Navy Christmas (Whidbey Island)

by Geri Krotow

  “Should she move into town for a while?”

  “No, as long as you or another friend is with her, and she keeps her dog close, she’ll be fine. These aren’t hardened criminals with weapons on them—yet. The only reason the dirtbag targeted her house in the first place is because he’s in heroin withdrawal. It’s an ugly symptom of a devastating disease. Anyway, they normally hit houses that are empty, when the owners are out and about. But if she’s here alone with her kid, she appears vulnerable. I’d hate to see her bothered again.”

  “I’ll see to it that she’s safe, Cole.”

  “Good. I’ll send patrol cars out regularly. And we’ll get this group of troublemakers rounded up by Christmas.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  They clasped hands in a brief but friendly handshake.

  “Thanks for everything, man,” Jonas said. “Hey, Cole?”

  “Yes?”

  “What happened to the widow you got involved with?”

  Cole laughed. “I’m married to her.”

  Cole climbed into his car and drove off as Jonas watched. How the hell would he convince Serena that he was going to stay with her and Pepé as a friend, without any ulterior motive?

  * * *

  SERENA WOKE WITH Pepé’s face next to hers.

  “Mom, they’ve canceled school!”

  Her head throbbing, she looked at her clock radio and groaned. She never slept in this late.

  “How do you know, Pepé? Just because there’s snow doesn’t mean there aren’t any classes.”

  “The school left a message on your cell phone, and I checked online. Pepé’s right.”

  “Mom, what happened to your face?”

  Two male voices, one sweet and high, and one low and reassuring.

  “You stayed,” she murmured.

  “Jonas said he came to help us with the iced pipes in the kitchen.”

  Jonas chuckled, and the warmth of such a masculine expression of humor caught her off guard. Her lips tilted up in a smile.

  “Ouch.”

  “You’ve got quite the swollen lip. How do you feel?”

  “Fine.” She looked at Pepé, who stared at her with unabashed fascination. “I slipped outside, honey, and hit my face on the ground.” She was strategic in her reply. A six-year-old boy didn’t need to know everything.

  “When were you outside?”

  “Last night, when the wind started howling, right before the big snowflakes fell. I was checking on the alpacas.” She ruffled his hair. “Is it the sticky kind of snow that will make a good snowman?”

  “I want to make an igloo.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Pepé, why don’t you go get your mom one of the muffins I baked, and bring it in here?”

  “Sure!” He shot off her bed and down the hall before she could blink.

  “You baked muffins?”

  Jonas shrugged. “I do have some hidden talents.”

  Sore bones, aching muscles, a pounding head and a swollen lip couldn’t keep her from reacting to his comment, even though he’d meant it in the most platonic way.

  Didn’t he?

  “That’s very nice of you.” She slowly sat farther up in bed.

  “I’m much better than we thought—it was more the emotional shake-up than anything. You can go home now.”

  Jonas smiled before he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Nice try. Let me take a look at you.”

  She sat while he checked her face, asking her how many fingers he held up and the usual vision questions.

  It wasn’t more than a few minutes but for Serena it felt like an hour with his fingers on her cheekbones, her temples, her jaw.

  Dressed in a white T-shirt under a wool pullover, Jonas looked rugged yet approachable—with his nurse persona well in place.

  “Do you feel dizzy at all? What about a headache?”

  “My head’s pounding, but it’s the kind of headache I usually get when a large weather system comes in. You know, sinus stuff. My lip feels more stiff than painful. Honestly, I’m okay. Pepé and I will be fine. Next time I’ll make sure I take Ronald with me if I have to go out at night.”

  “No, you won’t—that would leave Pepé vulnerable. You can’t kid a kidder, Serena.”

  “Don’t you feel a little awkward being here? We hardly know each other.”

  He stared at her and to his credit didn’t bring up their kisses.

  “What finer way to spend time together during a storm? We both have a vested interest in the house and the property. We’re going to have to get to know each other better at some point.”

  “I’ve already explained that Pepé doesn’t need this, Jonas. It’ll be too much for him when...when...”

  “Pepé needs positive male role models. Our families are permanently intertwined thanks to Dottie, no matter how you and I feel about each other and the house. It’s in Pepé’s interest for all of us to get to know one another. My family is his family, and if he grows up here, my nieces will be an immeasurable support to him at school. They’ll be his safety net.”

  He had a point. Or maybe her head was too fuzzy to argue with him.

  “Mom, you’re going to love this muffin.”

  Pepé squeezed in front of Jonas on the side of the bed and deposited a large berry muffin on Serena’s chest. Ronald came over to sniff the treat and Jonas stood up.

  At least he didn’t try to clean the crumbs from where they’d landed on her breasts.

  “I think you need a napkin, and I’ll get you some coffee.”

  “Coffee sounds like heaven.”

  “How do you take yours?” She met his eyes, which radiated concern. And interest.

  In her.

  “A splash of light cream, that’s it.”

  “A gal after my own heart.”

