The Soldier's Sweetheart (5 page)

“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?

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

S
amantha 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.

So what was
he
anxious about?
She
was the one who stood to lose everything she cared about, everything she’d worked for in this life—the intangible items that went far beyond the old clapboard building itself, like family, tradition, legacy.

And yes, she had to admit, that she was battling her pride and her deep-seated need to remain self-sufficient. She didn’t like anyone in her business, especially someone she hardly knew. And yet the notion of sharing the worry that festered in her chest wouldn’t let her go. The need to unburden herself was profound and powerful.

But if and when she shared her trials with someone, it most certainly wouldn’t be Will Davenport.

And it wouldn’t be her family. Not her father. Not her mom. Not Grandpa Sampson, who was known to spill a secret occasionally now that his mind was slowing down with age. It was out of the question. No matter how heavy a load she carried, it was vitally important that her parents not catch wind of her ongoing battle with Stay-n-Shop. She didn’t want to mention it at all until they absolutely needed to know, and Samantha desperately prayed it would never reach that point.

She wasn’t ready to concede. Not yet. And in the meantime, what her parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Her mom and dad, inheriting the shop from her grandfather, had struggled their whole lives for their family and the small-town community, working day in and day out to build Sam’s Grocery into something stable and profitable. Only recently had they been able to pursue something different, to follow their own dreams and build their cozy little bed-and-breakfast.

There was no way Samantha was going to let Stay-n-Shop—or anyone else, for that matter—ruin that for them.

She didn’t need Will Davenport’s help. She didn’t need anybody’s help.

“Samantha?” Will said quietly behind her. He was close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. The man was seriously invading her personal space. She stiffened.

“What part of
butt out
do you not understand?” The guy had played all strong and silent, and he was good at that game. But now he was all up in her business? Why wouldn’t he leave well enough alone?

“Look,” he insisted, grasping her shoulders and turning her around to face him. “I know you’re scared. And I’ll back off if that’s what you really want. But I can help you. I know I can.”

“How?” she demanded. “How are you going to help me, huh? Do you have a law degree? Are you going to take on the corporate bigwigs? Rip up their letters? Fight them off with a stick?”

She knew she was being unreasonable, but so was he. Like he could just step in and make everything right. Sir Galahad riding in on his white horse with his lance and his sword, ready for battle, determined to save the day.

Wasn’t going to happen.

“You can’t solve my problems for me.”

“You’re right,” he amended. He slid his palm from her shoulder to her elbow. “I can’t solve your problem for you. But I can support you, and be there if you need me.”

“What?” His statement caught her off guard—almost as much as her reaction to his touch. He’d barely traced a path down her arm, yet his fingers were warm. Reassuring and oh so real.

She was the first to admit that Will was an attractive man, but her reaction to the mere brush of his hand on her skin stunned her. She’d never felt this way in her life.

She needed to get out more.

“I’m your associate,” Will continued.

Precisely. Reason number one thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine why I shouldn’t be noticing the minty smell of his mouthwash and the well-toned muscles threading down his arms.

And most especially because, in essence, at least, they were arguing. She wasn’t supposed to be
noticing
him at all.

It must be the anxiety she was experiencing, which she’d clearly misinterpreted as something entirely different.

That’s what it was. She wasn’t thinking straight.

“I hope you’ll also consider me your friend.” One side of his lip crooked up in a half smile. “I’ll help you figure out what to do about this threat—if you’ll let me.”

“Thank you, but I don’t need your assistance. I’m fine on my own.”

“Are you?”

The sharp, confrontational tone in his voice made her bristle. Guess they really were quarrelling.

“Absolutely,” she snapped. “And what makes you so certain I haven’t already solved this?” The challenge in her voice was unmistakable.

“You don’t sound too sure of yourself.”

So much for unmistakable. Was her insecurity that obvious? She straightened her shoulders, determined to ride out this conversation on her terms.

“I know what you’re going through,” he continued, removing his hands from her elbows and jamming them into the front pockets of his blue jeans. His gaze altered, taking on a distant quality. She hadn’t wanted him to touch her in the first place, but the sudden absence of his touch was as disquieting as the distant quality of his gaze.

“How could you know that?”

“Because I’ve been there.” He took a deep breath through his nose and released it through his mouth. “I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed by circumstances in your life. I’ve always been independent—probably too independent. More of a curse than a blessing. But there comes a time and place where you need to let other people in, you know? Allow them to help when they offer.”

Samantha moved to a grassy knoll under a sturdy oak tree and dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged on the cool lawn. Will followed, crouching next to her.

“I hear what you’re saying,” she admitted as her eyes met his. “But I have my reasons for keeping this to myself. It’s a family thing, you know?”

“I respect that.”

She expected him to say more. Instead, he held her gaze without speaking, his brows dipping low over the unreadable depths of his eyes.

“What?” she asked when the silence grew too much for her.

“You’re stronger than you know.”

She stared at him for a moment, figuratively openmouthed if not literally, and then she nodded, reluctantly accepting the compliment. Will was a rough-and-ready Army guy who’d been in active combat for his country. If anyone knew strong, he did.

“Me, not so much,” he continued, his deep gaze shifting to somewhere over her right shoulder.

“How do you figure?” she asked. “You were career military until your wife passed away, right?”

He quirked his lips and nodded.

