Harlequin Superromance November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Christmas at the Cove\Navy Christmas\Until She Met Daniel (28 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Whidbey
Island
Thanksgiving Day

J
ONAS
GROANED
AS
his oldest brother Paul swiped the basketball from his sweaty palms.

“You’re not going to get the house back, bro.” Paul dribbled the ball in the corner where his garage met the driveway. Paul’s know-it-all-attorney smirk irritated Jonas.

“Watch me.” Jonas held up his hands to catch the swift pass Paul attempted to make to Jim, and loped up to the basket to dunk the ball.

“Let it go, man, Paul’s right.” Jim caught the rebound and winked at his girlfriend, Lucy, before he attempted a long shot. Jonas intercepted the ball as it bounced off the rim.

“Stop showing off for your girl, fire-boy.” Jonas loved teasing Jim, the family fireman. Jim had always been fascinated by explosions as a kid—including blowing up their Lego models with firecrackers. The name had stuck when he went to firefighting school.

John, a successful landscaper and closest in age to Jonas, hovered behind Jonas, not allowing him to attempt a basket. Jonas long-bounced the ball to Paul.

Jonas had been back an entire two weeks from deployment, and they were all gathered at Paul’s house for Thanksgiving. He finally felt as though he was shaking off the last of his jet lag. He’d even made it through his first week at work. He laughed at how good it felt to be with his brothers, all four of them in the same place again. Thanksgiving dinner was going to be brutal when they sat down to the turkey Paul’s wife, Mary, was preparing with John’s wife, Jackie, but Jonas was grateful they were doing it together—all four of them in the same place again.

It was their first holiday season without Dottie.

“Are we sure they got the right person?”

Jonas’s question was as effective as a fire hose as his three brothers froze in their places. No one else had mentioned the arrest, the trial or the sentencing of the mentally imbalanced woman charged with Dottie’s murder. Apparently they didn’t expect him to, either.

“Go help Mary and Jackie in the kitchen, will you, Lucy?” Jim, the second oldest, spoke quietly to his girlfriend.

“Of course.”

They waited until the storm door closed and Lucy was safely out of earshot.

“Why the hell are you asking that now, Jonas?” Paul took over his eldest-brother role.

“Yeah, happy effing Thanksgiving. Pass the gravy.” Jim dribbled the ball.

“Give him a break, he wasn’t here.” John was quick as always to stick up for their little brother.

“Why don’t you all just kiss my ass? I was gone and I only know what you told me, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.”

“That’s because you were at war and didn’t need the distractions. The psycho woman who killed her was deemed mentally ill. Jackie has to diagnose these kinds of folks all the time.” John owned a thriving landscaping business on Whidbey. Jackie was a psychiatrist.

“Does that mean she’s locked up for life?” Jonas hated opening the wound for his brothers, but he had to ask the questions that email, internet searches and long-distance phone calls couldn’t answer for him. He needed to be with them, see their expressions. Needed to know that everything that could be done was done.

“She should be. Laws change all the time, and where she’ll be incarcerated may change. She’s criminally insane. She also got away with proving she never intended to kill Dottie.” Paul, ever the lawyer, kept his voice low, his expression neutral as he delivered the bombshell.

“What?” Outrage blasted through Jonas. “How do you kill someone deliberately by drowning and get the jury to agree that it was a
mistake?
”

Jim put a hand on Jonas’s shoulder. “You’re not asking anything we haven’t all gone over more than once. Dottie could conceivably have had a stroke while she was on that underwater treadmill.”

“AquaTracker.” Paul spoke up. Paul ran a good-size legal firm on Whidbey and knew the case inside out.

“Yeah, the AquaTracker in the physical therapist’s clinic. The murderer set Dottie up to go under the water, supposedly just for a few seconds. But it ended up being minutes, and at her age, Dottie didn’t stand a chance.”

Jim shook his head. “I was there with our fire engine, Jonas. Dottie was gone before we started CPR.”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to help you all through the trial.” Jonas meant the words more than he was able to express. They sounded inadequate to him, though. They didn’t truly describe his visceral reaction to the murder of the woman he’d loved so much. The woman who’d taken him in and given him what he’d lost when their mother died unexpectedly, leaving their dad a widower at forty-four with four boys to raise.

“It’s worked out, Jonas. Believe me, it’s better that you, of all of us, weren’t here. You would’ve beaten yourself up for not being able to save her yourself.” Paul knew what it was like to hear about a death that could have been prevented with the right people there.

