Navy Christmas. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ what are you here for, buddy?” Jonas had pulled the thermometer out of Pepé’s mouth and entered the results into the computer.

      “I had an ear ’fection but it’s better now. No more yucky medicine!”

      “Okay, well, let’s see what your ears look like. He get a lot of these?” Blue eyes. Unblinking. Professional. No further discussion of the house they both wanted. That she owned. Not here.

      She wanted to grab him and make those eyes glaze over with lust for her.

      Maybe it was time to start dating again. Not Jonas, of course. Another man, who wasn’t off-limits to her.

      “Ear infections? Not until we moved here over a year ago. This is his third one since then.”

      “What convinced you to stay on Whidbey? It couldn’t have been just the house.”

      She heard the veiled cleverness behind his casual conversation. As if he didn’t know.

      “Life. Getting the house from Dottie was a dream come true.” That was plain mean. She opened her mouth to apologize, to appease her twinge of guilt.

      “Well.” His eyes stayed cool and made it clear that, like her, he wasn’t going to share anything more personal. His focus was on Pepé.

      Serena knew a moment of unabashed shame. She should give him a break. The poor guy had just come back from war, for heaven’s sake. His stepmother had died while he was gone, and he hadn’t been able to say a proper goodbye to the woman who’d raised him. Serena remembered seeing him in photos Dottie had scattered all around the house. In one photo, he’d been tall and well built in his Navy dress uniform, at his brother’s wedding.

      All the photos were gone—the brothers had come and collected Dottie’s most personal belongings before Serena had a chance to take possession of the house. They’d left behind Dottie’s collection of knickknacks and a house that was falling apart at the seams, if she were brutally honest. It wasn’t anything she blamed Jonas’s family for, though. Dottie was too busy making the most of every single day to concern herself with the daily maintenance of an old farmhouse.

      Dottie’s will and the fact that she’d given the house to Serena had become public knowledge only after Dottie’s funeral.

      He’d been at war. He deserved to know why she was the one who’d gotten the house. Problem was, she didn’t know why Dottie had left it to her and Pepé, either. A legacy gift, yes, but at the risk of so much dissension in his family. Especially with Jonas Scott.

      A quick knock sounded and a hospital corpsman popped her head around the door.

      “Your next patient is ready in exam room three, Commander Scott.”

      “Thanks, I’ll be there soon.” Jonas proceeded to examine Pepé’s ears, ignoring her presence.

      Serena’s chance to smooth the way with Jonas evaporated.

CHAPTER TWO

      Whidbey Island January 1941

      SARAH FORSYTH HAD seen a lot in her twenty-one years, more than most girls from Whidbey Island, Washington. She’d also found the love of her life in her husband, Henry, and enjoyed a life with him and her daughter that she had no desire to see upset with one of Henry’s crazy ideas.

      “I’m a pilot and I’m the best man for the job, Sarah. My two years of college are all I need. I’m going to be an officer.”

      Sarah tried to assimilate Henry’s words while keeping an eye on their daughter, Dottie, who was occupied with her rag doll near the woodstove. Their dinner plates were still on the table where they’d left them after Henry spoke the words that shattered their domestic tranquility.

      “We agreed that you’d keep flying whenever you had a chance to make extra money, as long as it didn’t keep you gone for more than a week at a time. Now you’re talking about, what, going all over the world to save people? You have a family here, Henry. Your daughter needs you. She’s not even five yet!”

      “Our country needs me, Sarah. If we don’t all pitch in, the Japanese are going to take over. If not them, the Germans. Do you want Sarah learning anything but English when she starts at the schoolhouse next fall?”

      “I want Sarah to have her father!”

      Rage welled in her, worse than when she’d fought him about moving back to his hometown in Texas instead of Whidbey Island. When he’d agreed to move to her family’s farmhouse in Washington State, she’d thought the flying bug was out of his system.

      “Honey, I knew Texas was too far from your family, and I knew you wanted to move back to the farm. I’m happy here, and we’ll all be happy here again, when I get back. When this damn war is over and we can live in freedom again.” His eyes blazed with a conviction that made her shudder. This wasn’t another of Henry’s whims.

      “But we’re not even in the war yet!” Why did Henry have to jump the gun on everything? “How much freedom is it for me to have to raise Dottie all by myself, Henry?”

      “You have your family here with you, Sarah. You’re not alone. The farm’s pulling in good money with the milk and eggs. Your job at the library is going to work out for you, too.”

      “But Dottie...”

      “Has a good mother who will take the best care of her.”

      “Momma, can I go play with my doll in my room?” Dottie never liked being around her parents when they argued, no matter how innocuous. She enjoyed the make-believe world she lived in with her Raggedy Ann.

      “Sure, honey. Be a good girl and put your nightie on, too.” It was best that Dottie didn’t hear all of this.

      Sarah looked at the man she’d fallen in love with when he was still so young. That was more than five years ago, when she’d been sixteen and he was eighteen. Henry Forsyth had grown into a solid specimen of manhood. Her specimen. She didn’t want him to die.

      “You don’t even know if they’ll take you.”

      Henry was much older than the local boys she’d heard had gone to Seattle to enlist.

      “The Army recruiter said I’m a shoe-in with my flying experience. I have to sign the papers by tonight.”

      Those commitment papers required him to complete Army Air Corps pilot training, or, if he flunked out, agree to serve as an enlisted soldier for a term of three years.

      Three years wasn’t forever; she knew that. But it was more than half of little Dottie’s life at this point. What about a sibling for her? When would that happen?

      Sarah knew that if the Americans joined the war Henry’s three-year commitment could turn into forever.

      In the worst way.

      “You’re lying. You already signed those papers while you were down in San Diego!”

      He looked guilty, which gave her hope for his soul but СКАЧАТЬ