The Soldier's Forever Family. Gina Wilkins
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“Coming,” she said. She put down her phone and moved to get the yogurt from the kitchenette fridge. Pausing in the open doorway with the container in hand, she studied her son with an ache of love in her heart. He looked so serious and sweet dawdling over his breakfast, a frown of concentration on his face as he memorized everything he was seeing on the tablet screen.
He was her everything.
Panic momentarily closed her throat. Her muscles quivered with a strong, if ill-advised, urge to run. She could be packed and checked out in less than twenty minutes. She could leave a note for Adam, which was more than he’d left her. Would he try to find them now that he knew about Simon? That would hardly be difficult if he worked for the resort and had access to her address. Would he disrupt the comfortable life she’d made? Or would he be relieved, instead, if she made it clear she’d ask for nothing from him?
No, she thought, moving forward to spoon a dollop of yogurt over the fruit remaining in Simon’s bowl. She wouldn’t run. She owed it to Simon, if not to Adam, to deal with this directly. As for her own emotions about seeing Adam again—well, she would try to sort those out later.
“You knew that man on the beach, didn’t you, Mom?” Simon asked, glancing up from his bowl with a smear of yogurt at the corner of his mouth.
She smoothed a cowlick at the back of his head. “Yes, I know him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Adam.” She saw no need just then to add the surname.
“Did you meet him last time you were here?”
She’d told Simon when she’d booked this vacation that she’d visited the resort once before, though of course she’d left out the details. What on earth had made her come here again? When she’d made the reservation just after her son’s fifth birthday, she’d assured herself Simon would like what she remembered about the place—the quiet beaches, the pools, the day programs for kids. She’d told herself it was time to deal with her memories of her son’s father, to see the place again through a fresh, more realistic perspective. If she’d had any idea of what—who—she would find here, she wasn’t sure she’d have had the courage to follow through. “Yes, I met him then.”
To her relief, Simon’s attention moved on now that she’d satisfied his curiosity. “When do I leave for the aquarium?”
She smiled, pleased that he seemed eager for the arrangements she’d made for him. Through the resort reservation website, she had enrolled him in the Explorers Club, a program for kids his age. Each afternoon this week, he would join five other children and two certified teachers for field trips and activities based on introductory oceanography. She’d thought Simon would be less likely to be bored with the mother-son vacation if he interacted with other kids in an educational setting. Her bright, inquisitive child was always excited by learning new things. As an academic herself, she wanted to encourage him to continue to view learning as fun.
“You’ll leave right after lunch. One o’clock. What would you like to do in the meantime? Go swimming? Walk on the beach? Build a sandcastle?”
He nodded abstractedly. “Okay, but first can we look up lettered olives on the computer?”
“Lettered olives?”
He picked up the shell he’d found on the beach that morning, a smooth, mottled cream-and-tan cylinder. “Mr. Adam said it’s a lettered olive shell, and he said it’s from a snail, but that’s all I know. The video I just watched didn’t talk about lettered olives. Can we learn more about it?”
Mr. Adam. She felt a wry smile twist her lips in response to the name. “Yes, but we’re not going to spend all of this beautiful morning on the computer.”
Which Simon would happily do if she let him. He loved surfing kids’ sites and watching educational videos, many of them geared to children several years ahead of him in school. Though he would start kindergarten in the fall, he was already reading at a third-grade level and was several grades ahead in math.
While doing her best to promote her gifted child’s intellectual development, Joanna made sure he stayed physically and socially active, which was another reason she’d signed him up for the day camp program. She also needed some time on her own to rest and prepare for an upcoming job change that was exciting but would involve a major upheaval in their lives. She’d promised that she would take advantage of at least a few of those free hours just to pamper herself. She’d put in too many long hours during the past year, spending every spare moment with her son, and she craved the downtime she’d arranged for these precious vacation days.
She grimaced as it occurred to her that she’d rationalized her holiday fling with Adam in much the same way six years ago, considering it a reward to herself after the grueling months of preparation for her doctoral defense. She’d booked the trip a few months earlier with her then-boyfriend, Tim. They’d planned it as their first getaway together, a step forward in a relationship that had seemed promising at the time. They’d broken up a few weeks before leaving, when Tim admitted he wanted to see other women and she’d realized that didn’t bother her as much as it should have. Rather than cancel her reservations, she had decided to celebrate both her degree and her newfound independence in her own way. And she’d made the most of that heady freedom with Adam.
Things were much different now, of course. She’d been young and completely independent then. Now there was Simon, and nothing was more important to her than being a good mother to him.
She just wished she knew what she was going to say to his father.
* * *
MADDIE ZIELINSKI HAD a hard time focusing on her work Monday. Her thoughts were with her sister and the trepidation she’d heard in Joanna’s voice that morning. Understandable. If there was one thing Maddie could say for certain about her older sister, it was that Joanna adored her son. For that matter, so did Maddie.
As unplanned as he’d been for Joanna, as unsettling as the circumstances of his conception had been to their parents, little Simon had brought Maddie’s immediate family closer than they’d ever been. And she hated the thought of some stranger—even if he was technically his father—coming from out of the blue to disrupt the comfortable rapport they’d developed.
Would Adam want to insert himself into the boy’s life now that he’d learned of his existence? She conceded reluctantly that she could understand if he did, but how did they know if this would be a good thing for Simon? The child had been sheltered and cherished his whole life, given every advantage Joanna could provide for him, raised with love and encouragement and judicious guidance. They knew nothing about Adam.
Maddie had no doubt he was personable, good-looking, reasonably intelligent—how else could he have charmed her usually straight-laced sister into bed within a few hours of meeting her?—but for all they knew, he could be a real piece of work beneath a slick facade. Regrettably, Maddie had more experience with the type than Joanna. Joanna might have met a few players in academia, but as a defense attorney, Maddie encountered them every day. She’d gotten involved with some real jerks in her personal life, too. Fallen for a few before she’d decided she’d rather be single and sane than hooked up and stressed out. She might be the younger sister, but when it came to the dating game, she considered herself more worldly and realistic than her sister.
Despite Joanna’s assertion that she could handle this, Maddie wondered if maybe she owed it to both her and Simon to make sure their best interests were protected. She wouldn’t call herself an objective party, of course, since her full loyalty was squarely with her sister and nephew. Maybe Adam was a decent guy—maybe he’d be a great role model for young Simon—but being naturally cynical and experience-hardened, she felt compelled to find out for herself if he could be trusted.
“ADAM? YOU WITH ME, bro?”
Frowning, Adam realized