Page 54 of Serenity Harbor

Uncle Mike stood beside the closest one, beaming from ear to ear. “I did some bodywork for a collector in Stanley. We hashed out a deal, and he loaned them to me for the weekend.”

“How did you keep this a secret from me?” Charlene asked, looking both stunned and pleased.

“Mad skills, babe,” Mike said, winking at Katrina and Wynona. “I have to return them in pristine condition, so just be careful getting in.”

“He is barely letting me drive one, even though I’ve passed all the Bureau’s driving courses with top grades,” Elliot grumbled.

“I’m riding with you,” Katrina said loyally. Elliot had always been a hero of hers, even though seven years separated them.

“Aunt Jennie already claimed the front seat. You’ll have to sit in the back.”

“I don’t care. I’ll just pretend you’re my chauffeur,” she responded. “Let me put this box in the car, and then I have to grab my shoes. I don’t think Wyn will want me to walk down the aisle with her in my flip-flops.”

After greeting her great-aunt, who must have arrived while they were all upstairs, she set the box holding the veil in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce and hurried back into the house. She had brought all of her things here that morning so she could get ready after she and the other Helping Hands took Wynona out for an early breakfast.

She thought she had packed her shoes on top of the bag with all her makeup and hair accessories, but suddenly she couldn’t remember seeing them when she’d been digging through the bag earlier as she had dressed.

Was it possible that in her flurry to be ready she might have pulled them out and left them somewhere? She searched around her bedroom but could find no sign of them. After a frantic five minutes, she came to one grim conclusion.

“You ready, Kat?” Elliot called from the front door. “How long does it take to put on a pair of shoes?”

“I don’t have them,” she exclaimed, feeling increasingly distraught. “I must have left them at the house where I’m staying.”

“This Callahan guy’s place?”

“Yes. I don’t know where else they might be.” She could picture the shoes in her closet and visualize herself picking them up and putting them in the bag, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember if they had been inside when she closed it.

Maybe she had taken them out for some reason, then forgot to put them back in. It had been a little crazy when she left, with Milo upset that she was going without him. In between trying to calm him while making sure she had all she needed to be ready for the wedding, anything was possible.

“Don’t you have another pair here you could wear?” Elliot asked.

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Typical male, thinking she could grab any old shoes for a wedding to replace the custom-dyed, carefully chosen heels that matched her bridesmaid dress to perfection.

“It has to be these. Go ahead. I’ll grab them and meet you at the church. I’ll still make it in plenty of time.”

Elliot looked conflicted. “Why don’t we just swing by on the way to the church?”

“You’ve got the veil plus Aunt Jennie. No sense all of us arriving flustered and late. Go ahead. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Elliot looked as if he wanted to argue, but their aunt called to him from the Rolls-Royce and he sighed. “All right. I’ll see you at the church.”

She nodded and hurried to her car, hoping this was the only thing that would go wrong that day.

* * *

“NOW,THATISan impressive decahedron,” Bowie said, admiring the creation Milo was forming.

They sat at the kitchen table with a bowl full of mini marshmallows in front of them and another full of thin pretzel sticks. Milo was shoving the pretzel sticks into the mini marshmallows at various angles to create geometric shapes.

What had started out as an impulse to distract his brother—an activity Bowie vaguely remembered enjoying during one of his rare, brief stints at an actual school—had turned into a big hit.

To his great surprise, Milo picked up on it quickly. At first his brother had been making weird abstract creations with no form or function, but after a few moments of playing around, he started building geometric shapes. First he had made a basic square, then a cube, a triangle, then a pyramid and finally increasing in sophistication to the ten-sided shape he was making now, which was technically a square cupola.

Milo had skills. No getting around it. Yes, he was definitely on the autism spectrum with serious language delays and behavior problems, but Bowie suspected his brother had the potential to do great things if his abilities could be channeled in the right direction.

They had been at this for at least an hour, and his little brother showed no signs of flagging interest in the activity—a big benefit to Bowie as he sat beside him, using his laptop to try catching up on emails.

Every few moments, his brother would hold up another creation, eyes expectant as he waited for Bowie’s approval.

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