The Soldier's Sweetheart (10 page)

The hands of her hero, at least for today.

One side of his mouth curled into a half smile. His face was close enough for their breath to mingle, and yet he made no move to kiss her. He just drank her in with his eyes.

“You can always call on me,” he assured her, running a finger down her forehead, over her nose and then brushing it backward across her chin. “Day or night, whatever you need. I’m here for you.”

She struggled with the desire to reach forward, grab his collar and finish what he’d started. But when he rocked back on his heels, the moment was broken. For whatever reason, Will had pulled away. She didn’t understand it, but she had to respect it.

Even if what she really wanted to do was fall into his arms.

Chapter Eight

“H
ow’s our handsome soldier boy?” Alexis asked Samantha as they stood in line waiting to buy sparklers and cones that sprayed fountains of sparks. The church youth group sponsored the booth on the community green, where the traditional Fourth of July picnic and fireworks display would be held later that evening.

“You haven’t asked us to be bridesmaids yet. What are we to think?” Mary gave Samantha a friendly nudge with her elbow. “You couldn’t possibly have imagined that we were going to forget about him, now did you?”

“I could only hope,” Samantha murmured sarcastically, handing the vendor a twenty-dollar bill for the sack of sparklers and fountains she was purchasing. She glanced across the green, where Will was busy setting up lawn chairs for her parents and grandfather and spreading a red-plaid blanket for the rest of their group. He swung Genevieve around in a circle and plunked her down in the middle of the wool blanket, chuckling as she squealed with laughter.

“You could only hope what? That you’d have a ring on your finger, or that we’d leave you alone?” Mary teased.

“Really?” Samantha rolled her eyes.

“Can we help it if we want to see our best friend settled down and living happily ever after?” Alexis gently prodded Samantha’s ribs with her elbow.

“I don’t know why you two are picking on me all of a sudden,” Samantha grumbled. “I don’t see either one of you showing off your diamond solitaires.”

“That would be because our knights in army-green camouflage haven’t yet ridden into our lives,” Mary said with a sigh. “You are so blessed and you don’t recognize what you have when it’s right before your eyes. God just dropped him right into your lap.”

Samantha snorted and shook her head. “I don’t even know what that means. And trust me when I say that I don’t even
want
to know.”

“You can fool the rest of the world, but don’t try to play ignorant with us. We understand you all too well. And even if we weren’t besties, anyone with eyes can see the way he looks at you when he thinks nobody is watching him.” Alexis’s sly smile grew to epic proportions and her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “Like right now, for instance.”

“What?” Despite all her good intentions, Samantha turned to look at Will. He was seated on the blanket next to Genevieve, propped on one elbow with his legs stretched out before him, laughing at something her mother was saying to him. “He’s not—”

“Ha! Made ya look,” Alexis crowed. “Anyway, he
was
looking at you a second ago.”

“That was so not nice,” Samantha admonished, her face warming, but she chuckled just the same. She should have known better than to fall for that old trick.

Her best friends could always tell when she was down, and surely they’d noticed something was bothering her lately. She wasn’t spending as much time with Alexis and Mary as she usually did. At first they might attribute her absence to her spending extra time with Will, but it wouldn’t be long before they figured out there was more going on. She hadn’t yet shared with them the trials she was facing with Stay-n-Shop, but it was only a matter of time before they picked up on it—and before the entire
town
knew what the large corporation had planned.

Alexis bought her own sack full of fireworks and looped her arm through Samantha’s. “Seriously, now. No progress to report to us girls?”

“I guess it would depend on what you mean by progress,” Samantha countered, seeing a way to lead her erstwhile friends away from their floundering matchmaking efforts. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out they were on a deliberate detour, but at least it would take the heat off Samantha, if only for a moment so she could catch her breath.

“Will is doing well at the store. Far better, actually, than I anticipated he would.” Despite her best efforts, her gaze kept drifting to Will, which she knew was not lost on her friends. “He actually seems to like his work, although he’s a bit of a perfectionist. He takes it seriously, in any case, and puts a great deal of effort into whatever he does.”

“Was there ever a doubt?” Mary teased.

