by Geri Krotow
Did Serena know how to light the woodstove?
And then the pipes—they’d burst a couple of times. It happened in the lower part of the farmhouse, the part that had been added on in the eighties.
Serena was an adult. She’d managed in the house for six months. Besides, who said she’d lost power?
“I’m not her caretaker.” As a nurse practitioner, his automatic response was figuring out how to take care of someone. He had to work at not thinking that everyone’s well-being was his responsibility.
It was the very reason he wasn’t good marriage material. He got palpitations at the thought of having to worry about a spouse day in and day out. And then kids...
His throat tightened and his anxiety shifted from a slow jog to a run.
“I’m not in the med unit. I’m back home.”
Thankfully his post-deployment nightmares had been few, and this was the first real anxiety he’d experienced since he’d returned. Intellectually he knew that he was in good shape; he certainly wasn’t suffering like so many of his colleagues.
And his anxiety hadn’t stirred until...
Serena.
The bedside clock glared 3:00 a.m. and he knew sleep was going to be at least several hours away. He’d be lucky to grab an hour before he had to get ready for work.
His bare feet were cold on the kitchen tiles as he moved about the dark room. He hit the switch for the under-cabinet light and flicked on his electric teakettle. As he grabbed a mug from the cabinet, his glance landed on the kitchen faucet.
He looked at the clock over the stove to confirm the time before he picked up his cell phone.
Serena didn’t answer. She hadn’t let her battery run out, had she? They were probably without power. He’d bet asses to doughnuts that she didn’t know how to work the generator stored in the oldest shed on the property, farthest from the house.
“Come on, Serena, pick up.”
When her voice came on and told him to leave a message, Jonas unplugged the teakettle.
* * *
“IT’S OKAY! NOTHING to worry about here, lady.” The man sneered at her in the dark, his face unrecognizable in the glow of the motion detector light over the barn. She’d never seen him before.
Serena’s heart pounded and she cursed herself for resting the bat against the side of the barn when she went in. She grasped at it but it was out of reach. She wished she had a shovel or a hoe in her hand. Anything. She was completely defenseless and she sensed this stranger knew it. He was here, though, and not at the house, thank God. She’d only been gone a few minutes—and he couldn’t have gotten into her house. Ronald would attack any stranger who entered.
“Who are you?”
“A friendly soul who needs a dry place for the night. That’s all. You wouldn’t have found me if you hadn’t been so nosy.”
As he spoke his spittle shot out in front of him and mixed with the icy snowflakes that were beginning to fall. The wind drove the snow into her eyes and she blinked to keep her vision from blurring. His eyes appeared bloodshot, glassy.
What was he high on?
A shiver ran through her as she recalled recent news reports about the area meth rings. And about the heroin addicts who stole prescription narcotics to support their habit. All the headlines screamed at her in a cluster of scary possibilities.
Keep him talking. That was what she knew how to do.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
Her teeth were chattering but she had to hold her ground, keep him far away from Pepé. Oh, God, what if he had more addicts with him? Surreptitiously she groped in her pocket for her cell phone and came up empty.
Damn it, she’d left it on her nightstand.
“My car tuckered out. I walked in from the road.”
He swayed on his feet and it was clear he was under the influence of something. She didn’t smell booze on his breath, only a sweetly rancid scent, one she usually associated with sickness or death.
Think, think, think. Keep him talking.
Every instinct, everything she’d ever learned in any case study, raced through her mind and she fought to stay focused. Pepé’s life might depend upon it.
“I don’t have any narcotics in the house.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He grabbed a length of her hair. His height and his physical advantage over her kept her standing in place. As soon as he swayed again, she’d give him a shove and get past him.
“What do you want?” She used her attorney voice and thought of the many ways she would prosecute this derelict who dared to come on her property and threaten her, her home, her child.
He didn’t know about Pepé. He couldn’t.
“I just need a little help, honey. You can help me. You’ve got some painkillers up in that house, don’t you?”
He slowly blinked and bent his head toward hers as if he were moving in a dream.
Serena kneed him in the groin and shoved against his chest as hard as she could. She saw his eyes roll back as his head hit the side of the small barn, but his weight shifted again and he fell against her leg. Stars flared under her eyelids as his chin slammed into her face and knocked the back of her head against the wall.
“Ahhh!” Pain radiated through her cheekbone and she fought to stay conscious. She had to get back to the house, to Pepé.
* * *
JONAS’S GUT RARELY failed him and when he saw the beat-up car at the end of Serena’s driveway he knew his need to get to the house was warranted.
His military training had him peering at the license plate. He memorized the number. California. It could be anyone, but someone legitimately visiting Serena and Pepé wouldn’t have stopped here—they would have made the half-mile drive up to the house.
Shutting off his headlights, Jonas relied on the thousands of other times he’d gone up the driveway, since it was all but pitch-dark and the blowing wind had started to include snow.
His stomach dropped when he saw the house lights, including those in the small barn extension Serena had installed for those yarn-making animals she’d raved about.
