Lee McClain - The Soldier's Secret Child

“Sorry I’m late! These Sunday visits are crazy. Maybe we can switch to Mondays or Tuesdays?” She was fumbling for the key as she spoke. “Come on in, guys! Thanks so much, Vito!”

“Charlie.” Vito got the boy’s attention, held his eyes. “I’ll be back at three, okay?”

Relief shone on Charlie’s face. He ran to Vito, gave him a short hug and whispered into his ear: “Come back for sure, okay?”

“You got it, buddy.” Vito’s voice choked up a little bit.

Charlie let go and looked at Vito. Then his eyes narrowed and he grinned purposefully. “And can we stay at that place instead of the motel?” he whispered. “With the cat and the nice lady?”

Vito knew manipulation when he saw it, but he also knew the boy needed both security and honesty.

“What’s he begging for now?” Krystal grinned as she flicked her cigarette butt into the bare soil beside the building. “I recognize that look.”

“I’m starting to recognize it, too,” Vito said, meeting Krystal’s eyes. Some kind of understanding arced between them, and he felt a moment of kinship and sorrow for the woman who’d given birth to Charlie but wouldn’t get to raise him.

“Well, can we?” Charlie asked.

“We’ll see. No promises.” Vito squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “You be good, and I’ll see you right here at three o’clock.”

In reality, he wished he could just sweep the boy up and take him home, and not just to protect him from an awkward day with his mom. Vito wasn’t looking forward to the lunch date—no, not a date—he was facing in only a few hours. Whatever he and Lacey decided, it was going to make someone unhappy.

Chapter Three

“They left the two of us in charge of the nursery? Are they crazy?” Lacey’s friend Susan put her purse up on a shelf and came over to where Lacey stood beside a crib, trying to coax a baby to sleep.

“I’m just glad it’s you working with me.” Lacey picked up the baby, who’d started to fuss, and swayed gently. “You won’t freak out if I freak out.”

Working in the church nursery was Lacey’s counselor’s idea, a way to help Lacey deal with her miscarriage and subsequent infertility. She needed to desensitize herself, find ways to be around babies without getting upset by them, especially if she was going to open a family-friendly guesthouse and make a success of it.

The desensitization had started accidentally, when Gina Patterson had showed up in town earlier this year with her son, Bobby, just ten months old at the time. With nowhere else to turn, she’d spent the early spring at the guesthouse, in the process falling in love with Lacey’s brother, Buck. Being around little Bobby had made Lacey miserable at first, but she was learning. More than that, she was motivated; she wanted to serve others and get out of her own pain, build a well-rounded life for herself.

Which included being around babies. “I’m here to work through my issues,” she told Susan, “but why are you here?”

Susan’s tawny skin went pink. “Sam and I decided it would be a good idea for me to get comfortable with babies. I used to be terrified of even touching them, but... I guess I’d better learn.”

Something in Susan’s tone made Lacey take notice, and she mentally reviewed what Susan had just said. Then she stared at her friend. “Wait a minute. Are you expecting? Already?”

Susan looked down at the floor, and then met Lacey’s eyes. “Yeah. We just found out.”

Selfish tears sprang to Lacey’s eyes as she looked down at the infant she held, feeling its weight in her arms. Something she’d never experience for herself, with her own child. A joy that Susan and many of Lacey’s other friends would find effortlessly.

Susan would be a part of the circle of happy young mothers in town. Lacey wouldn’t, not ever.

“I’m so sorry to cause you pain. News like this must be hard for you to hear.”

Susan’s kind words jolted Lacey out of her own self-centered heartache. Finding out you were having a baby was one of the most joyous times of a woman’s life. She remembered when the two pink lines had shown up on her own pregnancy test. Remembered her video call to Gerry. She’d shown the test to him, and they’d both cried tears of joy.

Susan deserved to have that joy, too. She shouldn’t have to focus on her friend’s losses.

Lacey lifted the baby to her shoulder so she could reach out and put an arm around Susan. “It does hurt a little—I’m not going to lie. But what kind of friend would I be not to celebrate with you? I’m thrilled!”

“You’re the best, Lace.” Susan wrapped her arms around Lacey, the baby in between them, and Lacey let herself cry just a little more. Susan understood. She’d stayed a year at Lacey’s guesthouse before the remodeling, the horrible year when Lacey had lost both Gerry and the baby. Susan had been an incredible comfort.

“Anyway,” Susan added, “I’m going to need your help to fit in with the perfect mothers of Rescue River. You know I have a knack for saying the wrong thing.”

“You’ll be fine.” And it was true. Susan was outspoken and blunt, but she gave everything she had to the kids she taught at the local elementary school, and people here loved her for it. “How’s Sam handling the news?”

“Making a million plans and bossing me around, of course.” But Susan smiled as she said it, and for just a moment, Lacey felt even more jealous of the happy-married-woman smile on Susan’s face than of the tiny, growing baby in her belly.

“Hey, guys, can I leave Bobby here for a little while?” Lou Ann Miller, who was taking care of Gina’s baby while she and Buck enjoyed a honeymoon at the shore, stood at the half door. “I want to go to adult Sunday school, but there’s no way he’ll sit through our book discussion.”

“Sure.” Lacey thrust the infant she’d been holding into Susan’s arms. “Just hold her head steady. Yeah, like that.” She walked over to the door and opened it. “Come on in, Bobby!”

“Laaasss,” he said, walking right into her leg and hugging it. “Laaasss.”

Lacey’s heart warmed, and she reached down to pick Bobby up. “He’ll be fine. Take your time,” she said to Lou Ann. “Wave bye-bye to Miss Lou Ann, okay?”

Two more toddlers got dropped off, and then a diaper needed changing. Little Emmie Farmingham, who was almost three, twirled to show Lacey and Susan her new summer dress, patterned with garden vegetables and sporting a carrot for a pocket. Then she proceeded to pull the dress off.

Once they’d gotten Emmie dressed again, the infant sleeping and the other two toddlers playing side by side with plastic blocks, Susan and Lacey settled down into the tiny chairs around the low table. “Babies are great, I guess,” Susan said doubtfully, “but I have to say, I like bigger kids better. I wish one could just land in my lap at age five, like Mindy did.”

“Not me.” Lacey looked over at the toddlers, another surge of regret piercing her heart. “I’ve always loved the little ones.”

“I know you have.” Susan’s voice was gentle. “Hey, want to come over and have lunch with us after this? I think Sam’s grilling. You could bring your swimsuit.”

“You’re sweet.” The thought of lounging by Sam and Susan’s pool was appealing. And Susan was a great friend; she’d stand by Lacey even as she was going through this huge transition of having a child. She wouldn’t abandon Lacey, and that mattered.

Lacey shook her head with real disappointment. “Can’t. I’m meeting Vito for lunch.”

“Oh, Vito.” Susan punched her arm, gently. “Is this a date?”

“It’s not like that. We’re old friends.”

Susan ignored her words. “You should see where it leads. He seems like a great guy, from what I saw of him at the end of the reception. Good-looking, too. Even with the scars.” Susan’s hand flew to her mouth. “I shouldn’t say things like that, should I?”