Secretly Smitten by Diann Hunt Denise Hunter Kristin Billerbeck Colleen Coble Read Free Book Online Page A

know he’s not dead. And they weren’t here to get the news! I wonder if he ever found them.”
    “I sure hope so,” he said.
    Her breath was sweet as she leaned closer. “Rose married Grandpa on December 16, 1951. So this news came a month after her marriage.”
    He whistled. “That would have disrupted the honeymoon if she’d heard the news.”
    “Plus she was pregnant. Mom was born nine months after the wedding.”
    “He was on his way here to see his parents, not knowing they’d moved. And he asks about Rose. You think he got here and found out she was married?”
    “Maybe. But that still doesn’t explain how the dog tags ended up in the attic. He had to have been in the house.”
    “Or else his parents gave them to her.”
    She shook her head. “No, she’d never seen them before Mia found them. And his parents had left already, so how could they?”
    “Has your grandma said anything else about him?”
    “Everyone has carefully avoided talking about the dog tags. No one wants to upset her. I bet she’s wondering about it, though.”
    He grinned. “Your eyes are sparkling, and you’re totally engaged in this. You love a good mystery, don’t you?”
    “Guilty as charged. You have to admit it’s intriguing.”
    “Sure is. So what’s next?” he asked. “We know David survived the war and came back here.”
    “We assume he came back here. But why didn’t Grandma see him? You would have thought in a town this small that if he’d been in town, someone would have told her, even if she didn’t see him personally. But all she knew was that he died in the war.”
    “We could try to find someone in his family. Or he may even still be alive. How old is Rose?”
    Tess’s forehead wrinkled as she thought. “Seventy-eight or seventy-nine. I lose track.”
    “He’d be the same age. So it’s possible he’s still alive.”
    Her gaze went dreamy. “Wouldn’t it be something if he was still alive and we reunited them?”
    “He’s probably married too. His wife might still be alive.”
    Her expression went to crestfallen. “Party pooper. I had a nice daydream going there.”
    He wanted to hug her. She grew more enchanting to him every day. “Well, you never know. Any ideas how to find his family?”
    “We could start with Facebook. Search there and other social network sites.”
    He stared at her. “Honey, he’s nearly eighty. Do you honestly think he’s going to be on Facebook?”
    She stuck her tongue out at him. “Grandma has a page!”
    “You’re kidding. I don’t even have one.”
    “A situation I can quickly remedy,” she said, lifting one eyebrow.
    “I can live without it.” He stood and picked up the box of pictures. “You want to take these home and go through them at your leisure? I don’t have any use for them. Your grandma might like to see them.”
    “She probably would. But I’m not going to show them to her yet. She’ll know I’m investigating. We’re not telling her until we have it all figured out.”
    He called Sophia and tucked the box under his arm. Now he needed to figure out how to keep Tess there for the rest of the evening.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    S everal swans floated serenely by on the lake where Tess sat with her mother and sisters. A blue-and-white checked tablecloth covered the rough wood of the picnic table, and Anna had produced her famous fried chicken from the depths of the oversized basket she’d lugged from the car. Tess’s contribution to the Sunday feast was homemade herb bread. Zoe had brought a plate of store-bought brownies, and Clare brought mashed potatoes made from scratch. None of it matched the rest of the food, but the mishmash of assorted food was a tradition and gave every Sunday dinner a party atmosphere.
    “I saw a sign up for workdays to redo the station,” Tess told her family. “A train stop in Smitten would be the salvation of my bookstore.”
    Clare handed her a plate of food. “It’s going to take major workdays to bring that