Home is where the love is. Especially at Christmas!

Commander Jonas Scott got through a tough deployment by thinking about his family home on Whidbey Island. The same home his deceased stepmother, Dottie, had promised him. His Navy homecoming turns sour when he discovers that Dottie left his house to a stranger named Serena Delgado….

Serena, an Army widow with a young son, is fixing up her house. But as Christmas approaches and she gets to know Jonas, Dottie’s plan becomes clear. It wasn’t about fixing up the house, it was about fixing up Serena and Jonas!

This was the woman Dottie had given his house to.

Serena had ruined his homecoming—and his Christmas. Jonas couldn’t forget that. But he didn’t like the tired lines under her eyes. He disliked even more that he cared about her exhaustion at all.

Best stick to the basics. “ID?”

She handed over her military ID card and her son’s.

Jonas’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he automatically typed in the last name, the active-duty sponsor’s social security number—

His hands stilled.

Delgado, Philip. Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Deceased.

He knew Serena was a war widow. That she had a son. But to read it, in black and white, made him wish he could have been there and been the one to save her husband. Anything to take the sorrow from her eyes.

He glanced over at her. Her gaze was intent on her son, and Jonas waited for her to look back at him. When she did, he saw the cold edge of distrust on her face.

His mind kept going over his last conversation with Dottie.

“You’ll love Serena. It’s as though she’s always been here.”

Dear Reader,

I was delighted when Mills & Boon Superromance asked me to include another World War II subplot for Navy Christmas, much as I did with my very first book, A Rendezvous to Remember. In Navy Christmas, we meet Dottie Forsyth’s parents and find out how her family settled on Whidbey Island over a century ago. Dottie isn’t even in the contemporary story—she’s already passed on. But as the story between her stepson, Jonas, and niece, Serena, progresses, it becomes certain that Dottie had a hunch they’d make a good pair. Because of reservations on both their parts, it takes them a while to acknowledge their romantic feelings for each other. Serena is a war widow and not looking for a new father for her six-year-old son. Jonas is fresh back from deployment and still smarting over Dottie’s amendment to her will—leaving Serena the family house instead of Jonas, as she’d once promised.

Serena discovers, along with the reader, the history of Dottie’s parents, which includes her father’s service as a Flying Tiger in World War II.

When the opportunity arose to donate to a fundraiser for the National League of POW/MIA Families (www.pow-miafamilies.org), my editor suggested I donate a character’s name for Navy Christmas. The successful event found Dawn Dempsey as the winner. Dawn graciously gave the name of her grandfather, Charles G. Dempsey, for a World War II sailor. Charles served in the navy during WWII and in the Pacific theater. You can find out more about him on my website (and on the following pages!). While my characterization of Charles is fictional, I used details of his life that Dawn provided to make the character authentic. I hope I did his memory, and Dawn’s family, proud.

If you like reading about Whidbey Island during Christmas, don’t miss Navy Joy, a novella in the anthology Coming Home for Christmas, which also has stories by sister veterans Lindsay McKenna and Delores Fossen. It’s out this month, too.

I love hearing from you—please reach me via my website, www.gerikrotow.com, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter and be automatically entered into the Geri Krotow Loyal Reader program, where you have a chance at winning a signed book each month.

I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and may the peace of the season find you wherever you are, whatever your walk.

Peace,

Geri Krotow

Navy Christmas

Geri Krotow

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Former naval intelligence officer and U.S. Naval Academy graduate GERI KROTOW draws inspiration from the global situations she’s experienced. Geri loves to hear from her readers. You can email her via her website and blog, www.gerikrotow.com.

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To My Loving Family Steve, Alex and Ellen. You’ve given me the best Christmases of my life. I love you with all my heart.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Whidbey Island One week before Thanksgiving

“MOM, MY EAR IS FINE. How much longer do we have to wait?”

Serena Delgado looked up from the pair of socks she was knitting. Her six-year-old son Pepé’s brown eyes and earnest expression looked so much like his father’s it made her smile.

A smile was a big improvement over the heart-crushing pain the thought of Philip used to bring.

“Pepé, we have to be patient. I brought my new knitting project to keep me busy. Look, they’re the Army-green socks you asked for.”

“Mom.”

Pepé wasn’t impressed by her intricate stitches, or the fact that she was knitting both socks at once on her circular needles.

“Are you that bored with your video game already?”

“This waiting is taking a long time, Mom. I’d rather be playing soccer.”

Serena checked her watch. She’d never attempted two-at-a-time socks before, and her absorption in the task must have been deeper than she’d realized.

They’d been sitting in the pediatric waiting area of Naval Hospital Oak Harbor for forty-five minutes. Located on Naval Air Station or NAS Whidbey, it was the only military medical facility on the island.

“Maybe you’re right, mi hijo. Let’s go see if we can find someone to help us. They may have lost our paperwork in the shuffle.”

She stuffed the needle and yarn into her tote and grabbed each of their jackets. They walked past the empty reception area and Serena’s hunch that they’d been overlooked grew stronger. She knew patients weren’t supposed to enter the hallway where the examination rooms were located without a nurse or corpsman to escort them, but since it was a Friday afternoon, she’d take her chances. She was as eager as Pepé to start the weekend.

The first few exam rooms were empty, lights out.

“No one’s here, Mom,” Pepé whispered, as if they were going on a spy mission.

“We’ll find somebody.”

Light spilled from the room in front of them and Serena paused, her hand on Pepé’s shoulder. She didn’t want to barge in on someone else’s exam.

Pepé stilled next to her and a conversation became clear.

“This is crap, Doc, and you know it.” A deep voice filled with frustration rumbled from the room.

“You’re back home, Jonas. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no battlefront here at NAS Whidbey.”

Jonas.

Serena’s spine stiffened. The one “Jonas” she knew of fit this scenario too well....

“I’m putting you where the Navy needs you, and right now I need you in the regular pediatrics clinic for the next few weeks. You’ll treat the routine cases. When Petty Officer Reilly isn’t available, you’ll have to check in the patients, too. If you have any problems getting used to the system we’ve upgraded to, ask HM1 Reilly. I don’t think you will—it’s all pretty straightforward.”

“I’m trained for so much more, Doc. At least put me in the E.R.”

If this was the Jonas she had heard about—Jonas Scott—he had an awfully sexy voice. Nothing like his brother Paul’s, whom she’d met in person.

“Mom, that’s Doc Franklin!” Pepé whispered his recognition of the second voice, but his excitement threatened to break his self-control. Besides being his beloved pediatrician, Doc Franklin shared the name of one of Pepé’s favorite heroes in American history. Pepé loved Dr. Benjamin Franklin, from the moment the Navy had assigned him to the family. Serena liked him, too, mostly for his easygoing manner with Pepé. She’d never heard this side of him, however. Military medical officers were more than doctors; they had to lead, too. And Jonas didn’t sound like he wanted direction from anyone.

“Shh, we shouldn’t interrupt them.” Her lawyerly instincts seemed to vibrate as she did her best to ignore the twinge of guilt at admonishing Pepé. She was eavesdropping, pure and simple.

But if Dr. Franklin was indeed speaking to Jonas Scott, the one man on Whidbey Island who could change Serena’s life, it behooved her to listen.

Just a bit longer.

“You can rotate through the E.R. as needed, but not until after the holidays. Peds isn’t always boring, Jonas. Right now, take advantage of being back from deployment. You weren’t even due to report to work until next week, after the Thanksgiving holiday.”

“Sitting around my house isn’t a whole lot of fun.”

Regret pierced through Serena’s stoic attorney mode. It had to be Jonas Scott. It had been as much of a surprise to her as it had been to Jonas that his stepmother and her biological aunt, Dottie Forsyth, had willed her family farmhouse to Serena. The tragic circumstances of Dottie’s unexpected death hadn’t helped. Dottie was supposed to grow old in the farmhouse, not be murdered by a crazy woman the previous summer.

“I’m sorry, Jonas. It’s a crappy time of year to be single and alone.”

“It’s not about that, Doc. I’m over it.”

“I know you’re over your ex, Jonas. What you’re not over is deployment and the constant insane pace. You’re done deploying, trust me. With the drawdown in Afghanistan and your rank, you could finish out the rest of your time on shore duty. And what about your stepmother’s death? You’ve got a lot to process.”

It was Jonas Scott, Dottie’s stepson.

He had an ex?

“I’ll deal.” His voice was little more than a growl.

“I have no doubt that you will. But it won’t hurt you to scale it back a bit and enjoy the lighter schedule. Give yourself time to grieve, Jonas.”

“There has to be something I can do besides weigh in snotty-nosed kids whose mothers are overreacting to the common cold.”

Serena’s face heated as she fought her maternal anger.

“Save the tough-guy routine for someone who doesn’t know you as well, Jonas. You’re great with kids or I wouldn’t have assigned you to my unit.” Dr. Franklin’s tone reflected compassion. As if he knew Jonas better than most.

“Give me a break, Doc. These folks wouldn’t know a medical emergency if it bit them in the ass. Did you see that last family? They had all three of their kids still on bottles, and the youngest was two. I don’t have time to treat overpampered, overfed, sugared-up kids whose parents need a lesson in nutrition and physical fitness. For heaven’s sake, Doc, I was stopping Marines from bleeding out less than two weeks ago, and the kids I treated had real, often life-threatening, needs. Now you want me to hand out cartoon-hero stickers?”

Serena grasped Pepé’s hand. Enough was enough. Pepé didn’t need to hear any of this.

That’s what she got for snooping like the lawyer she was—she’d exposed her son to a post-deployment tirade he’d had no part of. She bent to his ear.

“Come on, mi hijo. Let’s find out what happened to our appointment.”

* * *

DOC HAD GONE quiet and Jonas wondered if he’d pushed his boss too far. Doc Franklin was an easygoing guy, and Jonas had enjoyed working with him overseas, in a combat zone. In war, they were teammates fighting to save every life, every person who came into their unit. And even back home where Doc was a pediatrician, he was still a naval medical officer. He thought he had the most important job in the world.

“Well?” Jonas prompted.

Doc’s stare should have tipped him off. Too late, the hairs on the back of Jonas’s neck rose and he knew someone was standing behind him.

He mentally groaned and turned around, expecting HM1 Reilly, or worse, the naval hospital’s Commanding Officer.

Instead, he found himself looking into the deepest, darkest mocha-brown eyes he’d ever seen. They sparked with anger and a knowing he couldn’t quite identify... He shook his head to clear it.

The stunning woman in front of him had night-black hair that fell in a straight sheet past her shoulders, skimming around her generous breasts. Breasts that were covered snugly by her purple turtleneck. She didn’t cover up her sensuous figure with the added layer of a sweater or pullover like a lot of women, either. He gave her points for that. Her bottom was just as sexy and he couldn’t miss how her jeans emphasized every curve.

This was a woman who knew her power over men.

He knew it wasn’t some sort of vision brought on by deployment fatigue. But even in his dreams he’d never conjured up an image quite this...distracting.

