Navy Christmas (Whidbey Island)

by Geri Krotow

“Oh.”

  She tried to swallow her disappointment.

  He turned his gaze on her, his eyes on fire. “Are you upset for the reason I think you are, Sarah?”

  A blush crept up her face and she averted her eyes. “I’m fine. Just trying to get everything done in time for Christmas.”

  “I miss you in that way, too.”

  Without thought she found herself seeking his gaze again. Were those flickers of desire in her husband’s eyes?

  “Oh.”

  Henry laughed. The lines around his eyes deepened and he threw his head back. His old laugh hadn’t entirely returned but this was close enough.

  “Is that all you can say, sweetheart—‘oh’?”

  “No. I mean, you’ve been through so much...”

  He approached her, never taking his eyes off her face.

  “How long until we have to get Dottie from school?” He took the rolling pin from her shaking hands and placed it on the floured butcher block.

  “Not till three.”

  “It’s only ten. What on earth could we do until then?”

  “You said you’re going to meet Papa.”

  “I never made plans with him. I can easily go see him later.”

  He untied her apron and removed it, his fingers on the front buttons of her dress before she had a chance to register that Henry wanted her.

  Now.

  “Henry, are you ready for this?”

  “Oh, I’ve been ready, Sarah. I wanted to make sure you were happy to have me back. That Dottie wasn’t scared by me.”

  “I’ve missed you so much.” There they were again, those dratted tears.

  “It’s been a long while. I can’t promise to go slow these first few times, my love.” He wiped her tears before he leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, breathing her in.

  Afraid he’d change his mind, she slipped her arms around his waist. He was still too skinny, but he was starting to fill out. Christmas would help.

  “Thank you for waiting for me, Sarah.”

  “Henry, I’d have waited for you until the day I died.”

  “I know.” He kissed her then, and it was the most erotic kiss of Sarah’s life. His lips were at once familiar and new. Her Henry knew how to please her, how to coax her into full passion. Yet the man he’d become was more demanding, strong, thrilling, than the man who’d left her to fly for their country.

  For the world, really.

  Like him, she wasn’t the person he’d left, either. She’d come into her womanhood and her need was an unabashed sexual longing that had gone unsatisfied too long.

  This wasn’t a time for sweet sentiments or longing caresses.

  They’d survived four years apart—with her sleeping alone in their wedding bed and him sleeping through God only knew what.

  His tongue wasted no time in reclaiming its prize as he kissed her with complete absorption. Sarah opened her mouth to him and threw open the protective shutters she’d closed over her heart.

  “Sarah.” Henry’s movements became efficient, demanding, needy. Her dress fell to the floor, the air cool on her skin despite the hot oven.

  “Here’s okay.” She knelt down and brought him with her, lying on the kitchen floor. His weight on her, between her legs, almost made her climax right on the dough crumbs. It’d been too, too long.

  “Sarah, honey, I don’t want to hurt you.” But he was already pushing down her panties, his fingers greedy for her. She was starving, too, and angled her hips so that he could better reach her. “You’re so wet, so ready for me, so sweet and sexy. I’ve dreamed of this.”

  “Hurry, Henry.”

  Their joining was quick and intense and life-altering. They’d survived the war; they’d waited for each other for four long tortuous years. Their patience was rewarded.

  Whidbey Island

  Christmas Eve, 1945

  “CAREFUL, DOTTIE. YOU know the ornaments shouldn’t get too close to the lights.” Dottie had exclaimed “ouch” several times as her fingers hit the brightly colored bulbs that were strung on the tree. She knew they were hot, but Sarah wasn’t so sure she understood the need for care with the paper chain.

  “I’m careful, Momma. Can I hang the angel Daddy made us?”

  “Sure.” Henry and Sarah replied in unison, and Sarah reveled in the sound. They were Dottie’s parents again—together.

  “Do we have tinsel?” Henry stood in the middle of the living room, at a loss as to where he fit into the routine that his wife and daughter had established over the past several Christmases.

  “I’m sorry, honey.” Sarah walked over and hugged him. He kissed the top of her head and she nestled her cheek against his rough flannel shirt. Since their kitchen adventure, they’d made love at every possible opportunity, and gave each other meaningful glances when they weren’t alone. It was the honeymoon they’d never had, the exploration many couples would be bored with by now.

  The few remaining couples who hadn’t gone through a war...

  “What are you sorry about?” He stroked her hair as they watched Dottie bounce between the ornament box and the tree, hanging each decoration with care.

  “You need your Christmas job, too. I put the lights on the tree, and Dottie hangs the ornaments. You want to do the tinsel, which I have right here.” She pulled away and rustled through the seemingly empty box on the sofa, filled with crumpled newspapers that held their glass, paper and tin ornaments the other eleven months of the year.

  She felt the sharp edges of the aluminum strips and she pulled her hand out, laughing. “Found it!”

