Harlequin Superromance November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Christmas at the Cove\Navy Christmas\Until She Met Daniel (26 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Whidbey
Island
Two days before Thanksgiving

S
ERENA
LUGGED
THE
last of the attic boxes into the spanking new climate-controlled storage room she’d had built as an extension off the garage. Both were connected to the farmhouse by a small mudroom. It was the only structural change she’d made since she’d inherited Dottie’s house.

“It’s
your
house now,” she muttered under her breath. It took time to adjust to the fact that she was a homeowner, and not only that, the home was where the woman who’d given her and Pepé comfort and unconditional love had lived her entire life.

It was already more than six months since Dottie’s death and the house still felt lonely without her. As if somehow the house itself wasn’t finished mourning the woman who’d filled it with so much love for so many years.

Nevertheless, Serena and Pepé had made it their home and the rhythm of their life had settled into a comfortable, manageable zone.

Until Pepé’s doctor’s appointment last week.

Running into Jonas Scott at the clinic had been her roughest time on Whidbey so far. Not counting the day, of course, that Dottie had been murdered at the hands of a psycho.

It stung that she was attracted to Jonas—attracted with a capital
A.
Of course
the first man to get her blood going since Phil’s death had to be the one person she had nothing in common with. Except for Dottie....

Besides, no matter who Jonas was to her, it was too soon to think about a new relationship. Her body was only starting to wake up after her grief.

Her back ached painfully, the muscles tight and weary after moving what felt like a ton of knickknacks. Aunt Dottie, and probably her mother before her, had had a penchant for collecting curios. Unable to fathom sorting the monstrous collection so soon after Dottie’s death this past summer, Serena thought her idea of placing the decades-old boxes in stackable plastic bins a stroke of genius. Until she realized each bin weighed a minimum of twenty-five pounds. And she’d had to purchase dozens of them.

“I am crazy.” The boxes were stacked neatly against the far wall of the storage room, but it was only a prelude to the inevitable chore.

Sorting.

“Mom!
Mommmm!
” Pepé’s cries grew louder as he zeroed in on her location. Like a bat, Pepé had his own kind of echolocation when it came to Serena.

Especially since Phil had died.

“Here,
hijo.
” She wiped her forehead and placed her hands on her hips. She’d gotten to know Dottie only in the last months of her life, and Serena’s appearance obviously came from her Hispanic mother. Dottie had been tiny and petite whereas Serena’s curves resembled her mother’s.

Mama.
Juanita Rodriguez was her rock, to this day. Serena had been all but abandoned by her biological father but Juanita had made up for it, as had her
abuela
and her
tias.
She missed her mother and made a mental note to call her later. It was time to start building the bridge between them that the pursuit of her biological father’s family had severely tested.

“Mom, look!” Pepé ran into the room with an action-hero figure, his focus entirely on the red plastic toy clutched in his small fingers. “I can fly!”

“Wonderful, Pepé, just watch out for the—
No!
” She lunged forward to catch him as Pepé’s arms flew out, his toy launching through the air as he landed on the box she had yet to stack.

The plastic bin toppled over and its cover popped off, spilling piles of crushed newsprint onto the tile floor.

“Pepé, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Where’s my hero?” Pepé scrambled to his feet as quickly as he’d fallen, his gaze intent on the stacked boxes.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Joseph Peter Delgado. I’ll find it, but for now, help me put this box back together. Carefully.”

Pepé frowned as he bent down to help Serena. He knew she only invoked his full name when he’d pushed it. He was a sweet little boy,
all
boy. The dull ache of loss pounded in her rib cage, though it had faded from the life-changing pain that had engulfed her when the uniformed U.S. Marine Corps team had knocked on their door in Texas two years ago.

“Slowly, Pepé.” She showed him how to pick up each wad of paper and check to see if anything delicate was wrapped inside. Most of the paper was yellowed newsprint that had protected Dottie’s precious memories.