“Hey, Dr. Franklin!” A black-haired boy stood next to the woman, his enthusiasm for Doc making him bounce up and down while his mother held his hand.

“Pepé, Ms. Delgado, how is my favorite Marine Corps family?” Doc walked next to Jonas and kneeled down to the boy’s level.

Delgado.

Son of a bitch.

Not only had he shown his worst side to Doc Franklin, he’d made a mess of things with the one woman he needed to treat right, the one woman who had what he wanted so badly, what he’d waited to have for so long. He knew more about her than she knew, and they hadn’t met in person yet. Until now.

How much had they heard?

Serena Delgado. And her son, Pepé. The family living in the farmhouse that Dottie had promised him.

Pepé yanked his hand out of Serena’s and ran over to Doc.

“We’re great, Doc! We’re going to Friday Island for Thanksgiving. I might get to swim in the heated pool.”

“It’s San Juan Island, Pepé. Friday Harbor is the town.” Her voice matched her looks—deep and harmonious with a side of sexy.

Serena Delgado kept staring at Jonas as she gently corrected her son. The daggers of light in her eyes were anything but gentle. If he were to guess, she was sorely pissed off.

At him.

And she had every right to be.

“You’re Serena.”

He’d planned to introduce himself in person to her later. After he’d been back long enough to get over his jet lag.

More like get over your wounded ego.

“Yes.”

Her eyes reminded him of an iced coffee. Dark and rich, with a bite.

Jonas held out his hand. “I’m Jonas Scott.”

“I know who you are.” She flicked her gaze at his hand long enough to make her point. She wasn’t going to shake his hand or make this any easier for him. Why should she?

“I’m not sure how much you heard of what I said—I’m sorry and please understand that I was just being a pain in the, um, you know.”

“It’s clear you don’t usually work in pediatrics.” Her tone remained grave but he caught the slight tic at the corner of her mouth. “I hope I’ll be able to control myself. Being a mom and all, I never know when I’m going to get all hysterical and go crazy on you.”

He wasn’t sure if her attractiveness or the fact that she was enjoying his discomfort rattled him more.

“Touché.” They continued to stare at each other.

He’d be turned on by any attractive woman after being downrange so long. It was just his luck that it happened to be the woman who’d upended his whole life.

Unexpected disappointment punched him in the gut.

Even if their shared connection hadn’t been so ugly, so life-changing, he wouldn’t stand a chance with her. Not after she’d overheard his harsh words.

And the boy—Pepé. Jonas didn’t like the twinge of envy he’d felt when Pepé smiled and ran to Doc Franklin. He used to be the practitioner kids loved, the one who loved taking care of kids, but after the past several months of deployment, he couldn’t look at a child and not feel the immediate wash of sorrow that’d become too familiar to him.

“Please call me Jonas. I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you yet. I’ve been home a short time, and I didn’t want to stop by the house without calling first.”

Had she heard him stumble over the word house? Or was it just his imagination that referring to the farmhouse as anything but his or his family’s caused him pause?

She held her hand up to stop his meager attempt at an apology.

“I think we’ve said all we needed to in our emails, don’t you?”

“No, not at all. Six months ago we were both in shock, and an email is never the same as meeting in person.”

He looked over to where Doc was goofing around with Pepé.

“I don’t want to have this conversation now, Serena—can I call you that? Not with Pepé here.”

“I imagine it would be difficult for you to ask me to give up our home while Pepé’s within earshot.”

Frustration made his vision blur as the goddess turned into a witch. An immediate ache in his chest opened up, spewing the ugly visions of children he hadn’t been able to save. Damn his post-deployment emotions. His ability to compartmentalize, the usual method of coping with unwanted emotions and allowing a warrior to focus on a mission, seemed to have evaporated the minute he landed back on Whidbey last week.

“I may deserve that, ma’am, but trust me, I’m not the bogeyman. I understand that you and Pepé have been through a lot. More than your share.”

Those brown eyes remained steady on him. Measuring him, assessing his integrity. He’d had stares from top admirals that weren’t as unnerving.

“As have you. And yes, you can call me Serena.”

Her tone held no recrimination, no pity. Dottie’s claim that Serena was “a gal with real class” rang through his mind. Thinking of Dottie, of her death, made him want to put his fist through the clinic wall.

“Dottie loved you so much. She never stopped talking about you.” As if she’d read his mind. As if she knew he needed that reminder of Dottie’s love for him.

“Funny, because she was the same way about you—she went on and on in her emails and our few phone conversations about how thrilled she was to finally have met you, to have closed the family circle by meeting her long-lost niece.”

Her eyes narrowed and she took a step back. “You’re right, Jonas. We need to have this conversation elsewhere.”

Her anger had melted into another emotion he didn’t want to consider. Sadness?

“Mom, Doc Franklin says I can go back to soccer next spring!”

“That’s nice, Pepé.” Her shoulders sagged and Jonas made a conscious effort not to offer her an arm, a shoulder of his own.

“What’s going on with Pepé?” If he was going to check her son in and probably see more of him in the clinic, he’d better do his best to be professional.

“He’s had a rash of ear infections. The last one took him out of the second half of soccer season. He loves soccer, as he’ll be sure to let you know any minute now.”

Her exasperated expression reflected her obvious love for Pepé.

“I understand. I get antsy when I can’t get to the gym. You two must have a special bond.”

A small line appeared between her brows and Jonas swore he tasted the bottom of his uniform boots. How many times could he say the wrong words in one afternoon?

“I’m sorry, Serena. Obviously small talk isn’t my forte any more than pediatrics is.”

She opened her mouth to speak but Doc interrupted them.

“Commander Scott, this is Pepé, my main man. I’ve known this kid since he moved on island last spring. He’s a champ. Pepé, this is Commander Scott, and he’s going to take care of you.” Doc raised his hand for Pepé’s high-five slap.

“Yes, sir.”

Jonas gritted his teeth for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. This wasn’t going to be easy. If Doc Franklin had made the connection between Serena and Jonas, he wasn’t talking. And Jonas wasn’t about to mention it now, not after already shoving his foot down his throat twice.

Jonas walked Pepé and Serena back to the check-in station. He gestured for her to take the seat next to the computer desk as he smiled at Pepé.

“Go ahead and scoot up on the table for me, buddy.”

“Am I going to get a sticker?”

“After I check your ears, sure.”

“You sounded angry about the stickers, Mr. Scott.”

“It’s Commander Scott, Pepé.”

Serena’s smooth correction made Jonas smile. He had to hand it to her—she was raising the boy to show respect and courtesy.

“If it’s okay with your mom, you can call me Jonas, Pepé. I’m not a doctor like Doc Franklin. I’m a nurse practitioner and I can take care of you, too.”

“Mom, is it okay?”

“Sure, mi hijo.”

Jonas didn’t like the tired lines under her eyes. He disliked more that he cared about her parental exhaustion.

This was the woman who Dottie had given his house to.

Best to stick to the basics.

“ID?”

She handed over her and Pepé’s military ID cards.

Jonas’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he automatically typed in Pepé’s last name, the active-duty sponsor’s social security number—

His hands stilled.

Delgado, Philip. Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Deceased.

He knew Serena was a war widow. That she had a son. But to read it, in black and white, made him wish he could have been there, could have saved her husband. Anything to take the sorrow from her eyes.

He looked back at her. Her gaze was intent on her son and Jonas waited for her to look back up at him. When she did he saw the cold edge of distrust in her eyes.

She’d never believe his thoughts—she’d assume he wished her husband had lived so that Dottie wouldn’t have left the house to her. As he typed in the pertinent information about Pepé, his mind kept going over his last conversation with Dottie.

“You’ll love Serena. It’s as though she’s always been here. And her son, Pepé, is a doll.”

“Mom, I don’t understand why you never met her before now.”

Dottie had been his stepmother but he’d always called her “Mom.”

“Your uncle was a troubled man ever since he was a teenager. My father sent him to his family in Texas to get his life together after his Navy time was up. Instead of working on the ranch, making a living, he got a girl pregnant—Serena’s mother—who never wanted anything more to do with him. Her family supported her and her new baby. Serena didn’t know she had a biological family on her father’s side until your uncle died.”

Dottie’s heart had been so big. She’d been a successful Realtor—a single, never-married woman, liberated for her generation. Until Jonas’s widowed father, more than a decade her junior, showed up with four little boys. After that, she’d become a devoted wife and mother without missing a beat.

It had always been understood that Jonas would get the farmhouse. Dottie had repeatedly promised it to him. She’d planned to move into a more senior-friendly condo in downtown Oak Harbor once he returned from his seven-month deployment.

Instead, she’d died at the hands of a murderer soon after changing her will to leave Serena and Pepé the house.

Would Dottie have done that if Serena had a husband and home to go back to in Texas?

They’d never know.

* * *

SERENA WATCHED JONAS’S face closely. Only a quick intake of breath, a scant second’s pause, as he read over her military dependent ID card. She forced her shoulders to relax—he knew about her and Pepé; there was nothing to hide. His emails inquiring as to whether she’d be willing to sell the house to him hadn’t surprised her, but the strength of her reaction had.

She’d made it clear that it was her house now, and it wasn’t for sale. It was going to stay in the Forsyth family as Dottie had wished.

He’d never replied in full to her last refusal of his offer, sending her a one-liner stating that he’d come to meet with her once he returned from downrange.

When he looked back up at her now, she tried to glance past him at the computer screen, anywhere but at the eyes as blue as Texas bluebonnets, blazing with an intensity that made her blood feel like lava in her veins. This heat didn’t come from the anger she’d experienced moments before. It was the kind of heat that two people share when they’re attracted to each other.

Her hormones had been relatively dormant since Phil’s death. Why did they have to start humming now? With the man who wanted to take Dottie’s house from her?

Not for the first time since Dottie’s will was read, Serena wondered what Dottie had been thinking. She must have expected her change of plans to upset Jonas, her stepson. She’d betrayed the man to whom she’d originally promised the house.

Jonas handed her ID back to her and she reflexively reached for it. But he held on to it for a moment, and she forced herself to look at him again.

“Again, Serena, I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ve caught me at my most butt-faced moment.”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to stay that word!” Pepé said in his high-pitched voice.

“You’re right, Pepé. I’m not using my best manners today.”

“You need a time out.” Pepé spoke matter-of-factly and Serena winced at how closely his tone mimicked hers. Did she sound that stern with him when he acted out?

“I need more than that, my man.” Jonas swiveled his stool in front of Pepé, who sat on the small, kid-size examination table.

“You’re not a doctor, right?”

“No, like I said, I’m a nurse practitioner, and I’ll be looking after you.”

“Okay.” Pepé’s ever-practical acceptance never ceased to awe Serena. Acceptance saved one from a lot of grief and sorrow.... “Pepé, what have we discussed about correcting adults?”

“You have to listen to your mother, buddy, but you’re a good man to call me on my bad language.” Jonas smiled at Pepé and Serena curled her toes.

Jonas Scott wasn’t so easy to write off as a man who’d get over the loss of the house once he adjusted to her and Pepé living there. He was fully alive, fully present. And she found him as handsome in person as the photos of him in Dottie’s house had hinted.