It took him thirty seconds flat to park, get out of the car and run to the front door where he pounded loudly. Ronald’s barking was all he heard past the roar of the wind. He ran around to the back door and peered through the kitchen windows as he tried the door. It opened and Ronald sprang out at him, teeth bared. Jonas raised his arms for protection, but Ronald wasn’t interested in him as he raced off into the dark.
Toward the barn.
Jonas dashed behind him, wishing he had his nine-millimeter handgun. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he got to wherever Ronald was running, but he knew it might be very ugly.
He’d seen villages, soldiers and civilians ripped apart physically and mentally by numerous battles. Nothing prepared him to see a huge man hulking against the barn wall, next to what he instinctively knew was Serena’s prone body. Ronald had his teeth bared and he growled ferociously a foot in front of the assailant. Jonas wasn’t ready for his emotional response but his Navy training kicked in and with minimal, almost surgical moves he took out the criminal, not stopping until the guy was flat on his back with Ronald growling over him.
“Good dog.”
Jonas heard Serena moaning, so he risked the few seconds it took to dial 9-1-1, then threw his phone onto the ground, leaving it on speaker while he tended to her.
He gave the emergency operator directions and informed her of his assessment of Serena as he went through his exam, one he’d done too many times in a war zone.
Anger threatened to break through his professional bearing more than once as he noted an egg-size lump on her forehead, a definitely broken nose and a swollen lip. He wanted to kill the monster with his bare hands.
He kep
t his eyes on Serena’s and refrained from doing anything that would take him from her side.
“Pepé,” she whispered between the sobs that were starting to rack her frame. He heard the sirens and squeezed her hands.
“I’m sure he’s okay, honey. I’ll go check on him as soon as the paramedics get here.”
“The police...”
“They’re coming, too.”
“Pepé.”
He felt tension in his gut. A sure signal that he, too, needed to know how Pepé was. But he couldn’t leave Serena, and he wasn’t going to give the creep an opportunity to take off, not even with Ronald standing vigilant watch over him.
Fortunately, the first police cruiser rounded the last bend of Serena’s driveway and Jonas didn’t have to make a choice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
U.S. ship LST-19, Pacific Ocean
September 1945
“HOW ARE YOU doing today, Henry?”
Henry opened his eyes to the familiar voice. Charles Dempsey, a Navy sailor on the ship that was taking him far away from Japan, sat on an upside-down crate next to Henry’s cot.
“Same.”
“I brought you some paper and a pen. I thought you’d want to write a letter to Sarah. I can mail it for you when I go back to the States.”
“Do you really think you’ll beat me back home, Charles?”
“I’m going to try, you bet.”
Charles smiled at that. Henry hadn’t paid attention to people’s smiles in a long time, but Charles’s grin was so full of life. And Charles looked so healthy—his skin glowed and he had good muscle tone.
I used to look like that.
“I don’t think I could make it much farther than this cot, truth be told.”
“Aw, you’ll be up and at it before you know it. It’s not going to be long now. Just keep eating the food the nurses are bringing, and as soon as you can, get out on the deck for some air. It’ll do wonders for you.”
Henry knew it would, but his legs had grown too weak for him to walk farther than the distance to the head, the naval term for the john. “Where are we going, have we heard yet?”
“Yes, we’re dropping you and your buddies off at the hospital in the Marianas. We’ll pick up some of the men who are ready to go home and take them to Hawaii, maybe back to the mainland.” Charles winked at him. “I’m a Waterman First Class. I’m not on the ‘need-to-know’ list, if you follow me.”
Henry tried to smile but it took too much effort. Would his energy ever return? Now that he’d survived the war, and the war was over, he should be doing handsprings on this ship’s deck. Instead, he was practically bedridden, his bones and skin all that was left of the man he’d been.
“The Marianas, they’ll be like Hawaii, right? Tropical?”
“Everything out here is tropical!”
Charles laughed from his belly and Henry envied it. He wanted to be able to laugh like that again. As if he really believed life was good, and that he had everything to look forward to.
“Will you help me write the letter to Sarah? My hands are still shaky.”
“Sure thing. Here, let me help you up.”
“No, I’ll just lie on my side and we’ll do it like this.” Henry rolled to his right side and took the paper and pen that Charles offered.
“Here’s a magazine.” Charles slid it under the letterhead stationery, giving Henry a firmer surface to write on. “You’re left-handed, are you?”
Henry nodded. “Yes.”
He wanted to talk more freely with Charles, and supposed that maybe he would as his strength returned. It was such a godforsaken slow process, getting better.
“Will you help me if I can’t do the words?” He sounded like a schoolboy. Probably looked like one, too.
“Sure thing.”
Charles sat and whistled a jaunty melody, gazing off into space.
Henry appreciated the attempt to give him privacy in such cramped quarters. Compared to what he’d lived through, though, his cot on the LST was like a featherbed in the Taj Mahal.
It took a while for his hands to obey his thoughts, but eventually he was able to write his letter to Sarah.
