Her Soldier's Baby

Will the truth heal him—or tear them apart?

The baby she gave up for adoption long ago is a secret Eliza Westin has concealed from her husband. With good reason. Wounded soldier turned small town police chief Pierce Westin was Eliza’s high school sweetheart. He’s also her son’s father.

Seventeen years ago, Pierce went off to war unaware that he’d fathered a child. Eliza’s shot as a contestant on the Family Secrets cooking competition show is her chance to reconnect with the past. But once she finds her long-lost son, she can only hope that Pierce will embrace their newfound family. Or will Eliza lose the love of her life all over again?

“I have something to tell you.”

Eliza blurted the words before they could be stifled. Now she was on the front line without a shield.

He studied her. “Okay.”

“I have a secret, Pierce. A big one.” Clasping her hands together in her lap, she swallowed. In spite of all of the hours she’d spent thinking about this moment, preparing for it, she had no idea what to say.

Her heart pounded while her lungs tightened around the air she couldn’t seem to get enough of.

“But before I tell you, I need you to promise me that you won’t shut me out. That you won’t just go away and refuse to discuss it.”

“I’d never do that.”

“You have no idea what you’ll do. You don’t know the secret.”

“I know you. And I know how completely I love you.”

If only life were that easy.

Dear Reader,

I feel like I should put a warning label on this one. I sent one to my editor when I turned in the book. She wrote back that she understood why when she sent the revision letter. It’s just that kind of book. One I think you wouldn’t want to miss. But my advice is to find a quiet place—and some alone time—to read it.

Her Soldier’s Baby started out as a somewhat typical, exactly-what-you-want romance novel. It has a lot of the elements we most like to read. A soldier. A secret baby. A nurturing woman with a backbone of steel when it comes to protecting her family. A bed-and-breakfast. Add in a little celebrity status when our heroine is chosen to appear on a reality cooking show and it clicks.

This story has all of those elements. It’s what Pierce and Eliza did with them that changed everything. I had no idea what I was getting into when I sat down to tell their story. I am still feeling every aspect of their journey, thinking about their choices, wishing they were real and I could invite them over for dinner. Or to be my best friends. I want to follow them into the future...

Instead, I give them to you.

I love to hear from my readers. Please find me at Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn. Or join my open Friendship board on Pinterest, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship!

All the best,

Tara

www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com

Her Soldier’s Baby

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Having written over seventy-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

ELIZA CLUNG TIGHTLY to her husband, Pierce, pressing her body against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, her arms around his waist, pulling him in. Charleston International Airport was teeming with comers and goers and waiters that Friday afternoon. Businesspeople arriving home for the weekend, and others, like her, heading out.

Pierce gave her a tight squeeze—more akin to a pat on the head than a desperate hug filled with the emotional angst of having gone through this before, pledging to see each other again and then not.

She savored the contact.

“You’ve got your driver’s license, your boarding pass is on your phone and there will be a car waiting for you in Palm Springs. If your name is not professionally printed on a card, get a cab instead...” He’d started walking the five feet to the security checkpoint line. Once she joined the queue, he’d leave her.

“Remember, don’t make eye contact with men you don’t know, and—”

She shook her head. “I got it, Pierce. I’ve been keeping myself safe for a long time.” Having lived the majority of her adult life alone, she wasn’t worried.

“The world’s changing, Eliza, and California is not Shelby Island. Not everyone you meet is your friend, nor are they all safe for you to bring home.”

She knew that, too. Had a very careful vetting system and security measures in place for the guests she hosted at her successful Shelby Island bed-and-breakfast in an antebellum home just thirty miles down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.

She’d also been doing that alone for the majority of her adult life.

“I promise, I’ll stay alert, babe,” she told her husband—because she knew that these reminders were his way of supporting her choice to go.

“Just watch yourself going to and from the studio. You’re going to be all over national television, and who knows what kind of crackpot could come out of the ozone? You’re a beautiful woman and...”

