Page 52 of Serenity Harbor

She could still remember the first boy who had noticed her. Lance Goodwin. He looked just like Jake Gyllenhaal. In fact, every time she saw Jake in a movie, she thought of Lance.

She had been just a few months shy of her fifteenth birthday and he had been a year older, a summer visitor to Haven Point and grandson of McKenzie’s neighbor Darwin Twitchell.

At the time, Charlene still wasn’t crazy about the idea of Katrina swimming, but she used to tell her mother she and Sam were only going to get some sun and play volleyball at Lakeside Park in town, the narrow beach in downtown Haven Point where most of the teenagers in town liked to hang out.

Lance didn’t know anything about StupidKat—and the absence of that baggage between them had been heady and exciting.Freeing, somehow. With him, Katrina could be someone different, someone flirty and teasing and fun.

They had gone to the movies with a carefully selected group of her friends. When he held her hand, she felt like the luckiest girl in the theater, and later when he walked her home, he had kissed her awkwardly outside her door.

It had all been magic, and for the first time in her life, she hadn’t felt stupid or weird or different.

He was in town for two more weeks. Lance had been enraptured by her the whole time and asked her to keep in touch when he returned to Seattle after his visit.

They emailed back and forth for a few months...until another cute guy moved to Haven Point with his family and started coming around.

She dated Jason for a month or so, until he started wanting to get too serious and take their relationship to a much more physical level than she was comfortable with, then she broke things off. Another guy followed and the pattern was set, one that seemed to follow her through high school and college—and after.

Though she had worked hard in school, she never quite recovered from those difficult early years, when she had missed so much school and struggled to focus. She always felt a little lost in her classes, especially when the assignment involved anything to do with math or science. As a result, her grades had been mediocre at best.

In order to earn her associate degree, she attended a community college right out of high school and managed to get into Boise State to finish her elementary ed degree.

She wanted to think she had been a good, dedicated teacher. She had worked hard to teach her students—harder than her fellow teachers because she thought she had to. Still, some part of her had always been distracted, looking for the next guy, that undeniable thrill of falling in love. The best two semesters she had were in the year she had a steady boyfriend.

She was tired of it—and she finally had something more important. She scrolled to another picture of Gabi, this one when they were throwing a ball back and forth on the grounds of the orphanage.

She would be staying in Bowie’s house for only a few weeks. Surely she could control herself for that long.

* * *

“OH,YOULOOKSTUNNING, Wynnie,” Katrina exclaimed as she took in her sister’s reflection in the full-length mirror of Wyn’s old room at their mother’s house.

“The dress is absolute perfection,” Andie Montgomery, her future sister-in-law, agreed with a dreamy smile. “I love the off-the-shoulder look and the full-length lace sleeves. It’s completely you.”

“You look like a fairy princess, Auntie Wyn.” Andie’s seven-year-old daughter, Chloe, gazed at the bride, her eyes huge and glittery with excitement.

“Oh. I think I’m going to cry.” Charlene gazed raptly into the mirror. “Turn around and let’s see the whole thing.”

Wyn turned this way and that, displaying the exquisite dress in all its glory. The gown was slim and formfitting, clinging to Wyn’s slim, athletic frame perfectly. This was Kat’s first glimpse of the entire finished product, though she had seen plenty of pictures of the work in progress emailed to her by Wynona while she was in Colombia.

“It’s a great dress,” Wyn said, looking over her shoulder at her reflection. “Sam did an amazing job. I should have known.”

“Iknew she would,” Katrina said. “And you were so nervous about having Sam’s shop handle the wedding dress!”

Her sister’s shrug accentuated the lovely floral lace around the low neckline. “You can’t blame me for worrying. I was afraid Linda would throw in a hoop skirt, lamb-chop sleeves and fifty pounds of beading.”

“Sam has good taste, even if Linda is a little stuck in the eighties,” Katrina said. “It’s stunning on you.”

She hugged her sister, careful not to mess up Wyn’s elaborate updo. When she glanced over at Charlene, she saw their mother wiping tears away on a lacy handkerchief she pulled from her cleavage.

“I can’t believe the first of my children is finally getting married,” Charlene breathed.

“And one more in just a few months,” Katrina said, nodding her head toward Andie.

Kat never would have picked Andie Montgomery for her brother Marshall, but now that she’d seen them together, she had to admit that they were perfect for each other. Marsh’s life had always revolved around his job, until Andie and her kids came along. Now he was far more relaxed and fun to be around—and obviously crazy about Andieandher two kids.

“And isn’t it nice of Andie to provide your most cherished dream? Ready-made grandbabies,” Wyn said with an impish grin.

“It’s about timesomebodydid,” Charlene said in an exasperated tone, which made all of them smile.

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