She gave Jonas credit; he didn’t cover it up when he made a mess of things. She’d keep her observation to herself, though. She didn’t know him well enough yet. He hadn’t been able to make it home in time for Dottie’s funeral; he’d been too far downrange, too deep in country. He’d told his brothers to go ahead with it and not to wait for him. The oldest brother, Paul, was an attorney and kept her informed all along of the process of Dottie’s murder investigation, Serena’s initial status as a possible suspect and then the reading of the will.

Paul had supported her because, by blood, Dottie was her aunt. Dottie had loved her and Pepé as if they’d been a part of one another’s lives forever and not the short six months they’d shared before Dottie died. Because Dottie had vouched for Serena and introduced her to the other Scott brothers and their families, Paul believed in her innocence. Serena had been quickly removed from the suspect list by the island sheriff, so she hadn’t needed Paul’s legal support, after all. But it had been nice to know someone had her back.

Paul had warned her that Jonas was a little more than surprised that the house wasn’t his. They were all shocked by it, in fact. Dottie had promised it to Jonas when he was a teenager, after his father died and left Dottie a widow.

“I was going to call you, Serena. I’ve only been back a little more than a week.” Jonas’s deep voice stopped the flood of memories.

Before she could reply, he turned his attention back to Pepé.

“Ready for the machine?” Jonas grinned at Pepé, who smiled.

Serena knew she should be grateful that at least Pepé was still around military men. As if it would somehow help keep his few memories of his father alive. Sadness welled and she cursed the ache in her heart for what might have been.

What should have been.

“Sure, Jonas!”

Jonas placed the small cuff on Pepé’s upper arm and pressed the button to start the blood pressure reading.

“Open up.”

Pepé opened his mouth, all the while staring at Jonas. Pain mingled with the regret she’d feel the rest of her life for what Pepé was missing by not having his own father around. The only emotional balm in all of it was that Phil had died when Pepé was barely four, so he didn’t remember a whole lot about his dad—and the memories of grief would fade. They’d already faded for him.

Unlike her.

“So what are you here for, buddy?” Jonas had pulled the thermometer out of Pepé’s mouth and entered the results into the computer.

“I had an ear ’fection but it’s better now. No more yucky medicine!”

“Okay, well, let’s see what your ears look like. He get a lot of these?” Blue eyes. Unblinking. Professional. No further discussion of the house they both wanted. That she owned. Not here.

She wanted to grab him and make those eyes glaze over with lust for her.

Maybe it was time to start dating again. Not Jonas, of course. Another man, who wasn’t off-limits to her.

“Ear infections? Not until we moved here over a year ago. This is his third one since then.”

“What convinced you to stay on Whidbey? It couldn’t have been just the house.”

She heard the veiled cleverness behind his casual conversation. As if he didn’t know.

“Life. Getting the house from Dottie was a dream come true.” That was plain mean. She opened her mouth to apologize, to appease her twinge of guilt.

“Well.” His eyes stayed cool and made it clear that, like her, he wasn’t going to share anything more personal. His focus was on Pepé.

Serena knew a moment of unabashed shame. She should give him a break. The poor guy had just come back from war, for heaven’s sake. His stepmother had died while he was gone, and he hadn’t been able to say a proper goodbye to the woman who’d raised him. Serena remembered seeing him in photos Dottie had scattered all around the house. In one photo, he’d been tall and well built in his Navy dress uniform, at his brother’s wedding.

All the photos were gone—the brothers had come and collected Dottie’s most personal belongings before Serena had a chance to take possession of the house. They’d left behind Dottie’s collection of knickknacks and a house that was falling apart at the seams, if she were brutally honest. It wasn’t anything she blamed Jonas’s family for, though. Dottie was too busy making the most of every single day to concern herself with the daily maintenance of an old farmhouse.

Dottie’s will and the fact that she’d given the house to Serena had become public knowledge only after Dottie’s funeral.

He’d been at war. He deserved to know why she was the one who’d gotten the house. Problem was, she didn’t know why Dottie had left it to her and Pepé, either. A legacy gift, yes, but at the risk of so much dissension in his family. Especially with Jonas Scott.

A quick knock sounded and a hospital corpsman popped her head around the door.

“Your next patient is ready in exam room three, Commander Scott.”

“Thanks, I’ll be there soon.” Jonas proceeded to examine Pepé’s ears, ignoring her presence.

Serena’s chance to smooth the way with Jonas evaporated.

CHAPTER TWO

Whidbey Island January 1941

SARAH FORSYTH HAD seen a lot in her twenty-one years, more than most girls from Whidbey Island, Washington. She’d also found the love of her life in her husband, Henry, and enjoyed a life with him and her daughter that she had no desire to see upset with one of Henry’s crazy ideas.

“I’m a pilot and I’m the best man for the job, Sarah. My two years of college are all I need. I’m going to be an officer.”

Sarah tried to assimilate Henry’s words while keeping an eye on their daughter, Dottie, who was occupied with her rag doll near the woodstove. Their dinner plates were still on the table where they’d left them after Henry spoke the words that shattered their domestic tranquility.

“We agreed that you’d keep flying whenever you had a chance to make extra money, as long as it didn’t keep you gone for more than a week at a time. Now you’re talking about, what, going all over the world to save people? You have a family here, Henry. Your daughter needs you. She’s not even five yet!”

“Our country needs me, Sarah. If we don’t all pitch in, the Japanese are going to take over. If not them, the Germans. Do you want Sarah learning anything but English when she starts at the schoolhouse next fall?”

“I want Sarah to have her father!”

Rage welled in her, worse than when she’d fought him about moving back to his hometown in Texas instead of Whidbey Island. When he’d agreed to move to her family’s farmhouse in Washington State, she’d thought the flying bug was out of his system.

“Honey, I knew Texas was too far from your family, and I knew you wanted to move back to the farm. I’m happy here, and we’ll all be happy here again, when I get back. When this damn war is over and we can live in freedom again.” His eyes blazed with a conviction that made her shudder. This wasn’t another of Henry’s whims.

“But we’re not even in the war yet!” Why did Henry have to jump the gun on everything? “How much freedom is it for me to have to raise Dottie all by myself, Henry?”

“You have your family here with you, Sarah. You’re not alone. The farm’s pulling in good money with the milk and eggs. Your job at the library is going to work out for you, too.”

“But Dottie...”

“Has a good mother who will take the best care of her.”

“Momma, can I go play with my doll in my room?” Dottie never liked being around her parents when they argued, no matter how innocuous. She enjoyed the make-believe world she lived in with her Raggedy Ann.

“Sure, honey. Be a good girl and put your nightie on, too.” It was best that Dottie didn’t hear all of this.

Sarah looked at the man she’d fallen in love with when he was still so young. That was more than five years ago, when she’d been sixteen and he was eighteen. Henry Forsyth had grown into a solid specimen of manhood. Her specimen. She didn’t want him to die.

“You don’t even know if they’ll take you.”

Henry was much older than the local boys she’d heard had gone to Seattle to enlist.

“The Army recruiter said I’m a shoe-in with my flying experience. I have to sign the papers by tonight.”

Those commitment papers required him to complete Army Air Corps pilot training, or, if he flunked out, agree to serve as an enlisted soldier for a term of three years.

Three years wasn’t forever; she knew that. But it was more than half of little Dottie’s life at this point. What about a sibling for her? When would that happen?

Sarah knew that if the Americans joined the war Henry’s three-year commitment could turn into forever.

In the worst way.

“You’re lying. You already signed those papers while you were down in San Diego!”

He looked guilty, which gave her hope for his soul but didn’t make her any happier about what he’d signed up for.

“I should’ve insisted that you help Papa on the farm full-time when he asked.”

“You know that would never have worked for me, Sarah. I have to be in the air. Plus the extra money I’ve pulled in hasn’t hurt, has it? I’ll be making more money in the Army Air Corps.”

She knew it was true. He’d learned to work as a crop-duster in his early teens beside his daddy and older brother back in Texas. During the dust bowl years, Henry had gone west and found work flying crop dusters up and down the coast, from California to Washington. She’d met him by chance on the dance floor at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. Lucky for her he’d been on a break from flying and in search of some fun.

He’d been so handsome, his face all lit up by the lights from the amusement games of chance. Each booth had bright white bulbs that glowed yellow at night. The night felt soft—the sun took longer to set in midsummer, and it had been so warm on the mainland, far away from Whidbey. Papa had taken their entire family off the island for the whole day. He’d used all the money they’d made from selling milk and told Mama “more money will come in. The kids need to see there’s more to the world than Whidbey Island.”

They hadn’t counted on their youngest daughter, only fifteen, falling in love with a complete stranger. A stranger who showed up on Whidbey Island six months later to woo her. He caught flights up and down the west coast, arriving on Whidbey every few months.

Sarah had been a senior in school the last year they’d dated and hoped to go to college some day. History had always fascinated her. She planned to work a few years after high school and save enough money for classes. But love won out—she and Henry had made a baby one night under the apple tree in Papa’s orchard. On the quilt her grandmother had hand-stitched for her hope chest. She’d snuck it out of the cedar box Papa had built, knowing the night was going to be cold. Knowing she wanted Henry to kiss her again and again.

“You’re a good husband, Henry. And a good father. That’s why I don’t want you to go.” She wasn’t manipulating him; she meant it. He’d made enough money for them to live very comfortably on the land her father had given them, including the small cottage they lived in. He promised her the farmhouse once her siblings were married off, when he and Mama were ready to switch and take the cottage. Papa believed the farmhouse should always be for a growing family, and he wanted to keep it in Forsyth hands.

Henry made sure she got her dream. Well, as much as she could, being a new mother and all. He helped her take correspondence courses so she could work at the town library as a clerk. He went to night school, hoping to one day have a four-year degree. They’d done well so far.

Sarah loved books, stories, facts, history. And if the accounts of World War I that she’d recently read were any indication, she might never see Henry again.

“Henry, remember hearing about how hard the Great War was on our families?”

His expression softened, and for the first time since he told her he was going to fly for the Army Air Corps he looked doubtful.

“Yes.” His grandfather had died in the trenches at Ypres, and her father’s older brother had come back shell-shocked and never quite recovered his original wits.

“I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, honey.” She walked up to him and threw her arms around him. He held back for just a split second and she knew.

He’d already started to make the mental preparations to go. He had to. He was a man who loved his country and wasn’t going to let some crazy dictators around the world ruin it.

Sarah laid her head on his chest and listened for his heartbeat. It was the one thing that could soothe her. When she’d started her labor with Dottie all she’d wanted was to rest on her side, her ear to Henry’s chest, the steady thump-thump taking her thoughts away from the excruciating pain.

“Sarah. I love you so much, darling.” He raised his hand to her hair and stroked it away from her face.

“I know you do, Henry.” She raised her lips to his and they shared the kiss that a couple does before a long separation. Deep, loving and warm. Never enough.

“I’ll help you pack later, after I get Dottie to bed.”

