The Soldier's Sweetheart (7 page)

Samantha passed out thick slices of pie, stuffed to the brim with fresh-picked cherries and smothered with large dollops of whipped cream. Though in general she watched her portions, she allowed herself a small piece, seeing as it was Sunday. Sundays were special occasions. Sundays were all about dessert.

“You like your work at the store?” Grandpa Sampson queried of Will.

“Yes, sir,” he answered promptly, scooping another large bite of pie onto his fork and swallowing rapidly. Apparently good pie
might
be a deciding factor in his life, Samantha thought with a little smirk at her own private joke.

“So it’s going well, then,” her father added. He was clearly pleased that Will had segued into daily life in Serendipity.

“Yes, sir,” Will said again, directing a nod at her father. “I like serving the local folks. It’s all good, except for this Stay-n-Shop nonsense. It looks like they’re making good on their threat to set up competition in the area. If you ask me, they’re wasting their time.”

“What?” Samantha’s mother screeched over the clatter of forks hitting dessert plates.

All eyes were on Will—except for Samantha’s. She took in panicked glances from the people she loved most in the world, watching as their peaceful existences tumbled into a pile of rubble akin to the Tower of Babel.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to crawl under her chair and cover her head with her hands. She wanted to pummel Will for opening his big mouth.

What had he been thinking? He had to have known this would upset them. She’d told him to leave it alone. Why would he blow her cover on purpose?

“I—I’m sorry,” Will stuttered, looking from face to face with a bemused expression on his face. “I just assumed you all knew. The correspondence I read...” He cleared his throat. “The first letter was dated quite some time ago. Naturally, I thought—”

His speech came to an abrupt halt as Samantha’s father stood and slammed his palms down on the table, causing the dishes to rattle with the force of his impact.

“Samantha!” he roared. “Do you care to explain yourself?”

Samantha’s gaze dropped from her father’s frosty stare. “I have been... There are... We received...”

How in the world was she going to explain her rationale to her family so they wouldn’t be angry with her for keeping them out of the loop? Everyone was frowning at her. Even the message in her grandfather’s eyes was clear and distressing:
I’m so disappointed in you.

A mixture of conflicting emotions went off like Roman candles in her chest. Anger. Fear. Shame. Desperation.

“I didn’t want to burden you with this,” she murmured in a choked voice. Tears flooded her eyes. She had the distressing tendency to cry when she got angry, and she was spouting steam right now.

Her gaze narrowed on Will.
Thank you very much.

He frowned as if to say,
How was I supposed to know?

The answer hit her like a two-by-four. He couldn’t have known. Because she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told him that she was keeping her family in the dark about the Stay-n-Shop. So he hadn’t realized the fight was hers alone.

The truth was, the situation with Stay-n-Shop would have come to light eventually, Will or no Will. What had she expected? That her family would be grateful? That there would be no repercussions for keeping it a secret?

She wasn’t fool enough to believe they wouldn’t be upset, but if she’d already resolved the conflict, at least their distress would be short-lived. They would be proud of her for saving the day. Now she’d never hear the end of it. That she’d kept the secret out of the best intentions of her heart was no longer relevant. Not to her father, or her mother, or Grandpa Sampson, who’d owned and operated the store long before she was even born.

“Genevieve, dear,” her mother finally said, “why don’t you go see if you can find your little dolly Natalie to play with? I think I saw her in the toy box in the play room. Or there’s a video game set up in the living room, if you’d rather play that.”

Everyone at the table waited silently until the little girl was out of earshot, not wanting to upset her. But the moment she was gone, all eyes turned to Samantha.

“You didn’t want to burden us with
what?
” her mother demanded in the clipped mom voice Samantha immediately recognized as censure.

Samantha cringed. She might be a full-grown adult, but her mother was still her mother. She sat back in her seat, wrapped her arms in front of her and stared at her untouched plate of pie. The cherries, which only moments before had appeared delicious and mouthwatering, now twisted her stomach. She knew she’d never be able to hold down a single bite.

