.”

  “Time has a way of doing that,” she said, reaching high to put a wineglass on the top shelf. The movement elongated her slender form, making her tawny legs look about a mile long below her shorts. Just like that, the awareness he thought he had wrestled into submission jumped back, raring to go.

  He frowned. No. He absolutely would not go there. So he was attracted to her. Big deal. He had been attracted to plenty of women before without trying to pursue anything with them, unless they indicated it was a mutual thing.

  Even if he did think he saw that moment of awareness when she awoke, he wasn’t about to screw up the best thing that had happened to him in a long time because he wanted something he couldn’t have.