“It took me a long time to get over seeing her in that way, man.” Jim ran his fingers through his hair.

“You’re probably right. But still, I hate that you all had to handle it without my help.”

“There wasn’t anything to do. By the time we got the call...” Jim spun the basketball on his index finger, his expression blank.

Jonas took it all in—his three brothers, the crisp air, the scent of roasting turkey coming out of the house through the chimneys and back door.

“It’s just not right. Dottie should be here.”

“We’re lucky we had her as long as we did.” Ever the optimist, Paul shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and rocked on his sneakers. “As horrible as how she died was, we didn’t have to see her suffer for years with an awful disease.”

Anger mixed with the frustration that simmered in Jonas. He saved people for a living but he couldn’t change what had happened to Dottie. “And now I find out I don’t have the house I always thought I would. The house she promised me. What have I missed?”

“You need to get over it, brother. Dottie wasn’t crazy and I’m sure she had her reasons.” Jim tossed the ball to Jonas, who grasped it to his chest. Just above where the ache was from all the loss. Dottie was gone, his career was in for a serious plateau during the next three years and his dream of refurbishing the family home had disappeared.

“Serena didn’t grow up with us, but Dottie had the right to leave the house to whoever she wanted to.” Paul’s deep voice rumbled with emotion. “I realize that’s easy for me to say—Dottie’s place wasn’t the first home I remember.”

“No, it’s not.” Jonas dribbled the ball three times and then passed it to Paul. “I don’t even remember our mom—Dottie’s always been my mom.”

“Are you still set on trying to buy the house back?” Jim had expressed his opinion that he thought Jonas was causing himself too much grief when Jonas emailed them all and said he’d try this tactic.

“Call me crazy, but yes, it’s worth a shot.”

“Serena and her son have been living there for over six months. Doubtful that she’ll up and sell it to you.” Jim stared at Jonas. “And she’s got something with Dottie none of us ever had—a blood connection. By rights she’s a Forsyth, and Dottie’s father always meant for the farm to stay in the family.”

“Dottie accepted us as her family the minute she fell in love with Dad.” Jonas couldn’t shake the image of Dottie’s grief when his father had passed away—he’d been her one true love.

“Winter’s setting in. When she sees how cold it gets, and once we get a good rainstorm that gets the roof leaking like it’s bound to, she’ll be happy to move out. This isn’t Texas.”

“I represented Serena during the initial investigation until she was cleared of any wrongdoing. Serena’s a nice woman, and her kid is sweet. She’s a Marine widow. It’s what Dottie would have wanted. They deserve a new start, and I’m glad she had time to get to know Dottie even if it was too short.”

Leave it to Paul to defend the interloper.

“Shut up, Paul. Obviously you’ve been listening to Mary. Mary thinks everyone deserves a second chance. If you’re so crazy about the lady who stole our house right out from under us, why didn’t you invite her to Thanksgiving?”

Jonas’s heated comment made the others laugh. Mary was a social worker who’d worked with many of the same clients as the physical therapy clinic had.

“Mary did, in fact. But Serena already had other plans.”

“Probably to redo the entire house.” Jonas knew it was her house, no matter how much Dottie’s not leaving it to him stung. But he couldn’t budge from his position, not in front of his brothers.

“Quit it, Jonas.” Paul was in full oldest-brother mode. “Serena is a great woman, and it wasn’t her fault that Dottie died, nor is it her fault that our uncle was her biological father. Shit happens.”

“Do you have the hots for her, man?” John looked so sincere Jonas almost laughed...while he waited for Paul’s answer.

“Give me a break, you squirt. You know Mary’s the only woman for me. Serena’s got a legal résumé any firm would scoop up. I hope it’s mine that gets her.”

“You want to hire her?” Jim’s curiosity was more ambivalent.

“I offered her a position at the firm whenever she’s ready to get back to the law. Although with the way some of us are behaving, I’m going to lose her to my rival firm in Langley.” He referred to the city on the south side of the island, closer to Seattle, as he shot a mean stare at Jonas.

“Whoa, I didn’t mean to rile everyone up. You want to hire her, go ahead. I don’t want to get in the middle of her life. I’m still sore about the house. But you’re right—she’s a nice lady. Her kid’s cool, too.” He looked at each of them for a moment. They needed his sour attitude like they needed dried-out turkey.

“So you’ve seen her since you’ve been back?” Paul missed nothing.