“I don’t need to take much. They’re giving me a whole new wardrobe!”

He tried to amuse her, to crack lighthearted lines here and there while they gathered his few personal items and stacked them neatly in the small duffel the Army recruiter had given him.

“How long before you ship out?”

“I’ll probably get through the flight training pretty fast, and then be out there before the end of the year.”

“Where’s ‘there’?”

“Somewhere in the Pacific.”

His expression was as neutral as stone and she knew it pained him to leave her, to leave Dottie. She also saw the pilot’s anticipation simmering in his eyes. Henry was gearing up for a fight, for the war they likely faced. Her heart squeezed with longing as she acknowledged, at least to herself, that it could indeed be the fight of his life.

* * *

HENRY HADN’T TOLD Sarah everything. He couldn’t worry her. Besides, he would come back—he was the best pilot he knew, and nowhere did he feel more at ease than in a cockpit.

The recruiter had been slicker than any of the politicians he’d had occasion to ferry from town to town when his crop-dusting jobs had petered out midwinter. But Henry saw past the Army haircut and the quick talk. He saw a chance to really make a difference, to maybe even have a career that he could bring Sarah and Dottie along on.

Sarah never wanted to leave Whidbey; he knew that. Yet with a little time and some persuasion from him, he thought she’d be willing to move. The recruiter had said he could get stationed in Hawaii! Why wouldn’t Sarah want to join him there, to have Dottie run on hot sand instead of freezing wet grass most of the summer? “I’ll send you my paychecks as soon as I get them. My pilot training is going to be at Moffett Field, in California. I’ll be an aviation cadet, enlisted, because of my high school diploma. But I’ll become an officer if I can, Sarah.” He watched her long fingers hover over his freshly pressed undershirts, her lips wobbly as she tried not to cry.

Dear, sweet Sarah. She was tough as nails one minute, a complete cream puff the next. It was part of what he loved about her.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Sure it is. You can save it all, or use it to buy yourself a pretty dress.”

She threw down his one pair of pajamas and propped her hands on her hips as she faced him.

“I don’t need a pretty dress, Henry. And I can make enough off the farm and my library position to support Dottie and me just fine. But I don’t give a darn about any of it. I want you to come back safe, do you hear me?”

He stared into her green eyes and knew he’d come back. He didn’t have a choice; they were meant to be together.

She’d said “come back.” So she’d accepted that he needed to do this; he needed to go.

Unlike the reaction he’d expected, her capitulation didn’t make him feel jubilant. The reality of the months, possibly years, apart made his chest feel as it there was a huge weight on it.

“I’ll come back better than ever, Sarah Jean. You just watch me.”

He smiled at her, the way he did after he brought her to climax, the private smile that always made her blush. When her cheeks turned rosy he grabbed her hand.

“Is Dottie asleep by now, do you think?”

“She closed her eyes as soon as I turned out her light.”

“Come to bed with me, Sarah. Love me.”

“Oh, Henry.”

She trembled with her need and he knew he’d remember this night through all his days away. He unbuttoned the six tiny red buttons that ran in between her breasts and slid his hand over her breast, encased in a simple white cotton bra. He teased her nipple through the material and she bit his earlobe.

“Don’t torture me, Henry.” Her breath was sweet and her skin hot as she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants.

“There’s nothing here but pleasure, darling.” He hiked up her dress and pulled it over her arms, which she’d lifted to help him. Her dress and his pants hit the pine floor of the farmhouse at the same time, followed quickly by their underwear.

Sarah turned to clear the bed of his luggage.

“Wait.”

She turned back to him. “What?”

“Let me do this for you, before we go to the bed.”

He knelt down in front of her and she sighed, her hands massaging, then gripping, his shoulders. Henry had to have all of her tonight. As he breathed in her essence and used his mouth to make her cry out, he prayed it wouldn’t be the last time.

CHAPTER THREE

Whidbey Island Two days before Thanksgiving

SERENA LUGGED THE last of the attic boxes into the spanking new climate-controlled storage room she’d had built as an extension off the garage. Both were connected to the farmhouse by a small mudroom. It was the only structural change she’d made since she’d inherited Dottie’s house.

“It’s your house now,” she muttered under her breath. It took time to adjust to the fact that she was a homeowner, and not only that, the home was where the woman who’d given her and Pepé comfort and unconditional love had lived her entire life.

It was already more than six months since Dottie’s death and the house still felt lonely without her. As if somehow the house itself wasn’t finished mourning the woman who’d filled it with so much love for so many years.

Nevertheless, Serena and Pepé had made it their home and the rhythm of their life had settled into a comfortable, manageable zone.

Until Pepé’s doctor’s appointment last week.

Running into Jonas Scott at the clinic had been her roughest time on Whidbey so far. Not counting the day, of course, that Dottie had been murdered at the hands of a psycho.

It stung that she was attracted to Jonas—attracted with a capital A. Of course the first man to get her blood going since Phil’s death had to be the one person she had nothing in common with. Except for Dottie....

Besides, no matter who Jonas was to her, it was too soon to think about a new relationship. Her body was only starting to wake up after her grief.

Her back ached painfully, the muscles tight and weary after moving what felt like a ton of knickknacks. Aunt Dottie, and probably her mother before her, had had a penchant for collecting curios. Unable to fathom sorting the monstrous collection so soon after Dottie’s death this past summer, Serena thought her idea of placing the decades-old boxes in stackable plastic bins a stroke of genius. Until she realized each bin weighed a minimum of twenty-five pounds. And she’d had to purchase dozens of them.

“I am crazy.” The boxes were stacked neatly against the far wall of the storage room, but it was only a prelude to the inevitable chore.

Sorting.

“Mom! Mommmm!” Pepé’s cries grew louder as he zeroed in on her location. Like a bat, Pepé had his own kind of echolocation when it came to Serena.

Especially since Phil had died.

“Here, hijo.” She wiped her forehead and placed her hands on her hips. She’d gotten to know Dottie only in the last months of her life, and Serena’s appearance obviously came from her Hispanic mother. Dottie had been tiny and petite whereas Serena’s curves resembled her mother’s.

Mama. Juanita Rodriguez was her rock, to this day. Serena had been all but abandoned by her biological father but Juanita had made up for it, as had her abuela and her tias. She missed her mother and made a mental note to call her later. It was time to start building the bridge between them that the pursuit of her biological father’s family had severely tested.

“Mom, look!” Pepé ran into the room with an action-hero figure, his focus entirely on the red plastic toy clutched in his small fingers. “I can fly!”

“Wonderful, Pepé, just watch out for the— No!” She lunged forward to catch him as Pepé’s arms flew out, his toy launching through the air as he landed on the box she had yet to stack.

The plastic bin toppled over and its cover popped off, spilling piles of crushed newsprint onto the tile floor.

“Pepé, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Where’s my hero?” Pepé scrambled to his feet as quickly as he’d fallen, his gaze intent on the stacked boxes.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Joseph Peter Delgado. I’ll find it, but for now, help me put this box back together. Carefully.”

Pepé frowned as he bent down to help Serena. He knew she only invoked his full name when he’d pushed it. He was a sweet little boy, all boy. The dull ache of loss pounded in her rib cage, though it had faded from the life-changing pain that had engulfed her when the uniformed U.S. Marine Corps team had knocked on their door in Texas two years ago.

“Slowly, Pepé.” She showed him how to pick up each wad of paper and check to see if anything delicate was wrapped inside. Most of the paper was yellowed newsprint that had protected Dottie’s precious memories.

Under one larger bunch of paper she saw a red knitted sock peeking out. Serena carefully pulled the paper away to discover a good-size Christmas stocking. It seemed to be hand-knitted, with the name “Henry” embroidered across the top in white and navy blue stars embellishing the foot. The yarn was scratchy and rustic. Serena wondered at the hands that had knit with such rough fiber. She enjoyed knitting but preferred the newer fiber blends like alpaca that felt like silk against her fingers. This stocking was a labor of love.

“Do you think there’s anything in it, Mom?”

“Maybe.” Probably spiders and other creepy-crawlies. She bit her lip as she reached into the Christmas stocking and felt a slight bulge in the toe.

“Let me see, Pepé.” She opened the top and saw a piece of paper that, once she pulled it out of the stocking, revealed itself to be a black-and-white photograph. It was reminiscent of a tintype in the way the sepia colors highlighted the image of a Navy sailor.

Serena flipped over the photo, looking for identification. All that was written on the back was “Charles—the man I wrote you about.” She placed the photo on a box and pulled out another. This one was of a small, happy family, the man in an Army uniform, a beautiful woman and little girl next to him, with “Graduation from Aviation Cadet Flight Training, August 1941” written on the backside.

“Can I look inside the stocking, Mom?”

“Sure, honey. But be careful—if anything bites your fingers, pull your hand out!”

Pepé giggled as only a boy can at the thought of a bug.

He thrust his hand into the stocking and it swallowed up his arm, almost to the elbow. His few remaining baby teeth shone as he smiled in triumph, pulling out his treasure.

“Mom, look!”

Pepé held up what looked like a toy airplane. “Can I have it, Mom?”

“Let me take a look at it first.” She rocked backward from her heels and sat on the floor. The ceramic tiles were hard and cold, but she remained focused on the tiny plane.

“It has some writing on it, and look who’s flying it, honey.” She angled the tiny toy so that Pepé could see Santa Claus waving from the cockpit.

“There’s a wreath on the tail, Mom.”

“And a name.” She couldn’t clearly make out the scrolled name on the side of the aircraft but it looked like “Dottie.” The ornament was light but solid, as if carved from a single piece of wood.

“What kind of plane is it, Mom?”

“I don’t know, honey, but we’ll find out, okay? As soon as we get the rest of this box put back.”

“Let me look to see if anything else is in there, Mom.” He made a point of carefully inspecting the box, removing each crumpled paper and smoothing it on the table. Just like she did.

She smiled as Pepé imitated her mannerisms. “Okay, but I think it’s empty.”

He made a show of reaching back into the stocking. Serena studied the tiny airplane in her hand. Who had carved this for Dottie? When?

“Mom, there’s more paper!”

“It’s to fill out the toe, honey.”

“No, I think...” Pepé pulled out a scrunched-up wad of paper that he unfolded.

Serena grinned. “You were right, Pepé. What is it?”

“It’s an angel, Mom.”

In his little hands was an angel woven from some kind of straw.

“Look, it’s been glued in several places. It’s old and fragile. Let’s take it in the house with us and put it in a safe place.”

“What about the airplane, Mom?”

“We’ll take that with us, too.” She shivered. “It’s getting close to dinnertime. Let’s go back into the house.”

Serena had to wonder if they were about to find out more of Dottie’s history than even Jonas and his family knew.

* * *

“SERENA, I’M NOT angry with you, mi hija. I understand that you had to make your own way. You know, I envy it. I never had that kind of freedom. You have a degree, a career. You can support Pepé as I never could have supported you.” Juanita Rodriguez spoke to her on the phone as Serena prepared dinner.