She wasn’t. At five-five and a hundred thirty-five pounds, she wasn’t as tall and skinny as the California TV beauties. She wasn’t blonde, either. On good days, her brown hair had a bit of a shine to it. Mostly it just fell, all mousy-looking, around her shoulders, wherever gravity took it. But she loved that Pierce found her as good-looking as he had when they’d been an item in high school. Hard to believe that had been nearly eighteen years ago.

They’d reached the end of the line. Which was moving quickly. She stepped to the side to let a family of five pass. Mom, dad and the kids. That would never be her.

She looked up into Pierce’s big blue eyes—the only soft part of her military-trained cop husband—and melted when he met her gaze with all of the depth of his heart. That look...some days it seemed it was all that was left of the sweet, sensitive boy who’d left her just-turned-sixteen self to go off to basic training.

“I love you, babe,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

There. She took a deep breath. Came back to herself.

“I’ll see you in two days,” she told him. A promise. A pledge. A hope.

And a worry.

“Don’t worry about getting your bag when you come back,” he said. “I’ll park and come in.”

She nodded.

He kissed her. Just a peck. She wanted it to be more personal and might have pushed him into it if she hadn’t had a guilty conscience.

And off she went. To join the queue of strangers. To fly across the country to meet more strangers, to appear as one of eight contestants—all strangers—on the nationally syndicated Family Secrets cooking show—and to search for the one stranger who knew her from the inside out.

Literally.

A stranger Pierce Westin knew nothing about.

* * *

FROM A VANTAGE point against the wall, mostly concealed by a pillar, he watched her through security. And for as far as he could see her.

Because Pierce would never get enough of seeing his beautiful wife. It wasn’t just her big brown eyes, soft cheekbones, and lips that set the world on fire that drew him—though he loved all of that, too. No, it was just...her.

And the fact that she was in his life again. Married to him.

Some nights he woke up in a cold sweat and still couldn’t believe that Eliza Maxwell was his wife. He’d lie there, touching her shoulder, looking at her sometimes for more than an hour, to avoid going back to sleep. When he slept, she was, like the rest of his few good childhood memories, completely out of reach.

The fear that rent his gut when she turned a corner and was out of sight would be with him until her return.

And he would work his tail off. Protecting the people of Charleston, paying it forward—so that the law enforcement of Palm Desert protected her.

He might kid himself that he risked his life every day as a kind of penance—to pay for the sins of his past. But deep down he knew better. There was nothing he could do—ever—to make up for what he’d done. No way his soul would ever be out of debt.

As he reached his patrol car, the fear inside him increased. He wasn’t afraid of the job. On the contrary, his time on the streets, looking out for bad guys, taking them on, taking them in, was the only time he ever really felt comfortable.

What he feared was greater than mere physical death. It was the fear of a man who knew that he wasn’t good enough for the woman he loved.

Who knew that...someday...he would lose her. Again.

* * *

THERE WAS A little gathering for contestants Friday evening down in the lounge. Hosted by the hotel, there’d be wine and hors d’oeuvres, and a chance for all of them to get to know each other before traveling in the van to the studio the next morning. According to Eliza’s paperwork, seven of the eight contestants were traveling in from out of state and would be guests at the hotel.

The eighth, an eighty-one-year-old woman from Utah, had rented a condominium for the next two months in one of the popular senior resort communities for which Palm Desert was known. They’d all had a list of area options. For those who were going to be traveling back and forth for the weekend tapings, the host hotel was by far the best deal.

Eliza would have stayed with the crowd anyway. There was safety in numbers. And convenience in door-to-door transportation.

She took the car she and Pierce had arranged from the airport to the hotel. Paid the driver. Checked in. She was a couple of hours earlier than the three other contestants arriving that day. Three had arrived the night before.

Eliza could have made plans to get together early with them. Could go downstairs on the off chance she’d run into them.

Instead, she grabbed the big black shoulder bag she’d bought to use as a purse for the duration of her time on Family Secrets—a minimum of two weeks, a maximum of six—and made sure the folder was inside.

She opened that and looked for the pencil markings she’d made. Just a couple of numbers. A mnemonic device. She didn’t need it. The information she needed was etched so legibly on her brain, she was half surprised that Pierce hadn’t been able to read it in full.