“She and Pepé came by the clinic. I should go visit her at the house and let her get to know me better. Hopefully she’ll realize I’m not some ogre intent on stealing her new home.”

“Aren’t you, Jonas?” Paul’s voice reflected Jonas’s conscience.

He sighed, spinning the ball on his finger. “I was, I am— If there’s any chance she’ll give the house up, I don’t want to risk it going to some stranger.”

“I still think Dottie had some reason for doing this, other than Serena showing up. Dottie could have left Serena the money and you the house. Why didn’t she?” Jim cocked a brow at Jonas, his knowing gaze annoying as hell.

“Let’s leave the problem-solving to Paul. Dottie wanted the house kept in her family—her biological family.” As he said the words Jonas didn’t completely believe them. Dottie had always had a motive for her actions. She hadn’t become the most successful Realtor on Whidbey Island for nothing.

He looked at his brothers. “It is what it is. Nothing we can do right now. So...let’s play ball.”

Jonas tried to get his mind off his heartache and his brothers off the topic of the house and back onto basketball. But he made a mental note to ask Mary a few questions about Serena. It never hurt to go into battle with an assortment of ammunition.

CHAPTER SIX

Whidbey
Island
Friday after Thanksgiving

S
ERENA
LISTENED
AS
Pepé sang along to the music from Walt Disney’s
Frozen
while she drove them back on island. They’d spent Thanksgiving Day at Beyond the Stars as planned.

Since they’d lost Dottie this past summer, she and Pepé were alone on Thanksgiving. She could have taken them back to Texas, but she wasn’t ready to face her extended Mexican-American family at a big holiday. Not yet. She and Pepé needed time to forge their own traditions, their own family way of doing things. She sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that Juanita had been so gracious about her decision to stay on Whidbey through the holidays. Otherwise, it would have been hard to fight her mother’s pleas to come home to Texas for Christmas.

Pepé had made many friends in his school on Whidbey and their families had in turn befriended Serena, so she never felt alone.

But when Val Di Paola, the director of BTS, had sent out the Thanksgiving invitation, Serena had jumped at it. Pepé had been excited to go back to San Juan Island, too, where he’d learned to jump off a diving board into the deep end of a pool.

Serena smiled. She could still hear Pepé’s squeal of delight when he found out that Val kept the BTS pool and sauna tub heated and running year-round, at her husband Lucas’s insistence. Pepé had frolicked in the water, and made Serena stay in the pool, as well, until they’d resembled the dried cranberries that had been in the turkey stuffing.

The air was crisp and clear and she was glad to be off the ferry after their rough crossing. Ferries were a necessity in Puget Sound, but Serena was a land girl through and through—give her a four-by-four truck any day. She drove the crossover hybrid, a fuel-conserving SUV that she’d traded in her truck for, off the ferry with care. The water was beautiful but bouncing around on it when the gales blew wasn’t her idea of fun.

Black Friday—the American shopping holiday. Back home in Texas she’d be standing in long lines as she and her sisters strategized which department stores had the best deals for Christmas gifts. She’d be tired and annoyed that she wasn’t back home with Pepé, who’d be curled up with her mother, his beloved
abuela,
while Serena shopped. A prick of guilt made her realize how much Pepé needed his family, all of it. She’d planned to spend this Christmas with Dottie, and her step-cousins. Paul Scott had been wonderful to her from the minute she’d met him at his law firm. The other brothers hadn’t completely warmed up to her but she’d hoped they would, in time, and with their shared memories of Dottie’s magic smile.

It hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped, but in some ways it was better. She and Pepé were cementing friendships all over the Puget Sound area, and she’d made strides toward mending her relationship with Juanita.

Nevertheless, Serena needed to figure out what to do to make her Christmas with Pepé extra special.

She pulled onto the long drive to the house.

It had been only been six months but she was proud of the progress she’d made on the property. Dottie had been a skillful gardener and landscaper, but her age and busy social life meant the grounds had taken a backseat during the past few years, at least since she’d been widowed. Serena knew that was eighteen years ago. Her stepson and Jonas’s older brother, John Scott, was Dottie’s personal landscaper but the grounds required more regular care, in Serena’s opinion.

The flower beds were covered with mulch and leaves for the winter, but in the spring they’d burst with daffodils and tulips, if squirrels didn’t eat the hundreds of bulbs that she and Pepé had planted last month.

The fir trees were naturally Christmassy and the way they lined the drive was so attractive. She’d found twinkling lights at the dollar store that she planned to wind around the lower trunks of several this weekend.

