by Geri Krotow
The laugh lines around his eyes were deep, as if he were smiling, but his lips were stretched in what looked more like a grimace. As if he’d forgotten how to smile.
Oh, Henry, what hell have you been through?
Whidbey Island
Mid-November 1945
“I THINK YOU’LL enjoy this novel, Mrs. Vanderhosen.” Sarah wrote down her patron’s name on the book’s card, stamped the date and handed it back to her with a smile.
“Thank you so much, Sarah. You always know what I like to read.”
“Sure thing.”
Sarah watched Cynthia Vanderhosen as she left the small library. Cynthia’s husband had returned six months ago, and her figure was starting to show the results of their lovemaking.
Cynthia was pregnant.
Envy stabbed Sarah and she smoothed her work smock. Henry was coming home. He was.
A tall familiar figure walked into the library and up to the desk. Sarah’s hands shook and she sat on the stool, since her knees were shaking, too.
“Papa.”
“This came for you.” He handed out the envelope too many of them had seen. A telegram.
“No.”
“It can be good news, too, Sarah. Open it.”
She tore open the envelope and scanned the message. Read it again, to make sure it wasn’t a dream.
“What does it say, child?”
“He’s coming home, Papa!”
Sarah leaped over the library desk and gave her father the biggest bear hug she’d given either of her parents since she was a child and it was Christmas morning.
Her father’s arms went around her and he hugged her back, staggering back a step or two from the force of her excitement.
“That’s wonderful, honey.”
* * *
AS IF HER worry and all her questions had conjured him up from the dead, Henry Forsyth walked back into the farmhouse two weeks after Sarah opened his letter.
“Momma, there’s a strange car coming up the drive!”
It was Saturday and Dottie was home from school. Sarah had considered leaving her at her parents’ for these first few hours—she’d heard how needy, how eager, the men coming home could be. Would Henry understand that they couldn’t make love until Dottie was asleep? Or until she sent her over to her grandparents’ cottage?
“Momma, come on!”
Sarah ran to the door where Dottie stood, her hair curled and tied with a pretty red ribbon for her father. Sarah had dressed carefully in a new dress her two best girlfriends had insisted on buying for her. She’d secretly purchased some pretty underwear via mail order, to surprise Henry.
The stodgy car pulled to a stop in front of the house and a uniformed man got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the passenger’s side.
The shy, diminutive man in the passenger seat couldn’t be her Henry. He was pale, thin, nothing like the man she’d made love to that night at Moffett Field. Could the Army have made a mistake? Like when newborns got switched at hospitals?
The driver opened the side door, and when Henry stood up Sarah knew it was him. No one had shoulders that broad, no matter how skinny they were. And his eyes—haunted, pained but no doubt Henry’s.
“Daddy!” Dottie was ahead of her down the few porch steps and flung herself at Henry, causing him to lean against the car for support.
“Henry.” Sarah made the last few steps to her husband. The last few steps of the long, long war years.
He met her gaze and she wondered if it was possible for her heart to swell with love and gratitude while breaking at the same time.
“Oh, Henry, what did they do to you?”
“I’ve made it back, Sarah. I’m home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Whidbey Island
Four days before Christmas
“I HEARD YOU and Armando had a good time with Pepé.”
Emily took the handle of their large cart from Serena. They were off island for a quick trip to the big-box stores in Bellingham, a town about an hour from Oak Harbor.
“That’s an understatement. Your brother is a hoot—he had Pepé giggling all afternoon. We almost got kicked out of the movie!”
“I’m sorry he’s not your type.” Serena looked over a boxed set of Pepé’s favorite superhero books. He’d love to find it under the tree Christmas morning.
“Not my type?” Emily stared at Serena. Before she could respond, Emily said, “Oh, you mean he’s too young for me.” She selected a large tin of Belgian chocolates from the shelf. The toys and the holiday gifts were all displayed together, row after row of brightly wrapped packages vying for their attention.
“I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean to sound like a bitch.”
“But you did.” Emily smiled. “I understand—he’s your brother. He happens to be eight years younger than me, but you obviously picture him with a woman more his age.”
“I can’t say I picture him with anyone. Armando is his own person, and he’s still young for a guy. He’s become a successful software engineer, something no one in our family ever did before.”
“You mean before you—you’re a lawyer, for heaven’s sake.”
Serena shrugged. “It’s...different.”
Emily sighed before putting the chocolates back on the shelf. “Why? Just because you’re the one sibling with a different father? So what? Why does it matter?”
“To my mother it does. A lot.”
“Your mother sounds like something else. Between what you’ve mentioned, and what Armando said, you don’t deserve the crap she’s piled on you. It wasn’t your fault who your father was.”
“No, and she doesn’t blame me for that. It’s the fact that I took Pepé and headed west after Phil died. She’d always hoped Phil would get out of the Marine Corps and we’d move back to my hometown and stay there forever. My mother doesn’t understand the need to strike out on one’s own.”