She’d essentially been outed, and now she had to deal. When her family discovered the full extent of Stay-n-Shop’s manipulation, and all that she was keeping from them, she might not be invited back for Sunday supper until she was ninety.

What was she supposed to say?

“Do you want me to take this?” Will asked when she didn’t immediately offer an explanation.

She shrugged and glared at him for good measure.
He
was the reason she was in this position. He might as well be the one to finish the job. Her head was already on the chopping block, and he held the razor-sharp ax above her neck. All he had to do was swing it.

“Samantha has been receiving aggressive correspondence from Stay-n-Shop,” Will confirmed, his mouth a hard line of disapproval. She wasn’t certain whether his scowl was meant for her, because she’d kept this situation from her family, or for the dire circumstances in general.

“We’re all aware that they’ve been buying up local grocery stores in the area,” her grandfather said. “Are you sayin’ they’re wanting to do the same to us? Take us out and put up one of theirs?”

Will’s gaze brushed over her as he nodded grimly. The room erupted as everyone expressed their outrage and disbelief, shouting over one another in order to be heard.

Confusion mounted until her father put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. He raised one hand in the air to take control over the ruckus. Still murmuring their opinions, the members of her family reluctantly quieted down. Will sat rigidly, his expression neutral. Surely he wasn’t entirely unaware that his words had caused all this commotion. Samantha’s blood boiled.

At least the guy should feel
something
after yanking the rug out from under her world. He’d altered the Howell family dynamic, maybe permanently. He’d quite possibly destroyed her parents’ trust in her. Didn’t he care about how she must be feeling right now?

“So what you are saying is that Stay-n-Shop has made an offer to buy us out,” her father said to Will.

“Repeatedly,” Samantha replied, but no one seemed to be heeding her words. She might as well not have spoken.

“Yes, sir,” Will affirmed. “They’re offering for the store. But there’s more.”

“More?” Her mother’s head snapped up, her voice a good octave higher than usual. “Like what?”

“I told them I wasn’t interested in selling,” Samantha inserted, seething with frustration that no one appeared to be paying attention to her. It was almost as if they were ignoring her as payback, which she was the first to admit she probably deserved. Still, she had something important to say, and she needed them to listen. She spoke louder, increasing her volume to exceed that of the other folks in the room. “Believe me when I say I firmly declined their offers.”

“Offers?” her mother parroted. “Plural?”

“Then why are we having this conversation?” her father asked simultaneously.

Because Will opened his big mouth.

“Because Stay-n-Shop wouldn’t take no for an answer,” she clarified. “They’ve acquired a ninety-day option on some property on the south side of town. They indicated that they would prefer to buy us out rather than build a new store, since it would be less of a hassle for them not to have to get new permits and zoning, especially since we already own the land around the store. They plan to use the additional space to build their superstore. However, if I don’t cave in to their demands, they’re fully prepared to move forward with building their own store.”

“Consequently driving us out of business,” Will finished for her.

Samantha’s eyebrows hit her hairline. There was that
us
again. Will spoke as if he were one of them, as if he had a vested interest in Sam’s Grocery beyond just working there. She felt like reminding him that he’d only been employed for a few weeks, and that she had hired him under duress.

She wondered if any of the rest of the family noticed Will’s inclusive wording—and what they thought if they did.

“You received repeated legal threats, and yet you didn’t think this was something we should be aware of?” her father asked Samantha in a barely controlled voice. He glowered at her as only a father could do. She didn’t recall ever having seen him as angry as he was right now. His face was flushed, but it was his rhythmic stroking of the white goatee at his chin that made Samantha quake in her boots. Hopefully at least a little of that fury was directed at Stay-n-Shop and not at her. Otherwise, she was in the worst imaginable trouble. She felt like she was four years old again, getting in trouble for coloring on the wall. Only these markers didn’t wash off.

