The Christmas Wishing Tree: An Eternity Springs Novel

by Emily March

  “It matches your eyes,” Maggie had said.

  “You have the body for it too,” Gabi added. “I’m so jealous of your curves. Your hips are made for the matching sarong.”

  In the end, Jenna had bought the bikini and the sarong and a wide-brimmed hat with a matching scarf. Now as she pulled the items from her tote, she wondered if she’d be playing with fire to wear them.

  Maybe. Probably. She’d wear the one-piece. She kicked off her deck shoes, pulled off her T-shirt and bra, and slipped out of her shorts and panties. But somehow when she left the stateroom, she wore her new bikini.

  The sound of steel guitars and reggae music drifted from hidden speakers. Devin stood on the swim deck deploying the second of two coral-colored foam floats behind the boat. Attached to the Windsong by ten feet or so of line, they bobbed up and down on the turquoise waves. Shirtless and shoeless and wearing board shorts that hung low on his hips, he looked tanned and toned and so sexy that she felt itchy and needy inside. She almost moaned aloud. Instead, because she was both physician and mother, she asked, “Did you put on sunscreen?”

  He turned around and, upon seeing her, froze. Then he lowered his sunglasses and gave her a long, smoldering look. “Sugar Cookie,” he said, drawing it out to about twelve syllables. “Don’t you look fine?”

  “Thank you. So . . . my question. . . . sunscreen?”

  He tilted his head, still considering, and took a long time to answer. “Will you get my back?”

  That’s when she realized she’d made a mistake. Talk about playing with fire. As she stepped down onto the swim deck, he opened a compartment at the back of the boat and removed a bottle of sunscreen. Solemnly and without saying another word, he handed it to her and presented his back.

  Devin was tall, his shoulders broad and roped with muscle. Yesterday she’d witnessed firsthand just how those cords had come to be. Devin was no gym rat who jerked a barbell. He jerked around thirty-pound groupers and mahi-mahi.

  Jenna’s mouth went dry and, as she squirted white, coconut-scented lotion into the palm of her hand, she suddenly thought of high school English and Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

  “Hmm? You’re thirsty? There’s a cooler right behind you. The center cushion. There’s water, juice, soft drinks. Beer if you want it. I’m serving mojitos at cocktail hour.”

  “Thanks.” Jenna wouldn’t mind a bottle of water, but the Coleridge quote had referred to a totally different type of thirst. Bracing herself, she slid her hand across his back. His skin was warm and taut, neither smooth nor rough, just normal. Lovely. Scarred here below his left shoulder. Wonder what happened here? An old scar, long healed. She lingeringly traced it with her index finger. Six inches long. It had been stitched.

  “About done?” Devin asked, his voice sounding strained.

  “Oh, sorry. Let me just . . .” With quick, clinical motions, she smoothed lotion over the places she’d missed, and then stepped back.

  “Thanks.” Devin cleared his throat and held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. “My turn.”

  Oh. Well. Oh. She gave him the sunscreen and whirled around, happy not to have to face him as heat flushed her cheeks. “Just . . . um . . . right above my . . . um . . . strap. I could . . . um . . . reach everywhere else.”

  Her bikini top didn’t have a strap. It had a string. A thin, tiny string she’d secured with a bow. A bow he could easily untie if he pulled on one of the knotted ends. She closed her eyes. She heard the squish sound of lotion leaving the bottle. For a long moment, nothing happened.

  She shivered in anticipation. Goose bumps rose upon her flesh. She felt his index finger grasp one of the knots on her bow. His voice low and gravelly, he asked, “You don’t want to get burned, do you, Jenna?”

  Her voice escaped in a squeak. “No, but—”

  He tugged once, quick and hard. The bow slipped. Instinctively, her arms lifted to clasp the triangles of her top against her breasts.

  The lotion was cool. His fingers were hot. They stroked across her skin slowly, back and forth. Back and forth. Jenna held back a moan.

  When finally he spoke, it was in a low, throaty tone from right beside her ear. “Seems to me we have a choice here, Jenna. Do we go swimming?” His lips brushed across the sensitive skin of her neck. “Or . . . not?”

