The Soldier's Sweetheart

“Oh, come on,” she urged. “You have to eat.”

“I’m hungry,” announced Genevieve.

Will’s gaze met Samantha’s and they both chuckled. He tapped the tip of his daughter’s nose. “Well, then, Monkey,” he said, reaching to take the picnic basket from Samantha, “I guess we’d better get you dressed so Miss Howell can take us to the park.”

* * *

Leaning on one elbow, Will stretched his legs out on the picnic blanket and popped a bit of a fresh whole-wheat roll into his mouth, savoring the way it melted on his tongue. The roll was perfectly baked, just the way he liked it—crispy outside and soft inside.

Samantha, Will was quickly learning, was a lot like the bread she’d brought—a little hard on the outside, at least upon first meeting, but a real softy inside.

Samantha shrieked playfully as Genevieve chased her. The little girl was, as Samantha had predicted, having a wonderful time in the park, both with the other children and with Samantha, who at first hovered protectively nearby without making Genevieve feel uncomfortable, and then flat-out joined in the games.

The kids accepted Samantha as if she was one of their own, as if it wasn’t odd to see an adult crawling through their tunnels and climbing over the bars on their jungle gym. They laughed and played alongside her, even giving her a turn on the slide when she asked.

Will watched with amusement as Samantha worked up a little too much speed sliding down and, with a screech of surprise, landed on her backside, creating a cloud of dust in the sand.

Will was on his feet in an instant, offering her a hand up.

“That looked like it hurt,” he commented as she brushed the sand from her jeans.

She beamed at him, her blue eyes sparkling. “The only ache is my dignity, and I don’t have much of that to begin with.”

Her lack of self-consciousness made Will a little jealous. He’d spent his whole life striving for decorum and honor, and yet he knew perfectly well that he had failed in every way possible to be a man. He’d never been able to please his own father. He hadn’t been a good husband and father himself. He’d hurt the people he’d professed to love. Besides that, he wasn’t ignorant of the fact that, with his naturally pessimistic personality, he came off as a regular old sourpuss, whereas Samantha, with seemingly effortless ease and grace, laughed at the world—and more importantly, at herself—and was a better person for it.

Though it pained him to admit it, he clearly had a lot to learn from the woman.

Genevieve ran up and tugged on the bottom of his shirt. “Swing me, swing me, Daddy,” she begged, smiling up at him.

Smiling.

That hadn’t happened much in the little girl’s life lately. She hadn’t had much to smile about.

Will’s heart melted right there on the spot. What a beautiful child she was. He could see her mother in her, but what really choked him up was that he could see himself in her, as well. How had such a lovely little thing come from a soul as ugly as his?

“All right, Monkey,” he agreed. “Let’s go swing.” He lifted her into his arms and headed for the swing set. He intended to deposit her into one of the safety swings, the ones with four sides and holes for the legs.

“No, Daddy,” Genevieve protested. “I want to swing on the big-girl swing.”

Will glanced at Samantha, hoping she’d give him some much-needed direction. He didn’t want to make the wrong decision and end up hurting his daughter.

“Yeah. Come on, Dad. The big-girl swing,” Samantha echoed with a laugh.

Will realized that what he’d really wanted was Samantha to back him up on the decision he had already made, not agree with Genevieve. He was loath to admit that he was scared half out of his wits that his daughter would lose her balance and fall to the ground.

If she got hurt, it was all on him.

Both Samantha and Genevieve were looking at him expectantly, waiting for his decision. He didn’t see any way out of it now. He was good and stuck. He set his jaw as he perched Genevieve on the big-girl swing, waiting until she had a good hold on the chains before giving her a gentle push.

“Higher, Daddy. Higher!”

“Honey, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Will responded, once again glancing at Samantha for support, sure that she’d back him up on this one. Genevieve was so little, and the swing so high. It was a long way to fall.

Samantha laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “Don’t you remember when you were a little kid, what a thrill you got from swinging just as high as you could?”