  She couldn’t help it; her eyes wandered past his shoulders, his waist and down to his butt as he walked out of the room.

  “Try the muffin, Mom.”

  “Mmm, this is very good. You’re right, mi hijo.”

  Who knew the nurse could bake, too?

  * * *

  JONAS WAS HAPPY to help Serena and Pepé as the storm raged outside and their power flickered on and off. Dottie had put in gas heat several years ago, but the draft from the gale kept blowing the pilot light out, so Jonas turned the gas off and had the woodstove cranking out blessed warmth.

  He’d forgotten how cold it got when the polar air currents dipped low into Puget Sound.

  Serena sat in a recliner with the footrest up, her long fingers moving rhythmically as she knitted what looked like some type of ski hat. He caught her dozing every now and again. He felt a sense of satisfaction from knowing that she was relaxed enough with him to rest. It was the beginning of trust.

  Trust.

  “I’ve got you, dog!”

  Pepé wrestled with Ronald on the living room rug in front of the stove.

  “Watch yourself there, buddy. The stove will burn you if you touch it.”

  “It’s never burned me before.”

  “Have you used it before?” He hid a grin at the puzzled look on Pepé’s face.

  “No. That’s Mom’s knitting space.”

  “I had to move that big basket of yarn to the corner of the room or it would’ve caught fire. The woodstove is filled with logs and sticks, burning to keep us warm.”

  “So the pipes won’t ice?”

  “You mean ‘freeze.’ Yes, so the water in the pipes doesn’t freeze and make the pipes crack.”

  “Oh.” Pepé looked at Jonas, the woodstove and the kitchen sink. Then he went back to playing tug of war with Ronald.

  Jonas’s amusement kept him watc
hing the two of them for a few more minutes. Pepé had asked myriad questions as Jonas hooked up the space heater and set it in front of the open cabinets under the sink. He’d listened as Jonas explained why it was so important to keep the pipes warm.

  Jonas remembered his father giving him a description of everything he did around the house. As if he knew he’d leave Jonas as a seventeen-year-old high school senior, far before he should have.

  The pain of losing his father so young had never lessened, but it had become bearable over the years. Dottie had played a big part in that.

  What would she think about his being here, with Serena and Pepé, trying to be helpful instead of figuring out how to manipulate Serena into giving up the house?

  He looked over at Serena. Her hands were still as her brown eyes searched his.

  “He’ll be okay, Jonas. He and Ronald play rough, but they don’t get too crazy.”

  “I’m sure Ronald’s the wiser of the two.”

  She laughed and he noticed the empty coffee mug on the end table next to her chair.

  “Let me warm that up for you.”

  He poured the freshly brewed coffee into Serena’s mug, which Pepé had painted at the pottery shop in downtown Oak Harbor. Pepé had proclaimed it “her favorite” when they’d fixed her first cup of coffee hours earlier.

  A splash of half-and-half, and he walked it over to her.

  “Here you go.”

  “You’re spoiling me. I can get my own coffee.”

  “Tell me that when I start to stink.” He was still wearing the same clothes he’d put on in the middle of the night.

  “Did you get a shower earlier?”

  “I did, yes, when you were sleeping. I hope you don’t mind that I used the upstairs bathroom.” She had a bathroom off her bedroom, but he didn’t want to wake her, so he’d found the one upstairs. It was obviously Pepé’s.

  “Did the dinosaurs scare you?” The shower curtain was emblazoned with several different species.

  “No, but I darn near had a cow when I stepped on a squeaky toy.”

  Serena laughed. The sound was getting too familiar, getting to be something he craved. He missed it when she didn’t have anything to laugh about.

  “Even though he’s a big boy, Pepé still likes toys that squeak and squirt in the bathtub.”

  “Mom! Stop!” Pepé ordered.

  “I have toys in my shower, too, Pepé.” Jonas smiled at him.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. I have a waterproof radio so I can listen to the news or a Seahawks game, and I have a long-handled brush to scrub my back.”

  Pepé wrinkled his nose. “A brush isn’t a toy.”

  “It’s a grown-up toy, Pepé.” Serena replied for him and smiled, but when her eyes met Jonas’s her smile faded. Blatant sensuality and unabashed lust flowed between them. He wondered if she could see the visions in his mind—of scrubbing her naked body with his bare hands, soaping her shoulders, her back, her ass, then reaching around her small waist to her breasts. Her nipples would be erect and—

  Thud.

  The front windowpane reverberated from the impact.

  “What was that?” Serena was up and out of her recliner, her coffee sloshed on the carpet.

  Jonas looked at the snow that had spattered against the picture window.

  “My money’s on a hawk or an eagle. Probably lost its way in the wind and snow.”

  Serena walked over to the large expanse of glass and peered at the snow print. “I think you’re right. See how the snowflakes hold the outline of the beak, Pepé? And the wings.” Pepé ran up next to her and Ronald stood behind him on the braided rug, tail wagging.

  “Neat! Is the bird okay, Mom?”

  Serena looked carefully out the window. “I don’t see any sign of it, so my guess is that it bumped the house and flew away.”

