Serenity Harbor

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Oh. Sure. I should grab the blanket out of my car for the fireworks, anyway.” She paused. “It’s a big blanket. There’s room for two, if you want.”

  Shoot. How was he supposed to turn her down, wiping that sweet, hopeful smile away? “I’ve, um, got my little brother. We’re kind of a package deal.”

  He wasn’t all that sure how Milo would do with the fireworks, anyway, especially after the long day of stimulation they’d already enjoyed.

  “Oh. That’s okay. We can squeeze one more. Or maybe he’ll want to sit with Kat. She seems pretty good with him.”

  Katrina was wonderful with him. Bowie would have loved her for that alone, even if not for the hundred other reasons.

  “I’ll have to see,” he said.

  She smiled broadly. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you back here after dark.”

  Samantha took off into the house, and he grabbed a cup and filled it from the glass water jug that had floating blueberries and sliced strawberries in it. It made him think of Katrina again, the taste of her mouth and the heat of her skin.

  Unable to resist, he scanned the party for her. At first he couldn’t see her, until he saw a slim figure in a flowered pink sundress work through the crowd and head through the trees toward the trail that ran along the lakeshore.

  His first thought was to worry that Milo had gone wandering, but he found his brother still on the swings, this time being pushed by Andie Montgomery. Satisfied that his brother would be okay under her watchful eye, he headed after Katrina.

  The sun had set, casting his surroundings in shadow, though full dark would be another hour away. For now, everything was muted and pale in the lavender twilight except the lake, which seemed to glow amber and peach. Birds twittered in the tall trees as they prepared to call it a day.

  He walked about a hundred yards from the house until he finally found her. She sat on the lakeshore on a bench placed along the trail that offered a beautiful view of the mountains rising up on the other side of the water.

  The sunset tinted her features the same amber of the lake, and she looked lovely and a little sad. As he watched her, Bowie had to fight the urge to rub his fist against his chest as that ache intensified.

  He loved her and didn’t know what to do about it.

  He should probably start by leaving her alone. This was a grievous intrusion of her privacy. She had obviously left the party so she could be alone, and it was rude of him to stand here among the trees and spy on her.

  He turned, intending to slip back through the trees to her mother’s house, when his foot nudged a rock that clattered against another one.

  She turned her head, and in the fading light, he saw her features twist into surprise and then a sort of resignation. Since she had already seen him, he knew he couldn’t just turn around and go back to the party now without seeming like some kind of creepy stalker.

  Instead, he stepped forward and walked to the side of the bench. “Everything okay?”

  “Sure. Just fine,” she said after a beat. “Why do you ask?”

  The words were obviously untrue. He wasn’t foolish enough to claim he was an expert on Katrina Bailey by any means, but she had lived in his home the last few weeks. He could see the restlessness in her and, beneath it, something else. Something almost...sad.

  He inclined his head the way they had come. “All your family and friends are up there with the food and the booze and the music, while you’re down here by yourself.”

  “Maybe I just needed a moment to catch my breath. Sometimes a girl just likes to be alone once in a while.”

  The words stung. She obviously didn’t want or need his concern. That probably went double—or triple—when it came to these new and frightening emotions twisting through him.

  “Right. Sorry I bothered you,” he said stiffly. “I was worried about you, but I can see that was unnecessary.”

  She sighed. “I’m the one who’s sorry for snapping at you. Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m fine, really. Sit down, if you want.”

  He hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward and easing onto the bench beside her. The scent of her drifted to him, of strawberries and wildflowers and Katrina. He was aware of a little pang as he wondered how many more of these moments with her he would be able to steal before she left in only a few days.

  “Is Milo okay?” she asked. “Andie offered to keep an eye on him. She’s great with kids, but I still probably shouldn’t have left him.”

  “He seems to be having a great time, as far as I can tell. Who knows? I doubt he has a lot of experience with social occasions like this or Wynona’s wedding last week. It’s probably a little different for him, attending a party where everybody’s not stoned.”

  “You can never be too sure about Eppie and Hazel.”

  He had to laugh at the vision of the two spunky senior citizens toking away amid a cloud of smoke.

  “Seems like a fun party,” he said. “It was very kind of your mom to welcome Milo and me, when she barely knows us.”

  He saw a little color creep over her cheekbones. “I don’t think kindness had much to do with it. You heard what Wyn said earlier after the parade. She’s desperate. I think she’s still hoping you could convince me to stay in Haven Point and give up any silly idea of adopting a child.”

  Why would Charlene Bailey think he could have any influence on Katrina? Did she know something he didn’t?

  “To be clear, I couldn’t, right? Convince you to stay, I mean.” He had to ask.

  She sent him a sidelong glance. “We’ve covered this ground already. I need to be with Gabriela.”

  He did his best to hide his disappointment. “I totally get that. She’s a lucky girl.”

  She was quiet for a long time. “If those circumstances were different, would you...try? To convince me to stay, I mean?”

  “In a heartbeat,” he said, without a second’s hesitation.