“I’m glad you’re not mad, Mama.” Serena didn’t believe for one minute that her mother was completely over Serena’s taking Pepé thousands of miles from the family, but she did hear Juanita’s love in the softly spoken words.

“When is Pepé going to Skype with me again?”

Serena laughed. “Mama, you’re going crazy with your tablet!” Serena had given Juanita a wireless tablet for her birthday this past summer, and Juanita’s first request had been to connect regularly with her grandson.

“Did you know you can read on them, too? I read my sexy novels on the apps.”

“Don’t let Red hear you say that!” Red was Serena’s stepfather and she loved him dearly. He’d treated her as his own daughter her entire life.

“I like it when she reads those books!” Red’s voice boomed in the background.

Serena groaned. “Mama, I don’t need to hear this. I’m happy for you, but let’s keep your love life out of it.”

“Can I talk to Abuela?” Pepé stood in front of her.

“There’s a young man here who’d like to speak with you, Mama.”

“Put him on, but first, mi hija, know that I send you a thousand besitos and I love you, sweetie.”

“I love you, too, Mama. And kisses to you, too. Here’s Pepé.”

Serena handed the phone to Pepé and watched as he animatedly described his school day to Juanita, leaving out no tedious detail. Gratitude filled her heart. Their life wasn’t perfect by far, but they had more than most. They had Serena’s loving upbringing and the love that Juanita had taught Serena to share.

* * *

“MOM, IT’S THIS ONE.” Pepé’s enthusiasm lightened Serena’s mood enough that she was able to ignore the handprint he left on the computer screen over the photo of a World War II aircraft.

“The P-40 Warhawk. Yes, I think you’re right, Pepé.” She scrolled through photos of the plane that almost perfectly matched the tiny wooden version of it that sat on the desk next to the computer mouse.

“I like its shark’s teeth.”

“That’s how they painted the ones that were in a special squadron called the Flying Tigers. They’re tigers’ teeth, actually.”

She should let Pepé think the plane was a shark and not a machine designed to take out the enemy with its powerful engine and deadly armament, but she owed it to him to be straightforward about historical fact.

You can’t protect him from reality.

Unfortunately, the reality of war had taken his father from him, too soon.

“When was world war, Mom? Is it the one Dad died in, with the bomb?”

Why couldn’t World War II have been the last war ever?

Sorrow tightened around her throat and she paused to take a deep breath, a practice she’d learned during many similar conversations. Pepé would hardly remember Phil as he grew older, and his grasp of war and how his dad had died was nebulous at best.

“No, honey. Daddy died in a different part of the world, in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a bomb that hurt him, but a bullet.”

“From a sniper.”

“Yes.”

Pepé’s gaze remained on her but she saw his eyes shift to the airplane ornament. While it saddened her that he’d know his father mostly through the memories she shared with him, she was grateful he hadn’t suffered the grief an older child would have.

“What was the world war?”

“There were two world wars.” She picked up the wooden model, willing it to tell her its story.

“This plane was flown in World War II, in the Pacific, from what the internet says.” She held it in her hands, wondering again why Dottie had kept it. She knew virtually nothing of her biological aunt’s younger life.

Had it been from Dottie’s father? Her biological grandfather? Or was it another item Jonas Scott would demand she turn over to him and his siblings? Based on how long the ornament had obviously been packed away, she’d be surprised if Jonas or his brothers knew about it.

At the clinic Jonas had caught her off guard. She’d had to remind herself that he was the same man who had become her nemesis from the moment Dottie’s will was read six months ago.

Serena had been asked to attend the reading of Dottie’s will, much to her dismay. She hadn’t expected anything, especially not a house. Jonas wasn’t at the reading, of course, since he’d been downrange. In a war zone.

He’d emailed her almost immediately, offering to buy the house.

Unlike his siblings, Jonas hadn’t been interested in getting anything from Dottie’s estate, which had been considerable. He’d walked away with enough money to build his own home on Whidbey, and a nice one at that, or at least pay off the mortgage on the small town house his brothers told her he had.

She understood how easy it was for him to see her as nothing more than an opportunist who’d bamboozled Dottie. She’d had the opportunity—Dottie had received physical therapy at the clinic where Serena worked temporarily as a receptionist until she was sure she wanted to go back to practicing law full-time. Serena clenched her teeth at the memory of how damned rude he’d been in his last email to her, and the letter he’d sent registered mail, indicating his intention to contest the will if they couldn’t reach an agreement. In other words, if she didn’t accept his offer for the house.

He hadn’t legally, officially, filed an appeal for the will. She was certain it was only a matter of time. He probably thought that once he was back on island he’d be able to convince her to give him the house.

The Jonas she’d met at the base hospital didn’t resemble the 100-percent jerk she’d imagined him to be, although his comments about working in pediatrics put him in that category. It was easier to think of him as the man who wanted her house.

The Jonas she’d met appeared genuinely apologetic for his harsh words to Dr. Franklin. She’d glimpsed compassion in his eyes as he’d checked Pepé in for his examination.

He knew she was a lawyer, but hadn’t pressed the point. His brother Paul had indicated he’d hire her when she was ready to practice law again. Had he told Jonas?

Serena loved the law and had applied for her Washington State license, which would take another month or so to come through. She still wasn’t certain if she’d seek a job with Paul Scott’s firm, though.

She’d taken the job at the physical-therapy clinic as a distraction when she and Pepé had first moved to Whidbey. She hadn’t been ready to commit to full-time work yet, and she had several months of transitioning her legal license from Texas to Washington, which included exams.

She’d come west to get to know the other half of her biological family, a family she’d never even known about until after Phil’s death. She wanted to keep her focus on that, rather than her law career.

Phil’s death had hit her mother hard. Serena had been surprised and then shocked when Juanita showed up at her door after Phil’s burial, with the announcement that she did indeed know who Serena’s biological father was, and that he, too, had died within the past year. It had been a bitter pill at the time, but now that she’d had the chance to know Dottie and find out about her family, her resentment toward her mother had lessened.

Serena couldn’t let any other people die before she had a chance to get to know them. What had started as a short trip west to meet Dottie and find out about her biological father had turned into an entrée to a new life.

Dottie had died before they’d had a chance to go through Dottie’s entire life history, but she’d recounted a lot about her stepsons, especially Jonas, over dinners and picnics. Even better, the bond Dottie and Pepé shared had been immediate. Dottie said that Pepé looked just like his grandfather, Dottie’s brother, Todd.

Serena’s biological father.

“Hey, Mom, can we go swimming on Thanksgiving?” Pepé stood next to her at the computer desk, dressed in his Frozen pajamas.

“I don’t know, honey. It’s too cold if you ask me.”

“But they heat the pool at Beyond the Stars.” His eyes were big as he questioned her logic. She giggled.

“Yes, but it’s wintertime, sweetie. It’ll probably be too chilly, so don’t get your hopes up. Besides, you’ll be too busy eating the gobble-gobble!” She tickled his tummy and he shrieked with glee, snuggling into her.

At almost seven years old, his snuggle time with her was limited. Yet it was hard to imagine a day when her little boy would reject her hugs.

She gave his head a kiss and patted his back. “Go brush your teeth and I’ll be right in to read with you.”

“Okay, Mom.”

He darted out of the office and she stared at the computer screen.

BTS, or Beyond the Stars, was the special resort for military Gold Star families to find peace and rediscover themselves after the initial shock and grief of losing a loved one to war had passed.

She and Pepé had been to BTS for a week almost two years ago and it had made a world of difference for both of them. She’d only just found Dottie, and Pepé was still struggling with the fact he’d never see his dad again. The staff of counselors and social workers had been so compassionate with Pepé, and Serena had left with her own batteries recharged. It was where she and Pepé had found the courage to live life on life’s terms.

They were going back for Thanksgiving at the invitation of the owner and director, Val Di Paola, and her husband, Lucas. Located on San Juan Island in the middle of Puget Sound, the resort was magical in its setting.

What it had done for her and Pepé was nothing short of a miracle. The staff had become good friends, almost like an extended family, to them.

Thanksgiving at BTS was going to be wonderful.

CHAPTER FOUR

Moffett Field, California August 1941

“HENRY!”

Sarah yelled as loudly as she could, knowing that her voice could never carry over the marching band and cheer of the crowd as the aviation graduates marched in front of them to the center of the field.

“Momma, where’s Daddy?” Dottie’s face was screwed up in a scowl. It was hard for her to tell one man from another when they all had crew cuts and wore the same uniform.

Sarah took her little white-gloved hand.

“Here, honey, I’ll help you point to him. He’s in the first row, third over—the tall one.”

“I see him, Momma!” Dottie giggled, and Sarah’s heart swelled at how cute she looked with her blond curls and the red, white and blue beret she’d knitted for her. Shirley Temple didn’t have anything on almost-six-year-old Dottie Forsyth.

“I’m sure you do, sweetie.” Sarah didn’t think Dottie could actually see her father but she wasn’t going to question her now. They hadn’t seen him since he’d left in January, and the day was going to be special; Sarah knew it in her gut.

Her mind drifted as the man in charge of the ceremony talked about courage and honor and duty, and handed out diplomas to each aviator. Henry had told her she’d be the one to pin his wings on, and she couldn’t wait. She also expected that he was going to announce that she and Dottie could travel with him. Move with him and live on an Army post wherever he got sent. He hadn’t said it but she’d read in the paper at the library that a pilot’s family could move as far as here in California or even Hawaii.

Sarah smiled. Henry thought she’d never be willing to leave Whidbey Island again, not after his brief time in Texas in the army, and then his flight training here in California. But she’d realized during their separation that being anywhere with Henry, together as a family, was more important than being in the house she’d grown up in. The house would wait for them. They wouldn’t be gone forever. Henry had missed flying and surely it couldn’t take very long to get it out of his system. Not considering how often the Army had him up in the air.

“Second Lieutenant Henry Forsyth.”

“That’s your daddy!” she whispered in Dottie’s ear while squeezing her hand.

She watched him walk smartly across the small platform and salute the commanding officer before he reached out to receive his diploma. Pride roared in her ears and she couldn’t keep the widest grin of all time off her face.

“Just look at your daddy, Dottie girl.”

“Go, Daddy!” Dottie whisper-shouted the words, always mindful of her manners. Except when she wasn’t, like the day she’d snuck out of the house and played in the puddles left by a storm last week. It’d taken three tubs of water for Sarah to get the dirt out of Dottie’s mud-soaked skirts.

Henry turned toward the audience and Sarah waved. It felt as though her heart would pound right out of her ribs, and it wasn’t because of her tight dress. As soon as he saw them he waved back, his teeth white in the afternoon sun. The day couldn’t be more beautiful.

It passed in a blur: Sarah and Dottie standing next to Henry, Sarah pinning his wings to his uniform, the lovely reception afterward where she met other wives who’d come to see their husbands get their wings, the walk back to the quarters where they had a small room together as a family. Henry didn’t have to stay in the barracks any longer—he was under orders to go to his next duty station.

