Serenity Harbor

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Of all the things he expected her to say, that would have been low on the list. “You don’t?”

  After the soft tenderness they shared, the quiet peace they found together? She had to be lying. Wasn’t she?

  Even the slim possibility that she meant her words made him feel like ice-cold lake water had just sloshed over his head.

  “I’m sorry. I kissed you because you’re great-looking and I’m attracted to you, but that’s all. I should never have let things go so far.”

  Her words certainly had the ring of truth—but she was avoiding his gaze as she spoke, and he had to assume that was significant. Or maybe not.

  “I could pretend I love you and let you help me adopt Gabi,” she went on, “but that wouldn’t be honorable. I won’t use you that way. A different woman might be tempted, but that’s not who I want to be anymore. I can’t rely on the nearest available guy to fix my problems. I appreciate your offer. It was very kind and I’ll never forget it, but...I have to do this myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I really do have to go. Thank you for...everything. Goodbye, Bowie.”

  With that, she hurried down the steps and out into the storm, and he didn’t know how the hell to stop her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SHE DESERVED A freaking Academy Award, Katrina thought later that night as she sat in the window seat of her childhood home with her cat, Marshmallow, on her lap, gazing out at the storm that had continued unabated all afternoon and evening. The rain continued to click against the window, and she could hear the wind howling through the glass.

  I’m sorry, Bowie. I don’t feel the same way.

  How had he taken one look at her and not seen her words for the blatant lies they were?

  She had wanted so desperately to tell him she loved him, too. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the echo of the joy that had surged through her at his words, at the hope that he could fix everything for her. It would be so easy to let him help her, and then she could have everything she wanted. Bowie. Milo. Gabriela. Together, all of them.

  The picture shimmered in her head, shining and bright and beautiful. It was painfully within her grasp, and she only had to reach for it.

  And then what?

  Eventually Bo would figure out he didn’t really love her. She wasn’t stupid enough to think they could have a happily-ever-after. What did she have to offer a man like him? He was a genius computer tech gazillionaire and she was a teacher who could barely manage to balance her checkbook each month.

  She would only be prolonging the inevitable pain. That was fine for her, but she wouldn’t put Gabriela or Milo through a painful breakup.

  Telling Bowie she didn’t love him had been her first award-worthy performance of the day. The other had been over the last few hours. Somehow she had made it through the evening, a family dinner with her mother and Uncle Mike, Wyn, Marsh and Andie, while holding on to the last vestiges of control.

  She had told them all only that the adoption had hit a few snags and she didn’t know when she would return but it shouldn’t be long.

  She was becoming pretty good at the whole lying-through-her-teeth thing.

  She had no idea what she was going to do now, other than stick to her plan. Return to Colombia. Go in person to Angel Herrera and get her money back somehow, then take her petition to the Colombian Family Welfare Institute.

  If she could, Katrina would have headed straight for the airport and camped out to get an earlier flight, but Samantha wanted to take her to breakfast and drive her to the Boise airport. Their relationship was still so fragile, she didn’t want to disappoint her best friend.

  Why did that matter, though, when she had disappointed everyone else?

  The fight with Bowie burned through her mind, the hard, untrue things she had said to him.

  I kissed you because you’re great-looking and I’m attracted to you, but that’s all. I should never have let things go so far.

  I could pretend I love you and let you help me adopt Gabi, but that wouldn’t be honorable.

  Her heart ached at the memory, at the pain she had seen in his eyes, and she hated herself even more.

  She was afraid.

  That was the heart of it.

  She was so afraid she didn’t deserve a man like Bowie, that he could never truly love the real her.

  Lightning arced across the lake, followed by the low rumble of thunder a few beats later. The space between the flash and the sound seemed to be growing longer as the storm moved away.

  She should probably try to get some rest, though she didn’t know how that would be possible when she was so wrung out and exhausted.

  Maybe she would sleep here in the window seat. She only had to somehow summon the strength to grab a pillow and the colorful throw folded neatly at the foot of her bed. With a sigh, she managed to slide her feet to the floor, but before she could rise, her phone rang, the sound unnaturally loud in her bedroom, where the only other sounds were her breathing and the incessant rain against the window.

  She pulled it out before it could wake her mother and Uncle Mike. One glance at the caller ID ramped her heartbeat into overdrive. Why would Bowie be calling her at ten thirty at night?

  She didn’t have the strength to talk to him. Not tonight, when she felt as emotionally wrung out as if she were out there in the lake being hit on all sides by wind and waves and lightning.

  At the last second, she wavered and finally connected the call.

  “Hello,” she said softly.

  “Katrina, this is Bowie. I know it’s late. I’m sorry to disturb you, but it’s urgent. Is Milo with you?”

  She straightened at the undeniable thread of panic coiling through his voice. “No,” she said, her heartbeat kicking up another notch. “Why would you ask? He’s not in bed?”

  It was a stupid question, and she knew it as soon as she asked. If Milo were in bed, why would Bowie call her?