Samantha took a deep breath and mentally pulled herself together. She’d always known this moment would happen—she’d only hoped it would have been
after
the issue was resolved. She’d wanted to present this as a closed case, without having to worry them with unnecessary details. But she had to accept that it was what it was.

“I kept this quiet for your sake.”

“How do you figure?” her father snapped, thumping the table with his fist.

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Will wince at the gesture. But it was Will—he didn’t wince. Not at anything.

“Honestly? Initially, I didn’t see a reason for you to get involved,” she answered. “Granted, I was a little shaken up when I got their first letter, but I thought if I declined their offer, they would go away.”

“You should have told us,” her mother scolded.

Samantha nodded. “I planned to tell you when everything was settled. But then those corporate lawyers came back with a second offer—more money, more pressure. They indicated their intention of securing land in the area should I not agree to their terms.”

“Seems to me the tension is running a little high in this room,” Grandpa Sampson declared. “Let’s remember we’re all family here.”

“Samantha has yet to explain herself,” her father said.

“She was doin’ what she thought was best.” Grandpa Sampson silenced her father with a look that could singe the hair off a human being. “What’s done is done.”

“What do you suggest we do then?” After Grandpa Sampson’s admonishment, her father seemed to have calmed down a bit, though a muscle still jerked in his jaw.

“I think the first order of business is to get our hands on those papers,” Grandpa Sampson suggested. He was in top form tonight, his mind clear. “We all need to read the letters to get up to speed, get a better sense of what’s happening. We can’t support our Samantha if we don’t know exactly what we’re up against. You can get them for us right away, can’t you, Samantha?”

“I’ll get the file when we’re done talking,” Will offered. “If you all can watch Genevieve a bit longer.”

“Much obliged,” said her father.

“It’s no problem,” Will insisted. “I’m glad to do it—to assist you any way that I can.”

Her father nodded briskly. He understood what Will was offering, and it wasn’t just running to the store to retrieve a file. He was stepping up for the family, just as he’d said he would. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or feel bulldozed by his insistence on meddling in her personal business—or rather, the family business.

“Before you leave, Will, we should pray about it,” her mother added. “God knows the specifics better than we ever will, with the letters or without them.”

“I still have questions, Samantha,” her father said. “You have yet to explain why you thought it would be better to keep us in the dark about this whole situation rather than coming to us for help,” he reminded her. “We’ve worked our whole lives in order to bring you the security of the grocery, a legacy you could continue, should you so choose.”

“Exactly my point,” Samantha said. “You
have
worked your whole lives to give me Sam’s Grocery, and I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know. It’s become my life’s dream. Most all of what I want to accomplish in life is tied up in that store.”

“All the more reason for you to have brought us in on this,” her father argued.

“Or all the more reason for me not to bring you in at all,” Samantha countered. “You finally have the opportunity to do something
you’ve
always wanted to do—run the bed-and-breakfast. Now I’ve ruined it for you, and don’t say I haven’t.”

“How do you figure?” her father demanded, sounding a little bit wounded by her declaration. “You haven’t ruined anything. It’s hardly your fault corporate America is nipping at your heels. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t think she meant any harm by withholding information,” Will offered. “She really had the best intentions in mind by not telling you.”

Samantha glanced at Will, surprised by his support. Did he actually understand why she’d not shared the information with her parents?

She knew she’d hurt a lot of feelings, and she wasn’t sure how to repair the mess she’d made. She continued her explanation, folding and refolding her napkin in perfect lines to give her hands something to do. “I knew exactly what you would do if I told you about the situation with Stay-n-Shop. You would have set aside your own plans in order to help me until this whole mess was resolved. I mean, that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?”

“You’d better believe it,” her mother agreed.

“Absolutely,” her father said at the same time.

“But don’t you see? I didn’t want you to do that. I still don’t.”

“Why not?” Grandpa Sampson asked. “The Good Book says that in a multitude of counselors there is safety.”