“You know, that’s why you and I have bonded. We’re the type of personality attracted to the military lifestyle to begin with. We look for what’s over the horizon. Some people are quite content to stay in the same place their entire lives.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” Serena took the cart handle and steered them toward the racks of clothes. She needed to find some new pajamas for Pepé.
“Besides, I didn’t choose the military lifestyle. Phil did.”
“No, but you chose it when you picked him. Think about it.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“So, when are you going to tell me how your date with Jonas went?” Emily picked up a pair of slipper-socks as casually as if she wasn’t asking for the most private details of Serena’s life.
“It was...nice.”
“Oh?”
“We did it. Yes, we did. There, is that better? I finally had sex after almost three years of celibacy!”
Emily’s eyes widened and she broke into a grin. A woman near them whispered to her husband, and another customer smiled knowingly.
Serena groaned. “What is my problem?”
“You’re happy. You’re in love?”
“No, no L-word, Emily.” Serena let out an exclamation of triumph at the pair of cartoon-character pajamas she found in Pepé’s size.
“Pepé is going to love these.”
“He’ll like them, but a boy needs toys.” Emily glanced at their cart. “Do you want to go back to the toy section?”
Serena looked at her phone for the first time. “No, we’d better check out. I don’t want to risk being late for the school bus.”
“Okay, I’m going to run and get a case of tuna. I’ll meet you at the cash registers.”
“Fine.”
Serena watched Emily bounce off and wondered i
f her friend was seeing something she’d missed.
Was she falling in love with Jonas?
* * *
JONAS LOOKED AT his brother as Paul went over the paperwork for the land parcels he’d purchased six months ago.
Right after Dottie died, before he’d met Serena.
Paul skimmed a few more paragraphs, his body relaxed in the executive chair behind his large oak desk. The large window behind him overlooked Puget Sound, where the whitecaps were visible.
Jonas felt most at home in a hospital or clinic situation, but even he had to admit his brother had a great office.
There’d been a gale last night, still evident in the roiling water far below.
Jonas had tried to not worry about Serena and Pepé. They weren’t his responsibility.
He’d been called into the hospital to cover the night shift. It didn’t escape him that if he’d been home all night, he might have ended up back at Serena’s. To check on them—make sure the pipes weren’t freezing.
“Are you sure you’re ready to do this? You’ve been so determined to get that house back.” Paul’s gaze was clear, but his expression neutral. Full lawyer-mode.
“It’s their home now. I have a house, and Dottie’s left me a good sum, as you know. In a few years I’ll build a place farther out from town, with a little extra land. It’s not important where.”
Not anymore.
Paul stared at him. Jonas fought the urge to squirm under his scrutiny. Paul didn’t know everything, much as he thought he did.
“What?”
“I got the impression you and Serena had something between you.”
“Nothing that’s going to last.”
“Is it because of Pepé?”
Jonas fought the urge to punch the smug look off Paul’s face.
“I’m not ready for a family, Paul.”
“Why not? You’ve got your dream orders back here. You can finish up your entire career on Whidbey. If you had a family, they wouldn’t have to move.”
“Being a father isn’t in my DNA.” Visions of the children he’d been unable to save flashed in front of him. His body became hot and then cold, and he started to shiver.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“No.”
Paul nodded. “Okay.” Back to lawyer business, Paul shoved the papers across the table toward Jonas.
“Sign them where my paralegal’s put the flags. Initial the bottom of each page. When you’re ready, we’ll place an ad in the local paper.”
“I don’t want an ad in the paper. I want to give the land to Serena.” He shrugged. “I used the money I saved on my last two deployments to buy the land, and it wasn’t a huge expense, since most of it’s unworkable and too uneven to put a house on.” He took the sheaf of papers and the manila folder and got up to leave.
“Jonas.”
He turned back toward his older brother. The boss of their clan. “What?”
“If you won’t talk to me, you should talk to someone. Maybe even Serena. Let her know why you aren’t going for the prize here.”
“Since when did you become an expert in love?”
Paul’s eyes widened at the same moment Jonas realized what he’d said.
Son of a bitch.
“Seems to me you’re earning your own expertise in that area, little bro.”
Jonas stared at Paul for at least a minute before he turned and left. Sometimes his brothers knew him too well.
* * *
SERENA HAD TO push the speed limit the entire way back to the island, but somehow she dropped off Emily and was back at the farmhouse with a half hour to spare before she had to get Pepé.
“Go run off some steam, boy,” she admonished Ronald, who wanted to sniff and inspect every little purchase she hauled into the house.
Back at the SUV she leaned into the back and tugged on a huge bag of dog food. It was Ronald’s favorite—a salmon-and-potato mix that did wonders for his coat, which was prone to skin ailments on lesser-quality food.