  He let out a long string of curses, made all the more startling because she had rarely heard him swear. “You were our last chance. I knew it was a long shot, but I’d hoped. I thought maybe he wandered over to find you somehow, though of course I’m sure you would have called as soon as he showed up. I’m sorry to bother you. I have to go. I need to call Chief Emmett and start a search.”

  “Wait. What can I do?”

  Chilling silence met her question, and she realized he had already disconnected the call.

  As soon as she lowered her phone, the panic exploded. It was raining, with lightning and thunder. Was Milo out in it somewhere?

  Even though her hands shook and fear paralyzed her thoughts, she threw on her clothes in less than a minute and raced down the stairs and out the door.

  She drove to Bowie’s house in record time and parked in front just as her new brother-in-law showed up in his Haven Point patrol vehicle. Bowie hurried down the steps, the expression on his features a perfect match to the fear in her heart.

  She fought the urge to go to him, to wrap her arms around him as he had comforted her earlier.

  Later. For this moment, both of them had to focus only on doing everything possible to find Milo. She did hurry to his side, and he gave her a grateful look before he greeted Cade. “That was fast. Thanks for coming, Chief.”

  “Let’s go inside, out of the rain, and you can tell me what’s going on,” Cade said.

  They moved up the steps and into the great room of the house, where she found Debra Peters on the sofa, her eyes red and her features pinched.

  “Oh, Katrina,” she wailed. “I’m so sorry. Less than twelve hours into my tenure and we’ve lost him.”

  “I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she said, squeezing the woman’s arm.

  “Start at the beginning,” Cade said.

  “My younger brother, Mi
lo, is missing. He’s six years old, brown hair, freckles, about forty pounds and forty inches tall, last seen wearing blue pajamas with Superman on the front. He has limited verbal skills and autism, which will make it tough for him to answer back if searchers try to call out his name.”

  “I’m going to assume you’ve thoroughly combed through the house,” Cade said.

  “Every closet, every corner, under every bed. We’ve been searching for half an hour, since Mrs. Peters went in to check on him and found his bed empty.”

  “Is it usual for you to check on him in the night?” Cade asked Debra.

  “I don’t have a usual with him yet,” she admitted, her voice wavering. “This is my first day. I only arrived this afternoon. I checked on him because I knew he was...upset when he went to bed. He had a meltdown earlier but seemed to have calmed down by the time his brother tucked him in.”

  “What upset him?” Cade asked.

  Bowie’s gaze flickered to Katrina, then back to her brother-in-law.

  “As I said, he has autism,” Bowie said. “It could be anything from a tag inside his shirt rubbing against his skin to a pillow out of place to having to use the wrong flavor of toothpaste.”

  Debra gestured to Katrina. “He missed Katrina. He kept saying Kat, Kat, and grew increasingly upset when we tried to explain she wasn’t coming back.”

  “That was the reason for the meltdown,” Bowie agreed. “When we couldn’t find him here, I thought maybe he went looking for her. That’s why I called.”

  “Do you know anything about this?” Cade asked her.

  “No,” she whispered. “I haven’t talked to him since I left this afternoon.”

  “You think he slipped outside?” Cade asked, nodding toward the security panel on the front door. “Looks like you’ve got a pretty intense security system here.”

  “I do, by necessity. But I disarmed it earlier when I went outside for a moment during a break in the rain to...clear my head.”

  He didn’t look at her when he spoke, but somehow she had the distinct impression it may have been her fault he needed fresh air.

  “I walked out on the dock for a moment, and it’s possible he slipped out somehow when my back was turned and I didn’t notice. I would like to think I would have heard or seen something, but I was...distracted.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, and he looked so upset and vulnerable that she again had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around his waist and promise everything would be okay.

  It wouldn’t. She knew that better than anyone. Sometimes happy-ever-after was just a fairy tale.

  “We have to find him,” Bowie said. “He’s just a little kid who doesn’t understand the world very well. I hate thinking of him being out there in this weather, cold and alone and afraid.”

  She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Milo’s fascination with the water and that big lake out there, just begging for a little boy to wander into it.

  “We’ll do our best,” Cade said. “I’ve already alerted everyone in my department and called in everyone on standby. They’re all ready to assist in the search. Our first job is to set up a grid.”

  “While you’re doing that,” Katrina finally spoke up, “I’ll check out a few of the places he and I liked to go together. The playground, the baseball field, the dog park.”

  “Better wait until we coordinate and can set up a search perimeter. We don’t want to duplicate effort,” Cade said.

  She had loved Cade as a brother for most of her life. Only days ago he had become her brother in truth when he married Wynona. That didn’t mean she would let him try to stop her when the stakes were this high.

  She faced him, her mouth tight and her chin out. “No. I’m not waiting. Milo is out there somewhere in the rain, and I won’t stand by and let something happen to him. Not if I can prevent it. You have my cell number. Call me with any updates if necessary, but I’m going to look for him.”

  “Fine,” Cade said after a moment, his voice resigned. “But before you leave, you can start with giving us a list of his favorite places so I can send out people at the same time to cover more ground.”

