The Soldier's Sweetheart

As he entered the back room, his eyes scanned over the bins and boxes, looking for something to keep his hands and mind occupied.

There really wasn’t much to do. Samantha kept her store in tip-top condition. Even her desk was spotless. Neither a paper nor a pen was misplaced.

He’d seen how hard she worked, even when she didn’t have to. She was motivated by something beyond his comprehension, and everything she did, she did with a joyful heart. He’d never seen anything like it.

Will moved some of the boxes from the higher shelves onto the lower ones, making room for new product. Samantha was a tiny little pixie of a woman, five feet four at max. How had she possibly done all the heavy lifting all these years? Some of these boxes were heavier than she was, not to mention that the topmost shelves were completely out of her reach. The notion of her toting heavy boxes using only a footstool or ladder made his stomach twist in knots.

Whether she knew it or not, she would no longer be slinging heavy boxes around the back room. Not on his watch. He had just appointed himself Samantha’s own personal muscle.

He scoffed at himself and shook his head.

He was here to do a job, which was the important thing. This was what he and Seth had talked about—how Will could fix Samantha’s problems for her. That’s all this was.

Will sorted through the inventory, organizing the boxes by category, rotating them according to date and lining them squarely over each other. He placed the older inventory within easy reach and shelved the newer products up top. It was only when he was nearly finished that he noticed that a small box of chewing-gum packages had been wedged in the far back corner against the wall. He’d missed it on his first go-round, and since the candy aisle was looking a little thin, he reached for it, thinking he’d stock the shelf with the extra bundles of gum.

He wasn’t paying that much attention to what he was doing until he realized that moving the box forward revealed a file of papers wedged between the box and the wall. He couldn’t conceive of how they’d gotten there. It was almost as if they’d been placed there on purpose.

Samantha must have been doing paperwork and had set the file down on the shelving unit, where it had been accidentally lodged behind the box and subsequently forgotten. It was probably nothing she couldn’t live without, since obviously she wasn’t tearing up the store looking for it, but he thought he should probably place it on her desk for her to deal with at her convenience.

As he set the box of gum aside, he bumped the folder and several papers fell to the ground. They were letters written on upscale paper, the fancy masthead declaring some prestigious law firm based out of New York: Bastion and Bunyan and Turner, Esquire.

The name sounded pretentious to Will, but then, he didn’t care for lawyers. His only brush with them was after Haley had legally separated from him, and that had been bad news all around. In his opinion, lawyers tended to be seedy types more interested in making money than representing their clients with integrity and honesty.

But what did Samantha need with a bunch of New York lawyers?

Even with his curiosity piqued, Will had no intention of snooping, but his gaze unintentionally drifted over the first paragraph of the missive in his hands.

His breath hitched sharply as he realized what he was reading.

A threat against Sam’s Grocery, written in particularly nasty legalese, on behalf of the giant corporation Stay-n-Shop. Apparently they wanted to buy out her store and replace it with one of theirs, as they had with other small groceries in the area. But they weren’t asking—they were demanding. This was their third and final offer. And if she refused...

It was now a great deal more than curiosity that led him to flip through the rest of the correspondence. This was personal, engaging his warrior’s heart.

These letters were menacing coercions from an adversary. And they’d been intentionally hidden. Will was sure of it. Anger stiffened his joints.

Maybe it was none of his business, but he was working for the Howells, for Samantha, and he couldn’t imagine what they must be going through right now. Samantha must be frightened half out of her wits with this big corporation coming down on her the way it was.

What he did know for certain was that there was no way Samantha would allow herself to be coerced into selling. Not for any price. He hadn’t been around the Howells for very long, but it was long enough for him to know they were a close-knit family in a close-knit community—and he’d heard dozens of stories about what life was like growing up in Serendipity from Seth.

Sam’s Grocery was Samantha’s legacy. She’d even been named after the store—or rather, for it. No way was Stay-n-Shop going to take it away from her. Inconceivable.

He didn’t hear Samantha until she was right behind him.

“Hey, what kind of music do you like? We can change the radio station if you want. I know country music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.”

Will instinctively drew the letters against his stomach, as if he could hide them from her. He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t much care for music.”

“How can a person not like music?” She sounded as astonished as if he’d just declared that he was originally from Pluto.

He shrugged. “I don’t dislike it. It just doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Country, hip-hop, pop. Whatever. It’s all the same to me.”

“Okay,” she responded, drawing out the word in a way that indicated she either didn’t believe him or else thought he was off his rocker.

Or maybe both.

Will slowly turned around. “I rearranged your shelves,” he said. Her eyes landed on the folder in his hands, and she blanched.

“You did what?”

“I pulled all of the older stock off the top shelves to make room to store the new product that will be coming in on Monday. I also rotated everything according to date.” He held up the letters.

“And I found those letters Stay-n-Shop sent you.”

For a moment, she just stared at them, wide-eyed and openmouthed. Her face went from white to green around the gills to a burning-torch red in a matter of seconds.

“Give me those,” she snapped, snatching them from his fist and hiding them behind her back as if her action would somehow erase them from his memory.

“Don’t you think we ought to talk about it?” he prodded gently. He wanted to know what her strategy was so they could plan their next move. It didn’t even occur to him that it wasn’t his place to help her put this problem to rights. This was war—the more troops, the better.

“This is my private business,” she hissed. “Butt out.”

Well, that was straightforward and to the point.

It was also wrong.

“I can help, if you’ll let me,” he offered, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her. The woman looked like she needed consoling and every instinct in him was screaming to do just that—and more. He suddenly pictured holding her close, wrapping his arms protectively around her, brushing his palm across the softness of her cheek.

His breath left his lungs in a rush, as if he’d been punched in the gut. He took a mental step backward. What was he thinking? He had no right to even consider acting out emotions he didn’t understand himself. He couldn’t—and wouldn’t—hurt her as he’d done to others.

“I’m just sayin’. I work for you now—for Sam’s Grocery. It’s my livelihood, too, and I’ve got a daughter to look after. Clearly I have a vested interest in keeping this store alive and kicking.”

Samantha gasped and then turned and fled the room. Will stared after her, astonished. He’d thought his explanation regarding his investment in her battle was unambiguous. Logical. Rational. So why had she run out that way? Hadn’t she understood that he was saying he had her back in this fight?

Apparently not.

Chapter Four

Samantha bolted through the back door and into the country sunlight. Her chest was heaving and burning. She took big gulps of air, yet she felt as if no oxygen was reaching her lungs.

Will wanted to help, did he?

And for such laudable reasons, too. Not because he was concerned about her or her family, but because Sam’s Grocery was his current place of employment. He was only worried about himself—but then, why wouldn’t he be? He didn’t know the Howells well enough to put himself out for them.

It wasn’t like he’d have to worry about a job once Stay-n-Shop got their way and moved into town. Once they’d built their new store, Will would no doubt have his choice of any of a dozen positions, with his experience as a supply specialist in the Army. They’d be knocking down his door.

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