Doing everything on her own wasn’t easy, but she didn’t mind it, either. Serena was happy to spend time with herself. Dottie had understood—the first person to “get it” since Phil died.

That was another thing she and Dottie had shared—they’d both been unexpectedly widowed. Dottie’s only husband had died of cardiac arrest with no warning. Dottie had never married until she met Louis Scott, a real estate colleague who’d been widowed with four sons to raise. Dottie had kept her name, Serena’s biological father’s name, Forsyth.

Even so, she’d raised the Scott boys as her own. Jonas must have been particularly close to her as the youngest. Dottie had mentioned Jonas to Serena time after time, saying he and his brothers were the children she’d never had, and how grateful she was to have been able to be a mother to them. She’d told of how Jonas had taken to her and started calling her “Mom.” Serena blinked back the tears that the memory of the warm conversation with Dottie evoked.

But it was difficult to imagine Jonas Scott as anything other than the devastatingly, annoyingly handsome man with the surly attitude she’d met last week.

He hadn’t had an easy life from the bits she’d pieced together. His biological mother had died when he was two years old, and his father married Dottie within eighteen months of that. Louis, his father, had died when Jonas was still a teen—before he’d left for college. It had obviously been a crushing blow, yet Dottie and the stepsons Serena had met seemed to love one another and be happy in their lives.

Unlike Serena’s mother, who’d always been bothered by the fact that she’d gotten pregnant by a stranger in her small Texas town. She’d never forgiven herself, and this had passed the sense of shame down to Serena.

Serena thanked God every day that she’d gotten out of that Podunk town to go to college and then ended up married to a military man whose job took her around the country. She’d hoped to see more of the world, but so far Whidbey Island was as far as she’d come and she was happy enough with that.

Jonas had looked chagrined when he’d realized that she and Pepé had heard his harsh words to Dr. Franklin.

She really should have announced their presence sooner. It wasn’t fair of her. He’d just returned from his deployment, and Serena remembered how tired and scatterbrained Phil had been after long months downrange. It always took a few weeks to wake up to the reality of a more civilized lifestyle.

But Jonas had been such a “butt” as he’d said himself. He’d stirred her anger to a froth she hadn’t experienced in what felt like forever.

Once he made the connection he’d been much nicer, charming even. Of course he had; he wanted the house and he had to go through her to get it.

A jolt of awareness made her sit up straight. She’d thought of Phil without the usual sense of longing, of sorrow. It was the second time in the past few weeks.

Dottie had told her that one day her deep grief over her husband’s death had lifted and she saw life in full color again. She’d said it would happen for Serena, too.

Jonas Scott’s male energy certainly hadn’t been lost on her.

She looked in the rearview mirror at Pepé’s sleeping form in the backseat.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Ronald barked at her as if the request was a command for him and not Pepé. The fawn-colored Weimaraner/Labrador-mix puppy they’d rescued last spring was coming into his own as a full member of their family.

Pepé didn’t stir as she maneuvered the SUV into the driveway. Even though it was almost noon, the lull of the ferry and motion of the drive always made him sleepy.

“I’m hungry, Mom!”

Serena laughed. “How do you go from sound asleep to full-throttle in less than a heartbeat?” She roughed up his hair with her hand.

“Quit it, Mom.” He unsnapped his seat belt and was out of the back car door before she had time to turn around again, Ronald racing ahead of him.

She watched their forms streak across the fog-dampened ground toward the front door.

And the tall man who stood in front of it, his back to her. They weren’t used to drop-ins.

She felt a stab of fear and scrambled out of the seat.

The recent headlines across the local paper roared in her memory. The island was having a rash of break-ins, often motivated by an addict’s search for prescription narcotics.

She should have had the dead bolt installed as she’d planned.

“Pepé, wait! Ronald!”

But Pepé didn’t turn back toward her, didn’t acknowledge he’d heard her. Ronald skidded to a halt in front of the man and she heard the dog’s strident bark.

Who was the stranger at their door? What if he wanted to hurt Pepé?

“Pepé!” Her voice was sharper, the edge of fear stoking her anger.

“Mom, it’s Jonas!”

Breathing hard, she stopped running before she got too close. Close enough that anyone would see the fear and anger on her face.

“Jonas.” She welcomed the relief that it wasn’t a complete stranger.

“More like your sort-of cousin, isn’t it?” He shot her a lopsided grin and just like that her hormones were off to the races. She really needed to start thinking about dating again. Then she wouldn’t have such an overreaction to Jonas, the last man on earth she wanted to be aroused by.