  With every passing second spent inside and not out looking for Milo, her stress and fear ratcheted up a level, but she knew Cade was right. She went through the list of all the places she knew Milo enjoyed, and by the time she finished, she was nearly weeping, imagining the harm that could come to a little boy in all those places.

  “We’ll find him. Don’t worry, Kit-Kat.” Cade put a hand on her shoulder. “We’re mobilizing everybody. The fire department, the county search and rescue. Marshall is sending as many deputies as he can spare.”

  “I’m going to head south on the trail between here and Redemption Bay. We walked that nearly every day, and he’s very familiar with it. I’ll stop first at the Lawsons’ house.”

  “Good idea,” Bowie said. “It’s a short walk, and he loves their dog.”

  “Right. From there, I’ll hit McKenzie and Ben’s place and then report back in.”

  “I’ll go on the same trail, in the opposite direction,” Bowie said.

  “Meanwhile I’ll stay here to coordinate and send searchers to all the places you mentioned,” Cade said.

  “Got it.”

  She and Bowie headed out the back together, flashlights in hand.

  “Kat. Thank you for coming so quickly,” Bowie said, just before they would have parted ways.

  “Of course.” Time was of the essence, but she decided five seconds wouldn’t hurt. She threw her arms around him for a tight, fast embrace, then stepped away. “We’ll find him, Bo. Don’t worry.”

  “I hope so,” he said, his voice grim, before he hurried away.

  Her heart pounded as she headed toward the Lawsons’ house, shining her flashlight and calling Milo’s name as she went. There were a thousand dangers for a little boy out here on his own.

  How would they ever find him? He was wary around strangers and wouldn’t be able to answer when searchers called his name, unless he knew them.

  He must be so afraid.

  “Milo,” she called again, but the wind seemed to steal her voice and whirl it into the cloudy sky. “Milo!”

  She was so afraid she had lost Gabi already. She couldn’t bear to lose Milo, too. A sob escaped her. She loved Milo and Bowie. Why did she have to choose? Why couldn’t she have Gabi and the two Callahan brothers in her life?

  I do love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before and maybe I didn’t say it in some romantic perfect moment, but it’s the truth.

  Another sob escaped, and she was aware of hot tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks. Bowie said he loved her, and she had pushed him away because of her fear.

  Love was about trust. About taking risks and facing the rain together, even when you were afraid.

  “Milo?” she called again.

  Over the rain, she thought she heard something, a distant cry. She paused, heart racing as her gaze scanned the dark, spindly shadows of tree trunks in the direction of the sound. Had she really heard something or had it merely been wishful thinking?

  There. The moonlight pierced the clouds momentarily, long enough for her to spy a pale blur about twenty yards away. Could that be a face? She squinted, but between the tears and the rain, her vision was blurred.

  “Milo? Is that you? It’s Kat.”

  “Kat.” It was a barely there sort of sound, a whisper that could have been the wind, but she moved toward it anyway.

  It wasn’t the wind. She was sure of it. She recognized that sound. “Milo, honey, it’s me,” she called. “Come out.”

  “No, no, no.”

  She hadn’t heard that chant from him in a long time, especially not on a distressed wail. “You have to,” she said as she made her way through th
e thick undergrowth. “Everyone is so worried about you, especially Bo. He’s very sad and scared for you. You can’t hide away here, sweetie.”

  “No, Kat. No, no, no, no,” he cried, louder still.

  When she moved closer and aimed the flashlight at him, she suddenly realized the trouble. His pajama top had tangled in a low tree branch. He wasn’t being obstructive. He was saying “no” because he couldn’t move.

  Another child might have made the connection to take off his shirt and leave it there, but Milo’s panic had held him fast as much as the tree branch.

  Relief rushed through her, and she hugged him. “We’ll get you out of there. Hold on. Easy.” She knelt beside him, heedless of the mud and pine needles, and lowered her head so she could wedge the flashlight between her chin and her chest while she worked to extricate his shirt. It was stuck fast, so she finally just yanked it out with a loud rip that made him jump.

  “There we are. You’re free. Come here, come here.”

  This boy who didn’t always like being hugged jumped into her arms and held on tight. She rocked back, falling to the mud. He wore only pajamas and was soaked through and barefoot. His little feet were freezing, and he shivered in her arms.

  First order of business was warming him up. Though it was tricky with him holding on tight, she managed to pull off her own shoes and socks and the rain slicker and sweatshirt she had thrown on in a panic. That left her in a T-shirt and jeans—not enough for these conditions, but she knew it would be only a short time until she could get him home.

  “Here you go. Let’s get these piggies warmed up.” She pulled her socks, warm from her own feet, onto his feet and then slid him out of his ripped pajama shirt and put the sweatshirt in its place. It draped almost to his knees.

  “Coat next,” she said and pulled the rain slicker on over the sweatshirt. “There. Is that a little better?”

  He nodded, and it seemed his shivering had subsided a little. They were relatively sheltered under the spreading leaves of a pine tree, and while all her instincts yelled at her to get the boy to safety, she knew it would take only a moment to put Bowie’s fear to rest.