  “I suppose there’s a special way to put the tinsel on.” Sarah smiled at Henry’s observation. She did have her own way of doing things and it was a definite adjustment to allow him back into her carefully ordered life.

  It was silly. But if she let Henry all the way in, let him take some of the chores off her shoulders, it made her afraid. Afraid he’d have to leave her again, and that she’d never get back to normal.

  “Where did you go, Sarah?” His hands were on her shoulders. Usually it was Henry who drifted off.

  “Nowhere important. Are you ready to hang the tinsel?”

  “Not yet. Tell me, sweetheart. Tell me everything.”

  “Oh, dear. It’s not very Christmassy of me, but I keep thinking I’m going to lose you again. That the minute I believe you’re back—really back, here, and safe—the Army’s going to call you up for another mission.”

  “Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her and murmured sweet reassurances in her ear. “I’m staying right here, darling. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  “ARE YOU GOING to have to go back to the war, Daddy?”

  He looked down at his daughter—his daughter!—whose eyes matched his own and whose expression was straightforward like Sarah’s was when he’d first met her.

  “No, pumpkin. I’m here to stay. I’m not going anywhere. The war’s over, remember?”

  Dottie nodded. “Good. Mrs. Albrecht says that we are lucky children to grow up when the war is over.”

  “Mrs. Albrecht’s partially right.” Her fourth-grade teacher couldn’t possibly understand the number of children who weren’t as lucky as Dottie. Who’d lost their fathers, brothers and uncles to the war. He’d even heard of nurses who’d died in the war, right next to the men they served.

  His jaw muscles tightened. A distraction was in order. “I made you something, Dottie.”

  “What, Daddy?”

  “Let’s see.” He made a big show of pulling the tiny plane out of his front pocket where he’d placed it last night when he’d been in the shed.

  “Here you go!”

  “It’s a little airplane! With Santa Claus flying it!”
>
  “Yes, that’s right. It’s a P-40, the plane I flew. Do you see the name written on its side?”

  “D-O-T-T-I-E. It’s my name, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I thought Santa Claus flew his sleigh with the reindeer.” The twinkle in her eyes let him know that she was well aware of who Santa was and exactly how her gifts found their way under her tree.

  “He does, Dottie. But sometimes he needs help, especially down south where it gets very warm. He has a squadron of airplanes he can hop into whenever he wants. He loads them up with toys for good little girls and boys and then delivers them.”

  Dottie smiled, a smug look on her face. “Nice story, Daddy.”

  “Yes, it’s an old one, and well-known.” He chuckled. “Will you do me a favor and hang the ornament?”

  “Sure thing, Daddy!” She looked like a little fairy, alighting on the coffee table in front of the sofa and then leaning over toward the tree. She hung the tiny P-40 on the highest branch she could reach, in the very front.

  He tried to absorb every second as best he could. Dottie had grown so much in his absence, yet he had an inkling that she’d be grown up and starting her own family in a blink.

  If only the war years had gone as quickly as the past weeks had.

  “You’re going to spoil her, Henry.” Sarah spoke from her rocking chair, the rocker he’d made her for a wedding present. He’d never forget how beautiful she’d looked sitting in it while she nursed newborn Dottie, or how lovely she was tonight as she knitted some mysterious last-minute Christmas gift. She refused to tell him or Dottie what the object was, or who it was for. It was mostly hidden in a canvas bag she’d fashioned from flour bags, with only the top of the brown wool visible as she worked row after row.

  He walked over to her, knelt down and cupped her face in his hands.

  “I plan on spoiling you both for the rest of our lives. Together.” He kissed her.

  “Ewww.”

  Dottie was growing up indeed.

  Henry didn’t allow Dottie’s disgust at her parents’ affection to stop him. He didn’t lift his lips from Sarah’s until he was sure she’d be as anxious for bedtime as he was.

  “Merry Christmas, darling.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Whidbey Island

  Christmas Eve

  “YOU REALLY ARE going to pack up and leave this house, Serena?” Emily looked at her over her mug of eggnog. The Christmas tree twinkled behind her and Serena tried to forget her memories of Jonas helping them hang ornaments.

  He’d helped with their entire Christmas. Until he’d become possessed by the Grinch, damn it.

  “I don’t have a choice, Em. But don’t worry, we’re staying here. I couldn’t leave Whidbey now if I wanted to. It’s where Pepé and I have healed.” Until her current broken heart, but that was another matter.

  Emily shook her head. “I can’t believe Jonas didn’t have the b—”

  Serena shushed her with one hand held up in front of her. “Pepé’s right here!”

  “Mom, is Jonas coming over for Christmas? He said he would.”

  First strike to her heart.

  Damn you, Jonas Scott.

  “No, honey, he’ll be busy with his own family, and besides, we have to get ready for Santa and tomorrow morning. Do you still want cinnamon rolls for breakfast?”

  “Mmm, yes!”

  Ronald barked.

  His tail thumped the floor.

  The doorbell rang.

