Page 25 of Serenity Harbor

“Put me to work. You know I’m lacking in the craftiness department, but I’ll do what I can.”

“There’s not much to it,” McKenzie said. “Given that Cade loves gardening, we’ve got all these herb starts. We just need to tie some pastel raffia around each pot, and then half the crew is making these little garden markers with Cade’s and Wyn’s names and the date.”

“Cute. I think I can tie a bow.” She looked around. “Where’s the bride?”

“Running late,” Andie Montgomery said. “She had a meeting that went long but should be here soon. Didn’t she text you?”

“Maybe. My, uh, phone accidentally fell into a sink full of dishwater this morning and is currently drying out in a bag of rice.”

“Oh no!”

As the others commiserated with her, she didn’t tell them it hadn’t really been an accident. Milo had been mad at her when she made him pick up his toys and had picked up her phone from the counter and thrown it into the dishwater on purpose.

Though he could hear their conversation perfectly well, Milo didn’t look up from coloring.

“It was old, anyway, and I was due for something new. I’m going to give it a day or two to dry out. If the rice bag doesn’t work, I’ll run into Shelter Springs and pick up another one.”

She didn’t really want to take on another expense like a new phone right now when her budget was already cut to the bone. Thanks to Bowie’s check, though, she had a little more cushion than she had a few days earlier.

“Still. It’s never fun when accidents like that happen,” Devin said. “Doesn’t it make you wish you could go back and replay those five seconds?”

Yes. The very next time Milo was mad at her for making him pick up his toys or not allowing him to have ice cream for breakfast or making him take a bath after he jumped in mud puddles outside, she planned to leave her phone safely in her pocket.

Not that there would be too many chances fornext time. She would be with him for only a few more weeks. The reminder made her a little sad. Milo was a complicated, sometimes frustrating little creature. He could be ferociously stubborn and the smallest thing could set him off. She couldn’t always tell how much of what she said might be getting through to him.

He could also be sweet and surprisingly insightful for someone who didn’t communicate with words.

She would miss him.

Despite her best efforts to keep a safe distance, after only a few days she could tell she was already falling for this solemn little boy with the big blue eyes and the freckles across his nose and the rare half smile that came out of nowhere and stole her heart every time.

So much for protecting herself. She sighed. This was her whole problem, encapsulated in one little boy. She gave her heart too easily. In a few weeks, she would have to say goodbye to him, and she was already worried about the emotional fallout.

She would simply have to remind herself that sometimes a person had to give up one important thing in order to gain something else.

CHAPTER SIX

ALLINALL, she considered it a highly successful afternoon. Milo had no meltdowns, much to her relief. She had become pretty good at coping with them, but that certainly didn’t mean she relished them.

While she’d worked on the wedding favors, Milo had colored at her side for about half an hour—mostly scribbles on the page—then eventually wandered over to watch the other children from the doorway of the workroom. He didn’t really interact with them in a conventional way but seemed to be interested in their interactions. She thought she had even seen him smile at something Ty Barrett said, but she couldn’t be sure.

Eventually he had sat on the floor and pulled out his purple car and seemed content to drive it in circles until she finished.

She studied him walking beside her now as they headed back to her vehicle. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t say anything, just continued humming to himself, a song with no recognizable melody. The kid was an enigma. Sometimes he wanted her to chat with him, other days he pretended she didn’t exist.

“Did you have enough to eat?” she pressed.

He still didn’t answer her, which she was going to assume meant yes. If he was hungry, he usually figured out a way to get that point across. She helped him into his booster seat, then climbed behind the wheel. She would have walked to McKenzie’s, as the downtown business district wasn’t that far from Serenity Harbor, but she hadn’t wanted to lug the salad all that way, then the empty bowl home.

She was glad for the decision now when a light rain began to fall as she took off toward Bowie’s house. She turned on the stereo to listen to Milo’s favorite tape, an oldSesame Streetcollection she remembered listening to whenshewas young.

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.”

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