  She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him.

  His finger trailed down the base of her spine and the edge of the sarong. Moisture pooled between Jenna’s legs. He tugged at the knot at her hip and the sarong drifted to the Windsong’s deck.

  Jenna turned around. Devin’s gaze made a slow, hot crawl up and down her body, desire turning his eyes dark and dangerous.

  Swim? Or sink? That was the question here, wasn’t it? She tried to recall all the reasons why this would be a mistake. Only one hovered like a half formed protest in her mind—Eternity Springs.

  Well, Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas right now, are you? Much less Colorado. And he’s not in Oz. Not yet.

  And, oh, she had the feeling that he likely was a wizard. She was Cinderella on a genuine-freaking-yacht and if she wanted to mix her metaphors and movies and fairy tales, well then she had until midnight before Jaws ate her glass slipper and she had to put on her red glitter shoes.

  She wanted Devin’s mouth on her. Every inch of her. “You told me being on the ocean is empowering because it makes you part of the universe. You said you never feel alone. When you asked me to come with you to Bella Vita Isle, you said you’d show me. I’m tired of being powerless, Devin. I’m tired of being alone. I want to swim . . . later. Now, just for today, while we’re here on the ocean aboard the Windsong, make me part of your universe.”

  He put his hands on her waist. “Just so I’m positively certain, you’re saying yes?”

  “Yes, I’m saying yes.”

  His lips twisted in that slow pirate’s smile. His fingers tightened and he lifted her off her feet. He crushed his mouth to hers and turned in a slow circle once, twice, three times. Jenna felt him lift her and she expected to find herself seated on the sundeck where he’d lay her back and have his wicked way with her. She nearly laughed aloud.

  So to find herself sailing through the air caught her completely by surprise. Screeching, she caught her breath just before her head sank beneath the surface of the cool Caribbean.

  She surfaced sputtering to find Devin treading water beside her, laughing maniacally. “What in the world did you do that for?”

  “Look around us. See all the steam rising from the water? Sugar, you and I have been on slow burn for weeks. Without a bit of a cool down I’d have gone off like a rocket.”

  “So you throw me in the ocean?”

  “Yeah.” He continued to laugh. “You should have seen your face.”

  “Why . . . you . . . you”—she drew back her hands and splashed him—“pirate!”

  “We’ll, this is the Caribbean.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her close. “C’mere, me pretty. Give us kiss. Later I’ll let you walk my plank.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Her mouth curved against hers as he kissed her and they sank beneath the waves.

  When they came up for air, he stared deeply into her eyes and said, “Welcome to my world, Jenna Stockton. Let’s play, shall we?”

  Eighteen

  Devin opened his eyes. The moon was a tiny sliver of a fingernail in a midnight blue sky awash with stars. Underway at four knots with a following sea, the Windsong rocked gently on the waves making her way slowly along the course he had plotted after dinner—a large circle around Bella Vita Isle. He lay stretched out on the lounge on the flybridge with Jenna tucked up against him.

  What a great day.

  Great weather. Great boat. Great sex. Really great sex. Really great woman.

  He had just enough energy left to turn his head and nuzzle her behind the ear. “Not again . . .” she groaned. “I have to sleep.”

  Bravely
, Devin worked up enough strength to smile. “I just don’t want you to miss the Milky Way, Sugar. It’s at its best this time of year.”

  She angled up on her elbows and dropped her head back to gaze upon the filmy cloud of stars arching across the sky. “Oh, wow. How fabulous is that? Do you know the constellations, Devin?”

  “I’m a mariner. Of course I know the stars. If all the electronics on the Windsong were to fail, I could get us home with a compass and a sextant.”

  “Point some of them out to me?”

  They spent the next twenty minutes stargazing, and she shared with him a childhood memory of her father. “We lived in a small town in Mississippi. I was about Reilly’s age. It was summer and our air-conditioner was broken. It was so hot that we gave up attempting to sleep in our beds and moved to the lawn furniture in the backyard. My dad tried to help me see the constellations, but I just couldn’t mentally draw the pictures. I did see the Milky Way, though.” After a moment’s pause, she added, “Thank you for the nice memory of my father, Devin.”