Under one larger bunch of paper she saw a red knitted sock peeking out. Serena carefully pulled the paper away to discover a good-size Christmas stocking. It seemed to be hand-knitted, with the name “Henry” embroidered across the top in white and navy blue stars embellishing the foot. The yarn was scratchy and rustic. Serena wondered at the hands that had knit with such rough fiber. She enjoyed knitting but preferred the newer fiber blends like alpaca that felt like silk against her fingers. This stocking was a labor of love.

“Do you think there’s anything in it, Mom?”

“Maybe.” Probably spiders and other creepy-crawlies. She bit her lip as she reached into the Christmas stocking and felt a slight bulge in the toe.

“Let me see, Pepé.” She opened the top and saw a piece of paper that, once she pulled it out of the stocking, revealed itself to be a black-and-white photograph. It was reminiscent of a tintype in the way the sepia colors highlighted the image of a Navy sailor.

Serena flipped over the photo, looking for identification. All that was written on the back was “Charles—the man I wrote you about.” She placed the photo on a box and pulled out another. This one was of a small, happy family, the man in an Army uniform, a beautiful woman and little girl next to him, with “Graduation from Aviation Cadet Flight Training, August 1941” written on the backside.

“Can I look inside the stocking, Mom?”

“Sure, honey. But be careful—if anything bites your fingers, pull your hand out!”

Pepé giggled as only a boy can at the thought of a bug.

He thrust his hand into the stocking and it swallowed up his arm, almost to the elbow. His few remaining baby teeth shone as he smiled in triumph, pulling out his treasure.

“Mom, look!”

Pepé held up what looked like a toy airplane. “Can I have it, Mom?”

“Let me take a look at it first
.
” She rocked backward from her heels and sat on the floor. The ceramic tiles were hard and cold, but she remained focused on the tiny plane.

“It has some writing on it, and look who’s flying it, honey.” She angled the tiny toy so that Pepé could see Santa Claus waving from the cockpit.

“There’s a wreath on the tail, Mom.”

“And a name.” She couldn’t clearly make out the scrolled name on the side of the aircraft but it looked like “Dottie.” The ornament was light but solid, as if carved from a single piece of wood.

“What kind of plane is it, Mom?”

“I don’t know, honey, but we’ll find out, okay? As soon as we get the rest of this box put back.”

“Let me look to see if anything else is in there, Mom.” He made a point of carefully inspecting the box, removing each crumpled paper and smoothing it on the table. Just like she did.

She smiled as Pepé imitated her mannerisms. “Okay, but I think it’s empty.”

He made a show of reaching back into the stocking. Serena studied the tiny airplane in her hand. Who had carved this for Dottie? When?

“Mom, there’s more paper!”

“It’s to fill out the toe, honey.”

“No, I think...” Pepé pulled out a scrunched-up wad of paper that he unfolded.

Serena grinned. “You were right, Pepé. What is it?”

“It’s an angel, Mom.”

In his little hands was an angel woven from some kind of straw.

“Look, it’s been glued in several places. It’s old and fragile. Let’s take it in the house with us and put it in a safe place.”

“What about the airplane, Mom?”

“We’ll take that with us, too.” She shivered. “It’s getting close to dinnertime. Let’s go back into the house.”

Serena had to wonder if they were about to find out more of Dottie’s history than even Jonas and his family knew.

* * *

“
S
ERENA
, I’
M
NOT
angry with you,
mi hija.
I understand that you had to make your own way. You know, I envy it. I never had that kind of freedom. You have a degree, a career. You can support Pepé as I never could have supported you.” Juanita Rodriguez spoke to her on the phone as Serena prepared dinner.

“I’m glad you’re not mad, Mama.” Serena didn’t believe for one minute that her mother was completely over Serena’s taking Pepé thousands of miles from the family, but she did hear Juanita’s love in the softly spoken words.

“When is Pepé going to Skype with me again?”

Serena laughed. “Mama, you’re going crazy with your tablet!” Serena had given Juanita a wireless tablet for her birthday this past summer, and Juanita’s first request had been to connect regularly with her grandson.

“Did you know you can read on them, too? I read my sexy novels on the apps.”

“Don’t let Red hear you say that!” Red was Serena’s stepfather and she loved him dearly. He’d treated her as his own daughter her entire life.

