Geri Krotow - Navy Christmas

“Commander Scott, this is Pepé, my main man. I’ve known this kid since he moved on island last spring. He’s a champ. Pepé, this is Commander Scott, and he’s going to take care of you.” Doc raised his hand for Pepé’s high-five slap.

“Yes, sir.”

Jonas gritted his teeth for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. This wasn’t going to be easy. If Doc Franklin had made the connection between Serena and Jonas, he wasn’t talking. And Jonas wasn’t about to mention it now, not after already shoving his foot down his throat twice.

Jonas walked Pepé and Serena back to the check-in station. He gestured for her to take the seat next to the computer desk as he smiled at Pepé.

“Go ahead and scoot up on the table for me, buddy.”

“Am I going to get a sticker?”

“After I check your ears, sure.”

“You sounded angry about the stickers, Mr. Scott.”

“It’s Commander Scott, Pepé.”

Serena’s smooth correction made Jonas smile. He had to hand it to her—she was raising the boy to show respect and courtesy.

“If it’s okay with your mom, you can call me Jonas, Pepé. I’m not a doctor like Doc Franklin. I’m a nurse practitioner and I can take care of you, too.”

“Mom, is it okay?”

“Sure, mi hijo. ”

Jonas didn’t like the tired lines under her eyes. He disliked more that he cared about her parental exhaustion.

This was the woman who Dottie had given his house to.

Best to stick to the basics.

“ID?”

She handed over her and Pepé’s military ID cards.

Jonas’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he automatically typed in Pepé’s last name, the active-duty sponsor’s social security number—

His hands stilled.

Delgado, Philip. Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps. Deceased.

He knew Serena was a war widow. That she had a son. But to read it, in black and white, made him wish he could have been there, could have saved her husband. Anything to take the sorrow from her eyes.

He looked back at her. Her gaze was intent on her son and Jonas waited for her to look back up at him. When she did he saw the cold edge of distrust in her eyes.

She’d never believe his thoughts—she’d assume he wished her husband had lived so that Dottie wouldn’t have left the house to her. As he typed in the pertinent information about Pepé, his mind kept going over his last conversation with Dottie.

“You’ll love Serena. It’s as though she’s always been here. And her son, Pepé, is a doll.”

“Mom, I don’t understand why you never met her before now.”

Dottie had been his stepmother but he’d always called her “Mom.”

“Your uncle was a troubled man ever since he was a teenager. My father sent him to his family in Texas to get his life together after his Navy time was up. Instead of working on the ranch, making a living, he got a girl pregnant—Serena’s mother—who never wanted anything more to do with him. Her family supported her and her new baby. Serena didn’t know she had a biological family on her father’s side until your uncle died.”

Dottie’s heart had been so big. She’d been a successful Realtor—a single, never-married woman, liberated for her generation. Until Jonas’s widowed father, more than a decade her junior, showed up with four little boys. After that, she’d become a devoted wife and mother without missing a beat.

It had always been understood that Jonas would get the farmhouse. Dottie had repeatedly promised it to him. She’d planned to move into a more senior-friendly condo in downtown Oak Harbor once he returned from his seven-month deployment.

Instead, she’d died at the hands of a murderer soon after changing her will to leave Serena and Pepé the house.

Would Dottie have done that if Serena had a husband and home to go back to in Texas?

They’d never know.

* * *

SERENA WATCHED JONAS’S face closely. Only a quick intake of breath, a scant second’s pause, as he read over her military dependent ID card. She forced her shoulders to relax—he knew about her and Pepé; there was nothing to hide. His emails inquiring as to whether she’d be willing to sell the house to him hadn’t surprised her, but the strength of her reaction had.

She’d made it clear that it was her house now, and it wasn’t for sale. It was going to stay in the Forsyth family as Dottie had wished.

He’d never replied in full to her last refusal of his offer, sending her a one-liner stating that he’d come to meet with her once he returned from downrange.

When he looked back up at her now, she tried to glance past him at the computer screen, anywhere but at the eyes as blue as Texas bluebonnets, blazing with an intensity that made her blood feel like lava in her veins. This heat didn’t come from the anger she’d experienced moments before. It was the kind of heat that two people share when they’re attracted to each other.

Her hormones had been relatively dormant since Phil’s death. Why did they have to start humming now? With the man who wanted to take Dottie’s house from her?

Not for the first time since Dottie’s will was read, Serena wondered what Dottie had been thinking. She must have expected her change of plans to upset Jonas, her stepson. She’d betrayed the man to whom she’d originally promised the house.

Jonas handed her ID back to her and she reflexively reached for it. But he held on to it for a moment, and she forced herself to look at him again.

“Again, Serena, I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ve caught me at my most butt-faced moment.”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to stay that word!” Pepé said in his high-pitched voice.

“You’re right, Pepé. I’m not using my best manners today.”

“You need a time out.” Pepé spoke matter-of-factly and Serena winced at how closely his tone mimicked hers. Did she sound that stern with him when he acted out?

“I need more than that, my man.” Jonas swiveled his stool in front of Pepé, who sat on the small, kid-size examination table.

“You’re not a doctor, right?”

“No, like I said, I’m a nurse practitioner, and I’ll be looking after you.”

“Okay.” Pepé’s ever-practical acceptance never ceased to awe Serena. Acceptance saved one from a lot of grief and sorrow.... “Pepé, what have we discussed about correcting adults?”

“You have to listen to your mother, buddy, but you’re a good man to call me on my bad language.” Jonas smiled at Pepé and Serena curled her toes.

Jonas Scott wasn’t so easy to write off as a man who’d get over the loss of the house once he adjusted to her and Pepé living there. He was fully alive, fully present. And she found him as handsome in person as the photos of him in Dottie’s house had hinted.

She gave Jonas credit; he didn’t cover it up when he made a mess of things. She’d keep her observation to herself, though. She didn’t know him well enough yet. He hadn’t been able to make it home in time for Dottie’s funeral; he’d been too far downrange, too deep in country. He’d told his brothers to go ahead with it and not to wait for him. The oldest brother, Paul, was an attorney and kept her informed all along of the process of Dottie’s murder investigation, Serena’s initial status as a possible suspect and then the reading of the will.

Paul had supported her because, by blood, Dottie was her aunt. Dottie had loved her and Pepé as if they’d been a part of one another’s lives forever and not the short six months they’d shared before Dottie died. Because Dottie had vouched for Serena and introduced her to the other Scott brothers and their families, Paul believed in her innocence. Serena had been quickly removed from the suspect list by the island sheriff, so she hadn’t needed Paul’s legal support, after all. But it had been nice to know someone had her back.