  “My experience wasn’t all that different from yours, except Cam and I were on a boat. I was around the same age, maybe a little younger. I could see the Southern Cross, but beyond that, forget it.”

  “Seeing the Southern Cross is on my bucket list. Crosby, Stills, and Nash, you know.”

  “Great song.” Devin pressed a gentle kiss against her hair. “Maybe you should plan a visit to Cairns. I’ll show you the Southern Cross.”

  She stiffened ever so slightly, and even before she spoke, Devin knew that the magic of the night had been broken. She rolled away from him and reached for one of the white terrycloth bathrobes they’d donned at the end of their late-night swim and then discarded during lovemaking.

  She slipped it on, belted it, and faced him. It was too dark to see her expression, but he thought he could hear tears in her voice. “I can’t, Devin. This has been a fairy tale of a day, but Cinderella has to leave the ball. I need you to keep to your original plans and return to Australia on Sunday.”

  “But the stalker—”

  “Isn’t as big a danger to me right now as you are.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I am on the verge of losing my heart to you, Devin. I have to put a stop to it. There’s no future in it and I need a future. I need to give Reilly a future. I need to give Reilly a father.”

  Well, if she’d wanted to shut him up, she’d chosen the best possible way to do it. He didn’t have a comeback for that.

  “I am going to return to Eternity Springs with the Brogans, and I’ll take Jack Davenport up on his offer to stay at Eagle’s Way until my stalker is identified. From the beginning, everyone said that was the safest thing for me to do. You won’t need to worry about me and you can return to Australia and get back to business making payments on the Out-n-Back. I’ll get my Colorado medical license and set about giving your mother and sister and friends the best possible prenatal care.”

  “And get married,” he grumbled, unable to help himself. He grabbed up the second robe, shoved his arms into the sleeves, yanked the belt around his waist, and tied it.

  After a significant pause, she asked, “Who is Anya?” The name came right out of left field to sucker punch his gut. While he was still recovering from the blow, she continued, “Last night at dinner, Mitch said I should ask you about the ‘evil witch Anya’ so that I would understand why your boat has no anchor.”

  “Now? You have to ask now?” He exhaled sharply, angry at his friend and at himself. “Anya is nobody. Someone I used to know is all.”

  “Someone from Bella Vita?”

  “Dammit, Jenna.” He yanked open the wet bar’s fridge and pulled out a beer. “She doesn’t matter. She never mattered. The baby was all that mattered.”

  At her audible gasp, he literally bit his tongue. I’m gonna kick Mitch’s ass next time I see him.

  “You have a child?”

  He had enough experience with women to recognize the futility of attempting to avoid spilling the beans at this point. He might as well open the can and start pouring.

  “I started seeing a woman here on the island. She got pregnant, and I’m old-fashioned about such things, so I offered to marry her. She moved in, but she wanted to wait until after the baby was born to get married. Said she wanted the wedding gown and photos, and I bought her story. Turns out I was her backup plan. I wasn’t the baby’s father. He’d left her, left the island. After the hurricane hit he had a change of heart, returned, and they rode off together into the sunset. End of story.”

  “Oh, Devin. That’s despicable. I’d use a much stronger word than witch to describe her.”

  He shrugged. “I dealt. It was okay. I didn’t love her. It’s not like losing her broke my heart.”

  Losing the baby, now . . . He’d been a boy. Devin had believed he’d had a son on the way. He gave his head a shake, took another pull on his beer, and then said, “It was for the best. I’m a rolling stone, or, to keep it nautical, a spinning prop. So, that’s the story—but why did you pick now to ask about it?”

  She’d sure as hell had managed to spoil the mood.

  “It was the tone of your voice when you said the word ‘marriage.’ It reminded me of Mitch’s cryptic comment.” Jenna reached up and framed his face in her hands. “Devin, thank you for this fairy-tale day. Thank you for caring for me and for my son and for being our champion. Being our hero. Being our Santa Claus. You’ve taught me to believe again.”

