by Geri Krotow
He didn’t. “What if Jonas won’t take it from you?”
“Of course he will, Paul. He wants the house so badly he can taste it.” Just not with her and Pepé in it.
As quickly as the hope that she and Jonas might have a future had flared, it had been doused with their last conversation. And that horrible, awful almost-kiss.
Paul quickly read over her papers. “It’s all okay from a legal standpoint, Serena.”
“But?”
Paul leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk.
“I trust my gut. My gut says there’s something more than friendship between you and Jonas. Dottie wouldn’t have willed the house to you simply because of the biological ties.”
She nodded again. “I know.” It had become so painfully obvious to her these past several weeks. Dottie had known exactly what she was doing. “It hasn’t worked out the way she’d hoped, however.”
How could Serena not have seen it more clearly when she’d walked in on Jonas in the clinic before Thanksgiving?
“Dottie was going to move out and leave you the house, you know.”
Serena’s head jerked back. “What?”
Paul gave a sharp nod. “She came in here and told me that she’d been thinking about moving into town, to a smaller ranch-style town house or condo. When I asked her about the house, she was vague. Of course I assumed she was going to leave it for Jonas. Now I know it was for you—and Pepé. And...ultimately, for Jonas, too.”
“Did Dottie always play the matchmaker in your family?”
Paul laughed. “No, not so obviously. But she didn’t have a problem speaking up when she saw any of us making a mistake. She made it known loud and clear that I’d better get off my high horse and ask Mary to marry me. Dottie was right—if I’d waited, Mary would have taken a position on the east coast and our chances of pulling off a relationship could have died.”
“I’m glad you listened to her.” And she was. Mary and Paul were a wonderful couple. “But Dottie had no way of knowing how Jonas and I would get along. It was presumptuous of her to assume we’d be friends.” Much less lovers.
Saving the ache in her own gut for some time with Ben & Jerry’s later, Serena stood up. “So you’ll help me do this, Paul?”
“I won’t stop you, Serena.”
“And our discussion is private.”
“Attorney-client privilege.” He stood up, as well, ending the serious discussion.
“What are your holiday plans, Serena?”
“Pepé and I are going to have our usual quiet Christmas Eve. Then Santa will come, and Pepé will open his gifts on Christmas morning. My friend Emily is joining us on Christmas Day. You?”
“Oh, the usual Scott craziness. If you think the cookie-baking party was insane, you should see Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Total mayhem. You know we’d love to have you and Pepé out on Christmas Eve, Serena.”
“I appreciate it, Paul, and maybe that will be more feasible in the future. Not this year.”
“I understand.”
“Merry Christmas.” She turned and left his office.
As she sat at her desk in the office the firm had assigned her, she had to admit that her heart felt heavier than it had since Phil’s death. It upset her that she was having a hard time shaking off a man she’d really only known for a month or so.
They’d only made love that one time. Okay, that one day, several times.
The legalese in the document was easy enough and she printed out a copy for Paul, which she left in his in-box on her way out.
Whidbey Island
Two days before Christmas
WHEN SERENA PULLED up to the house with Pepé she tried not to cry. They got out of the car and let Ronald out to romp. As she stepped into the entryway she tried to imagine not living here anymore.
It would soon be reality. By next summer, for sure.
It broke her heart. This had become their home, their destiny.
“Go get your chores done, mi hijo, and I’ll get supper started after a bit. We’ll go down and feed the alpaca later, too.”
“Can I have a cookie first?” Pepé was a bottomless pit.
“Sure thing. I made a batch of Dottie’s oatmeal chocolate-chip.” Her stomach twisted as she uttered her reply. Dottie’s home had become their home, too.
She’d learned that destiny rarely worked out as mere mortals expected. The house belonged to Jonas.
Making a cup of coffee, she looked out the window toward the alpaca barn and the area where Jonas had tenderly held her after she’d fallen from her struggle with the intruder. She’d known security and safety in Jonas’s arms.
It hadn’t been enough. Not for him.
She and Pepé deserved nothing less than 100 percent of any man’s commitment.
She grasped the handle of the small pitcher of half-and-half she kept on the top shelf of the refrigerator and poured it into thecoffee. The ceramic piece was a leftover from Dottie’s many knickknacks and pantry items.
She couldn’t stay in the house with all the memories of Dottie, and Dottie’s romantic dreams for her and Jonas. The house had Jonas’s memories stamped all over it. Dottie was her biological aunt, yes, but more importantly, she’d been a mother to Jonas and his brothers for over thirty years. Dottie would understand her decision.
She sat at the kitchen table and sorted through the mail.
A large official envelope from the Scott legal office was folded in half in the mailbox, along with an assortment of Christmas cards, mostly from her family and friends in Texas. Serena frowned. She didn’t remember having a copy of the lease and house deed sent here; she’d left her copies in her desk at the office.
Probably just Paul being thorough.
