The Soldier's Forever Family

by Gina Wilkins

  It had been like looking at a childhood photo of himself.

  * * *

  JOANNA ZIELINSKI WAS aware of almost the exact moment when the truth hit Adam. His head snapped back, his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed as if against a blast of overbright light. He must have felt as though he’d just been poleaxed.

  She knew the feeling. Seeing Adam here on this beach talking with Simon had stunned her into near incoherence—an uncharacteristic response from a trained psychologist used to giving lectures to college students. She always prepared thoroughly for those presentations. She couldn’t have practiced for this. She’d had no clue that the man who’d slipped out of her bed six years earlier now worked at the very resort where they’d accidentally conceived a son.

  “Simon,” he said, his voice a taut growl now.

  It wasn’t a question, but still her first impulse was to shake her head. To lie about her son’s parentage. Her second, and almost overwhelming, instinct was to snatch up her child and run back to the happy home she’d created for him on her own.

  Her last encounter with Adam had turned her meticulously outlined, fiercely pursued life plan upside down. Something told her this unexpected reunion would have similarly far-reaching and life-changing consequences. For her, for Adam and for Simon.

  She banked down her seething emotions and squared her shoulders. She’d always taken pride in her integrity, and she wasn’t going to abandon her principles now.

  “Yes,” she said in answer to the question he hadn’t uttered. She kept her voice low so her words wouldn’t carry to Simon. “I didn’t know it for a couple of months afterward, but I was pregnant when I left here six years ago.”

  “By me.”

  That didn’t seem to be worthy of a response, so she let it pass.

  He pushed his left hand through his hair, and she thought she detected a slight unsteadiness in his fingers. This was obviously hitting him hard. Understandably.

  Suddenly self-conscious, she smoothed the hem of the purple tank top she wore with purple-and-green plaid shorts. It certainly wasn’t the first time Adam had seen her rumpled from sleep, but that seemed like another lifetime now.

  She noted Adam wasn’t wearing a ring, which didn’t mean he wasn’t married or otherwise committed. Was he thinking of the awkward discussions he might need to have with his wife? Did Simon have siblings? If so, how would this development affect them? How was she going to explain all this to her son?

  Adam moved his hand to the back of his neck. His tousled dark-coffee hair was longer now. Thick. Touchable. He’d gained a few pounds in the ensuing years, but they looked good on him. Really good.

  It shook her again when their eyes met. His were the same smoke-gray as Simon’s. Exactly as she’d remembered, though she’d always pictured them gleaming with a smile. He wasn’t smiling now.

  “Did you even try to find me?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.

  Her chin rose. “You didn’t leave me an address, if you’ll remember.” Or even a goodbye, she added silently, her chest clenching with the memory of waking up and realizing he was gone. That the fantasy was over.

  She couldn’t do this now. She needed time to gather her thoughts, to get her nerves under control. She took a quick step backward on the damp sand. “Simon needs his breakfast. If I don’t see you again before you go on vacation...”

  His eyes narrowed sharply. “I’m not going anywhere. We have to talk. You owe me that much.”

  Six years of emotions flooded through her—shock, stress, joy, exhaustion, wistfulness, laughter and tears. Her voice was barely audible even to her over the wind and waves and seagulls when she responded, “I don’t owe you anything.”

  With that, she turned and hurried to her son’s side, taking his hand to lead him back to their suite. Simon cooperated without protest, probably sensing this wasn’t the time for rebellion.

  She doubted she had completely avoided a painfully awkward conversation with Adam. She’d postponed it, at best. But at least he wasn’t trying to detain her, which would give her a chance to prepare for whatever was to come.

  * * *

  JOANNA SETTLED SIMON at the table on their balcony where he could look over the resort while he ate the breakfast of fruit, yogurt and granola she served from the kitchenette in their two-bedroom suite. They had a spectacular view of the beautifully maintained grounds, which were centered around a small, natural-looking lake decorated with blooming aquatic plants, fish-feeding piers and paddle boats. Masses of colorful flowers and shady trees lined winding paths. The sprawling U-shape of the resort allowed a glimpse of the ocean from their balcony through clearings in the trees.

  To keep Simon occupied for a few extra minutes, Joanna set up her computer tablet in front of him with an educational video about seashells, his latest intellectual passion. Screen time during a meal was a rare treat for him, and he was obviously delighted. She left the sliding doors open when she went inside, but she moved across the room so he wouldn’t hear her when she made a call.

  Her sister answered on the second ring, though her groggy voice made it clear she’d been roused from sleep. “Joanna? What’s wrong?”

  Finally letting go of the tight rein on her emotions, Joanna blurted, “Maddie, he’s here.”

  “What? Who’s there? Are you okay?”

  Hearing the sudden anxiety in her younger sister’s voice, she drew a deep breath and tried to speak more calmly. “I’m okay. Mostly. I’m at the resort with Simon. And...and Adam’s here.”

  “Adam? Wait. The Adam?”

  Joanna swallowed hard and nodded, then remembered Maddie couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

  “Oh, my gosh, what’s he doing there?”