  Her eyes were wide, and she gave him a half smile that made his heart flop in his chest like one of those lake trout coming out of the water.

  “Why do you have to be so hard to resist?” she murmured.

  “Why do you have to try so hard?” he countered.

  She laughed a little, rolling her eyes. When the laughter faded, she gazed at him, eyes soft in the moonlight, and it seemed as inevitable as the sunset when she reached up and kissed him. It was poignant and tender and moved him beyond words.

  He held his breath as emotions seeped through him. Though he wrapped his arms around her, he forced himself to let her take the lead in the kiss, to savor each slow, seductive moment of it, knowing that it might well be their last.

  * * *

  TENDERNESS SEEMED TO swirl around them like the whirlpools rumored in spots out on the lake, an inexorable force that she was helpless to resist.

  She had no one to blame but herself. She had kissed him this time, had been completely unable to help it. She had slipped away from the party for a little breather, a chance to regain some perspective, and then suddenly there was Bowie and she had felt...safe.

  Here in his arms, she didn’t have to carry the weight of her worry about Gabi, about the adoption process, about her insecurities and uncertainties. She could simply savor this last chance to be with him, to let that whirlpool pull her down a little farther. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she could stay here? If she didn’t have to worry about anything else?

  She sighed, hands in his hair, and gave herself up to the moment and the tantalizing heat of him. He seemed content to wait for direction from her, and she gave it, deepening the kiss and pouring all her newfound tenderness into it.

  They kissed for long, delicious moments while the shadows lengthened and the sounds of her mother’s party murmured through the trees, and her heart broke a little more.

 
She didn’t want it to ever end, for reality to intrude once more—her obligations, her inadequacies, the sheer impossibility of them ever being together. Right now, this moment, would have to be enough.

  They were wrapped together tightly, her hands exploring the strong muscles of his back, when she suddenly heard a gasp. Too late, she realized this might not have been the most discreet place for one last kiss, when her mother was throwing a party a hundred yards away. She turned and was horrified to find Samantha standing at the edge of the clearing with a look of utter betrayal on her face that cut into Katrina like a rusty saw blade.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Sam said. Her eyes were two big green pools of pain and disillusionment. “I... The fireworks should be starting in a few moments and I...didn’t want you to miss them. I told you I would save you a spot.”

  Her best friend in all the world—the one who had been kind to her when no one else was, who had shown her how to put on lipstick and listened to her gush on about a dozen different guys—didn’t even look at her after that first blast of shock and disappointment.

  “But I guess it looks like you were busy setting off a few fireworks of your own,” Sam went on, her voice tight and hurt. “Sorry again that I interrupted. I’ll leave you to it.”

  She turned and headed back along the lakeside loop trail toward the party, leaving a tense and awkward silence behind.

  As much as she longed to be back in his arms, Katrina knew she should be grateful for the interruption. She was so weak when it came to him. One look and she lost any hint of common sense and turned back into a person she didn’t like: the kind of stupid girl who would walk away from a great job to follow a guy she didn’t even care for that much to another country.

  The kind who would forget to consider her best friend’s feelings.

  A woman who for a few moments had actually been tempted to consider giving up the fight to help a child she loved and who needed her desperately.

  For a man.

  Once more, she was letting her emotions rule her head, letting her desire to be cherished and important make her forget everything important to her.

  She stood up and moved toward the trail. “We should get back. I have no idea how Milo will do with the fireworks, and he might freak out if we’re both missing.”

  He stood as well, looking as if he wanted to pull her back into his arms. Oh, she hoped he didn’t.

  “Kat,” he began. “We need to talk about this...thing between us.”

  No. She couldn’t bear it. “There is nothing between us,” she said harshly. “Nothing real, anyway.”

  “Funny. It feels pretty real every time you’re in my arms.”

  She felt tears burn behind her eyes but couldn’t give in to them. Not here. Not yet. “Yes, I’m attracted to you. Big deal. I’ve been attracted to lots of guys before. Just ask Sam. She’ll tell you.”

  Hating herself, she forced herself to go on. “That’s all it is. Believe me, it will pass. And here’s the thing. I’m not a shallow, silly girl anymore, willing to give up something important to me simply because some great-looking guy makes my toes curl. I can’t be that girl. Leave me alone, Bowie. Don’t kiss me again. I mean it.”

  For an instant, she thought she saw something deeper than male disappointment in his eyes, something dark and filled with pain, but she told herself she was imagining it.

  Drawing on every last ounce of strength, she forced herself to pull away from him, to turn away and hurry back up the trail.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BOWIE SEEMED TO take her words to heart. He worked all day Sunday, claiming another urgent problem at Caine Tech. In the morning, she and Milo went on one of her favorite hikes with Wynona and Andie Montgomery—plus Andie’s children, the Montgomeries’ adorable little dog, Sadie, and Wyn’s beloved dog, Young Pete.

  The hike gave her a good chance to talk a little more with her future sister-in-law and offered Milo a chance to interact with children. She was thrilled at the sweetness of Andie’s son, Will, who quickly picked up a few ASL signs to communicate with Milo and seemed to take the other boy’s sometimes odd behavior in stride.