Whidbey Island
Present Day, nine days before Christmas
“YOU DID THE best you could, Mrs. Delgado. No one expects to find a stranger on their property in the middle of an arctic freeze.” Detective Cole Ramsey had sent most of his team back to Coupeville and the EMTs had left an hour ago. They were in her living room, part of the great room that included the kitchen and dining area.
“Still, if I’d had the dog with me, none of this would have happened.”
Jonas knew she’d beat herself up for this, but it wasn’t her fault. Pepé was still sound asleep in his room—Jonas had checked on him and made sure his window was locked tight before he came back downstairs to stay with Serena.
Serena sat on her couch after being looked at by the EMTs and Jonas. She’d promised to go see a doctor on base tomorrow but Jonas didn’t think she had more than a broken nose.
The loser was locked up and would spend his holiday behind bars. He was a known troublemaker on the island and Detective Ramsey had made it clear that he would not bother Serena or anyone else again.
Jonas wished he’d been comforted by the fact that the pipes under the kitchen sink would have burst if he hadn’t arrived and put the space heater in place next to the counter.
No matter what he told himself, his unease and his instincts had been all about Serena and Pepé, as well. They’d had nothing to do with the condition of the house or its fate during the storm. The house had been his way back to her.
Thank God.
“In all the time we lived out here, we only had one transient. Dottie found him on the property down by the stream and had the police out here before the guy woke up.”
Detective Ramsey from the Island County Sheriff’s Department chuckled.
“Yes, I remember hearing about that when we were still in high school.”
Jonas and Cole Ramsey had played on the school basketball team together, before they’d gone their separate ways after graduation.
“You’re back after deployment, aren’t you?”
Jonas nodded. “Yes. It’s great to be home.”
“How long will you be here?”
“For the duration, I hope. I’m planning on finishing out my Navy years here, then settling down.”
“You’ll work after you’re done with the Navy?”
“Of course—I’ll only be forty-two. Not too old, at any rate.”
Ramsey laughed. “If you need a contact at the hospital in Coupeville, let me know. My wife is a nurse there.”
“Thanks, Cole. Will do.”
Ramsey turned back to Serena. “Are you okay, Mrs. Delgado?”
“Serena. It’s Serena. And yes, I’m fine.”
“Do you have a family member or friend who can come and stay with you? It’s never easy to go alone right after someone’s trespassed on your property, not to mention the fact that you’ve been assaulted.”
“I’m staying. She won’t be alone.” Jonas spoke up, ignoring the glare Serena shot him. Even with cotton shoved up her nose she was beautiful.
“That’s not necessary.”
Cole Ramsey sized up Serena. Jonas knew he was thinking what any man would. She was a beautiful woman. The possessiveness that sprang up in him didn’t surprise Jonas but it didn’t make him feel any better.
“I’d take him up on it, Serena. Besides, with this cold weather, it’s going to be rocky for the next few days. The power’s out in town, too.” Cole didn’t miss a thing. He’d observed Serena’s house while the police went through to confirm that the intruder hadn’t made it that far.
Jonas
sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Serena would heal in a week or so. Her swelling and the fact that she hadn’t blacked out indicated she didn’t have a concussion. If anything had happened to Pepé, they’d be dealing with something far worse.
“We’re done here.” Cole turned to Jonas. “Want to walk me out?”
“Sure.” He squeezed Serena’s hand. “I’ll be back in a minute. Sit tight and don’t get up until I’m with you. Got it?”
“Since when are Navy guys meaner than Marines?” She watched him with her steady gaze.
“It’s not mean, it’s for your safety. You need to take it easy. Otherwise, I’ll have Cole drop you off at the base clinic while I stay here with Pepé.”
As her eyes filled with tears, his gut tightened. He’d spoken without thought, and yet he meant every word. He’d been worried about Pepé, too.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”
Jonas walked out to Cole’s small car with him. The last squad car was driving away, its red taillights growing smaller as it wound through the woods toward the road.
“Good seeing you again, Jonas. It’s none of my business, but are you involved with her?”
“In a way. As you know, she inherited my stepmom Dottie’s house. Dottie was her biological aunt. Why do you ask?”
Cole paused. “I found myself involved with a widow not too long ago.”
“Are you warning me to stay away, Cole?”
Cole shook his head. “More like the opposite. There’s been a series of break-ins in this area over the past two months. They seem to be escalating in violence. Serena’s lucky you showed up.”
“She was halfway to the house and had kneed the bastard in the nuts. She was doing just fine on her own.” Jonas’s fists still itched to strike out.
“Hmph. It seems that this jerk likes to break into homes and steal prescription narcotics. Vicodin, OxyContin and other painkillers. They sell them to the local high school kids and use the money to buy heroin.”
“I’m sure that’s not unique to Whidbey, is it, Cole?”
“No, it isn’t. But I like to keep Whidbey as safe as it was when we were kids—the place our parents and grandparents made it when they settled here. At any rate, keep an eye on her if you can. This guy’s going to be locked up for a long time with the assault-and-battery charge the district attorney will slap on him, but it won’t keep him from telling his buds that she’s out here alone.”