Will cringed. He couldn’t remember much from his own childhood, at least not much that he cared to recall. He knew he hadn’t had a lot of playground time, not even when he was young. He’d had a strict father who believed children should be busy working for the food they ate. His father had never been happy with Will’s performance, no matter how hard he’d tried.

The memory of his father’s bitter voice echoed through his head. You can’t go to church. Church is for good people. You are not good. Will had spent all his time doing chores and studying for school and dreaming of the moment he’d be old enough to leave that house permanently.

The day he’d turned eighteen, he’d enlisted in the U.S. Army, and he hadn’t ever looked back.

He wasn’t going to let his daughter feel that way about her life.

With a whoop and a smile, he pulled Genevieve back and pushed, giving her the freedom to fly.

Chapter Three

“Yes. No. Maybe so.” Genevieve repeated the words Samantha had taught her, a game she and her brother had played as a child. The little girl’s high-pitched laughter pealed through the otherwise silent store, and Samantha’s heartbeat rose in crescendo. She’d really grown to care for the little girl in the days since Will and Genevieve had so suddenly entered her life.

Samantha held Genevieve around the waist as the girl perched on the counter in Sam’s Grocery and swung her feet in rhythm to the chant. Since it was summer, Genevieve was staying with Samantha’s parents while Samantha and Will worked in the store, but the older couple had come into town to pick up some supplies from the hardware store and had dropped the girl off for a quick visit with her papa.

Samantha thought perhaps Will would join in the fun, but he just leaned his shoulder against the back wall, crossed his arms, and silently observed, his expression as unreadable as always. He was either angry about something or bored out of his skull. For all his glowering, Samantha had found Will to be a kind and soft-spoken man, so she guessed it was the latter.

Genevieve was clearly an expert at amusing herself and had quickly picked up on the game. Taking her cue from Samantha, she nodded, then shook her head and then shrugged offhandedly as she repeated the phrase over and over again, laughing all the more as her voice echoed throughout the store.

“Yes. No. Maybe so.”

“Practicing to be a grown woman, Monkey?” Will asked, walking to the counter and ruffling his daughter’s curly black hair affectionately.

Samantha practically did a double take. Had he cracked a joke? That would be a first. Will rarely spoke, and even when he did, he was solemn both in word and expression. Samantha sensed a golden opportunity here to draw him out of his shell a bit.

“Hey, now,” she protested. “Watch it there, mister. You’re in the company of a grown woman. You’re going to get in trouble if you keep talking that way.”

Will’s left eyebrow darted upward. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but the corner of his mouth moved just a little. “Just sayin’.”

Samantha sniffed in feigned offense. “No comment.”

At least it appeared he was trying, which was enormous, not only for his own sake, but for his daughter’s. Genevieve needed a father who could let go and laugh once in a while. Will wouldn’t be qualifying as a stand-up comic any time soon, but his jest was more lighthearted than anything else she’d ever heard from him. It was progress.

“What have we got on our agenda today?” Will asked, his expression fading into the serious demeanor Samantha now associated with him, the creases around his eyes and over his forehead deepening as his brows lowered.

“Not much,” she answered, nodding her head toward the stockroom. “We’ve got a few boxes of canned vegetables to put out on the shelves. If you feel so inclined, you can give everything a good dusting before you place the product.” She reached under the counter and grabbed a large ostrich-feather duster, waving it like a flag on the Fourth of July.

The look on his face was priceless, somewhere between pure surprise and utter mortification.

“You want me to dust with that?” he choked out.

“Is that a problem for you?”

“No.” He answered too fast, clearly backpedaling. “It’s just that...”

She raised a brow.

“I am going to look ridiculous using a feather duster. Do you want me to wear a frilly apron, as well?”

“Like a fifties housewife, you mean?”

He coughed. If it was anyone but Will, Samantha might have mistaken it for a laugh. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

She laughed, reached under the counter again and tossed a rag at him. “Better?”

“Much,” he agreed, shifting from one foot to another and rustling the tips of his hair with his free hand. His lips pursed as he glanced from Samantha to Genevieve and back. She had the notion that he wanted to say something more, but he turned away without a word.

