“I’ll take you home whenever you’re ready, honey,” her fiance offered immediately. “Then I’m meeting the guys for drinks—my low-key bachelor party,” he added with a good-natured laugh.
Serena nodded. Kinley privately believed Serena could use a few drinks that evening, herself—or at least a couple hours away from her mother just to relax and have fun with friends, but she hadn’t heard about any such plans, and it certainly wasn’t her place to suggest it.
“I’m ready,” Serena said. “Kinley and Bonnie have things to do here. Mom? You coming?”
Eva looked around the room again, as if trying and failing to come up with one final detail to oversee before letting go of today, then nodded and tucked her pocketbook beneath her arm. “Fine. Let’s go. You should get to bed early tonight, Serena, so you’ll look fresh and radiant tomorrow. I’ll make you a cup of herbal tea when we get home and perhaps we’ll do a facial before you turn in.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Kinley noted that the once-acquiescent and unruffled Serena was becoming more tense and peevish as the hours passed toward her wedding. Bridal jitters were quite common, of course, but she was a little concerned about Serena. The bride looked to be one mother-nag away from a total meltdown. If they could only get through the next twenty-four hours, Serena would move into her own home with her husband—and at twenty-five, it was past time for her to move out of her parents’ home, in Kinley’s opinion. Perhaps it would have been even better if Serena had lived on her own for a year or two, but then maybe Kinley was just projecting her own experience onto
the younger woman.
“Where are Connor and Alicia and Grayson?” Eva asked.
“They’re in the parlor, I think, talking with the Barringtons,” Chris replied. “I saw them in there earlier.”
Serena turned toward the doorway. “I’ll let them know we’re leaving.”
“I’ve told everyone in the wedding party to be dressed and ready at least an hour before the ceremony begins at five tomorrow,” Eva said to Kinley—unnecessarily since Kinley had heard Eva barking orders earlier. “Oh, Bonnie, there you are. I wanted to make sure there will be fresh coffee available all day tomorrow. Many of our guests will arrive early and will probably enjoy sipping coffee and mingling in here until time to be seated for the ceremony.”
Kinley looked around to see that Bonnie and Dan had wandered in behind her. Her eyes met Dan’s, and she thought he studied her rather intently for a moment before he smiled. Just what had he and Bonnie talked about after she’d left them?
“I’ll have coffee, pitchers of ice water and fresh fruit available in here all day tomorrow,” Bonnie promised Eva patiently.
“Good. Now, Kinley—”
Serena reentered the room and interrupted whatever additional command Eva had intended to issue. “Dad, Alicia said she left Grayson with you.”
Clinton raised his eyebrows above the rims of his narrow glasses. “He was with me earlier, but he got whiny so I sent him to find his mom in the parlor. I reminded him there were games in there and he said he wanted to go play.”
“He’s not in there.”
Connor and Alicia entered the dining room, both looking around. “Grayson’s with you, isn’t he, Dad? You were showing him the bird’s nest in that bush around front.”
“I sent him inside. I saw him walk through the front door with my own eyes,” Clinton insisted. “I stayed outside to exchange a few words with Mike Ray before he left, but I know Grayson came in.”
“Okay, so he’s probably somewhere here in the inn,” Connor said with an edge of anxiety to his voice. “Let’s all split up and look for him. Maybe he’s gone upstairs with someone in the family who thinks he had permission to go with them.”
“We’ll spread out and look,” Bonnie said instantly. “Connor and Alicia, Chris and Serena, run upstairs and start knocking on doors. The rest of us will look on this floor. Feel free to look anywhere—even the attic. Maybe he’s exploring.”
Kinley and Dan shared a somber look and she sensed that he had the same thought she did.
“Dan and I are going to look outside,” she said quickly. She held up the phone in her hand. “Everyone has Eva’s number, right? So call her if you find him, and she’ll call me.”
Already fussing loudly about how she couldn’t depend on anyone to do anything, even watch out for her grandson, Eva dug her phone out of her purse as Kinley and Dan hurried out of the room. She led him into the kitchen, seeing no signs of the boy there or on the way, grabbed a couple of flashlights from a kitchen drawer and shoved one at Dan. The sun had set during dinner, and while the grounds were well lit, there were still a few dark nooks in which the boy could hide, if he wanted.
Without need for discussion, they headed straight for Logan’s cottage. If Grayson had slipped outside unnoticed, there was a good chance he’d made a beeline for Ninja. Even from the gazebo, Kinley could see that Logan’s truck wasn’t parked in his drive, so he hadn’t yet returned home from his rare evening out.
“I can’t believe no one watches that kid,” Dan said angrily.
“There was a lot of confusion with the wedding rehearsal and all the guests the family hadn’t seen in a long—” Hearing herself making excuses, Kinley stopped with a frown. “You’re right, of course. They should have watched him more closely, especially since they all know Grayson is prone to wandering off.”
“The least they could do is hire a nanny if they don’t want to take care of him, themselves. My parents at least kept a nanny around at all times.”
Hearing the old resentment simmering in his taut voice, Kinley wondered if Dan identified in some ways with young Grayson. It made her sad to think of Dan as a lonely, neglected little boy. Grayson wasn’t always watched closely, but at least his family was very affectionate with him most of the time.
Her heart sank when Ninja came running to the other side of the gate in Logan’s yard, with no sign of the boy in sight. “He’s not here.”