GINA WILKINS - The Way To A Soldier's Heart

“Yes. Nice little town.”

“It is.”

Walt nodded. “Bubba’s Grill on Salt Marsh Avenue has the best burgers in the area. No offense, Trev, the burgers here are great, but Bubba’s, man.”

Trevor grinned, obviously taking no umbrage. “They are good, I’ll give you that.”

Walt looked at Shane again. “If you’re looking for breakfast, you’ll find good pastries and coffee at The Perkery on Salt Marsh Avenue. I’d say their selection is second only to the ones you’d have here.”

For some reason, Shane felt almost indignant on Elle’s behalf. He couldn’t imagine that Trevor’s pastry chef made anything better than Elle’s chocolate-filled doughnuts.

“I’ve stopped into The Perkery the past couple of days,” he said. “Everything I had was delicious.”

“So, you’d have met Elle and Janet O’Meara,” Trevor commented. He laughed softly before asking, “Did Janet read your palm?”

Remembering that odd first encounter, Shane suppressed a wry grimace. “Not exactly.”

“She’s a sweetheart. Maybe not the most reliable prognosticator, but as kind-hearted a woman as I’ve met. Elle’s great, too, as is her partner, Kristen Boyd. A real asset to their community. Elle spearheads several fund-raisers for local charities. I try to donate on behalf of the resort whenever I can.”

It was encouraging to hear that his niece’s adoptive mother was well respected in the community. Still, Shane wasn’t fully convinced that Charlotte would receive everything she needed as the daughter of a busy, part-owner of a small business that probably operated on a shoestring budget. Not to mention the woman’s self-proclaimed psychic mother. Having been raised by a single parent and a grandmother himself, he was hardly judging those aspects of Charlotte’s life—but was a plastic-fenced play area behind the counter of a coffee shop the best place for a toddler to spend her days? Did she have other children to play with—friends, cousins, neighbors? Enough variety of routine to keep her engaged and learning?

Walt laid his napkin on the table. “I had coffee and a muffin at The Perkery one morning a couple of weeks ago. That little girl of Elle’s is cute as a button. Little heartbreaker in the making, I’m thinking.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Elle’s daughter.” Trevor reached down to pick up the crutches he’d laid beside his chair when they’d been seated. He’d explained to Shane that he’d been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in the spring and was just now getting back on his feet after a second operation to repair the damage to his right knee.

Walt rose as their host did. “Well, she’s a sweetheart.”

“What’s her name again?” Trevor asked idly. “I forget.”

“Charlotte,” Shane said before Walt could reply. “Her name is Charlotte.”

It stung that he couldn’t add that the child had been named after her war-hero father. These men would likely understand his pride, but it would require a lot of awkward explanations—ones he couldn’t give before he told Elle. It was rather a relief when the lunch conversation was over and he and Trevor could direct their attention back to a potential business collaboration.

Later that afternoon, after an extensive tour of the resort, Shane was in his car, headed back to his motel. Though he paid attention to his driving, he still contemplated the circumstances in which he’d found himself. His professional reasons for being in the area were genuine. Once he’d tracked Charlotte down, he’d immediately scheduled presentations with local resorts both to justify his stay and because the company always needed new business.

Scanlon Risk Management, Inc., the company started by his father twenty-five years ago, had fallen into a precarious state during his dad’s illness and after his eventual death. Almost before Shane had completely unpacked his duffel after leaving the military, he’d stepped in to help his uncle get the business back onto solid ground. He was gratified that his efforts were paying off, especially if he secured the Wind Shadow Resorts account—an outcome that seemed promising after hours of discussion with Trevor Farrell.

Which brought him back to the primary purpose for his stay in Shorty’s Landing...

He wished he felt better prepared for what was to come. The time had passed so quickly since he’d gotten out of the army. With so much responsibility on his shoulders, it had been difficult to find opportunity to concentrate on his search for Charlotte, though his intention to do so had never wavered.

Charlie’s on-and-off girlfriend, Brittany, had learned of her pregnancy only a few weeks after Charlie had been deployed to Afghanistan. There’d been no doubt that Charlie would have stepped up as a devoted father to his child. During their last phone conversation, Shane had promised he would take care of the child if anything should happen to Charlie. A month later, Charlie had been killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, leaving his family devastated and his pregnant girlfriend stunned and rootless. The grieving family had rallied around Brittany, even though she’d never been particularly receptive to any of them except Shane, whom she’d seemed to like well enough.

But then Shane had been deployed overseas, only three weeks after the birth of his niece. To the distress of his father and grandmother, Brittany had disappeared with the baby only weeks after Shane left the country. A few months later, they’d gotten word that the baby had been placed for adoption and that Brittany wanted no further contact with any member of the Scanlon family.

Shane had vowed then that he would track down his niece. It was the only way he knew to fulfill his promise to Charlie. He owed it to Charlie, to Charlotte and to his dad, who, before he’d died, had asked Shane to keep an eye out for the family in the future. Those promises had weighed heavily on Shane’s shoulders, and he’d done his best to fulfill them.

Figuring it would be difficult to access adoption records, he’d decided to find Brittany and attempt to learn Charlotte’s whereabouts from her. After discovering that Brittany’s estranged family hadn’t heard from her since before Charlotte’s birth, he’d hired a private investigator.

The search had taken longer than he’d have liked. Volatile Brittany had changed her name and her appearance and lost herself in the shadowy New York nightlife, trying to escape the emotional demons that would always haunt her. Still, Shane had found her eventually. After almost a week of meetings with her, of negotiations and promises—and a generous contribution to her finances—she’d grudgingly given him the name of the woman she’d personally selected through an open adoption agency to raise her daughter. Charlie’s daughter.

Shane had vacillated from the start about how to approach Elle—whether to be candid from the onset, or simply hover in the background for a few days, observing and assessing Charlotte’s current circumstances. He knew there was a good chance that Elle would be angry when she learned the truth. That she’d send him on his way with firm instructions to keep his distance from both her and Charlotte. In other words, he’d been a coward—not something a thirty-one-year-old ex-soldier cared to admit.

It certainly complicated matters that his brain seemed to scramble every time Elle smiled. Even had the circumstances of their meeting been different, he would have likely tried to resist her charms. During the hectic months since he’d returned to civilian life, he’d done his best to avoid preventable complications, and a busy single mom definitely fell into that category. His increasingly urgent quest to find his niece was the exception. He’d felt pressured by his grandmother’s declining health and the promises he’d made to his brother and father.