The Way To A Soldier's Heart. GINA WILKINS

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       CHAPTER THREE

      ELLE SENT HER costume home with her mom and daughter, which left her dressed in the fall tunic, slim jeans and leather boots she’d worn beneath the robe. This was an outfit more suited to a date night. Not that this was a date, exactly, she cautioned herself. Just an evening with a new friend.

      She and Shane wandered through the park while waiting for the concert to start, browsing the crafts booths and watching costumed kids playing the games and collecting enough candy to support all the town’s dentists for the next twelve months. With all the bustle around them, they had to keep their heads close together to talk, but Elle didn’t exactly find that a hardship.

      Elle’s phone chimed with a text and she drew it from her pocket. “I always check my phone when I’m out,” she explained, not wanting to appear rude. “I have to make sure everything’s okay at home.”

      “Of course.”

      Glancing at the screen, she said, “Mom’s just letting me know that Charlotte is all tucked in and sound asleep.”

      She didn’t add that her mom had urged her to stay out as long as she wanted. And had ended the text with a “wink” emoji.

      “Does your mother live with you?” Shane asked as Elle texted a quick reply.

      She slipped the phone back into her pocket. “Yes. Mom was so lonely after my dad died and I needed help with Charlotte, so she moved in. It’s worked out very well for both of us.”

      After Elle’s divorce two years after her father’s death, her mother sold her own home and had been sharing mortgage and household expenses with Elle since. The house had a finished basement that they’d transformed into a cozy efficiency-style apartment into which Janet had happily settled, though she spent most of her waking hours with Elle and Charlotte.

      “Your mom hardly looks old enough to be a grandmother.”

      Elle smiled. “If you’d said that in front of her, she’d probably have tackle-hugged you.”

      “She was widowed young.”

      “Yes.” Elle sighed regretfully. “She was. Certainly young enough to remarry, even now. She’s only fifty-eight, but she hasn’t been interested in dating. She was totally devoted to my father. They started going out in junior high and she never had another boyfriend.”

      “Yet she seems happy. I don’t think I’ve seen her once without a smile.”

      “That’s my mom. She misses my dad deeply, but for the most part she is very happy. She loves making other people laugh. And most of all, she loves being a grandmother to Charlotte. Who utterly adores her in return, obviously.”

      “Yes, that is obvious.”

      There it was again. That fleeting sadness she’d seen in his eyes before.

      “I think I’m going to indulge in dessert,” he said, shaking off whatever dark thoughts had plagued him before she had time to analyze his reaction. “All these good smells are making me hungry again. What do you recommend?”

      Dragging her attention from this intriguing man, she glanced at the booths around them, seeing caramel apples, funnel cakes, cotton candy, kettle popcorn and fried pies among the dessert offerings. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having one of those fried pies. Apple is my favorite.”

      “Sounds good.” He motioned with one hand for her to lead the way.

      A short while later, having enjoyed flaky, crisp pastries oozing with fruit filling, they settled on a concrete riser in the amphitheater with cups of hot cider. The benches were beginning to fill, and the crowd was noisy and animated as they waited for the music to start. It was fully dark now. The artificial lights cast moving shadows around them suitable to the Halloween decorations and costumes. With no responsibilities pressing on her for the moment, Elle was having a very good time.

      Shane seemed to share that sentiment. Lounging on the hard, cold bench with the disposable cup cradled between his hands, he smiled at her. “Thanks for staying with me, Elle. This is so much nicer than spending another solitary evening in that motel room.”

      “Do you have more business meetings this weekend?” she asked, wondering how long he planned to be in the area.

      “I have a couple more items to check off my list before I leave town.”

      It wasn’t exactly what she’d asked, but maybe his answer had been unintentionally evasive. Before he could say anything else, if he’d planned to, they were interrupted by a group of Elle’s friends who swarmed around them, settling into the rapidly filling riser seating with noisy greetings and laughter. Elle introduced Shane, then rattled off names to him she doubted he would even begin to remember. The concert began a few minutes later and any further conversation was forestalled by the volume of the music from the stage.

      What the performances lacked in polish, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. Elle and her friends filled the breaks between sets with light prattle about kids, sports, festival food and the acts they’d seen. Shane fit in well with the loose-knit group, chatting easily with the other guys, deftly deflecting questions that crept toward the overly personal.

      Elle had almost forgotten what it was like to spend an evening with adults, to laugh and flirt and feel young СКАЧАТЬ