Which was why, after they’d ensured that Dottie was sound asleep and they made tender, hello-again love, Sarah was puzzled to hear Henry announce that he was resigning from the Army.

“I don’t understand. How can you? You owe them time.”

“I can and I have. The president is making sure the right pilots sign up for this special mission I’ll be part of. I’m working for a civilian, a contractor, who has a flying mission overseas that’ll pay way more than the Army Air Corps, and I’ll get experience I’d never get Stateside. I can always go back to the Army Air Corps after this.”

“Can we still move overseas with you? I thought American civilians weren’t going to Europe anymore, not with the war and all.”

“No, honey, you and Dottie can’t come with me. You knew that, Sarah. I’m headed for the Pacific.”

She bit her bottom lip and couldn’t keep the tears from spilling.

“But you said...you said it would all be okay once we saw each other again, Henry. You said you might be a career man and they’d send us all together to the same places.”

He raised her chin and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Isn’t it good, this time together?” He kissed her.

“How long will you be gone?”

“A year at the most. I ship out to Burma within a week or two, and then I’ll get so many flight hours back-to-back I won’t have to stay that long.”

Doubt weighed down her joy at being with him again.

“You can’t possibly know how long it’ll be, Henry. These past eight months without you have been awful.”

“I know, Sarah, and I can’t thank you enough for being such a wonderful wife, waiting for me, and for being such a good mother to Dottie. She’s so beautiful, Sarah. I hope we get to have more babies together.”

“I do, too.”

“We will, honey, as soon as I get back. Listen, I’m going to be making a lot of money. I want you to save it up for us, and when we get back we can build an addition to the farmhouse. It’ll be the biggest house on Whidbey! And use it for your parents, too, Sarah. They’ve worked hard to be able to give us the place. I want to thank them somehow.”

“Thank them by coming back as soon as you can and making their daughter happy.”

“I will, I promise.”

As they made love, Henry’s hands caressed her as if she were the most precious woman in the world. As if he couldn’t get enough of her. She had no doubt that she was the woman of his dreams. That he loved her beyond measure.

But it wasn’t enough to keep him home.

Mingaladon, Burma

January 1942

THE AIR SIREN woke Henry from a dead sleep. He jumped out of his rack and shoved his socks on before jamming his feet into his flight boots.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Cappy Smith sang out with glee. Cappy was his new best friend since they’d gone through Army Air Corps training together and both left the Army to join Chennault’s Flying Tigers. They all lived for the missions. Mingaladon, Burma, was hot, muggy and tens of thousands of miles from home. Not what any of them had signed on for. They’d volunteered to fight the enemy.

Since last month their enemy in the Pacific was clear: the Japanese.

It still stung that they’d been hit on U.S. territory, in Pearl Harbor.

“Wake up, Henry!”

“I’m up, I’m up!” He zipped up his flight suit on the run. They all slept in their suits when they were on ready alert, prepared to go in an instant. Gravel and jungle compost crunched under his feet as he pounded toward the runway.

Fifteen pilots crowded into the ready room, a makeshift shack near the end of the runway.

They all stopped in shock as they recognized their briefing officer.

General Claire Lee Chennault. Founder of the American Volunteer Group—AVG—that made up the entirety of the Flying Tigers. General Chennault was famous for showing up, unannounced, for briefings just like this one.

The mission had to be crucial.

“You’re launching in five minutes, gentlemen. The Japanese are on their way to take out Rangoon.” Rangoon was a port city crucial to the Allied war effort. Henry and his colleagues were silent. While no mission was ever the same as the last, their past several had been to protect Rangoon. Three of their P-40 Warhawks hadn’t come back in the last mission he’d flown, thanks to the murderous pilots who flew highly maneuverable Ki-43s against them. It was overwhelming to think about the sheer numbers of war machines, both on the water and in the air, that the Japanese had. But one good hit could take an aircraft out. That was Henry’s job and what he had to stay focused on.

He wanted to get in, take out as many of the enemy as possible and get back to base before they even knew what hit them.

The general finished his briefing and within twenty minutes Henry was clawing for altitude in his P-40 Warhawk on Cappy’s wing on the way to Rangoon. It was pitch-dark, but by the time they got there, the morning sun would be their guide to the bombers they’d take down.

Henry didn’t like the transit part of any mission. It allowed too much time to think, even during the short twenty-to thirty-minute run to Rangoon.

He pulled out the photo of Sarah and Dottie that he kept in his front right chest pocket and gave it a quick kiss before turning to the last leg of their ingress.

“Bandits ten o’clock!” Cappy’s voice crackled, and Henry watched him break hard to port to go after the Japanese fighter. Another Ki-43 was headed straight for Henry. He aimed, fired, and knew a bittersweet satisfaction when the aircraft took a hit and started to spin out.

“Cripes, they’re hard to hit!” he shouted into his mike, warning his squadron mates that the Ki-43 was every bit as maneuverable as the general had warned, and a challenge to the AVG. On previous missions the Japanese Ki-21 “Sally” bombers had been unescorted by the Ki-43 fighters and been easier targets.

Henry took out two more fighters, maneuvering to get the enemy bombers in his sights. One was in his line of fire but he needed to close the gap. After a tense five minutes of outshooting a second Ki-43, Henry fired on his first bomber of the mission. It didn’t go down right away, but when his ammo hit its fuel tank, a fiery ball engulfed the aircraft. Henry throttled back and turned to starboard, avoiding the debris of the explosion and coming face-to-face with a second bomber. He had to fly under the belly of the bomber and throttle back before he could line up on the bomber, firing into the cockpit as he raced by the port side of the war bird as it jerked into a nosedive.

“Come on, where are you?” Henry looked for more fighters to take out until the second wave of Japanese bombers showed up.

Thwack.

It was much quieter, stealthier, than Henry would have expected. His bird had been hit, and he watched in horror as smoke from the burning engine began to fill up his cockpit. He’d lost control of his plane, and was headed toward the ocean at deadly speed.

“No!”

He had to get back to Sarah.

The fighter who’d hit him was below him to starboard, obviously not concerned that Henry had a chance at survival. With what little maneuverability he had left in the bird, Henry tilted the wings to give him a chance of hitting the bastard. Henry gritted his teeth and pulled up on his throttle. Nothing.

“Damn it!”

He wasn’t in a dive; that was a small consolation. He’d lost too much altitude to bail out, however. He was going down with the aircraft.

The ocean raced past him and he made out several spots of white sand circling lush green growth on the horizon.

“Aim for the islands,” General Chennault told them during training at this last brief: if they had to go down, land on one of the uninhabited islands that surrounded southern Thailand.

Henry aimed for the one with the widest beach and prayed he’d be able to land without the bird flipping over and trapping him in the cockpit during the inevitable crash landing.

He had minutes until his fate was determined. Seconds, perhaps.

Sarah was going to kill him. If the crash didn’t.

CHAPTER FIVE

Whidbey Island Thanksgiving Day

JONAS GROANED AS his oldest brother Paul swiped the basketball from his sweaty palms.

“You’re not going to get the house back, bro.” Paul dribbled the ball in the corner where his garage met the driveway. Paul’s know-it-all-attorney smirk irritated Jonas.

“Watch me.” Jonas held up his hands to catch the swift pass Paul attempted to make to Jim, and loped up to the basket to dunk the ball.

“Let it go, man, Paul’s right.” Jim caught the rebound and winked at his girlfriend, Lucy, before he attempted a long shot. Jonas intercepted the ball as it bounced off the rim.

“Stop showing off for your girl, fire-boy.” Jonas loved teasing Jim, the family fireman. Jim had always been fascinated by explosions as a kid—including blowing up their Lego models with firecrackers. The name had stuck when he went to firefighting school.

John, a successful landscaper and closest in age to Jonas, hovered behind Jonas, not allowing him to attempt a basket. Jonas long-bounced the ball to Paul.

Jonas had been back an entire two weeks from deployment, and they were all gathered at Paul’s house for Thanksgiving. He finally felt as though he was shaking off the last of his jet lag. He’d even made it through his first week at work. He laughed at how good it felt to be with his brothers, all four of them in the same place again. Thanksgiving dinner was going to be brutal when they sat down to the turkey Paul’s wife, Mary, was preparing with John’s wife, Jackie, but Jonas was grateful they were doing it together—all four of them in the same place again.

It was their first holiday season without Dottie.

“Are we sure they got the right person?”

Jonas’s question was as effective as a fire hose as his three brothers froze in their places. No one else had mentioned the arrest, the trial or the sentencing of the mentally imbalanced woman charged with Dottie’s murder. Apparently they didn’t expect him to, either.

“Go help Mary and Jackie in the kitchen, will you, Lucy?” Jim, the second oldest, spoke quietly to his girlfriend.

“Of course.”

They waited until the storm door closed and Lucy was safely out of earshot.

“Why the hell are you asking that now, Jonas?” Paul took over his eldest-brother role.

“Yeah, happy effing Thanksgiving. Pass the gravy.” Jim dribbled the ball.

“Give him a break, he wasn’t here.” John was quick as always to stick up for their little brother.

“Why don’t you all just kiss my ass? I was gone and I only know what you told me, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.”

“That’s because you were at war and didn’t need the distractions. The psycho woman who killed her was deemed mentally ill. Jackie has to diagnose these kinds of folks all the time.” John owned a thriving landscaping business on Whidbey. Jackie was a psychiatrist.

“Does that mean she’s locked up for life?” Jonas hated opening the wound for his brothers, but he had to ask the questions that email, internet searches and long-distance phone calls couldn’t answer for him. He needed to be with them, see their expressions. Needed to know that everything that could be done was done.

“She should be. Laws change all the time, and where she’ll be incarcerated may change. She’s criminally insane. She also got away with proving she never intended to kill Dottie.” Paul, ever the lawyer, kept his voice low, his expression neutral as he delivered the bombshell.

“What?” Outrage blasted through Jonas. “How do you kill someone deliberately by drowning and get the jury to agree that it was a mistake?”

Jim put a hand on Jonas’s shoulder. “You’re not asking anything we haven’t all gone over more than once. Dottie could conceivably have had a stroke while she was on that underwater treadmill.”

“AquaTracker.” Paul spoke up. Paul ran a good-size legal firm on Whidbey and knew the case inside out.

“Yeah, the AquaTracker in the physical therapist’s clinic. The murderer set Dottie up to go under the water, supposedly just for a few seconds. But it ended up being minutes, and at her age, Dottie didn’t stand a chance.”

Jim shook his head. “I was there with our fire engine, Jonas. Dottie was gone before we started CPR.”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to help you all through the trial.” Jonas meant the words more than he was able to express. They sounded inadequate to him, though. They didn’t truly describe his visceral reaction to the murder of the woman he’d loved so much. The woman who’d taken him in and given him what he’d lost when their mother died unexpectedly, leaving their dad a widower at forty-four with four boys to raise.

“It’s worked out, Jonas. Believe me, it’s better that you, of all of us, weren’t here. You would’ve beaten yourself up for not being able to save her yourself.” Paul knew what it was like to hear about a death that could have been prevented with the right people there.

