Her Soldier's Baby. Tara Taylor Quinn

one of the few licensed nonprofits with offices around the country. It opens our pool of birth mothers and adopting families to suit everyone better, while still allowing us to do on-site home studies over the course of a couple of months for each one.”

      Up until a month ago, Eliza hadn’t known the ins and outs of adopting a baby. She’d trusted her grandmother to make certain her son had a good home. She’d trusted the agency she’d visited one bleak day that horrible fall.

      She knew now how families were vetted. The paperwork and legalities and home visits. The social workers assigned to prospective families. All of it had comforted her. She wished she’d done the research sooner.

      And yet, how could she research something that, for all intents and purposes, had never happened?

      She’d borne the child but had no rights to him. At all.

      “I gave up all rights,” she said now. Except the one her grandmother had insisted upon. “Except that he’s allowed to know who I am. If he ever asks.”

      Mrs. Carpenter nodded.

      “His family got him through this office,” she said.

      Feeling slightly woozy, muddled, Eliza stared at the gray patent leather shoes. Wondered how long she’d be able to walk in them if she owned a pair.

      “Has he asked to see you?” The soft words broke into her consideration of crunched toes, foot cramps and blisters. None of which were likely to be a problem for her.

      Because she’d been wearing heels since she was seventeen. And because she wasn’t likely to be wearing four-inch ones any time soon. She was an innkeeper. The owner of Rose Harbor Bed-and-Breakfast. Making a home away from home for hundreds of people every year.

      “No,” she said now. “The letter just told me that he’d contacted your office to inquire about my identity. I guess I had the right to know that they’d given him what information they had on me. My name, where I was living at the time of the adoption and the office through which he originated.”

      Nothing else. It was so...open-ended.

      But tightly shut, too.

      What if he wanted to find her and couldn’t? She’d married. Her name was different.

      And the address was, too. Back then, her grandmother had lived in a separate house off Shelby Island. She’d managed Rose Harbor in those days. But the year Eliza had graduated from high school, when her grandmother had turned sixty and had been able to access her retirement fund without penalty, she’d used it to buy Rose Harbor.

      What if he found her, came knocking on the door, and Pierce answered?

      “I...came here to find out...”

      She broke off as she started to shake. And get too warm again.

      “If, as you say, you gave up all rights, I can’t give you any information on him.”

      Swallowing, she attempted a smile, one she gave to reassure an agitated guest, and failed. “I know,” she managed. “I’m not asking. I just...wanted to know if you could maybe find out...somehow...if he wants to see me.”

       Please, God. Yes. Let me meet my baby boy. Finally. Please. Just to touch his hand once. To look in his eyes one time before I die.

       Oh. God. No. Have him be happy. Fulfilled. In want of nothing. Including the need to see the woman in whose body he was created.

      Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. “If there’s something in his file that indicates that he’s open to seeing you, I can pass on your information. But generally, if that were the case, the letter you received would have indicated as much.”

      The counselor took her name anyway. The case number that Eliza had memorized from the letter that she’d shredded. Taking a bottle of water from the small refrigerator under a counter across from them, Mrs. Carpenter handed it to Eliza, asked if she’d be okay for a few minutes and, at Eliza’s nod, left the room.

      Eliza wasn’t okay. Her fingers shook so badly, she dropped the cap of the water bottle after opening it. And in her black pants and white cropped jacket, Eliza dropped to her knees to reach under the desk it rolled under.

      Back in her seat, she pulled out her phone. Read Pierce’s text telling her that he was home and that everything was on course for social hour.

      He didn’t include any silly emoticons or anything that could indicate how very much in love he was with his wife.

      But those words, reassuring her, read like an avowal of undying love.

      Longing for the life she’d built, the adrenaline rush of being in her own parlor with guests who were happy with her accommodations, happy with the hors d’oeuvres she’d served them, Eliza wished she’d stayed home. Auditioning, traveling across the country like this...it had been a mistake. She should be home, basking in the knowledge that when her guests retired for the night, she’d be going to bed with Pierce. To fall asleep in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved.

      She wanted to answer the text. Typed. Deleted. Typed. Deleted. She couldn’t lie to him. Couldn’t tell him where she was. Or why she was there.

      She hated not being able to tell him.

      Fear shot through her as she considered the Pandora’s box she’d opened.

      But she hadn’t opened it.

      Her baby boy had opened it. He’d asked about her.

      There was no way she could ignore any possibility that he needed her.

      No way Pierce would want her to.

      And no way she could tell him that she’d given away the only child he would ever father.

       CHAPTER THREE

      LILY ELIZABETH MCCONNELL had been married thirty years. “Not long enough,” the fifty-something, salt-and-pepper-haired woman told Pierce as she stood, a china plate holding a couple of Eliza’s miniquiches in her hands. “You take it for granted, you know?”

      Her eyes were glassy with emotion, but her voice was calm. Pierce respected the control. “I do know,” he said wholeheartedly. “Sad, isn’t it, that you have to lose something to realize what it meant to you?”

      He hadn’t meant to speak that last bit out loud. But the woman’s need tapped into the vulnerability he normally had buried so deep he could pretend it didn’t exist.

      He was always a bit off when Eliza was gone.

      The well-dressed widow tilted her head. “You’ve lost someone, too?” she asked.

      He’d walked right into that one.

      Music played softly from good-quality speakers resourcefully hidden among the genuine antiques that filled—and garnished—the room. Classical piano. He recognized Pachelbel’s Canon only because it was Eliza’s favorite and she had what seemed like a million renditions of it.

      He didn’t want to offend the guest, but he wished the couple in the corner enjoying the free wine were more open to socializing. Or that the families he’d been told had checked in would come downstairs.

      “I have,” he told Mrs. McConnell, taking a sip from the glass of iced lemon water he’d poured before leaving his and Eliza’s private section of the mansion to do his duties as host.

      There. They could have mutual understanding, as the strangers they were, and move on. Glancing over her shoulder, he noted the still-empty stairway. No families coming down yet.

      Lily Elizabeth McConnell seemed as interested in his hand as he was in the staircase.

      “You’re wearing a wedding ring,” she said when she caught him noticing her stare.

      Awkward.