“In my mind, at least,” Samantha admitted. “He’s fresh from Afghanistan. He’s got to be used to power and adrenaline on a daily basis. I thought he’d be bored to tears in a minute.”

“Maybe the peace and quiet is just what he needs,” Alexis suggested.

“Perhaps,” Samantha agreed, watching Will from under her lashes. As long as he didn’t look her way, she was good.

“And he’s a daddy. He has a duty before the Lord to be responsible,” Mary added. “That means he
has
to be all grown-up and manly and everything.”

Alexis let out a low whistle. “He certainly has the manly thing going in spades.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. “You guys are too much. Just leave the poor guy alone. He’s my employee, for crying out loud.”

“Is that
all
he is to you?” Alexis asked merrily, her blue eyes gleaming with gratification. Clearly she believed she already knew the answer to her question.

Samantha broke her gaze away from her friend’s torment rather than answering the question. It might be friendly fire, but it still put her in a dangerous position.

“I thought not.” Alexis’s voice dropped as she pulled Samantha to a halt underneath a large, stately oak, out of hearing distance of all except Mary, who was a step behind them. “So what is the deal, really?”

Samantha sighed. It was so much easier on her when her friends weren’t being serious. When they were just playing around with her, she could pretend all was right with her world. Maybe it was just a subconscious thing, but sometimes when she was laughing with her best friends, she found herself able to cling to the past, remembering her high-school days when the most taxing thing she had to worry about was whether or not her hair was working and who was going to take her to prom.

But when Alexis and Mary started asking genuine, compassionate questions—hard questions—her emotions became engaged, and she found herself very much on the verge of tears—like right now. Too much stress, she supposed, from every angle. Enough to throw any woman, even a strong one, for a loop.

But she was determined not to break down in the middle of a community event. Especially not in front of her friends—she knew them well enough to know they would worry about her incessantly and make a big deal over her problems, which was exactly what she didn’t want to happen. It was more or less the same reason she hadn’t brought her parents into the Stay-n-Shop fiasco.

Alexis and Mary had her well-being and best interests at heart. They were far more than mischievous matchmakers—they were the closest friends she had. They loved her, and at the end of the day, no matter how much they teased her and gave her a hard time, she loved them right back.

“How do you feel about Will?” Mary asked softly, so her voice wouldn’t carry.

“I don’t know,” she replied, knowing they would never break a confidence. “I’m attracted to Will, obviously,” she continued. She didn’t need the guidance of her two friends to tell her that Will Davenport was a treat to the female eye.

“And?” Alexis prompted.

“And nothing. There’s really nothing left for me to say. You want me to admit I have feelings for Will? Yeah. I do. There’s definitely chemistry where he and I are concerned. I just don’t know what to do with it. I’m not sure I
should
do anything with it.”

That was a gross understatement, she realized, thinking back to their near kiss just days before. She had needed his strength, and he had given it to her. She didn’t harbor any misconceptions that there was more to it than that. It was the kind of special moment she’d waited her whole life to experience, but of course it had faded out as fast as it had appeared.

Will had backed away. And why wouldn’t he? He was a principled man with honorable intentions, and he’d made those quite clear to her from the outset. She was just glad he’d been there when he had and that he’d had her back against Cal Turner.

“You guys definitely have sparks flying between you,” Mary said, and then cocked her head and narrowed her gaze on Samantha. “Why do I feel like there’s a
but
coming here?”

“Because there is,” Samantha answered simply, riffling through the contents of the bag of fireworks she’d purchased so she didn’t have to meet her friends’ eyes. “Chemistry does not a relationship make.”

“But you’ve got to admit it is a great start,” Alexis said.

“In this case, no,” Samantha denied.

“Why not?” Alexis was clearly not going to drop the subject, and even if she had, Samantha knew Mary would just pick it up again. Maybe it was better for everyone if she just set them straight on what was or, in this particular instance, was not happening between her and Will. Once and for all, and good riddance to the issue.

“Let me count the ways,” she quipped, preparing to tick her reasons off on her fingertips.

“Can’t wait to hear this excuse,” Alexis muttered.

Samantha raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”

“Of course we do,” Mary assured her.