  Emily looked at her, frowning. “Expecting someone?”

  “No.” As Serena replied, she got up from the easy chair and tried to see through the door’s beveled glass. All she could make out in the dark was a red blob.

  They’d missed the firehouse delivery of candy canes; maybe the firefighters had come back.

  “Pepé, see if there’s a fire truck in the driveway.” Meanwhile she made sure she had her fireplace poker in hand. Christmas Eve didn’t mean anything to drug addicts or criminals.

  Thump, thump.

  “Coming. Ronald, stay.”

  Serena opened the front door a crack at first, careful and wary.

  “Ho, ho, ho!”

  Santa Claus, in full red velvet apparel, complete with a snowy white beard, stood on her porch. She opened the door wider.

  Eyes as blue as Texas bluebonnets gleamed at her.

  “I understand there’s a little boy here named Pepé.”

  “There is! It’s me!” Pepé squeezed between Serena and Ronald. Ronald, damn that dog, had rolled on his back, waiting for a belly rub from “Santa.”

  “Santa, I thought we made it clear that...that there’s nothing left—”

  “Let Santa in out of the cold, Serena,” Emily interrupted her. “Pepé, go get some of those cookies you frosted with your mom. I’ll get Santa some eggnog.”

  “I think Santa likes milk, Auntie Em.” Pepé was serious about Santa’s needs.

  “He can have a little bit of eggnog, I think. It’ll probably do him good before his big ride of the night.” Emily laughed at her double entendre as she urged Pepé into the kitchen with her.

  Serena allowed Santa to enter, wondering if they could hide his real identity from Pepé. Pepé’s feelings were paramount.

  “Trust me, Serena. You have no reason to, but trust me.”

  His eyes were on her and she couldn’t look anywhere else. “I burned the land deeds.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I don’t need your land, Jonas.”

  “I know, you need...” He looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen and she followed his gaze.

  Emily and Pepé were mysteriously gone. Vanished.

  “Did Em know you were doing this?”

  He took her hands. “You need me, Serena. Pepé needs me. Admit it.”

  She stared at him, speechless.

  “Wait, let me do this over.” He took off his hat and beard, and shrugged out of his red coat. Jonas placed all the items in her small coat closet, out of sight.

  Jonas, in a thermal shirt and jeans, stood in front of her, his eyes blazing and the smile on his face incredibly irritating.

  “This isn’t funny, Jonas. Pepé’s going to come back out here and wonder where Santa is. And you’re leading him on.”

  He took her hands again and pulled her toward him.

  “I’m not leading him on—or you, Serena. I am so sorry to have put us both through my angst. I’ve never been so deeply in love before, and I didn’t know how to deal with it, especially when the woman I love was basically thrown into my life by Dottie.”

  He knelt down and pulled a box out of his front pocket.

  “I love you, Serena. I don’t give a damn where we live, whether it’s in my town house or a cottage by the beach. I only want to be with you. Will you marry me?”

  Oh, no. He wasn’t getting off this easily.

  “What about the house?”

  “Do you mean your house?”

  “How much moving around will we have to do, with the Navy?”

  “Not much. Maybe none. I’m a Navy man, so I can’t promise anything on that score until I’m out.”

  “Will you come to Texas with me to meet my family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, yes, Jonas, I’ll marry you.”

  Jonas stood up and placed the largest diamond she’d ever seen on her finger.

  “This was Dottie’s mother’s. Your grandmother’s. Your grandfather did well after he came back from the war and he bought this for her when your father was born. Mary had it and Emily helped me figure out your ring size.”

  Tears blurred her vision and Serena wiped away her tears with her sweater sleeves.

&nb
sp; “I’m so happy, Jonas.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  He kissed her, then kissed her again. It was the best Christmas Eve. Ever.

  “Hey, where’s Santa?”

  “Sorry, I tried to keep him upstairs—” Emily’s words reached Serena’s ears but she didn’t want to stop kissing Jonas.

  Jonas lifted his lips from hers but maintained eye contact. Pure love and the promise of Christmas future, shone in his gaze.

  “Come here, Pepé. Santa’s coming back later, but first, your mom and I have something to tell you.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from ALL THAT GLITTERS by Mary Brady.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  ADRIANA BONACORDA gripped the steering wheel of her rental car until her aching knuckles blanched white. Rain made it nearly impossible to see more than a few car lengths in front of her and the wind rocked the tiny compact. Addy prayed she could stave off the dark threats coming at her from all angles long enough to get to Bailey’s Cove, Maine, in one piece.

  “Stay away from the coast, folks” had been the last bit of coherence she had gotten from the car’s radio. All she heard now was squawks and dead air.

  Her phone still worked because it started ringing the raucous tones she’d assigned to her younger sister, Savanna.

  “Hello, Savanna, sorry, warning, the signal may break up.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Maine after Zachary Hale.” Addy peered through the wind-driven rain searching for her turnoff.