“It took me a long time to get over seeing her in that way, man.” Jim ran his fingers through his hair.

“You’re probably right. But still, I hate that you all had to handle it without my help.”

“There wasn’t anything to do. By the time we got the call...” Jim spun the basketball on his index finger, his expression blank.

Jonas took it all in—his three brothers, the crisp air, the scent of roasting turkey coming out of the house through the chimneys and back door.

“It’s just not right. Dottie should be here.”

“We’re lucky we had her as long as we did.” Ever the optimist, Paul shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and rocked on his sneakers. “As horrible as how she died was, we didn’t have to see her suffer for years with an awful disease.”

Anger mixed with the frustration that simmered in Jonas. He saved people for a living but he couldn’t change what had happened to Dottie. “And now I find out I don’t have the house I always thought I would. The house she promised me. What have I missed?”

“You need to get over it, brother. Dottie wasn’t crazy and I’m sure she had her reasons.” Jim tossed the ball to Jonas, who grasped it to his chest. Just above where the ache was from all the loss. Dottie was gone, his career was in for a serious plateau during the next three years and his dream of refurbishing the family home had disappeared.

“Serena didn’t grow up with us, but Dottie had the right to leave the house to whoever she wanted to.” Paul’s deep voice rumbled with emotion. “I realize that’s easy for me to say—Dottie’s place wasn’t the first home I remember.”

“No, it’s not.” Jonas dribbled the ball three times and then passed it to Paul. “I don’t even remember our mom—Dottie’s always been my mom.”

“Are you still set on trying to buy the house back?” Jim had expressed his opinion that he thought Jonas was causing himself too much grief when Jonas emailed them all and said he’d try this tactic.

“Call me crazy, but yes, it’s worth a shot.”

“Serena and her son have been living there for over six months. Doubtful that she’ll up and sell it to you.” Jim stared at Jonas. “And she’s got something with Dottie none of us ever had—a blood connection. By rights she’s a Forsyth, and Dottie’s father always meant for the farm to stay in the family.”

“Dottie accepted us as her family the minute she fell in love with Dad.” Jonas couldn’t shake the image of Dottie’s grief when his father had passed away—he’d been her one true love.

“Winter’s setting in. When she sees how cold it gets, and once we get a good rainstorm that gets the roof leaking like it’s bound to, she’ll be happy to move out. This isn’t Texas.”

“I represented Serena during the initial investigation until she was cleared of any wrongdoing. Serena’s a nice woman, and her kid is sweet. She’s a Marine widow. It’s what Dottie would have wanted. They deserve a new start, and I’m glad she had time to get to know Dottie even if it was too short.”

Leave it to Paul to defend the interloper.

“Shut up, Paul. Obviously you’ve been listening to Mary. Mary thinks everyone deserves a second chance. If you’re so crazy about the lady who stole our house right out from under us, why didn’t you invite her to Thanksgiving?”

Jonas’s heated comment made the others laugh. Mary was a social worker who’d worked with many of the same clients as the physical therapy clinic had.

“Mary did, in fact. But Serena already had other plans.”

“Probably to redo the entire house.” Jonas knew it was her house, no matter how much Dottie’s not leaving it to him stung. But he couldn’t budge from his position, not in front of his brothers.

“Quit it, Jonas.” Paul was in full oldest-brother mode. “Serena is a great woman, and it wasn’t her fault that Dottie died, nor is it her fault that our uncle was her biological father. Shit happens.”

“Do you have the hots for her, man?” John looked so sincere Jonas almost laughed...while he waited for Paul’s answer.

“Give me a break, you squirt. You know Mary’s the only woman for me. Serena’s got a legal résumé any firm would scoop up. I hope it’s mine that gets her.”

“You want to hire her?” Jim’s curiosity was more ambivalent.

“I offered her a position at the firm whenever she’s ready to get back to the law. Although with the way some of us are behaving, I’m going to lose her to my rival firm in Langley.” He referred to the city on the south side of the island, closer to Seattle, as he shot a mean stare at Jonas.

“Whoa, I didn’t mean to rile everyone up. You want to hire her, go ahead. I don’t want to get in the middle of her life. I’m still sore about the house. But you’re right—she’s a nice lady. Her kid’s cool, too.” He looked at each of them for a moment. They needed his sour attitude like they needed dried-out turkey.

“So you’ve seen her since you’ve been back?” Paul missed nothing.

“She and Pepé came by the clinic. I should go visit her at the house and let her get to know me better. Hopefully she’ll realize I’m not some ogre intent on stealing her new home.”

“Aren’t you, Jonas?” Paul’s voice reflected Jonas’s conscience.

He sighed, spinning the ball on his finger. “I was, I am— If there’s any chance she’ll give the house up, I don’t want to risk it going to some stranger.”

“I still think Dottie had some reason for doing this, other than Serena showing up. Dottie could have left Serena the money and you the house. Why didn’t she?” Jim cocked a brow at Jonas, his knowing gaze annoying as hell.

“Let’s leave the problem-solving to Paul. Dottie wanted the house kept in her family—her biological family.” As he said the words Jonas didn’t completely believe them. Dottie had always had a motive for her actions. She hadn’t become the most successful Realtor on Whidbey Island for nothing.

He looked at his brothers. “It is what it is. Nothing we can do right now. So...let’s play ball.”

Jonas tried to get his mind off his heartache and his brothers off the topic of the house and back onto basketball. But he made a mental note to ask Mary a few questions about Serena. It never hurt to go into battle with an assortment of ammunition.

CHAPTER SIX

Whidbey Island Friday after Thanksgiving

SERENA LISTENED AS Pepé sang along to the music from Walt Disney’s Frozen while she drove them back on island. They’d spent Thanksgiving Day at Beyond the Stars as planned.

Since they’d lost Dottie this past summer, she and Pepé were alone on Thanksgiving. She could have taken them back to Texas, but she wasn’t ready to face her extended Mexican-American family at a big holiday. Not yet. She and Pepé needed time to forge their own traditions, their own family way of doing things. She sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that Juanita had been so gracious about her decision to stay on Whidbey through the holidays. Otherwise, it would have been hard to fight her mother’s pleas to come home to Texas for Christmas.

Pepé had made many friends in his school on Whidbey and their families had in turn befriended Serena, so she never felt alone.

But when Val Di Paola, the director of BTS, had sent out the Thanksgiving invitation, Serena had jumped at it. Pepé had been excited to go back to San Juan Island, too, where he’d learned to jump off a diving board into the deep end of a pool.

Serena smiled. She could still hear Pepé’s squeal of delight when he found out that Val kept the BTS pool and sauna tub heated and running year-round, at her husband Lucas’s insistence. Pepé had frolicked in the water, and made Serena stay in the pool, as well, until they’d resembled the dried cranberries that had been in the turkey stuffing.

The air was crisp and clear and she was glad to be off the ferry after their rough crossing. Ferries were a necessity in Puget Sound, but Serena was a land girl through and through—give her a four-by-four truck any day. She drove the crossover hybrid, a fuel-conserving SUV that she’d traded in her truck for, off the ferry with care. The water was beautiful but bouncing around on it when the gales blew wasn’t her idea of fun.

Black Friday—the American shopping holiday. Back home in Texas she’d be standing in long lines as she and her sisters strategized which department stores had the best deals for Christmas gifts. She’d be tired and annoyed that she wasn’t back home with Pepé, who’d be curled up with her mother, his beloved abuela, while Serena shopped. A prick of guilt made her realize how much Pepé needed his family, all of it. She’d planned to spend this Christmas with Dottie, and her step-cousins. Paul Scott had been wonderful to her from the minute she’d met him at his law firm. The other brothers hadn’t completely warmed up to her but she’d hoped they would, in time, and with their shared memories of Dottie’s magic smile.

It hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped, but in some ways it was better. She and Pepé were cementing friendships all over the Puget Sound area, and she’d made strides toward mending her relationship with Juanita.

Nevertheless, Serena needed to figure out what to do to make her Christmas with Pepé extra special.

She pulled onto the long drive to the house.

It had been only been six months but she was proud of the progress she’d made on the property. Dottie had been a skillful gardener and landscaper, but her age and busy social life meant the grounds had taken a backseat during the past few years, at least since she’d been widowed. Serena knew that was eighteen years ago. Her stepson and Jonas’s older brother, John Scott, was Dottie’s personal landscaper but the grounds required more regular care, in Serena’s opinion.

The flower beds were covered with mulch and leaves for the winter, but in the spring they’d burst with daffodils and tulips, if squirrels didn’t eat the hundreds of bulbs that she and Pepé had planted last month.

The fir trees were naturally Christmassy and the way they lined the drive was so attractive. She’d found twinkling lights at the dollar store that she planned to wind around the lower trunks of several this weekend.

Doing everything on her own wasn’t easy, but she didn’t mind it, either. Serena was happy to spend time with herself. Dottie had understood—the first person to “get it” since Phil died.

That was another thing she and Dottie had shared—they’d both been unexpectedly widowed. Dottie’s only husband had died of cardiac arrest with no warning. Dottie had never married until she met Louis Scott, a real estate colleague who’d been widowed with four sons to raise. Dottie had kept her name, Serena’s biological father’s name, Forsyth.

Even so, she’d raised the Scott boys as her own. Jonas must have been particularly close to her as the youngest. Dottie had mentioned Jonas to Serena time after time, saying he and his brothers were the children she’d never had, and how grateful she was to have been able to be a mother to them. She’d told of how Jonas had taken to her and started calling her “Mom.” Serena blinked back the tears that the memory of the warm conversation with Dottie evoked.

But it was difficult to imagine Jonas Scott as anything other than the devastatingly, annoyingly handsome man with the surly attitude she’d met last week.

He hadn’t had an easy life from the bits she’d pieced together. His biological mother had died when he was two years old, and his father married Dottie within eighteen months of that. Louis, his father, had died when Jonas was still a teen—before he’d left for college. It had obviously been a crushing blow, yet Dottie and the stepsons Serena had met seemed to love one another and be happy in their lives.

Unlike Serena’s mother, who’d always been bothered by the fact that she’d gotten pregnant by a stranger in her small Texas town. She’d never forgiven herself, and this had passed the sense of shame down to Serena.

Serena thanked God every day that she’d gotten out of that Podunk town to go to college and then ended up married to a military man whose job took her around the country. She’d hoped to see more of the world, but so far Whidbey Island was as far as she’d come and she was happy enough with that.

Jonas had looked chagrined when he’d realized that she and Pepé had heard his harsh words to Dr. Franklin.

She really should have announced their presence sooner. It wasn’t fair of her. He’d just returned from his deployment, and Serena remembered how tired and scatterbrained Phil had been after long months downrange. It always took a few weeks to wake up to the reality of a more civilized lifestyle.

But Jonas had been such a “butt” as he’d said himself. He’d stirred her anger to a froth she hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever.

Once he made the connection he’d been much nicer, charming even. Of course he had; he wanted the house and he had to go through her to get it.