  Pepé nodded, apparently losing interest. “Mom, I’m hungry.”

  “I’ve got some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with your name on them, buddy.” Jonas didn’t want Serena doing anything today. If she could get one day of complete rest, her bruises and aching muscles would heal that much sooner.

  “That sounds great for me, too.” She offered him a sheepish grin. “I suppose you saw the inside of our refrigerator.”

  Jonas grinned back.

  Her fridge was stocked to the max with half-empty jars of sauces, pickles and yogurt containers.

  “Don’t look so embarrassed. It’s nothing compared to mine when I’m working long hours at the clinic. I saw you have the fixings for lasagna, but I couldn’t find the tomato sauce.”

  “It’s in what I think you used to call the sun porch. I had it closed in to give the stuff from Dottie’s attic a safe storage place and to give Pepé and me a decent pantry.”

  “Smart thinking on your part.” He hesitated. Exactly what attic “stuff” of Dottie’s did Serena have?

  She held up her hand. “Before you get worried, all I have of Dottie’s are her Christmas decorations. Mostly old plastic ones from the sixties and seventies. Like I told you, your brothers came and got whatever they wanted, but they insisted I keep the decorations she’d bought specifically for the house.”

  “Some of those go back to her parents, her grandparents, even.”

  Serena nodded. “I know, Paul explained that. I still have a lot of sorting to do but eventually I hope to salvage whatever I can and I’ll use it to decorate the house again.”

  “Tell him about the airplane, Mom!”

  Pepé stood next to her, holding a large jar of peanut butter.

  “Put that back on the kitchen counter, Pepé, and don’t interrupt.”

  When she looked back at him he saw the wariness in her eyes. Was she hiding something?

  “What airplane, Serena?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SERENA COULDN’T BELIEVE Jonas had stayed the night.

  Well, she could, considering she’d had a bad shake-up and he was a military man. A medical man used to helping others. It made sense when she looked at it that way.

  How he was looking at her was another matter. His gaze set her skin on fire and made her forget that they’d known each other for less than a month. What did they really have in common, anyway, except for a house that she wasn’t going to give up and that he’d never get over losing—to her?

  She followed him into the storage room.

  “You showed me this before, but I didn’t realize all those bins were filled with Dottie’s Christmas ornaments.”

  Serena laughed at that. “What, did you think I had some kind of rock collection?”

  Jonas stood beside her in front of the shelves that held her numbered plastic bins.

  “I didn’t know, honestly. I’m impressed with how well-organized you are. I had no trouble finding anything in your kitchen. Where did you learn to be so neat?”

  “My mother’s a stickler for tidiness, and law school taught me that the answer is always available in the law, somewhere. You just have to be able to find it. Once I became a Marine wife, my obsession with organizing took over our household goods, too.”

  “The movers must have loved you.” Jonas smiled.

  Serena smiled back, not fazed by the reference to her military life with Phil.

  Her heart didn’t squeeze shut every time a memory came up, nor was she reminded of what she and Pepé had lost.

  Your heart has healed.

  She gave a quick shake of her head. “I don’t know about that.”

  She removed the clipboard she’d hung on a nail and handed it to him. “Here’s the list of what I’ve found, but it’s preliminary. I don’t know which lights are still working, for example, or if they’re safe enough to be plugged in. Some of the strings are from the
forties, if you can believe it.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” he said. “Dottie inherited her parents’ Depression-era habits of saving everything that had the remotest chance of being useful in the future. At one point when I was young, my father had to convince her that she didn’t need to save twist-ties anymore.”

  “My mother’s frugality was the same. She’s eased up as the years have gone by, but it’s hard to shake the lessons learned in poverty, when a family’s in pure survival mode.”

  “Dottie was a product not only of the Depression but of World War II. I think that’s why it took her years to let go of her tendency to make everything from scratch and accepting that modern conveniences aren’t all a waste of money.”

  “Yes,” Serena agreed with a laugh, “but she still insisted on preparing homemade meals for Pepé and me, and she never failed to bake him cookies and cupcakes.”

  Jonas nodded absently, studying each page of her inventory, stopping at items as they jogged his memory.

  “The star! Red lights on a tin shape, right?”

  Serena nodded. “Yes. It was definitely handmade.”

  “By Dottie’s grandfather. It was made for her mother when she was a girl.”

  “Most of the lights look like they’re probably burned out but you can buy those new vintage-style lights now, and I thought I’d get some, try to string them around it. Do you know where they hung it?”

  “Over the highest roof point. There’s a ladder back in the big shed.”

  “I saw it.”

  “I’m sure you have that inventoried, too.” He glanced up from the clipboard and stared at her. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”

  Serena’s stomach grew hot and her lips twitched, which made her grimace.

  “You have to keep your lips covered with the ointment so they’ll heal more quickly. Your cheek took the worst of it, but your lips have to be feeling raw.” He’d found all her first-aid supplies and added some from the medical kit he kept in his car. The healing balm for her lips was a godsend.