Serenity Harbor

She set the salad down and hugged each of them in turn. “How are my favorite troublemakers? What have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”

“Why, there’s our favorite world traveler,” Hazel said. “It’s about time you came back.”

“I’m so happy you made it in time for the wedding,” Eppie exclaimed.

Surely they knew she wouldn’t have missed Wyn and Cade’s wedding, no matter what. Even if she had been stuck in a tiny village on the Amazon River without a boat, she would have swum through barracudas to be here if necessary.

“Sit here by us,” Hazel insisted. “We want to hear every juicy detail. What sort of hunky guys have you been hanging out with down there?”

“I can picture you now, lounging around on the beaches of Rio or living it up in some penthouse apartment in Bogotá.”

For one moment, she could vividly picture Gabriela’s orphanage, where she had been spending virtually all of her free time when she wasn’t teaching English at the nearby secondary school. She saw the run-down facility as clearly as if she had just left—the peeling paint, the bare mattresses on the floor, the plain, dangling light bulbs overhead.

She had to get Gabi out of that environment, no matter what.

The dedicated staff at the orphanage tried to shower love on the children, but they had limited time and even more limited means to make a real difference.

Her heart ached all over again at the confusion and sadness in Gabi’s sweet face when Katrina had hugged her goodbye the week before. Though she wasn’t yet four, she had already been disappointed twice when previous adoptions fell through. Children with Down syndrome could be difficult to place in developing countries, especially when they already struggled with complicated medical conditions that could accompany that diagnosis.

Gabi would eventually need heart surgery for a congenital defect, which was highly unlikely in her current circumstances.

“Come back?” Gabi had whispered the plea in Spanish, her brow furrowed and her mouth twisted into a frown.

Katrina had kissed her cheek while running a hand over her dark hair. “I swear it,” she had answered, not at all sure how much the girl understood or believed.

She hated to leave her. Under other circumstances, she might have opted to skip the wedding and put the necessary travel expenses toward the ever-rising adoption fees.

But she loved Wyn dearly. Katrina was her maid of honor and couldn’t even contemplate missing her wedding to Police Chief Cade Emmett, who had been friends with their older brother Marshall and had been part of their lives as long as Katrina could remember.

She was here, right now, in Haven Point, at Julia Winston’s beautiful home celebrating Wynona’s upcoming wedding. She needed to be present, she reminded herself. As much as her heart might yearn to be with the child whose generosity and courage had stolen her heart, she wouldn’t ruin her sister’s wedding celebrations and this gathering with her dear friends of the Haven Point Helping Hands by pining to be somewhere else.

She pushed the ache away. “All right, girls,” she said to Eppie and Hazel, who hadn’t been girls for about seven decades. “Tell me everything that’s been going on around town while I’ve been gone. You two always know the good dirt.”

Eppie giggled. “Oh my. How much time do you have?”

“As long as it takes.”

They had only about ten minutes to visit before McKenzie Kilpatrick took charge and told everyone they should eat now so they could save their strength for the games to come.

Katrina suggested the Brewer sisters let her grab plates for them, an offer they accepted with alacrity. After she prepared their plates, she returned to the buffet line for one of her own. While she was chatting with Devin Barrett—McKenzie’s sister, whose stepdaughter had been in Katrina’s class—Lindy Grace Keegan took her spot next to Hazel and Eppie.

“There’s a spot over here,” Charlene called.

With a little inward sigh, Katrina manufactured a smile—she was becoming an expert at it—and made her way to the long table where her mother sat with several of their other friends.

“Everything is so delicious, don’t you think?” Charlene asked the table at large and received a positive response in return. “I’m especially loving this cheesecake. Who made it?”

Barbara Serrano, whose family owned a restaurant, raised her hand. “It’s a new recipe we’re trying out.”

“I’d say it’s a hit,” McKenzie said.

“I have got to get this recipe,” Andie Montgomery said. “Marshall would love it. You know how much he loves sweets.”

Andie, a widow with two adorable kids, was marrying Katrina’s brother Marshall in the fall. Kat had met her a few times the previous summer and thought her very nice but a little too quiet for the rambunctious Bailey family. She hadn’t known about Andie’s painful past until pieces of it slithered into town and threatened Andie, those cute kids and Wynona.

She still wasn’t sure how she felt about Andie becoming her sister-in-law as she didn’t know her well yet, but it was obvious Marshall adored her—and vice versa.

“You have to try this,” Charlene said, holding her fork just inches away from Katrina’s mouth. Her mother never seemed to remember she didn’t like cheesecake.

“No, thanks. You have it. I’m good with fruit. Thanks, though.”

“Are you sure? It’s delicious.”

“Positive.”

“I don’t know why you won’t at least have a taste. It’s not like you can’t afford the calories, unlike some of us. You’re so thin,” Charlene said with a sigh.

Her mother could win Olympic gold in fussing.

“I’m fine. Really. Look at all this food I’ve taken.”

“But how much of it will you eat?” Charlene countered.

Again, she wondered what her mother would say if she knew some of the interesting meals Katrina had eaten in South America.

“I think you look beautiful,” Barbara said with her kind smile. “What have you been up to? You went to South America with that sexy mountain climber who used to come into the restaurant with you, right? What was his name again? How’s he doing?”

Her mother’s mouth straightened into a thin line, probably from the effort it was taking Charlene not to spill out her own opinions about Carter Ross. Her mother had strongly opposed Katrina’s decision to go with him on his quest to climb the highest point in every country in South America.

It’s too dangerous. You aren’t serious with the man, anyway. Why do you have to go halfway across the world with him?

All valid points, Kat could admit now. At one point, her mother had even sworn she would never speak with her again if she left with him. Obviously, that had been a hollow threat. More’s the pity.

To her mother’s credit, she hadn’t uttered so much as an I-told-you-so after Katrina’s tenuous relationship with Carter barely survived two of the countries on the list. That didn’t make it any easier for Kat to admit her mother had been right all along.

“No doubt he’s fine, but I couldn’t say for certain. We went our separate ways several months ago.”

That was a polite way of sugarcoating the truth, she supposed. He had been an ass and she had been stupid. Her mistakes still stung, though not with the pain of a broken heart. She hadn’t wanted forever, she reminded herself. That didn’t prevent her from feeling betrayed when he had basically abandoned her in a foreign country without money, credit cards or her passport.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just pack your bags and come back home after you and he-who-shall-remain-nameless broke up,” Sam said.

Funny, how a lack of money, credit cards and passport could impact travel plans. Even after all that had been remedied with help from the embassy in Bogotá, something had kept her there.

“I didn’t really go down to South America for him. He was the excuse, not the reason,” she said, which had been one of the points of contention between her and Carter. He’d wanted her undivided attention.

“Once I was already there, immersed in other cultures and getting to know the people, I found I really enjoyed the adventure of it. Except for the years I was in college in Boise, I’ve never lived anywhere else but Haven Point. I decided this was a good chance for me to travel the world a bit, see what might be out there beyond the border of our little town.”

“That’s easy,” Barbara Serrano said with a laugh. “Shelter Springs starts about three miles north of us. But take my advice, don’t bother going there unless you absolutely have to. The natives aren’t very friendly.”