“Argh.” She sounded like a darned pirate, but the bag was heavy. As she started to carry it, she heard a familiar gait on the gravel behind her.
“I’ll get it.”
She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Jonas.
Still, her heart pounded and her hands shook in a combination of surprise and relief. Surprise that he was here. And relief, too, that he was here, that she’d immediately known it was Jonas. She hadn’t lied to him or Emily—she felt safe here. During the day. At night, she got a little nervous, but since the sheriff’s department and city police had rounded up the meth ring, the incidents of petty crime on island had dwindled.
“Sorry. I left my truck at the bottom of the drive and walked up.”
“Oh.” She stared at him. He looked too damn good. She knew they’d never make a go of it, not with his aversion to family life and future children. It didn’t stop her from reacting to his sheer sensuality.
You’ll always react to him.
“Here, I’ll get the dog food.” He reached around her and heaved the sack onto his shoulder as though it were a pillow instead of forty pounds.
“Thanks.” She followed him to the front porch where he turned to her.
“Where to?”
“You can set it here. I can get it into the pantry myself.”
He didn’t argue, which should have been her first clue that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant visit.
Nor were they going to jump into bed. Even if they could, she had to leave to pick up Pepé in twenty minutes.
What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking of making love to Jonas when they had no future and he didn’t care enough to bend his rules for her and Pepé.
The bag landed on the porch with a thud. Jonas came back down the three steps and stood in front of her.
“I came to let you know why I can’t be with you, Serena.”
“You’ve already been pretty clear on that, Jonas.”
She felt the heat of embarrassment, then told herself that no, she wasn’t going to feel ashamed for the way she’d been with Jonas. How she felt about him.
“I haven’t been totally honest,” he muttered.
“Do you want to come in? I can make you a quick cup of coffee before I have to get Pepé.”
“No, this won’t take long.”
Oh.
He looked past her, at some point in the canopy of the fir trees that made up most of the woods in front of the house.
“I lost two kids when I was assigned downrange.”
“What do you mean?”
“Two children came in with injuries from a bombing. I’d saved dozens with the same wounds. It’s never easy, or a sure thing, but they should have lived.”
“They didn’t?”
“No.”
“I’m so sorry, Jonas.”
He shrugged. “So am I. PTSD and nightmares is part of the coming-home experience. I know that. Hell, I’m trained to treat it. Now that I’ve been dealing with it myself, I’ve had to come to terms with who I really am inside. I’m a loner, Serena, and family life isn’t in the cards for me.”
She watched him. No way was she going to say something soothing or nice to let him off the hook.
“Hasn’t anyone ever done something nice for you, Jonas?”
“Of course they have. What does that have to do with this?”
“Your lack of trust, not to mention your assumption that I have to be in a relationship that’s headed somewhere permanent, astounds me.”
“You’re not the friends-with-benefits type, Serena.”
“You’re so sure about that?”
They stood toe-to-toe, eyes locked, chests rising and falling as the
y breathed. Serena felt as if she was gasping for air while Jonas looked angrier than she’d ever seen him—maybe even more than the night she attacked the heroin addict.
The sexual energy between them flared as quickly as a spark on dry kindling.
Do. Not. Make. A. Move.
She ordered herself to hang tight, not to react to the desire that pulsed through her.
Jonas’s eyes flashed a warning and he lowered his head. Serena closed her eyes in anticipation of his lips on hers.
“I can’t do this, Serena.” His hot breath registered on her mouth at the same moment she heard the crunch of gravel under his boots.
She opened her eyes in time to see his retreating back as he walked to his Jeep.
Jonas left her standing at the front door of the farmhouse.
She wanted to scream at him for being such a damned coward. But that wasn’t going to change anything.
Serena knew what she had to do.
* * *
THREE DAYS BEFORE Christmas the Scott law office was decked out with tasteful Northwest-inspired decorations. From the cedar garland around the front entry to the beautiful noble fir in the reception area, the holiday couldn’t be denied.
That merry sentiment wasn’t reflected in the atmosphere in Paul’s office, however. Serena stood at his desk while she tried to explain her logic to him.
“I had to tell you, because you’re my boss, even if I haven’t started coming into the office yet.” Paul had been eager for Serena to begin work, so he’d sent some case files home for her to look at.
She’d taken advantage of the entrée to get some of her personal legal work taken care of.
“I was hoping that if I draw up the papers, you’ll look them over for me, for accuracy. It’s to show my goodwill in all of this, and to protect Jonas.”
Paul Scott was as inscrutable as Jonas. It had to be a family trait.
“Let me get this straight. You want to gift the house to Jonas, yet continue to rent it from him?”
She nodded. “Yes. But only for twelve months. I don’t want to move Pepé too soon. We might stay in the area, at which point I’ll find us a place in town. Something more modern that won’t require so much creativity to maintain.” She smiled, hoping Paul would laugh.