The man was already getting antsy. How on earth was she going to keep him busy? He was used to an exciting, fast-paced military lifestyle, not front-facing cans of green beans on a grocery shelf.

“I’ll bring out the boxes of vegetables then.” Without another word, he moved into the back room. She could hear him stacking boxes of cans onto a cart, and after a moment, he brought them to the shelves.

Samantha continued to play with Genevieve. She was glad to see the little girl coming out of her shell. School would be starting soon. The small, close-knit Serendipity classroom might be exactly what the girl needed to help her get past the trauma she’d experienced with her mother’s death. Samantha hoped so, for Will’s sake as well as Genevieve’s.

She served the few customers who came and went, greeting each by name and asking about their lives. Often she could guess what they’d come in after without them having to say. That was what it was like living and working in Serendipity, and a big part of what Samantha loved about serving people as the grocery manager.

To her surprise, Will enjoyed speaking to the folks who’d stopped by. Though she’d expected him to be ruffled by the intimacy, the small-town dynamic didn’t appear to be affecting him at all. He greeted everyone who came through the store with a friendly smile, taking the time to introduce himself and relay the brief story of how he came to be in Serendipity. Oddly, he didn’t seem to mind repeating the tale over and over again.

Folks were curious, and Samantha knew that by the end of this week, if they didn’t know already, most of the town would be aware she had a new employee. She was certain Mary and Alexis had already spread the word, igniting interest in the handsome, quiet, widowed soldier. Once the news reached Jo Spencer—the woman who ran the local café, and the town’s biggest gossip—the blaze would turn into a wildfire. She’d have to fight off the horde of single women who’d be lining up at the door to the shop, making up reasons to visit the grocery while waiting for Will to notice them. There had already been more than a few who’d come in with nothing more than a pack of chewing gum on their lists.

Well, maybe Will would be good for business. Samantha snorted and gave her head a quick shake. That kind of business she really didn’t need, but she supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers.

At the moment, any business was good business, however it came about.

Thoughts of Stay-n-Shop loomed in her mind, but Samantha pushed them back. She was still praying about what course of action to take on that matter. She didn’t have a lot of time, but she knew better than to act rashly without first seeking God’s wisdom in the Word and in prayer.

What do I do, Lord? Please make Your will clear to me.

Those were the same words she’d silently repeated dozens of times over the past week, and she knew she was running out of time. Make Your will known.

It wasn’t long before Samantha’s parents stopped by and picked up Genevieve, and the store seemed too quiet without the little girl around. Odd, since before Will and Genevieve, she’d often been the only one in the grocery. She’d never noticed the silence before.

Samantha hunkered over the dry-goods inventory—the one she hadn’t finished on Saturday due to Will’s arrival—looking up only when one of her neighbors, Delia Bowden, appeared outside the door. Delia’s right arm was laden with her newborn daughter, Faith, in an infant car seat while she managed her active toddler, James, with the other.

Delia usually brought her teenage son, Riley, to help out with the groceries, but today he was nowhere to be seen. No big surprise, Samantha supposed. The boy was getting to that age where he didn’t want to be seen shopping with his mother.

Will opened the door for Delia, welcoming her into the store with a smile and procuring a cart for her so she could set Faith’s car seat in the front. Samantha was still marveling at the way he turned into a different person when he was around the customers. It was odd—and unsettling—that he could turn the charm on and off like a light switch. Especially since it was usually off around her.

“Hey, Will?” she called, waving him forward.

He strode toward her, his smile disappearing. She was beginning to wonder if he just didn’t like her. It wasn’t that she thought he was purposefully trying to hurt her feelings, but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to keep working with him every day if he didn’t lighten up a bit. Her heart wasn’t made of stone. And it did hurt.

“As you can see, Delia has her hands full with her kiddos,” she said, gesturing to the woman and her children.

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“It would be a great kindness to her if you could help her with her shopping.”

“Help her?” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. I already got her a cart.”

“I noticed. It was very thoughtful of you. I was thinking you could, you know, push the cart for her, retrieve groceries from the shelves, especially the high ones. Just give her a hand in general—whatever she needs.”

