A Weldon Family Christmas: A Southern Steam Novella (Weldon Brothers) by Jennifer Saints Read Free Book Online

look at a person and instantly fall in love?”
    Emma hesitated a moment, unsure she was ready to open this door.  “I did,” she confessed.  “Though I didn’t know it until later.”
    James’ brows shot up.  “But I thought you knew Dad longer before you fell in love.  He rescued you and then you two got together after you both returned home?”
    “Yes, but there’s a little more to the story than that.  You see, my parents met and married within just a few months, and it was a horrible disaster.  So, I never really shared the timeline of when I met your father and fell in love with him.”
    Frowning, James leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, looking like John when demanding an explanation.  “You’ve never said much about your parents.  I just know that they died before we were born.”
    “I don’t say much because it isn’t a pretty story.  My Dad went to jail for domestic abuse, and my uncle killed him when Dad came back to kill my mom.  Mom then drank herself into a grave ten years later.”
    James sat forward fast and caught her hand.  “Shi-um, damn, Mom.  I’m sorry.  I don’t know what to say.”
    “There isn’t anything to say.  Other than to ask you to let me tell your brothers about it when I see the time is right.  The point in telling you now was to explain why I left out a few details about your father and me.  Meeting someone and marrying before you can really say that you know them doesn’t always work out well.  But then sometimes it does.”
    “So you’re telling me that you fell in love with Dad in just one look?”
    Emma smiled.  “At first I thought it was just because he got under my skin, but in reality he’d slid right into my heart.”
    “How long did it take you to realize how you felt?  How did you know he was the right man after living through what happened between your mother and father?”
    “I met your father in Saigon at a Christmas party.  We spoke for a few minutes.  I didn’t see him again until the next day.  Within thirty minutes he managed to get me fired from job, kiss me as if the world was about to end, and then walked away back to his post.  A few days later, I realized he’d taken my heart with him.”
    “You saw him again then?”
    Emma smiled as the memories rushed back as if it had been days rather than decades.

    Vietnam
December 1971
    “E mma!  There’s a man downstairs, asking for you.  He’s dreamy, too.”  Ginny Carlton, their ballerina Donut Dolly, twirled across the floor.
    Emma had just sat down to write a third letter to John Weldon.  It had been three days since he’d kissed her and left.  She frowned even as her heart thumped with excitement.  She only knew one dreamy man.  John must have come back to Saigon.  Rushing to her room, she brushed on some lipstick, patted her hair and hurried downstairs.
    Her gaze darted from one person to the next who sat in the cheery reception room.  The holiday time had the room crowded.  Still, she didn’t see John.
    “Emma Rollins.  It is you!  I can’t believe it.  I thought I saw you at the hospital today, but it wasn’t until one of the nurses spoke of you that I realized I was right.”
    Blinking with surprise, Emma swung around to find Craig Mason.  The high school football quarterback who’d taken her to the Homecoming Dance her senior year then made the mistake of inviting her to Sunday dinner with his family.  Whoever decreed that the sins of a father would be visited upon a man’s children, had to have grown up in a small town.  Her father’s drunken rages and her uncle killing him was infamous in the little town where they lived.  The Masons with their old money, ancestral home, and prestige did not mingle with the riff-raff of the town or their offspring.  The meal had been a strained affair, and Craig never called her again.
    Emma felt like cringing.  She wanted to leave her past behind her, but people and emotions kept showing up