Navy Christmas (Whidbey Island) Read online

  “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 didn’t make her any happier about what he’d signed up for.

  “I should’ve insisted that you help Papa on the farm full-time when he asked.”

  “You know that would never have worked for me, Sarah. I have to be in the air. Plus the extra money I’ve pulled in hasn’t hurt, has it? I’ll be making more money in the Army Air Corps.”

  She knew it was true. He’d learned to work as a crop-duster in his early teens beside his daddy and older brother back in Texas. During the dust bowl years, Henry had gone west and found work flying crop dusters up and down the coast, from California to Washington. She’d met him by chance on the dance floor at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. Lucky for her he’d been on a break from flying and in search of some fun.

  He’d been so handsome, his face all lit up by the lights from the amusement games of chance. Each booth had bright white bulbs that glowed yellow at night. The night felt soft—the sun took longer to set in midsummer, and it had been so warm on the mainland, far away from Whidbey. Papa had taken their entire family off the island for the whole day. He’d used all the money they’d made from selling milk and told Mama “more money will come in. The kids need to see there’s more to the world than Whidbey Island.”

  They hadn’t counted on their youngest daughter, only fifteen, falling in love with a complete stranger. A stranger who showed up on Whidbey Island six months later to woo her. He caught flights up and down the west coast, arriving on Whidbey every few months.

  Sarah had been a senior in school the last year they’d dated and hoped to go to college some day. History had always fascinated her. She planned to work a few years after high school and save enough money for classes. But love won out—she and Henry had made a baby one night under the apple tree in Papa’s orchard. On the quilt her grandmother had hand-stitched for her hope chest. She’d snuck it out of the cedar box Papa had built, knowing the night was going to be cold. Knowing she wanted Henry to kiss her again and again.

  “You’re a good husband, Henry. And a good father. That’s why I don’t want you to go.” She wasn’t manipulating him; she meant it. He’d made enough money for them to live very comfortably on the land her father had given them, including the small cottage they lived in. He promised her the farmhouse once her siblings were married off, when he and Mama were ready to switch and take the cottage. Papa believed the farmhouse should always be for a growing family, and he wanted to keep it in Forsyth hands.

  Henry made sure she got her dream. Well, as much as she could, being a new mother and all. He helped her take correspondence courses so she could work at the town library as a clerk. He went to night school, hoping to one day have a four-year degree. They’d done well so far.

  Sarah loved books, stories, facts, history. And if the accounts of World War I that she’d recently read were any indication, she might never see Henry again.

  “Henry, remember hearing about how hard the Great War was on our families?”

  His expression softened, and for the first time since he told her he was going to fly for the Army Air Corps he looked doubtful.

  “Yes.” His grandfather had died in the trenches at Ypres, and her father’s older brother had come back shell-shocked and never quite recovered his original wits.

  “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, honey.” She walked up to him and threw her arms around him. He held back for just a split second and she knew.

  He’d already started to make the mental preparations to go. He had to. He was a man who loved his country and wasn’t going to let some crazy dictators around the world ruin it.

  Sarah laid her head on his chest and listened for his heartbeat. It was the one thing that could soothe her. When she’d started her labor with Dottie all she’d wanted was to rest on her side, her ear to Henry’s chest, the steady thump-thump taking her thoughts away from the excruciating pain.

  “Sarah. I love you so much, darling.” He raised his hand to her hair and stroked it away from her face.

  “I know you do, Henry.” She raised her lips to his and they shared the kiss that a couple does before a long separation. Deep, loving and warm. Never enough.

  “I’ll help you pack later, after I get Dottie to bed.”

  “I don’t need to take much. They’re giving me a whole new wardrobe!”

  He tried to amuse her, to crack lighthearted lines here and there while they gathered his few personal items and stacked them neatly in the small duffel the Army recruiter had given him.

  “How long before you ship out?”

  “I’ll probably get through the flight training pretty fast, and then be out there before the end of the year.”

  “Where’s ‘there’?”

  “Somewhere in the Pacific.”

  His expression was as neutral as stone and she knew it pained him to leave her, to leave Dottie. She also saw the pilot’s anticipation simmering in his eyes. Henry was gearing up for a fight, for the war they likely faced. Her heart squeezed with longing as she acknowledged, at least to herself, that it could indeed be the fight of his life.

  * * *

  HENRY HADN’T TOLD Sarah everything. He couldn’t worry her. Besides, he would come back—he was the best pilot he knew, and nowhere did he feel more at ease than in a cockpit.

  The recruiter had been slicker than any of the politicians he’d had occasion to ferry from town to town when his crop-dusting jobs had petered out midwinter. But Henry saw past the Army haircut and the quick talk. He saw a chance to really make a difference, to maybe even have a career that he could bring Sarah and Dottie along on.

  Sarah never wanted to leave Whidbey; he knew that. Yet with a little time and some persuasion from him, he thought she’d be willing to move. The recruiter had said he could get stationed in Hawaii! Why wouldn’t Sarah want to join him there, to have Dottie run on hot sand instead of freezing wet grass most of the summer? “I’
ll send you my paychecks as soon as I get them. My pilot training is going to be at Moffett Field, in California. I’ll be an aviation cadet, enlisted, because of my high school diploma. But I’ll become an officer if I can, Sarah.” He watched her long fingers hover over his freshly pressed undershirts, her lips wobbly as she tried not to cry.

  Dear, sweet Sarah. She was tough as nails one minute, a complete cream puff the next. It was part of what he loved about her.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Sure it is. You can save it all, or use it to buy yourself a pretty dress.”

  She threw down his one pair of pajamas and propped her hands on her hips as she faced him.

  “I don’t need a pretty dress, Henry. And I can make enough off the farm and my library position to support Dottie and me just fine. But I don’t give a darn about any of it. I want you to come back safe, do you hear me?”

  He stared into her green eyes and knew he’d come back. He didn’t have a choice; they were meant to be together.

  She’d said “come back.” So she’d accepted that he needed to do this; he needed to go.

  Unlike the reaction he’d expected, her capitulation didn’t make him feel jubilant. The reality of the months, possibly years, apart made his chest feel as it there was a huge weight on it.

  “I’ll come back better than ever, Sarah Jean. You just watch me.”

  He smiled at her, the way he did after he brought her to climax, the private smile that always made her blush. When her cheeks turned rosy he grabbed her hand.

  “Is Dottie asleep by now, do you think?”

  “She closed her eyes as soon as I turned out her light.”

  “Come to bed with me, Sarah. Love me.”

  “Oh, Henry.”

  She trembled with her need and he knew he’d remember this night through all his days away. He unbuttoned the six tiny red buttons that ran in between her breasts and slid his hand over her breast, encased in a simple white cotton bra. He teased her nipple through the material and she bit his earlobe.

  “Don’t torture me, Henry.” Her breath was sweet and her skin hot as she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants.

  “There’s nothing here but pleasure, darling.” He hiked up her dress and pulled it over her arms, which she’d lifted to help him. Her dress and his pants hit the pine floor of the farmhouse at the same time, followed quickly by their underwear.

  Sarah turned to clear the bed of his luggage.

  “Wait.”

  She turned back to him. “What?”

  “Let me do this for you, before we go to the bed.”

  He knelt down in front of her and she sighed, her hands massaging, then gripping, his shoulders. Henry had to have all of her tonight. As he breathed in her essence and used his mouth to make her cry out, he prayed it wouldn’t be the last time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Whidbey Island

  Two days before Thanksgiving

  SERENA 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 reache
d 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.