“All right, then. First, he’s still grieving for his wife. He only lost Haley a few months ago.”
Tick.
Grieving
wasn’t exactly the right word for what Will was doing—it was more like he was torturing himself—but the term would have to do for now. And it wasn’t the whole story, but Will hadn’t authorized her to share what he’d told her in confidence about his separation from his wife. He was a private man who played it close to the vest, and she respected that about him.

“We know all this,” Mary confirmed. “Next you’re going to say he’s busy building his relationship with Genevieve.”

“Well, he is,” Samantha murmured, wondering why she sounded so defensive.
Tick
anyway, even if Mary had been the one to make the point.

“Of course he is,” Alexis agreed. “Because he’s a good man and a good daddy. Look at him over there playing a card game with his daughter.” She gestured at Will, who was engaged in a rousing game of slapjack with Genevieve. “It seems to me that you’re helping him out with Genevieve. The way I see it, spending time with Will and Genevieve should bring you all closer together, and it ought to be winning you a lot of brownie points, too, shouldn’t it?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

“Again,” Alexis continued, sounding a little put out, “I probably shouldn’t, but I have to ask—why not?”

“I don’t think he’s ready to commit to a new relationship.”

“Because of his wife and little girl. Yada yada,” Alexis said. “What is it you’re not telling us?”

Truthfully, Haley and Genevieve weren’t the reasons she’d had in mind at all, as valid as those points might be. Samantha was actually musing over what Will had said about his relationship with Haley
before
things had gone south with them. He’d openly admitted that he hadn’t known how to be a good husband to his wife. Instead he’d pushed her away. Samantha knew him well enough to know that he generally tended to judge himself too harshly, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have concerns about his ability to dedicate himself to a serious relationship with a woman. And even if he was, who was to say
she
was ready? Perhaps her standards were high. Mary and Alexis both thought they were. And maybe they were right.

“He’s not a Christian.” The most serious
tick
of all. When the time came to walk down the aisle, Samantha was committed to tying the knot with another believer. Yoking herself unequally was a burden she did not wish to bear. She couldn’t even imagine living a lifetime with a husband with whom she wasn’t able to share her spiritual life. Her relationship with the Lord was far too much a part of who she was to dismiss it, even for the love of a man.

“He’s not a Christian?” That stopped Alexis in her tracks and took the wind out of her sails, at least momentarily. “Wait a minute now. I’m sure I saw him in church last Sunday. Weren’t he and Genevieve sitting with your parents?”

“Yes, that’s right, but believe it or not, he told me that was the first time he’s seen the inside of a church. Ever.”

“Not even when he was a kid?” Mary asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Is he a member of some other religion?” Alexis queried simultaneously.

“No and no,” Samantha replied. “My understanding is that Will didn’t have the best family life growing up. I believe his father was a hard man, possibly an alcoholic, possibly abusive. They weren’t a religious family of any persuasion.”

“That’s too bad.” Mary’s voice had softened and turned quite solemn. “Maybe the Lord will work on his heart while he’s under your employ.”

“I hope so,” Samantha agreed, her heart welling with compassion for a man who’d suffered through so much hardship in his life without recognizing that there was a merciful God willing to see him through. “I really do.”

* * *

Will had first caught sight of Samantha when he’d spread out the picnic blanket underneath a sturdy oak on the green. He might not have been looking for her, but his gaze had been magnetically drawn to hers all the same.

Okay. Maybe he
had been
looking. A little.

Which was probably why he’d been so distracted that his four-year-old genuinely beat him at several rounds of slapjack. He certainly hadn’t purposefully lost the games. He had too competitive a nature for that.

Samantha was standing in a line for fireworks, speaking with her friends, whom he now knew, from knowledgeable and perhaps slightly gossipy neighbors and customers, were called the Little Chicks. As he observed the three women, he could easily see how they got that moniker—he’d never seen three ladies so animated in all of his life. Most of the men in Serendipity no doubt found that quality—and those ladies—quite appealing and attractive, which he supposed they were, but he was scared to death of women like them—outgoing, constantly invading his personal space.

Samantha most of all. She invaded his emotional space, and that was far more frightening than a woman stepping too close to him. Will knew her heart and her generosity, and for those reasons and more, he
did
find her attractive and appealing.