“Sorry—we don’t usually get surprise visitors. Ronald’s protective of Pepé.”

“You mean unannounced visitors. I would have called, but it’s against HIPAA for me to look up your number in your records and use it for personal business. You didn’t give me your phone number yourself.”

“I appreciate your professionalism, uh, Commander Scott—or was it Captain?”

“I’m a Commander.” His mouth twitched.

“I didn’t want to demote you. I’m not familiar with medical practitioners for the most part, and then when you add the Navy, I get even more confused. We’re used to being around Marines. Well, we were.”

“Understood.”

She took a step closer. “Ronald, it’s okay.”

Her words were superfluous as Ronald had already deemed Jonas safe with an invisible doggy stamp of approval. He lay at Jonas’s feet, his belly exposed for a rub. Jonas obliged and she didn’t miss how nice his hands looked against Ronald’s silver-brown coat.

Couldn’t the dog at least pretend to have more of a vicious edge around strange men? Step-cousins included?

“We’re not blood relatives, not cousins, by the way.” There. It was out; let him go after her about the house.

“You mean like you, Pepé and Dottie.”

He looked up at her as he spoke, continuing to stroke Ronald’s underside. When he stood she had to look up. He was at least a foot taller than she was. And his gaze—a girl needed to watch how she interpreted his attention. Why couldn’t Jonas look more like a toad?

“I didn’t let you off the hook at the clinic. I’m sorry.” She owed him that much.

“Don’t be. I earned your wrath. And although I don’t deserve it, I’d like to start over with you.”

Serena smiled.

Jonas responded with a grin and held out his hand. “Jonas Scott, Dottie’s youngest stepson. Pleased to meet you.”

His hand was warm and strong as it enveloped hers. She liked his firm handshake—certain but not overbearing.

“Serena Delgado. Dottie’s biological niece.”

She met his gaze at the same moment a spark seemed to travel from where their hands joined up her arm. Judging from the interest in his eyes he’d felt it, too.

This wasn’t what she’d bargained for, this instant attraction she was experiencing with Jonas.

“Hey, what about me?” Pepé stuck out his hand in front of Jonas.

“Nice to see you again, buddy.” Jonas shook Pepé’s hand with the solemnity reserved for equals.

“Mom, can I go inside and play?”

“Sure, but no computer or television. Keep it to your toys or books.”

“But it’s a holiday vacation, Mom!”

“Take it or leave it,
mi hijo.
”

Pepé ran back inside, Ronald on his heels.

“You’re good with him.”

“Hmm.” Serena shifted on her feet, not sure where to go next. She didn’t remember ever feeling so completely exposed with another person.

Jonas was practically a stranger, yet he knew her life. He knew her father had abandoned her before she’d even been born, that she was a widow and single mother. He’d drawn conclusions about how she’d come to have the house. He probably thought she’d finagled it out of Dottie.

Yet she knew so little about him. Except for what Dottie had told her. Dottie had made Jonas out to be perfect.

Serena knew
that
wasn’t possible.

At the clinic he had played the straight man, the professional. He didn’t dare comment on her role in his family’s business in that setting.

Except for the venting session that she’d overheard, he’d behaved.

“You know who
I
am, Jonas. You know my family situation. You might even think you’ve figured me out. But I don’t know a whole lot about you.”

His blink indicated she’d hit her target. She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh but it felt good, if just for a moment. Let him judge her; she had as much right to be here as he did.

Didn’t she?

They might be unofficial cousins, of a sort, but the attraction between them glittered. Maybe she had too much Christmas on the brain, but she was mesmerized by the vision of a long, gold tinsel garland wrapped around both of them and drawing them closer.... Who needed mistletoe?

“Mom, is Jonas related to Auntie Dottie, too?”

“I thought you were playing inside, Pepé. This is an adult conversation.” She studied Pepé, his eyes wide. If he could raise his ears like a dog to listen better, he would. Her little sponge was taking it all in.

Pepé held up an apple and a cheese stick. “Can I have these?”

“Yes. At the table.”

“
Auntie
Dottie?” Jonas didn’t have to raise his eyebrows; his tone of voice made clear that his judgment of her was as clichéd as the gesture. Let him add the assumption that she’d used Pepé to gain an inside track to Dottie’s will and the house.

“We had a chance to get to know Dottie before...before last summer.” She stared at him.

“I never heard of you until six months before she died.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. His nicely formed, masculine hands.