“Wow,” he said, whistling under his breath. He almost smiled at her. “Talk about customer service.”

Samantha laughed. “That’s how we do it in the country. Up close and personal.”

“I’ll say.” Now he was teasing her. Honestly! The man was jerking her strings. “As I’m sure you’re becoming increasingly aware, everything is more difficult with children in tow.”

“Tell me about it. I can’t seem to get anything done when Genevieve is with me. It’s all I can do just to keep up with her.”

There it was. Finally. A real half smile. He shrugged one shoulder and strode toward Delia and her children, and offered his assistance with a grin.

Samantha’s breath caught in her throat. Will was quite attractive when he relaxed—which he never seemed to do around her.

“You’re staring,” said a high-pitched voice from beside her. Samantha started, audibly gasping and laying a hand to her racing heart as she turned.

“Where did you come from?” she asked Alexis, who was grinning like the cat who ate the canary. Mary stood beside her, a smirk on her face that said she shared Alexis’s good humor—at Samantha’s expense.

“Back door,” Alexis replied with an offhanded wave. “Same as always.”

That was the problem with back doors, Samantha decided. They could allow best friends to sneak up on her. There was no bell to announce them, although with the twitter they usually made, she was surprised she hadn’t heard them coming.

“Did you ever think about knocking?” she groused.

Alexis hoisted one dark blond brow. “And why would we do that?”

She was right, of course, though Samantha was loath to admit it. There was no good reason for her friends to all of a sudden start knocking when they stopped by. They’d been visiting the shop unannounced since they were all in kindergarten together. This had to be the one and only time they hadn’t made enough noise to be a circus parade—and of course it was when she’d really needed them to broadcast themselves.

This time, they’d come in on the sly and caught her staring at Will—which, of course, Alexis had announced in a none-too-quiet voice. It was unlikely that he hadn’t heard her outburst.

“We’ve been here for a while now,” Mary added. “We were eavesdropping on you and Will from the back room. That little girl Genevieve sure is a cutie. And Will is—” She broke off her statement with a sigh. “If you ask me, there’s potential.”

Samantha did not want to ask what kind of potential her dear friends had in mind.

“How is Sergeant Sweetheart working out for you?” Alexis asked with a loud chuckle. “Have you set a date yet?”

Will glanced in their direction, his brown eyes flickering with surprise. Samantha knew the best part of valor in this instance would be retreat.

Quickly.

“Sidebar,” Samantha hissed, shaking her head. She grabbed each of her friends by an elbow and propelled them into the back room. “He was a corporal. And would you mind not bringing attention to him?”

“He’s handsome,” Mary disputed. “And single. You’re single. I don’t see the problem with it.”

“Okay, there are a lot of problems,” Samantha said, “but let me just start with three. One, he isn’t single—he’s a widower. Quite recently, I might add. Two, he is shy. And three, he is here to build a relationship with his daughter, not to have a romantic tryst with me, or any other woman in Serendipity, for that matter.”

“Strong and silent,” Alexis said, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Not shy. Strong and silent. That’s more poetic.”

“More romantic, you mean,” Samantha corrected. “And I don’t like the insinuation in your tone, thank you very much.”

“Will lost his wife, but that doesn’t mean he has to be alone forever,” Mary protested. “He deserves someone special in his life. I’m not saying you’re going to marry him tomorrow or anything, but you could at least give him a chance when he’s ready to move on.”

“What I’m giving him,” Samantha explained, thoroughly exasperated with both of them, “is space. And that’s what you two ought to be doing, too. He’s still grieving. Leave the poor man alone.” She knew as she said it that that wasn’t likely to happen.

Her friends would keep pushing and she’d balk, just like always. Whenever she’d start dating, her friends would be quick to call for further commitment, but it never happened that way. She’d find some reason or other to break things off.

She didn’t know why. As cliché as it might be, it wasn’t the men, it was her. She believed marriage was God uniting two hearts in an inexplicable way. And until she found that, she saw no point in pursuing anything with anybody. Especially not with Will, who wasn’t even a Christian.