  “He works here.”

  Maddie gave an incredulous laugh. “You’re kidding.”

  “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

  Her sister grew abruptly serious. “No. Sorry. You must have been shocked.”

  “That’s one way to describe it.” The feelings swirling inside her were so fierce, so complicated that she hardly knew how to define them. Honestly, she’d never expected to see Adam again. It had never even occurred to her when she’d booked this trip that Adam would be here, especially not on staff.

  “Did he remember you? Do you think he knew you were coming this weekend? Maybe he saw your name on the reservations list?”

  Remembering the look on Adam’s face when he’d said her name, Joanna replied, “Yes, he remembered me. But I think he was as stunned as I was when we ran into each other this morning. I’m pretty sure he didn’t expect to see me here again.”

  Especially with his child in tow, she thought, biting her lower lip.

  Their brief affair had been unplanned and intense. For the first time in her focused and responsible twenty-seven years, Joanna had felt completely unfettered. Passionate, desirable, spontaneous, adventurous. So unlike her usual self. They’d met on the first night of solitary long weekend vacations for both of them and had been inseparable afterward. They’d spent hours walking on the beach, talking, laughing and holding hands. Flirting. Dining. Dancing. Making love. Just having fun, with no strings or expectations on either side.

  She’d thought they’d been careful despite the playfulness of their time together. She’d discovered a few weeks after returning home that they hadn’t been quite careful enough.

  “Does he know yet? About Simon, I mean,” Maddie clarified unnecessarily.

  “He sort of leaped to conclusions when he found out how old Simon is. Maybe he saw the resemblance. Simon really does look just like him, Maddie. I’ve always known that, but seeing them side by side...well, it’s almost spooky.”

  “Oh, my gosh. So, what now?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted in little more than a whisper.

 
“What did he say? Was he happy? Mad? Skeptical? What?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t give him much of a chance to say anything. I told him I had to make Simon’s breakfast, and I bolted. He said he wants to talk later. I could tell he was shocked, of course, but the only question he asked was whether I’d tried to find him.”

  As the only person to whom Joanna had confided all the details of that vacation fling, Maddie was indignant. “This from the guy who ghosted you without even a ‘Hey, babe, I’ll call you sometime’?”

  “Which is basically what I told him,” Joanna agreed, grateful her sister understood so well. There’d been a time when she’d never have believed she and Maddie would have this mutually supportive relationship. This closeness was one of the two good things that had come of her brief affair with Adam.

  She’d always planned to tell Simon the truth about his parentage at some point. She’d even thought this trip would be a good time to tell him that she’d met his biological father here, if it seemed appropriate. She’d planned to leave it up to him to decide if, when he was older, he wanted to find his father. Not that she’d have been able to assist him much. She and Adam hadn’t exchanged many personal details during their time together.

  Maybe she could have located Adam before now, had she put in more effort. She could’ve persisted in her request for resort records. As a professor, she had strong research skills. There should have been ways to track him down, though his name was common enough to have made it difficult without more information. She could have even hired a private investigator, for that matter. She’d found plenty of reasons to rationalize her choice not to pursue the search. For one, Adam had been clear from the start that he’d had no interest in commitments. He hadn’t elaborated, but she’d gotten the impression he’d had important plans for after his vacation.

  Having just defended her doctoral thesis and on the verge of beginning a new phase of her chosen career, Joanna hadn’t been looking for a serious relationship, either. She’d simply asked him to assure her he wasn’t married. Though she’d been amenable to a no-strings vacation fling, sleeping with a married man would have crossed a line for her. He’d promised her he was single and unattached, and she’d believed him. Foolish, perhaps, but she’d sensed from the beginning that Adam was trustworthy.

  “How did it feel? Seeing him again, I mean?”

  Joanna still didn’t know how to answer that question. It wasn’t as if she’d been in love with Adam. She hadn’t known him long enough for that. Of course, she’d thought of him since; after all, she lived with a daily reminder of him. And maybe she’d wondered if the blazing sexual chemistry between them might have led to more had the timing and circumstances been different. Their situation seemed even more problematic now, considering everything that had happened in the intervening years and the big life changes looming for her and Simon.

  “Do you think he’ll want to be part of Simon’s life now? Is he going to cause you problems? If so, he’d better damned well be aware that he owes six years of back child support. Is he married now? That could be awkward, huh? Will he—”

  “Maddie,” Joanna broke in quietly. “I don’t know any of those answers yet.”

  And it was the not knowing that had her stomach tied in tight knots.

  “Mom? Is there more yogurt?”

  “Yes. Just a sec,” she called back to her son. “I should go, Maddie. I just needed to hear your voice.”

  “Do you want me to come? I can be there in a few hours.”

  Because she knew her sister would absolutely drop everything and rush to her side, Joanna blinked back tears. She was so very thankful they’d set aside their early differences and had become friends as adults. “I appreciate the offer, but I can handle it. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Good luck, Jo.”

  “Thanks.” She was pretty sure she’d need it.

  “Mom?”

  “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.

&nb
sp; 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.