  Whenever she had cell service along the trail, Katrina tried to reach Sam, but the silence on the other end was deafening. Apparently Sam was screening her calls and ignoring her texts.

  When they returned to watch the fireworks the night before, Sam had been nowhere in sight. Linda said she thought her daughter might have eaten some bad potato salad earlier in the day and she wasn’t feeling well.

  Katrina doubted the veracity of this claim but couldn’t very well tell Linda she thought her daughter was lying to her.

  When they returned from the hike and Sam still hadn’t responded to any of her attempts to reach her, Katrina decided the situation called for desperate measures. The store was closed on Sundays, so she and Milo took a bike ride, with him on the tandem trainer attached to her mountain bike. He pedaled only half the time, but she’d been able to find one that had a seat back with a seat belt so it was more like a bike trailer for big kids that also had pedals and handlebars.

  On their ride, they not so casually swung past the Fremont house, where Linda informed her Sam had gone to Boise for the day to have lunch with a friend from college.

  “I told her I didn’t think she was up to it after her food poisoning yesterday, but you know how stubborn she can be,” Linda said.

  Katrina knew that, all too well.

  “It surprised me, when she told me her plans this morning, since she hadn’t said a word all week about it. I would have thought she’d want to spend her day off with you. Maybe she thought you’d be too busy with him.” Linda inclined her head toward Milo.

  Or maybe she was angry and hurt and wouldn’t ever speak to Kat again.

  Now she felt like the one who had eaten bad potato salad. Depressed and not knowing what else to do, she said goodbye and took off with Milo again back toward Serenity Harbor.

  Sam was her best friend and had been since the StupidKat days. She was loyal and funny and generally kind. Katrina hated knowing she had hurt her, that Sam felt she had betrayed her.

  She had betrayed Samantha. She should have been more honest with her friend from the beginning.

  What would she have told her, though? That Bowie had kissed her a few times? That she was afraid she was losing her heart to him, just like the dozens of other guys she had once been infatuated with?

  No. This was different. She had lost her heart to Bowie. All those other guys meant nothing, not compared with this vast, aching reservoir of emotion. She should have told Sam something was happening to her, that her feelings for him were growing and changing, becoming more real than anything she had ever known.

  Katrina hadn’t said anything because she had been afraid to admit it, even to herself. As a result, she had hidden something important from her dear friend and had caused pain for both of them.

  She had screwed up, and she had to make it right. She would be leaving Haven Point in three days.

  Saying goodbye to Bowie and Milo would be tough. The thought of it left her feeling like her heart were being shredded apart, bit by bit. She didn’t know how she could bear to leave Samantha behind, with her friend hating her.

  * * *

  SHE DIDN’T SEE Bowie at all through Sunday or Monday morning. She had been awake when he finally came home late Sunday night but didn’t think it would be wise to tempt fate by going out to talk to him while she was in her pajamas and the house was dark and still.

  When she headed into the kitchen to make breakfast for Milo, she found a note from Bowie, explaining that he had to run into work early and wasn’t sure what time he would be home.

  The note only confirmed her suspicion that he was avoiding her. How could she blame him?

  Leave me alone, Bowi
e. Don’t kiss me again. I mean it.

  “Bo?” Milo asked.

  She forced a smile, determined not to give in to her brewing headache or the depression that seemed to have settled into her bones. She had made a mess of everything since she’d been home.

  “He’s gone to work today,” she told Milo. “It’s just you and me. We’re going to have so much fun together.” It was her last full day with him before Debra Peters arrived the next day, and she didn’t want to waste a moment of it.

  “How about Mickey pancakes this morning?” she asked Milo. He nodded and gave her his half smile, then returned to his ever-present little cars.

  Oh, she would miss him. Why did life have to be full of so many difficult decisions?

  As the oil heated on the griddle, she mixed the batter, and when she judged the oil hot enough, she poured one circle, then two smaller ones for ears. She had a sudden random memory of making this at Sam’s house, in the days when Sam’s dad was in the hospital, dying of cancer. Sam had been thirteen, she remembered, and Katrina had done her best to be silly and make jokes and otherwise try to keep her friend’s spirits up during those long, rough days.

  Tears burned behind her eyes. She wasn’t that silly girl anymore. She still loved her friend and wanted to fix this.

  If Sam wouldn’t answer her calls, she would track her down, she decided. On a Monday morning at 9:30 a.m. she had to be at the store, ready to open.

  “Finish your breakfast, kiddo,” she said to Milo. “We need to go for a walk into town.”

  An hour later, her stomach was still in knots when they approached the redbrick two-story building that housed Fremont Fashions. The door was locked and the sign hadn’t yet been switched from CLOSED to OPEN, but she could see movement inside.

  She rapped on the door and waited. Inside, she could see Linda make her slow way to the door. When she opened it, Mrs. Fremont wore her usual dour expression, as if she had just taken a bite out of something nasty.

  “You’re out and about early today,” she said, by way of greeting.