She opened the envelope and pulled out the documents. But they didn’t have her address on them. In fact, they weren’t the house deed and her rental agreement.
They were deeds to the land lots that surrounded the farm.
Serena stood up, took the documents to the woodstove and opened the cold iron door. She shoved the legal papers in with the poker, trying to stoke up some grim satisfaction at crushing Jonas’s guilt offering.
It wasn’t working.
* * *
JONAS STARED AT the legal documents the postman had pushed through the mail slot in his front door. When he’d bent down to pick them up after work, he’d thought they were copies of the land deeds he’d sent Serena.
He wished he’d never opened the envelope.
He finally had it. The deed to the house. With an attached rental agreement from Serena.
He’d fought for this for the past six months. Where was the elation, the satisfaction? Where was his enthusiasm for all the renovations he’d hoped to accomplish?
He held the deed in his shaking hands.
Realization dawned. Chagrin, regret and anger at his sheer stupidity raged through him.
He didn’t want the house. It didn’t mean anything to him anymore. Not without the right family in it.
He wanted Serena. Needed her.
Pepé, too.
“Who am I kidding?” He spoke to his empty town house.
He loved her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Whidbey Island
December 1945
“DOTTIE, TAKE THIS milk and toast in to your father.” She stood at the sink as she washed their breakfast dishes.
“Isn’t he ever going to eat with us at the table, Momma?” Sarah agreed with Dottie; she wanted Henry to get out of the bedroom more.
“Shush. He’ll join us when he’s stronger.”
Sarah waited until Dottie was out of the kitchen before she sagged against their small refrigerator.
Since his arrival home two weeks ago,
Henry hadn’t said so much as one word about what he’d been through, or what he wanted to do now. He was terribly thin, but her cooking and Dottie’s cheer seemed to improve his appetite. Sarah was relieved to see the color creep back into his skin, too.
But where was Henry? Her Henry? The man she’d fallen in love with? Made a baby with?
All her fantasies about a romantic reunion with her beloved were crushed under the reality of what they faced. They’d barely touched each other since he’d returned. He never rejected her, but he didn’t invite her, either.
She wiped at her tears with the smelly old dishcloth. Her tears fell so easily these days. So far she’d managed to keep them hidden from Dottie, but for how long?
Dottie’s confident steps sounded in the hallway and when she skipped back into the kitchen Sarah smiled.
“Did he like the toast?”
“He told me to leave the tray on the bureau.”
“But your daddy can’t reach it there, honey.”
“He said he’s getting up today and he’ll eat in the chair you usually sit in.”
Dottie spoke matter-of-factly, her eyes intent and her posture certain. Was there anything this child wasn’t afraid of? Her daddy had come back from war, years after she’d last seen him. Dottie didn’t even remember Henry, not really. But she’d gone right up to him and hugged him tight, giving him her love, the love of a nine-year-old, without any limitations.
What Dottie didn’t realize was that this was a big step for Henry. He’d decided to get out of bed.
“That’s a good thing, honey. Now let’s get you ready for school.” Sarah might actually have a man to have a conversation with after she dropped Dottie off at the one-room schoolhouse.
* * *
“IT’S BEEN HARD, too hard, on you.” Henry’s words were deliberate, his actions slow but steady, as he drank the milk from the glass she’d filled earlier. Sarah sat on their bed and he sat in the extra kitchen chair she’d dragged into the bedroom.
“War’s not easy for anyone, Henry.”
“It was selfish of me to leave you here with no help, no means of support.”
“We got every paycheck, just as you’d arranged.”
“I mean, I didn’t tell my brothers to come out and look after you.”
“All the way from Texas, Henry? That’s too far away to make a trip here. Besides, all but one of them went to war, too.” Henry had five brothers, one of whom hadn’t made it back. His parents had feared they’d lost Henry, too.
“I still can’t believe Jimmy’s gone.” His voice was even, not revealing the emotion she knew he must feel.
“You can’t hang on to it, honey.” She stood up and knelt at his feet. “If you need to talk about whatever happened over there, you know you can tell me, sweetheart.”
He shook his head. “No.”
It was the strongest word he said since his return. Tears stung her eyes, but Sarah wasn’t going to let this man see he’d hurt her. He didn’t mean to, and he’d lived through hell to get back to her and Dottie. She’d read the papers and the reports of how terrible the prison camps had been. She suspected Henry might have been in the Bataan Death March but was afraid to ask him. Afraid to trigger memories best forgotten.
“You’re here now, Henry. You’re home, safe. No one is going to hurt you again.” She kissed his hands, which remained limp in his lap.
Come back to me, Henry.
December 1945
One week before Christmas
SARAH IDLED THE engine on her father’s truck for a few moments after she’d driven up the drive to the farmhouse. A nice big Christmas tree was in its bed, chopped down by her father from their back stretch.
She made a mental note to plant some trees for future Christmases. Because they would have more here on Whidbey.
“Henry!”
