The Soldier's Secret Child

by Lee Tobin McClain

  Vito stood, looking at her quizzically. “The grown-ups will be doing some talking,” he said firmly. “For tonight, we’re staying out at the motel like we planned. But before we go back there, I want you to apologize.”

  The boy looked at Lacey, then away, digging the toe of a well-worn sneaker into the dirt. “I’m real sorry I broke your rooster. It was an accident.”

  She nodded, getting to her feet. “That’s all right. I think I can find another one kind of like it.”

  Her own soft feelings surprised her. Generally, she avoided little ones, especially babies; they were a reminder of all she couldn’t have.

  But this boy touched her heart. Maybe it was because his reaction to breaking the rooster was so similar to her own reaction when she’d broken the lamp. Hide. Don’t let the grown-ups know, because you never know what disaster will happen when grown-ups get upset. She’d been fortunate, found by her grandma and father instead of her mom. Come to think of it, her brother had probably gone to them on purpose. He’d wanted her to get in trouble, but not from their volatile mother.

  Lacey was beyond all that now, at least she thought so, but she still identified with the feeling of accidentally causing disasters and facing out-of-proportion consequences.

  “And the other question you have to answer,” Vito said, putting an arm around Charlie’s shoulders lightly, ignoring the boy’s automatic wince, “is how you got down here when you were supposed to be staying with Valencia.”

  Lacey moved to stand by Charlie, and her presence seemed to relax him.

  “I asked her if we could take a walk,” Charlie explained, a defensive tone coming into his voice. “When we came by here, she started talking to the people and I came inside. I just wanted to look around.”

  “You’re not to do things like that without permission.” Vito pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have another apology to make, to Valencia. And no dessert after dinner tonight.”

  The boy’s lower lip came out, and Lacey felt the absurd impulse to slip him an extra piece of wedding cake.

  An accented voice called from the other side of the yard. “Charlie! Charlie!”

  “You run and tell Miss Valencia you’re sorry you didn’t stay close to her. And then wait for me on the porch.”

  As the boy ran toward the babysitter’s anxious voice, Lacey looked up at Vito. “In over your head?”

  “Totally.” He blew out a breath. “What do I know about raising kids?”

  “How’d you get into it, anyway?”

  “It’s complicated.” He looked away, then back at her. “Listen, don’t feel pressured into having us stay at your guesthouse. I don’t expect that, no matter what Nonna says. And you can see that we’d be a handful.”

  She looked into his warm brown eyes. “I can see that. And I honestly don’t know if it would work. But what are you going to do if you can’t stay here?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” He rubbed his chin. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Let me sleep on it. It’s been a crazy day.”

  “Of course it has, and I’m sorry to add to that.” They headed toward the rest of the guests, and he put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. It was an innocent gesture, a friendly gesture, the same thing he’d done with Charlie.

  But for some reason, it disconcerted her now, and she stepped away.

  Something flashed in Vito’s eyes and he cleared his throat. “Look, tomorrow Charlie has a visit with his birth mom up in Raystown. Let me take you to lunch. We can talk about Nonna and the possibility of Charlie and me staying here. Or more likely, how to break it to Nonna that we won’t be staying here.”

  She’d planned to spend the next afternoon cleaning up and recovering from the wedding. “That’ll work.”

  “The Chatterbox? Noon?” His voice was strictly businesslike.

  “Where else?” She wondered why he’d gone chilly on her. “I’m looking forward to catching up.”

  And she was. Sort of.

  * * *

  The next morning, Vito pulled his truck into the parking lot at the Supervised Visitation Center and glanced into the backseat of the extended cab. Yes, a storm was brewing.

  “Why do I have to do this?” Charlie mumbled. “Am I going back to live with her?”

  “No.” He twisted farther around to get more comfortable. “We talked about this. Your mom loves you, but she can’t do a good job taking care of you, and you need to have a forever home.” He’d practically memorized the words from the foster parenting handbook, and it was a good thing. Because apparently, Charlie needed to hear them a bunch of times.

  “Then why do I have to visit? I wanted to play basketball with Xavier, that kid from the wedding yesterday. He said maybe I could come over.”

  Vito pulled up another memorized phrase and forced cheer into his voice. “It’s important for you to have a relationship with your mom. Important for you and for her.”

  The whole situation was awful for a kid, and Krystal, Charlie’s mother, wasn’t easy to deal with. She’d neglected Charlie, and worse, exposed him to danger—mostly from her poorly chosen boyfriends—way too many times.

  Someone who hurt a kid ought to be in prison, in Vito’s mind, at the very least. But he had to keep reminding himself that Krystal was sick.

  “You’ll have fun with your mom,” he said. “I think you guys are going to go out for lunch in a little while and maybe over to the lake afterward.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun.” Charlie crossed his arms and looked out the window, making no move to get out of the car.

  Vito looked that way, too, and saw Krystal getting out of the passenger side of a late-model SUV. Maybe things were looking up for her. He’d only met her a few times, but she’d been driving a car noticeably on its last legs.

