Page 38 of Serenity Harbor

She ended the call shortly after, unsettled by the worry that her friendship with Sam might grow even more strained than it had become after Katrina took off with Carter.

Her worry didn’t solve anything, she told herself, especially when she should be focusing on the job and on helping Milo.

She picked up her laptop bag and her battered suitcase with the broken zipper and headed for the stairs.

When she walked into the kitchen, she found her mother and Mike wrapped together in an embrace that raised the temperature in the room about thirty degrees.

Yeah, she wasn’t too broken up about moving out.

She cleared her throat and set the suitcase down with a bang. “Don’t mind me. I’m just going to grab some coffee.”

Charlene jerked away, hot color flooding her plump, still-pretty features. “Oh. We didn’t hear you come down.”

Maybe because Mike’s tongue was in your ear? she thought, then wanted to cringe at her bitchy thoughts.

She was thrilled for both of them, honestly. Mike, her late father’s younger brother, had been divorced and had lived alone for years. He and his wife had never had kids, so after she moved out, Mike had spent holidays and many Sunday dinners with his brother’s family.

He had been a quiet, steady force in their lives forever, and she had always adored him.

Charlene, on the other hand, had been a devoted wife, even after John Bailey’s severe head injury from a police shooting that left him unable to walk, talk or feed himself. For years she drove to the care center in Shelter Springs every single day to sit beside him even though he hadn’t known her name or why she showed up in his room every day.

Yes, Charlene could be frustrating at times, but Katrina loved her and wanted nothing more than for her to be happy.

She didn’t necessarily want to have that happiness shoved in her face, though—especially when she still missed her beloved father with a fierce ache.

“It’s fine,” she assured them. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I was just heading out and wanted to say goodbye.”

“I’ll make you some toast,” Charlene said instantly. “Do you want scrambled eggs to go with it? You need some protein, honey.”

“No. I’m fine. Just toast and coffee.”

Wishing she had just skipped breakfast altogether, she poured a cup, stuck a couple slices of bread in the toaster and then sat at the table, since she didn’t know what else to do.

After a moment, Uncle Mike joined her, his features troubled.

“Are you sure about this Callahan guy?” Uncle Mike asked, his eyes dark with concern and his mouth set in a frown. Somehow she had the feeling he had been gearing up for exactly this conversation.

“What do we know about him, really?” he went on. “I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable with you moving into his house after only knowing him for a few days. I was watching a show about human trafficking the other day. It was very upsetting and a good reminder that you can’t be too careful.”

Katrina smiled a little, touched at his concern. She found it very sweet that Mike was trying to stand in and be a protective father figure. Good thing he hadn’t seen the neighborhood where she lived in Colombia and the buses she rode through even scarier parts of town.

If she were ever in danger of human trafficking, being snatched off a dodgy bus in South America would be a much more likely scenario than encountering a trafficker at the luxurious home of a computer company executive in a small town in Idaho.

But then, one never knew.

“Bowie is a very nice man, Uncle Mike. You don’t need to worry. I’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.” He didn’t look convinced, and she couldn’t resist touching his arm.

“I can take care of myself, you know. And I promise, if anything feels weird, I’ll call you. Who would dare to mess with me, when I have one brother who’s an FBI agent and another who’s the county sheriff?”

He smiled back at her. “Not to mention a sister who’s tougher than either of them.”

Katrina would forever regret not inheriting the badass gene in her family. Of her four siblings—including Wyatt, Wyn’s twin, who had died several years earlier—Kat was the only one who hadn’t gone into law enforcement. Wynona had left the Haven Point Police Department the previous summer to pursue her master’s degree in social work, but she still taught self-defense classes at the community center.

“Exactly. He’d have to be stupid to mess with the Bailey clan. I promise, Bowie Callahan is far from stupid.”

“She’ll be fine. You watch too many of those crime documentaries,” Charlene said with an exasperated look at him as she pulled Katrina’s toast out of the toaster and started buttering it for her before Kat had the chance. “He is a nice man. I knew it the first time we met him. Handsome, well-mannered, personable. And he’sloaded. You could do much worse.”

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