Free The Soldier's Sweetheart by Deb Kastner Page B

they go from here? She now knew his history. It changed the tenor of their friendship, as did his pushing her to allow him to support her against Stay-n-Shop.
    He’d said what he’d said for a reason. She’d heard his message loud and clear.
    He didn’t believe she ought to face her war with Stay-n-Shop on her own. He wanted her to accept the assistance he offered.
    But should she accept the assistance he offered? Could she let her guard down enough to allow him to stand beside her in this fight?
    The idea—no longer fighting alone, having someone guarding her back—had its own appeal. Could she trust Will enough to let him in? To make him understand why she could not and would not share this burden with her parents? Would he keep her secrets?
    With a perplexed sigh, she slid into a chair on the opposite side of the table from Will, Genevieve and Grandpa Sampson. All three were quietly eyeing the food her mother was placing on the sideboard. Samantha glanced at her father, who was sitting in his usual spot at the head of the table, his rectangular blue reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he completed the daily crossword puzzle in the local tricounty newspaper.
    “Thank you again for inviting us, Mrs. Howell,” Will said, nodding his head toward her mother. “It’s an honor to share your table and be a part of your family dinner.”
    “It’s Amanda,” her mother corrected gently, a speculative look on her face. “Your folks weren’t the family dinner type?”
    Will shook his head. “No, ma’am. Can’t say that we were. We usually ate off trays in front of the television, often in separate rooms. My pop wasn’t home much during the evenings, and when he was—”
    His sentence dropped abruptly.
    Her mom approached Will’s straight-backed figure and laid a motherly hand across his shoulder. “We can’t help who we grew up with, son, but we can certainly make things better when we have families of our own.” She shifted down the table to where Genevieve was sitting and leaned in to plant a kiss on the top of her head.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Will replied. “I’m hoping to do just that.” He cleared his throat. “With Genevieve.”
    Samantha knew how very much he wanted that to be true. When he wasn’t at work at the store or helping with her parents’ B&B, Will spent all his time with Genevieve, learning what it meant to be a father. Anyone with eyes could see how important the sweet little girl was to him, and if the smile on her face was any indication, he was learning quickly and succeeding brilliantly.
    Her mother reached for a pitcher of sweet tea and started pouring it into their glasses. “I was a foster child, tossed around from house to house in the Dallas area.” Her gaze took on a far-off quality. “I had a good deal of trouble finding my way. Were it not for the Lord and Samantha’s father, I don’t know where I would be right now.”
    Samantha’s jaw dropped. In the past, her mother had only shared pieces of the story with her, and she realized there was much she didn’t know about her own kin. Unlike most of the other residents of Serendipity, her mother had been born and raised elsewhere. Samantha knew she’d aged out of the government system, but her mother had never spoken much of her childhood. Samantha was ashamed to realize she’d never given much thought to how her mother had grown up.
    She’d never placed herself in Amanda Blake Howell’s shoes.
    How could she have been so insensitive, not to have known her mother had struggled through childhood? But then again, she’d never had a reason to suspect her mother had been anything less than happy. Amanda Howell was a cheerful woman, vibrantly in love with her husband of many years and clearly content with her family life. Her rock-solid Christian faith had helped many others in Serendipity make their way through adversity. However and wherever she’d grown up, she’d turned into a beautiful