“Samantha?” Will called from the front room. “Can you give me a hand? I’m having a bit of trouble with the register.”

It didn’t surprise her that Will couldn’t pick up on the rusty machine. The cash register was older than she was, the ancient iron punch-the-dollar-sign kind that had faded out with the advent of the first computer. It fit the country feel of the grocery, though, so Samantha had kept it. She’d been using it for so many years she didn’t think twice about it, but she could definitely see where Will might get confused.

“I’m going back in there to serve my customers,” Samantha whispered. “And you two are going to get out of here and leave us in peace. Please, please promise me that you won’t put Will on the spot.”

“Yes. No. Maybe so,” Alexis responded with a matchmaking gleam in her eye.

* * *

“So what do you do for fun around here?” Will asked as he swept dust out the front door and across the clapboard sidewalk. Samantha had just turned the sign from Open to Closed and they were cleaning up before leaving for the night. “Ride horses?”

He thought it seemed like a reasonable question. So far he’d seen a lot of trucks on the road, and at least an equal number of horses on the ranchland he passed as he walked every morning from the Howells’ bed-and-breakfast to the store, and then back again each evening.

Samantha stopped wiping the front window she’d just sprayed with glass cleaner and narrowed her eyes, one hand drifting to perch on her hip. “Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I noticed the old hitching post in front of Cup o’ Jo’s Café when I passed it this morning. Watering trough, too, I think. The thing looks like it’s been there for a hundred years.”

Samantha shrugged. “It probably has been. Folks do occasionally use it when they stop at Cup o’ Jo’s, if they’re out riding that way. It doesn’t happen very often, though. We’re not quite as backward here as you might imagine.”

He held up his hands. “Innocent observation. No offense meant.”

“None taken.” Samantha laughed. The sound was unmistakably feminine and it mixed Will’s insides all up. He cast around for something to say.

“Your friend Alexis reeked of horse when I met her.” As soon as he said the words he realized how awful they sounded. He was used to saying what he thought without sifting it through the filter of what was appropriate in mixed company. Being around Samantha really messed with his head.

She lifted her chin, regarding him closely, the hint of a smile playing on her lips. He turned his gaze back to the cracked wooden clapboard and swept harder. It made him uncomfortable when she looked at him that way. Tingly all over, like last year when he’d caught a bad case of the flu and had suffered a raging fever of over a hundred and two degrees.

He remembered the incident well. It had already been inconceivably hot in Afghanistan, even without his fever. Every inch of his skin had felt like it was on fire, just as it did now. His breath came shallow and ragged, and his chest hurt with every lungful of air.

Not that being with Samantha was anything like catching the flu. It was a poor analogy, but it was the best he was able to do at the moment.

He couldn’t pull the wool over his own eyes. He recognized the symptoms. The honest symptoms.

The bottom line was, Samantha was attractive in all the right ways.

“Sorry,” he apologized gruffly. “My bad.”

Again, Samantha chuckled. “No need. You’re just saying it like it is. I don’t think Alexis would be offended by your observation. She’s a rancher and spends most of her time in the saddle.”

“You’re not easily affronted, are you?”

Her blue eyes locked onto him, and every nerve ending in his body sparked to life. The emotions rushing through him engaged him in a way he couldn’t even label. “Why would I be? If you can refrain from any more insults about women and erratic behavior, we’re all good. Yes, No, Maybe So is more than a kid’s game—it’s a lady’s prerogative. And don’t you forget it.”

Will chuckled. The woman was really something. She kept him on his toes. To his surprise, he found that he enjoyed working with her far more than he’d ever believed he would when Seth had first approached him with the idea.

But then again, he hadn’t yet met Samantha.

“Why don’t you see if you can find something to do in the back room while I tally the register?” she said, moving back to the counter and tucking the window spray and her rag underneath.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, surprising himself with how upbeat he sounded. His heart felt lighter, too. Was he actually relaxing a little bit? Taking the edge off that gut-slicing sensation of guilt which usually burdened him?