After his time in Iraq, coupled with his police military training and his time on the job after he got out, her husband could see an ant on a paper plate at a picnic from a block away. His “sniffing out trouble” skills were honed to perfection.

The agency she needed to visit was in Anaheim. A good hour and a half west of Palm Desert. She already knew she could get a rental car from the hotel, and as soon as she’d dropped off her suitcase and quickly freshened up, she went down to the lobby to do so.

She didn’t need to look her best. She was going only to the agency. To see if she could get some information.

In deference to the questions she knew her husband was going to ask, she got a car with built-in navigation. And called him as soon as she was inside. Telling him that she’d only rented the car for the afternoon. She had some free time and didn’t want to be cooped up in a hotel when she was in sunny California for the first time in her life.

Pierce didn’t like her out and about on her own. At all.

But he didn’t question her desire to take a look around. He never questioned anything she did. Trusted her completely.

Which made the start of this particular journey that much more difficult.

Pierce didn’t trust often, or easily, but he’d always been able to trust her. Since the moment he’d come back into her life, she’d never given him reason to doubt her.

He’d needed that.

And she’d somehow worked it out in her brain that if she did that for him, she could make up for the part of her past that he didn’t know about. Make up for the one secret she kept. The one part of her life he wouldn’t recognize.

The part after he’d left for the army, and she’d left town—and the high school where they’d met and been a couple—to finish high school in South Carolina. Living with her grandmother.

The licensed nonprofit agency was located in a suite of offices in an upscale professional park. Following the instructions coming over the car’s system, she drove straight there. Parked. Stared at the door. This was a long shot. At best.

At three o’clock on Friday afternoon, the employees inside were probably winding down for the week. She knew from their website that they closed at five p.m., five days a week. And were closed all weekend, too.

A couple came out. His arm around her, his head slightly bent toward hers. They appeared to be in their midthirties, well dressed. Got into a royal blue BMW.

And she hadn’t come all this way to watch other people live their lives. Truth be told, she hadn’t come all this way to compete on a cooking show, either.

She’d auditioned for the show as a means to come all this way. If she hadn’t won the audition, she’d told herself she’d see that as a sign that she was to do nothing.

Likewise, if she got on the show, that was momentous enough to be considered a sign in the other way—it would be sure direction to act.

The fact that winning Family Secrets could allow her and Pierce the finances to get him off the streets was added impetus.

She’d been motivated by need and had been given opportunity, and now it was up to her to do all she could to make their future come to fruition.

And added to all of that, the unforeseen aspect... She really needed to win the competition for herself. Needed it badly. These past weeks of living in her future while knowing she was going back into her past had shown her something very clearly. Her whole life she’d defined herself by those in her life—her parents, Pierce, her grandmother and then Pierce again. And she was...weary. It was like she was constantly running to keep up, but never quite catching up because someone always needed something more.

But winning the competition...that was for her. To show herself that separate and apart from everyone else, she was just plain good at something. She was an individual with a talent that had nothing to do with anyone else in her life.

Maybe if she could believe that, if she could show herself that much, she wouldn’t constantly feel as though she had to earn the love of those around her. She could just love them. Serve them. And feel...like she was enough.

But first, she had to take care of her past.

CHAPTER TWO

WHILE THERE WASN’T a lot of crime on Shelby Island, there was plenty of it in Charleston, which was where Pierce worked. With the harbor and the beaches, the moderate temperatures and South Carolina charm, the city attracted all kinds. From drug users to homeless, vacationers to the rich and famous, illegal immigrants to some of the nation’s most respected leaders, Pierce, with his fellow officers, walked among them. Determined to keep the peace.

When a call came in, he put himself on the front line as often as he could. He was trained for all kinds of warfare. Had reflexes that outranked those of most officers.

And no fear of dying.

Some thought he was a bit too into danger and shied away from partnering with him. Others put in requests to ride with him.

He preferred going it alone.

And would have liked to stay on for a second shift when his was up Friday afternoon. But instead he parked his vehicle and headed out right on time. With Eliza gone, he had evening social hour welcoming duties at the bed-and-breakfast. He wasn’t good at it. Figured he probably put as many people off as he made feel welcome, but his wife didn’t seem to get that.