She walked down the hallway toward their bedroom when she didn’t find him in the kitchen. Her heart started to pound and she fought against the anxiety that had plagued her since his return.
Had he decided that getting better was too hard? She knew of a friend’s husband who’d killed himself after he returned. It wasn’t public knowledge, and the cause of death had been listed as “heart troubles.” But they all knew—it was because of the war memories.
They’d called it shell shock in the last World War. Now they called it combat exhaustion. Sarah didn’t give a damn what the doctors labeled it; she wanted Henry whole again.
Relief flooded her when she didn’t find him in the bedroom or the bathroom. Her fear of finding him dead was like a constant unwanted companion. Like a wet sweater in the rain that she needed for warmth but was going to make her feel chilled in the end.
“Henry!”
Panic set in once she determined that he wasn’t in the house. She ran out back, toward the shed. Before the war he’d built it and found escape at the workbench, whether repairing the toaster or sanding the wood on Dottie’s cradle.
There were so many tools in the shed. So many ways— No!
“Henry!”
As she approached the shed her awareness slowed and it was as if she saw everything in Technicolor. The green of the grass, grown long with the fall rains, the crisp cold air that promised snow, the weathered gray of the shed she’d never gotten around to giving a fresh coat of paint while Henry was gone.
The shed door was ajar and she couldn’t call his name—her throat constricted with fear.
Henry sat at the workbench, hunched over his task. When he heard her enter he turned toward her and Sarah saw the blood on his hands, his fingers.
“Henry.” The whisper was all she managed before she collapsed.
* * *
“I WAS MAKING Dottie this. The darn blade was duller than wax and I cut myself so many times.”
Sarah was sitting on a blanket on the shed floor, her back against the wall of the building. Henry sat next to her, his expression expectant.
She looked at the small object he’d placed in her hands. “This is your airplane, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It was. It took me on many missions, until the last one when I got shot down.”
“Where did you get shot down?”
“Southern Thailand.” A faint smile appeared on his whiskered face and Sarah wanted to sob with relief. Instead, she listened.
“Sarah, I constantly wished you were with me and there wasn’t a war. It was a paradise. Beautiful white sand, clear blue waters. I survived on coconuts and other fruits for a few weeks.”
“And then?”
A dark shadow crossed his face. “Then they caught me. I was in the Philippines after that, and then they shipped us to Japan.”
“How did they send you?”
The dark cloud in his eyes threatened to eclipse the spark of life she’d seen.
“Boat. We got fired on, by the Allies. They didn’t know we were aboard. Almost didn’t make it to Japan.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
She knew most of the rest of the story. He’d survived internment at one of the notorious Japanese prison camps, where he’d watched friend after friend die. Charles Dempsey had warned her that Henry would need time. He’d been right. She really needed to write Charles a letter and let him know they were okay. That Henry was home, and they’d make it.
Somehow.
“I hope we hear from Charles. I don’t have his address.”
“We will. He’s that kind of a man—with a solid-gold heart.”
“I’m sorry I fainted. It’s just that when I saw the blood...”
“I know, Sarah. It’s been hard on you and Dottie. That’s why I made the ornament. We can put it on the tree. I want this first Christmas to be special.”
“It can’t be anythi
ng but, Henry.”
She looked up from the ornament and into his eyes. He was exhausted and had aged decades in the few years he’d been gone, but he was coming back. Henry was home.
* * *
“YOU’VE COLLECTED SOME nice decorations since I left.” Henry’s voice startled her out of her baking reverie. She smiled up from the pie dough she was rolling out for the marionberry pie she planned for Christmas Eve. She’d canned the berries in August, hoping against hope that she’d be able to use them for this pie. Henry’s pie.
“Dottie gets one each year. The ornament is the only gift she can open on Christmas Eve. She hangs it on the tree before she goes to bed.”
“Does she still believe in Santa Claus?” Henry’s voice was lower and she couldn’t ignore the trill of excitement in her belly.
Yes, he was coming back to them. This was the Henry she’d fallen in love with.
“She does. Well, let me rephrase that. She acts as if she does. She’s not stupid—she knows the source of her gifts. But let’s face it—she’s nine, she has to know the truth by now, although she’s never admitted it to me.” She took a sip of water.
Henry didn’t need reminders of how much he’d missed.
“I hope a part of her always believes,” she whispered.
Henry didn’t dwell on her comment and she wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him for being such a dear.
Not yet. He had to make the first move there. They were sleeping in the same bed again and while they’d started to snuggle for warmth in the middle of the night, lovemaking hadn’t happened. His nightmares still came, but he snapped out of them more quickly.
Henry was healing.
“Do you want me to make you a pot of coffee?” One thing he couldn’t get enough of since his return was hot coffee. Black and strong, no sugar, no milk.
She imagined it tasted sweet to him just as it was.
“No, I thought I’d drive out to the cottage and talk to your father about what needs doing around here.” Henry looked out through the window over the kitchen sink.