  She pulled his mouth down to hers and gave him a kiss so sweet, so honest, so full of an emotion that he dared not name that it staggered him. When it ended, he drew her unsteadily away. “Jenna . . .”

  “Take me back to port, sailor. I’m afraid Cinderella’s clock is starting to chime.

  By mid-morning the following day, what seemed like half of Eternity Springs arrived for the wedding. It didn’t happen a moment too soon as far as Jenna was concerned. She had thought that being around Devin was difficult before she had traveled to Bella Vita Isle with him. Following their day aboard the Windsong, she found it to be sheer torture.

  By the time the boat docked at the marina in the early hours of the morning, she’d realized she had lied. She wasn’t on the verge of losing her heart to him. It had happened. It was a done deal. She was toast. She’d fallen head over heels in love with Devin Santa Claus Murphy.

  She believed, all right. She believed she was an idiot. His family’s arrival on the island had been a welcome distraction, and she’d happily joined Lori and Sarah on a visit to the market despite having so recently shopped until she dropped there.

  It helped that Devin didn’t appear to want to be alone with her anymore than she did him, and he spent the majority of his time doing activities with his brother, including building a large and intricate sand castle. In fact, once his family arrived, the two of them didn’t exchange a word in private until just prior to their departure for the wedding. “Pretty dress,” he said. “You look beautiful in yellow. You look beautiful in everything. In nothing . . .”

  “Devin,” she’d protested. “Off-limits. That’s the other universe.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. I know. Sorry.” His grimace held a bit of yearning that served to soothe her lovesick heart. He might not be one to permanently trailer his boat, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Crumbs, true, but at this point her feminine ego would take them.

  The wedding was a sunset beach ceremony on the Brogan property, a beautiful meld of traditions from the heritages of both the bride—a Minnesota native educated at Michigan—and the groom—Caribbean born, raised, and educated in the island studio of a master glass artist. Mitch made a stir when he appeared without his customary Rastafarian braids—a promise to his bride, he’d declared to the shocked assembly. She floated up the beach in diaphanous white on her father’s arm, and bride and groom said their vows against a pallet of orange, rose, and gold as the sun slipped into the turquoise sea.

  Jenna seldom cried at
weddings, and she barely knew this couple, but while watching Mitch pledge his undying love to his bride, she teared up nevertheless. Her emotions were a jumble of grief and yearning and acceptance and anticipation.

  This was the worst, standing beside Devin in these circumstances. Once she got through tonight it would get better. Maybe not out of sight, out of mind, but out of sight and in Eternity Springs where broken hearts go to heal.

  She couldn’t think of a better place for her to be. From now until Christmas at least, she would nurse her broken heart while she doctored the women, her new friends who were in need of her professional services.

  Following the ceremony, the guests moved off the beach to the poolside garden and lawn where a buffet dinner was to be served. In the midst of all the people, Jenna was able to relax and enjoy herself. Obviously, friends and family hadn’t picked up on the fact that she’d been intimate with Devin, so she need not fear facing those uncomfortable questions. She caught Lori looking at her curiously once or twice. The gaze Sarah leveled upon her son when he was looking at Jenna was downright suspicious. Such things Jenna could withstand. What happened on the Windsong had stayed on the Windsong—and for that, she was grateful.

  It wasn’t until Devin smoothly led her off into the garden at the end of a dance that her tension returned.

  “How’s your ankle doing?” he asked.

  “It’s okay. Devin, we shouldn’t leave. They’ll be doing the sendoff any time now.”

  “We won’t be long. I just need to speak with you alone, and with the family at the house, I might not have another chance. Jenna, I’ve been thinking about your idea to stay at Eagle’s Way. The more I turn it over, the less I like it. I think we should keep to the original plan. I’ll go back to Eternity Springs tomorrow and—”

  “No.”

  “Hear me out. I think that—”

  “No! We settled this, Devin.”

  “But I want you to be safe. I need you to be safe.”

  “I will be safe. You know it’s true.”