She had a full-time assistant. And a part-time one, too, for times like these when she couldn’t be at Rose Harbor B and B herself. The weekend’s meals were all prepared and in the refrigerator, ready to heat. As cooking was Eliza’s passion, she did all of it herself.

Someone would be at the house to check in guests and tend to unforeseen needs: a pillow that was too hard or too soft, an allergy to a particular kind of soap, menu preferences that a guest might have forgotten to fill in ahead of time.

Pierce’s job was simply to be present. To welcome Eliza’s guests into their home as though they were friends. To chat with them and assure them that they were happy to accommodate their needs.

And to fix anything that might be broken. A toilet with a flush valve gone bad. A leaky faucet. Things Eliza could do, too, in a pinch.

His wife, a Harvard graduate, had a lot of surprising talents. He thought of her, and the fact that it was still early afternoon in California, as he drove home. Had to toss his cell phone to the backseat while he drove in an effort to stop himself from calling. And he concentrated on the evening ahead.

They had four of their six rooms filled that weekend. Two to families in town for a reunion. One an older couple who visited at least once a year. And the fourth to a recent widow, traveling on her own.

Other than the mingling, Pierce was happy to be a part of Eliza’s venture. To contribute.

Mostly he was happy to be her self-appointed sentry. Checking out as many of their guests as possible, assessing, making certain that there were no signs of risk.

And if there were, to investigate further. Without anyone being the wiser, of course.

He was there to serve the woman he loved.

For as long as he could be of use to her.

For as long as he was more help than hurt.

* * *

ELIZA WAS SHOWN to a counselor almost immediately. Probably because there’d been no one else in the waiting room that late on a Friday afternoon.

“Mary says you’re here to ask about one of our clients?” the woman, Mrs. Carpenter, said as she shook Eliza’s hand. She told her to take a seat before sitting back down herself.

The counselor looked to be in her mid-forties, with short, dark hair and a reserved but friendly smile. She was well-dressed in a gray suit with a maroon silk blouse. Eliza hadn’t seen her shoes before she sat down behind her desk, but figured them for fashionable heels.

“I received a letter from your office,” Eliza said. “Just before Christmas.” And that was when she’d started looking around for a reason to visit California without arousing Pierce’s suspicions—and had come upon the Family Secrets auditions.

Sort of. She was a huge fan of the show. And had been trying to figure out a way to pursue the letter when she’d been watching Family Secrets one night and had seen that there were going to be auditions in Raleigh the week between Christmas and New Year’s...

She’d seen that as a sign. In her imagination, as she’d watched the show over the past couple of years, she’d fancied herself a contestant many times—without ever expecting the chance to make the fantasy a possibility.

Without ever believing she’d have the moxie to actually pursue such a thing.

Until that letter arrived.

She’d told herself she’d try out. If she did make it, it would be another sign. She was supposed to pursue the letter.

But Mrs. Carpenter didn’t need to know any of that. The last thing she wanted was for the woman to think she was some kind of kook.

“I got a letter,” she said. As heat spread up her body, causing the outbreak of an instant sweat, she stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carpenter. This was a mistake. I should never have come. I’m sorry for bothering you...wasting your time...”

The older woman stood, as well. Came around her desk to take Eliza’s hand, and then placed her other hand on Eliza’s arm. “Please, sit down,” she said, maintaining physical contact as she lowered to the chair next to Eliza’s. “You aren’t wasting my time. This is exactly what I’m here for.”

This. Eliza hadn’t even told her what this was. And just as she’d thought, Mrs. Carpenter had four-inch spiked heels on her shoes. They were gray. Patent leather. And definitely real leather.

Eliza liked shoes. Always had. An inexplicable weakness for one who’d always eschewed her parents’ penchant for keeping up appearances in their upper-middle-class crowd.

Pierce, the son of a single father who was a happy drunk, hadn’t been good enough for them.

And in the end, Eliza hadn’t been, either. The summer after her sophomore year of high school, they’d shipped her, their only child, off to her grandmother and bought a four-bedroom home on a golf course in Florida.