Milo craned his neck to look up at Bowie for permission. The man looked down at both of them, a baffled look on his features, but after a moment he shrugged and reached a hand down to help her off the floor.
She didn’t need assistance, but it would probably seem rude to ignore him. She placed her hand in his and found it warm and solid and much more calloused than a computer nerd should have. She tried not to pay attention to the little shock of electricity between them or the tug at her nerves.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, looking quickly away as she followed the boy, who, she was happy to notice, seemed to have completely forgotten his frustration.
WHAT WAS GOING on here?
Bowie followed the gorgeous woman with the sleek fall of honey-blond hair, listening to the steady stream of one-sided conversation she seemed to be having with his heretofore nonverbal little brother.
He felt as if he had just slid down a rabbit’s hole, into a bizarro world where it wasn’t at all out of the ordinary for a woman to take a strange kid under her wing in the grocery store and where a pretty smile could divert an out-of-control boy from a full-blown meltdown.
He didn’t know what to think. Who was she? And how had she managed to reach his brother so quickly and so efficiently?
He certainly hadn’t been able to pull it off in the three weeks since Milo had been dumped in his lap—the brother he never knew existed, from the mother he hadn’t seen or heard from in nearly two decades.
He was no closer to knowing how to avert the frequent meltdowns than he’d been the day he got that phone call from Oregon Social Services and flew immediately to Portland—despite extensive research and training on behavior modification.
Rabbit hole. That accurately described where he’d been the last three weeks, falling down one blind chute after another.
A month ago, he thought he had his world pretty figured out. He had a fantastic job he loved that offered the sort of challenges he craved. Maybe he hadn’t been completely thrilled about leaving the excitement and dynamic energy of Silicon Valley at first, but after his first few months in town, Haven Point had been growing on him.
The town was small but charming, with a vast lake and soaring mountains that offered an abundance of recreational opportunities for a guy who loved the outdoors. He had been thrilled to take on the challenge of overseeing all the research and development at the new Caine Tech facility in town.
If he ever stopped to think about it, he couldn’t help a spurt of pride at how far he had come, all through his own talent and drive—from a fifteen-year-old homeless kid on the streets of Portland to a major shareholder and the director of R&D at one of the country’s most influential and innovative tech companies.
And then had come that phone call less than a month before and the difficult decisions with which he still wrestled.
“Before she died, his mother named you guardian to your brother,” the social worker had said. “It’s not legally binding as you had no formal agreement.”
“How could we?” he had shot back. “I haven’t known where she was for years, and I certainly didn’t know she’d had another kid, twenty-five years after she had me.”
If he had known, he wanted to think he would have tried to rescue Milo, to find some kind of stable situation where his half brother could get the medical and therapeutic treatment he so obviously needed.
“You’re under no legal obligation to take custody of Milo,” the social worker had gone on as if Bowie hadn’t spoken. “If you refuse, he will simply remain in the foster system. You should be aware that he will probably end up institutionalized in a special school, as he’s been...difficult.”
And just like that, he knew his life was about to change. He couldn’t do it. He had spent enough time in and out of foster homes, between Stella’s brushes with the law or her frequent court-ordered rehab stints or those times when she simply disappeared for weeks at a time.
How could he inflict the same kind of life on another kid? Somehow warehousing him somewhere—out of sight, out of mind—didn’t seem the answer either.
Bowie’s skills with a computer had paid off handsomely in shares and patents with Caine Tech, and he had more money than one man could ever spend. Since he had the resources to provide a better life for Milo, how could he live with himself if he walked away and tried to forget he had a half brother tucked away in an institution somewhere?
He still wanted to think he had made the best decision, going through with the guardianship papers. That didn’t necessarily make it an easy one—nor did his almost unlimited resources help him find qualified caregivers who would stick, as the last few days amply demonstrated.
“You think those are better than these? Hmm. You might be right. These are from right here in Idaho.” The woman with the dimpled smile held out a clear plastic bag near the cherry display. “I need to fill this bag about halfway. Can you help me do that?”
Milo nodded with an understanding and eagerness that shocked Bowie, who had seen nothing similar in his own interactions with him.
“Thank you, Milo,” she said with an approving smile when she apparently judged she had enough cherries. “That’s perfect. My friends will really love these. Can you help me find the bananas now? Do you know what a banana is?”
He didn’t nod or smile or otherwise give any indication he understood, but he led her directly to the stacks of greenish-yellow bananas.
She followed him there and was reaching for a bunch when a girl with red braids and a couple of missing teeth raced over to them.
“Miss Bailey! Miss Bailey! Hi, Miss Bailey!”
Milo’s new friend beamed at the girl, who threw her arms around the woman’s waist. “Hannah Lewis,” she exclaimed as she hugged her back. “Hello! Look how tall you are! And your hair’s gotten long. It’s still such a beautiful color. Are you sure we can’t trade?”
The girl giggled and tossed her red braids. “I haven’t seen you in forever! Since last summer, anyway. Are you going to be back teaching this year? I hope so! Mrs. Chatterton, the lady who replaced you, is nice and stuff but not as nice as you. My brother’s going into the second grade, and he was so sad that you weren’t going to be his teacher. Maybe now you can be!”
For a moment, sadness flickered across the woman’s lovely features, but she appeared to make an effort to wipe it away.
“I’m afraid I’m not coming back to Haven Point Elementary right now.”
“Why not? Don’t you like being a teacher? You’re so good at it! I liked having my third-grade teacher last year, Mrs. Morris, and I learned my multiplication tables really good from her, but you’re still my favorite.”
Miss Bailey—at least he had that much of a name—looked touched. “That’s very sweet of you to say, Hannah. Thank you. I’m afraid I’m not back to stay, only for a month, for my sister’s wedding. I’ll be gone again before school starts up in the fall.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” Hannah looked as if she wanted to say more, but her mother called her over with a smile and friendly wave at Miss Bailey. “I’d better go. My dad’s waiting in the van, and we told him we would only be a second. Bye.”
“Good to see you, sweetheart.”
She hurried away, and Bowie finally spoke. “You’re a teacher. That’s why you knew just what to do with Milo.”
She looked down at the boy, who was fully concentrating on trying to twist together three ties from the produce bag rack.
“I