“Something noble and courageous compelled you to join the military.” She held up her hand to stop his argument. Fleeing his childhood was hardly the most patriotic motivation for enlisting, but that didn’t matter. Anyone who spent any length of time with him could see that he was Army through and through. “You re-upped at the end of your first tour, so serving your country was obviously important to you. And yet you gave up everything to take care of your little girl. That seems pretty brave to me.”

He shook his head fiercely, denying her words. “I did what I had to do. You don’t know the whole story.”

He paused and scrubbed his scalp with his fingers. His expression was hard, his gaze haunted and bitter.

“I’d like to know more about you,” she replied. She honestly wanted to know what made the silent ex-soldier tick. He had depths to him that she had yet to understand.

“No, you don’t.” He scoffed, turning his face away from her. As low and gruff as his voice had become, she barely heard the ending to his statement. “I’m not the man you think I am.”

* * *

Will didn’t know what had come over him. He had just blurted out a bunch of personal stuff he barely acknowledged himself, much less shared with another person. But there it was.

There
she
was.

Samantha.

Brave. Fierce.

Vulnerable.

His respect for her deepened to the point where—what? Unquestionably, he felt a deep desire to protect her, especially now that he knew the enemy she was single-handedly facing. The Howells must be feeling quite overwhelmed by now, Samantha most of all.

He desperately yearned for those qualities he knew he would never possess—certainly not the way Samantha did. Honesty and integrity came naturally to her.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked at him with a question in her eyes, no doubt waiting for an explanation for what he’d just blurted out.

Only he didn’t know how to give it.

“I wasn’t a very good husband,” he admitted. Regret clogged his throat, making his voice low and raspy. “And I definitely wasn’t a good father to Genevieve.”

“How can you say that? I’ve seen the way you look at her, the way you interact with her. She’s your world. And you are most definitely hers.”

“It wasn’t always that way. I was caught up in my job. I was away from my family when they needed me most.” Will sat on the ground next to her, propping one elbow on his knee.

“How is that your fault? Being away from home a lot seems like a given in your profession. Was Haley unaware that you were going to join the Army when you married her?”

“She knew. She’d always known what I was going to do with my life. We dated in high school. She knew how much I wanted to get out.”

He thought she might make him backtrack, given the open-ended statement he’d just made, but she didn’t interrupt him. He was thankful. It was hard enough to dredge up these memories without bringing his father and his home life into it.

“Actually, I was already in the service when we married,” he continued. “She believed she was ready to make the sacrifice and be an Army wife—at least, at first she did.”

Their marriage had been a great deal more complicated than he was able to explain. But he took a deep breath and plunged forward. “I didn’t give her the emotional support she needed to deal with life while I was away. As a result, she felt all alone and lonely, whether I was home or abroad. Even when I was stateside, my mind was on my next deployment.”

Add to that my bouts with PTSD and it was the prescription for a rocky relationship. Who wants to sleep next to a man who wakes up screaming in the middle of the night in a full-body sweat?

He wouldn’t have wished that on his enemy, much less the woman he had vowed to cherish until the day death parted them.

Will nearly groaned as he recalled the many knock-down, drag-out fights he and Haley had had. And how much silence had reigned between them when they weren’t at each other’s throats. “We grew apart over time, and became different people. It was awkward between us. I didn’t deal with my issues very well. I closed myself off from her and wouldn’t let her in, and in the end, it tore up my family.
I
tore up my family.”

“What happened?” she asked. There was more than keen interest in her voice. There was compassion—and empathy.

Two emotions he absolutely did not deserve from her. From anyone. He warranted censure, not understanding. But something about her kindness compelled him to keep going.

“Haley tried her best to reach out to me and be there for me. Far more, I am ashamed to admit, than I ever did for her. But at the end of the day, she couldn’t handle the constant struggle and loneliness of military life. She had difficulties making friends, since we had to move around so much. But I think the hardest thing for her was her inability to continue her education. She wanted to be a child psychologist. Transferring from college to college was a nightmare.”

He paused as the sharp ache of the past settled in his mind. “We’d been married for just over six years when she separated from me. Genevieve was maybe one year old at the time. She moved back to Amarillo, where her parents still live. We were both born and raised there. I think it felt safe for her to return to what she knew, and her folks helped her make a new life—without me in it.

“
Safe
. What a cruel joke that turned out to be.” He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain clenching his gut. “My own daughter never really even knew me. Not until...” His sentence drifted off into a harsh silence.

It took him a moment to collect his thoughts. Samantha remained silent and pensive, simply watching him with compassion in her gaze.

“How did Haley die?” she gently prodded. When he did not continue, she backtracked. “I’m sorry. I’m being too pushy, aren’t I? My curiosity often gets the best of me and I ask too many questions. Forgive me.”

“No, it’s okay. I started this conversation. I don’t mind telling you.”

Actually, he did mind. He minded dreadfully. If he had his way, he would never speak of it again. Never
think
of it again.

Yet he didn’t blame Samantha for asking. He
had
directed the conversation down this path, although for the life of him he couldn’t have explained why he had done so. Hers was a legitimate question, spoken with kindness. And he knew beyond a doubt that it was her kindness that would be his undoing.

He could handle judgment, but not compassion. This was his punishment, his burden to carry—keeping fresh his knowledge of the responsibility he bore for Haley’s death, keeping it at the forefront of his mind for as long as he lived.

“She was killed in a gang-related incident.”
Because of me,
he thought. “I’ll never know all the details, beyond what the police were able to piece together. No one was ever charged or arrested for her murder.”