LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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