  The SUV roared off, passing them, with a balding, bearded, forty-something guy at the wheel. Vito looked back at Charlie in time to see the boy cringe. “What’s wrong, buddy?” he asked. “Do you know that guy?”

  Charlie nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Krystal strolled over to the back stoop of the Center, smoking a cigarette. Vito wished for a similarly easy way to calm his nerves.

  He wished he knew how to be a father. He’d only had Charlie full-time for a month, most of which they’d spent in Cleveland, closing down Vito’s previous life, getting ready to move home. Charlie had been well and truly welcomed by the Cleveland branch of Vito’s family, though everyone had agreed on waiting to tell Nonna about Charlie until the foster care situation was definite. If everything went well, he’d be able to adopt Charlie after another six months and be the boy’s permanent, real father.

  Learning how to parent well would take a lifetime.

  Vito got out of the car. The small, wire-supported trees around the brand-new building were trying their best, sporting a few green leaves. A robin hopped along the bare ground, poking for worms, and more birds chirped overhead. It was a nice summer day, and Vito was half tempted to get back in the truck and drive away, take Charlie to the lake himself.

  But that wasn’t the agreement he’d made. He opened the passenger door and Charlie got out. His glance in his mother’s direction was urgent and hungry.

  Of course. This visit was important. No matter what parents did, kids always wanted to love them.

  Vito forced a spring into his step as they approached the building and Krystal. “Hey,” he greeted her, and tried the door.

  “It’s locked, genius.” Krystal drew harder on her cigarette. She hadn’t glanced at or touched Charlie, who’d stopped a few steps short of the little porch.

  Looking at the two of them, Vito’s heart about broke. He considered his big, extended family up in Cleveland, the hugs, the cheek pinches, the loud greetings. He had it good, al
ways had. He squatted beside Charlie and cast about for conversation. “Charlie’s been doing great,” he said to Krystal, not that she’d asked. “Going to sign him up for summer softball.”

  “Nice for you. I never could afford it.” She looked at Charlie then, and her face softened. “Hey, kid. You got tall in the past couple months.”

  Vito was so close to Charlie that he could sense the boy’s urge to run to his mom as well as the fear that pinned him to Vito’s side.

  The fear worried him.

  But Charlie would be safe. This was a supervised visit, if the caseworker ever got here.

  “You were Gerry’s buddy,” Krystal said suddenly. “Did you know about me, or did he just talk about her?”

  What was Vito supposed to say to that, especially in front of Charlie? The boy needed to think highly of his father, to remember that he’d died a hero’s death, not that he’d lived a terribly flawed life. “It’s better we focus on now,” he said to Krystal, nodding his head sideways, subtly, at Charlie.

  She snorted, but dropped the subject, turning away to respond to her buzzing phone.

  Focus on now. He needed to take his own advice. Except he had to think about the future and make plans, to consider the possibility of him and Charlie staying with the her—Lacey—that Krystal was mad about. Which would be a really rotten idea, now that the ramifications of it all came to him.

  He wasn’t sure how much Krystal knew about Lacey and Gerry, what kind of promises Gerry might have made to her. From what he’d been able to figure out, Krystal hadn’t known that Gerry was married, at least not at first. No wonder she was angry. Problem was, she’d likely pass that anger on to Charlie. She didn’t seem like a person who had a very good filter.

  And if she talked to Charlie about Lacey, and Charlie was living at Lacey’s boardinghouse, the boy could get all mixed up inside.

  If Gerry were still alive, Vito would strangle him. The jerk hadn’t been married to Lacey for a year before he’d started stepping out on her.

  Krystal put her phone away, lit another cigarette and sat down on the edge of the stoop. She beckoned to Charlie. “Come on, sit by me. You scared?”

  Charlie hesitated, then walked over and sat gingerly beside her. When she put her arm around him, though, he turned into her and hugged her suddenly and hard, and grief tightened her face.

  Vito stepped back to give them some space and covertly studied Krystal. He didn’t understand Gerry. The man had had Lacey as a wife—gorgeous, sweet Lacey—and he’d cheated on her with Krystal. Who, admittedly, had a stellar figure and long black hair. She’d probably been beautiful back then. But now the hair was disheveled. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her skin pitted with some kind of scars. Vito wasn’t sure what all she was addicted to, but the drugs had obviously taken their toll.

  It looked like she’d stayed sober to visit with Charlie today, knowing she’d have to submit to a drug test. Maybe she’d had to stay clean a couple of days. That would put any addict into a bad mood.

  Even before she’d been an addict, Krystal couldn’t have compared to Lacey.

  A battered subcompact pulled into the parking lot and jolted to a halt, its muffler obviously failing. The driver-side door flew open and the short, curly-haired caseworker got out. After pulling an overstuffed briefcase and a couple of bags from her car, she bustled over to them.

  “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 c
elebrate 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.”