A jolt of awareness made her sit up straight. She’d thought of Phil without the usual sense of longing, of sorrow. It was the second time in the past few weeks.

Dottie had told her that one day her deep grief over her husband’s death had lifted and she saw life in full color again. She’d said it would happen for Serena, too.

Jonas Scott’s male energy certainly hadn’t been lost on her.

She looked in the rearview mirror at Pepé’s sleeping form in the backseat.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Ronald barked at her as if the request was a command for him and not Pepé. The fawn-colored Weimaraner/Labrador-mix puppy they’d rescued last spring was coming into his own as a full member of their family.

Pepé didn’t stir as she maneuvered the SUV into the driveway. Even though it was almost noon, the lull of the ferry and motion of the drive always made him sleepy.

“I’m hungry, Mom!”

Serena laughed. “How do you go from sound asleep to full-throttle in less than a heartbeat?” She roughed up his hair with her hand.

“Quit it, Mom.” He unsnapped his seat belt and was out of the back car door before she had time to turn around again, Ronald racing ahead of him.

She watched their forms streak across the fog-dampened ground toward the front door.

And the tall man who stood in front of it, his back to her. They weren’t used to drop-ins.

She felt a stab of fear and scrambled out of the seat.

The recent headlines across the local paper roared in her memory. The island was having a rash of break-ins, often motivated by an addict’s search for prescription narcotics.

She should have had the dead bolt installed as she’d planned.

“Pepé, wait! Ronald!”

But Pepé didn’t turn back toward her, didn’t acknowledge he’d heard her. Ronald skidded to a halt in front of the man and she heard the dog’s strident bark.

Who was the stranger at their door? What if he wanted to hurt Pepé?

“Pepé!” Her voice was sharper, the edge of fear stoking her anger.

“Mom, it’s Jonas!”

Breathing hard, she stopped running before she got too close. Close enough that anyone would see the fear and anger on her face.

“Jonas.” She welcomed the relief that it wasn’t a complete stranger.

“More like your sort-of cousin, isn’t it?” He shot her a lopsided grin and just like that her hormones were off to the races. She really needed to start thinking about dating again. Then she wouldn’t have such an overreaction to Jonas, the last man on earth she wanted to be aroused by.

“Sorry—we don’t usually get surprise visitors. Ronald’s protective of Pepé.”

“You mean unannounced visitors. I would have called, but it’s against HIPAA for me to look up your number in your records and use it for personal business. You didn’t give me your phone number yourself.”

“I appreciate your professionalism, uh, Commander Scott—or was it Captain?”

“I’m a Commander.” His mouth twitched.

“I didn’t want to demote you. I’m not familiar with medical practitioners for the most part, and then when you add the Navy, I get even more confused. We’re used to being around Marines. Well, we were.”

“Understood.”

She took a step closer. “Ronald, it’s okay.”

Her words were superfluous as Ronald had already deemed Jonas safe with an invisible doggy stamp of approval. He lay at Jonas’s feet, his belly exposed for a rub. Jonas obliged and she didn’t miss how nice his hands looked against Ronald’s silver-brown coat.

Couldn’t the dog at least pretend to have more of a vicious edge around strange men? Step-cousins included?

“We’re not blood relatives, not cousins, by the way.” There. It was out; let him go after her about the house.

“You mean like you, Pepé and Dottie.”

He looked up at her as he spoke, continuing to stroke Ronald’s underside. When he stood she had to look up. He was at least a foot taller than she was. And his gaze—a girl needed to watch how she interpreted his attention. Why couldn’t Jonas look more like a toad?

“I didn’t let you off the hook at the clinic. I’m sorry.” She owed him that much.

“Don’t be. I earned your wrath. And although I don’t deserve it, I’d like to start over with you.”

Serena smiled.

Jonas responded with a grin and held out his hand. “Jonas Scott, Dottie’s youngest stepson. Pleased to meet you.”

His hand was warm and strong as it enveloped hers. She liked his firm handshake—certain but not overbearing.

“Serena Delgado. Dottie’s biological niece.”

She met his gaze at the same moment a spark seemed to travel from where their hands joined up her arm. Judging from the interest in his eyes he’d felt it, too.

This wasn’t what she’d bargained for, this instant attraction she was experiencing with Jonas.

“Hey, what about me?” Pepé stuck out his hand in front of Jonas.

“Nice to see you again, buddy.” Jonas shook Pepé’s hand with the solemnity reserved for equals.

“Mom, can I go inside and play?”

“Sure, but no computer or television. Keep it to your toys or books.”

“But it’s a holiday vacation, Mom!”

“Take it or leave it, mi hijo.”

Pepé ran back inside, Ronald on his heels.

“You’re good with him.”

“Hmm.” Serena shifted on her feet, not sure where to go next. She didn’t remember ever feeling so completely exposed with another person.

Jonas was practically a stranger, yet he knew her life. He knew her father had abandoned her before she’d even been born, that she was a widow and single mother. He’d drawn conclusions about how she’d come to have the house. He probably thought she’d finagled it out of Dottie.

Yet she knew so little about him. Except for what Dottie had told her. Dottie had made Jonas out to be perfect.

Serena knew that wasn’t possible.

At the clinic he had played the straight man, the professional. He didn’t dare comment on her role in his family’s business in that setting.

Except for the venting session that she’d overheard, he’d behaved.

“You know who I am, Jonas. You know my family situation. You might even think you’ve figured me out. But I don’t know a whole lot about you.”

His blink indicated she’d hit her target. She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh but it felt good, if just for a moment. Let him judge her; she had as much right to be here as he did.

Didn’t she?

They might be unofficial cousins, of a sort, but the attraction between them glittered. Maybe she had too much Christmas on the brain, but she was mesmerized by the vision of a long, gold tinsel garland wrapped around both of them and drawing them closer.... Who needed mistletoe?

“Mom, is Jonas related to Auntie Dottie, too?”

“I thought you were playing inside, Pepé. This is an adult conversation.” She studied Pepé, his eyes wide. If he could raise his ears like a dog to listen better, he would. Her little sponge was taking it all in.

Pepé held up an apple and a cheese stick. “Can I have these?”

“Yes. At the table.”

“Auntie Dottie?” Jonas didn’t have to raise his eyebrows; his tone of voice made clear that his judgment of her was as clichéd as the gesture. Let him add the assumption that she’d used Pepé to gain an inside track to Dottie’s will and the house.

“We had a chance to get to know Dottie before...before last summer.” She stared at him.

“I never heard of you until six months before she died.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. His nicely formed, masculine hands.

“No reason for you to.” She shrugged. “I didn’t want Dottie to bother her family, your family, with what I came out here for—to find out about my biological family. It had nothing to do with you until...until she died.”

“And left the house to you.”

Anger grew from a curl of tension in her stomach to a python gripping her throat.

“It’s really none of your business. Dottie was my aunt and had information about my biological father that I couldn’t get from anyone else, as all of their relatives are gone. As I’m sure you know, Dottie was the last one. And, as I’m sure you also know better than I do, genetic medical information is invaluable. I met with Dottie as much for Pepé as myself.”

Her throat ached even more and she wanted to punch the side of the house. She would not cry in front of this virtual stranger.

Jonas remained quiet, watching her.

“It didn’t make sense to draw you and your brothers into my sordid family life.”

“Who said anything about ‘sordid’?” Jonas flashed that handsome smile again. Aware that Pepé could be within earshot, absorbing their entire conversation, she kept herself from shoving Jonas and telling him to shut up.

“Not to be rude, but why exactly are you here, Jonas?”

He shrugged. “I came out to introduce myself properly, and to see if there’s anything you need for the house.”

“Anything I need?”

He had the grace to look away.

“My brothers have, um, indicated that you haven’t asked for any help fixing up the place. We know Dottie wasn’t able to keep up with it the past several years. And she wouldn’t let us help out like we wanted to.” He looked up at the house. She followed his gaze and saw the peeling paint, the hole in the eaves where a bird had made a nest last spring.

Discomfort made her wiggle her toes in her faux shearling–lined boots. He wasn’t going to get under her skin this way, no matter how hard he tried. She’d fix the house on her own.

“It looks worse than it is. This place is over a hundred years old. It’s been through a lot. I’ve painted the inside and ripped up all the old carpets.” She’d found beautiful pine flooring underneath, which she’d refinished in October, thinking her family might come out from Texas for a visit.

Of course her mother hadn’t been willing to make the trek, not even for Pepé. Not yet. She was still too raw about the fact that Serena had come west to learn about a man who’d never taken the time to know his daughter or provide child support to a teenage mother.

“I’m not criticizing anything you’ve done or not done to the house. Carpentry, woodworking, cabinetry—they’re my hobbies. I know this place as well as Dottie did. It’d be my pleasure to help you get it in tip-top shape.”

“Is that a Navy expression?”

He looked at her questioningly. “What—tip-top? Yes, I suppose so. Look, I realize you don’t know me, not yet. But I’m the one person who could give you a hand bringing this house back to its full potential.”

For the first time since she’d inherited the place, Serena felt a strong surge of possessiveness. This was her home. Hers and Pepé’s.

“I’ve gone over it pretty thoroughly the past several months. I’ve got an extended list of what I’ll update and when.” She crossed her arms. What was it about this man that brought out her defensiveness?

“No doubt you’ve made a great start, Serena. But an old place like this has secrets that are hard to find. For example, have you uncovered the buried treasure yet?”

His eyes twinkled. Serena clenched her hands as she heard Pepé’s feet stomp on the floor inside. He appeared at the open front door.

“There’s a buried treasure in our house?” Pepé’s eyes were wide and Serena wished to heaven and back he didn’t have that enthusiastic grin on his face.

Jonas nodded. “When I was a boy I found a special place to hide my treasures from my three brothers. Maybe you’ve found your own nook for your favorite toys?”

Pepé shook his head. “No, not yet. But I love my room!”

Now Pepé had twinkles in his eyes. Serena wanted to scream but instead pasted on a killer smile for Jonas. He was on her turf.

“Mind if I take a look inside?”

“Of course not.” She paused. Aside from his brothers and the contractors, Jonas was the first man she’d allowed in their home.

But it wasn’t as though he was a man in that sense—she wasn’t going to start anything with him. He was a sailor from the base and he was practically family. The drug-related burglaries on the island were definitely making her paranoid.

Would her fear of living out on this remote property ever completely vanish?

Jonas had even passed Ronald’s appraisal.

It’d be easier if he hadn’t. Then she could chalk up her body’s response to him as nerves and not the blatant sexual attraction she knew it was.

She saw in his eyes what she’d felt in her heart too many times to count. Self-assurance with a hint of sadness.

Why was she being so tough on him? Jonas was no more responsible for her inheriting the house than she was. They were both surprised by Dottie’s decision, and affected by it. One more happily than the other.

“I’m sorry, Jonas. This isn’t easy for you, is it? You didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Dottie. It all must seem surreal to you. Do you want to have some time alone in the house?”

“I appreciate it but I don’t need to be alone, Serena.”

That she understood.

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