“I like it when she reads those books!” Red’s voice boomed in the background.

Serena groaned. “Mama, I don’t need to hear this. I’m happy for you, but let’s keep your love life out of it.”

“Can I talk to Abuela?” Pepé stood in front of her.

“There’s a young man here who’d like to speak with you, Mama.”

“Put him on, but first,
mi hija,
know that I send you a thousand
besitos
and I love you, sweetie.”

“I love you, too, Mama. And kisses to you, too. Here’s Pepé.”

Serena handed the phone to Pepé and watched as he animatedly described his school day to Juanita, leaving out no tedious detail. Gratitude filled her heart. Their life wasn’t perfect by far, but they had more than most. They had Serena’s loving upbringing and the love that Juanita had taught Serena to share.

* * *

“M
OM
,
IT
’
S
THIS
ONE
.” Pepé’s enthusiasm lightened Serena’s mood enough that she was able to ignore the handprint he left on the computer screen over the photo of a World War II aircraft.

“The P-40 Warhawk. Yes, I think you’re right, Pepé.” She scrolled through photos of the plane that almost perfectly matched the tiny wooden version of it that sat on the desk next to the computer mouse.

“I like its shark’s teeth.”

“That’s how they painted the ones that were in a special squadron called the Flying Tigers. They’re tigers’ teeth, actually.”

She should let Pepé think the plane was a shark and not a machine designed to take out the enemy with its powerful engine and deadly armament, but she owed it to him to be straightforward about historical fact.

You can’t protect him from reality.

Unfortunately, the reality of war had taken his father from him, too soon.

“When was world war, Mom? Is it the one Dad died in, with the bomb?”

Why couldn’t World War II have been the last war ever?

Sorrow tightened around her throat and she paused to take a deep breath, a practice she’d learned during many similar conversations. Pepé would hardly remember Phil as he grew older, and his grasp of war and how his dad had died was nebulous at best.

“No, honey. Daddy died in a different part of the world, in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a bomb that hurt him, but a bullet.”

“From a sniper.”

“Yes.”

Pepé’s gaze remained on her but she saw his eyes shift to the airplane ornament. While it saddened her that he’d know his father mostly through the memories she shared with him, she was grateful he hadn’t suffered the grief an older child would have.

“What was the world war?”

“There were two world wars.” She picked up the wooden model, willing it to tell her its story.

“This plane was flown in World War II, in the Pacific, from what the internet says.” She held it in her hands, wondering again why Dottie had kept it. She knew virtually nothing of her biological aunt’s younger life.

Had it been from Dottie’s father? Her biological grandfather? Or was it another item Jonas Scott would demand she turn over to him and his siblings? Based on how long the ornament had obviously been packed away, she’d be surprised if Jonas or his brothers knew about it.

At the clinic Jonas had caught her off guard. She’d had to remind herself that he was the same man who had become her nemesis from the moment Dottie’s will was read six months ago.

Serena had been asked to attend the reading of Dottie’s will, much to her dismay. She hadn’t expected anything, especially not a house. Jonas wasn’t at the reading, of course, since he’d been downrange. In a war zone.

He’d emailed her almost immediately, offering to buy the house.

Unlike his siblings, Jonas hadn’t been interested in getting anything from Dottie’s estate, which had been considerable. He’d walked away with enough money to build his own home on Whidbey, and a nice one at that, or at least pay off the mortgage on the small town house his brothers told her he had.

She understood how easy it was for him to see her as nothing more than an opportunist who’d bamboozled Dottie. She’d had the opportunity—Dottie had received physical therapy at the clinic where Serena worked temporarily as a receptionist until she was sure she wanted to go back to practicing law full-time. Serena clenched her teeth at the memory of how damned rude he’d been in his last email to her, and the letter he’d sent registered mail, indicating his intention to contest the will if they couldn’t reach an agreement. In other words, if she didn’t accept his offer for the house.

He hadn’t legally, officially, filed an appeal for the will. She was certain it was only a matter of time. He probably thought that once he was back on island he’d be able to convince her to give him the house.