by Unknown
Maybe she hadn’t been there enough for him. Hadn’t been emotionally available enough to truly understand what he’d gone through leaving the navy. Just because they’d both joined to get their qualifications, it didn’t mean they didn’t both love what they did. Hadn’t learned to love the camaraderie of their careers, even if they had only signed up for the minimum term each.
But if the constant tug within her chest was anything to go by, she owed it to him, herself and to Gabby to be brave.
She hadn’t made a career for herself as a sergeant in the United States Army by being a coward.
Back in the Soldier’s Arms/Here Comes the Groom
CR!93BHZ3MAHS4NVAVVWQG1QCZMZ0ZB
CHAPTER SEVEN
PENNY picked up the last paper plate off the floor and dumped it in the trash. She had no idea how so few children could make such a huge mess. “All done in here?”
She looked up, blowing out her breath so hard that tendrils of hair flew up around her face. “Finally.”
Daniel collected the garbage bag and tied the top in a knot. “She had a great time.”
Penny collected a glass to put in the dishwasher. “So did I.”
He looked thoughtful before carrying the bag into the kitchen.
“Penny, I know you want to spend time with Gabby, but …” She put the glass down and spread her hands out on the bench. “What is it?”
It was unlike him to be unsure with his words. Daniel was usually forthright, never hesitated.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go away. Even just for a night.” His voice was rapid, he was talking too fast.
Where did he want to take her? And why?
“Daniel, I only have six days left, I can’t leave her.”
His face crumpled before the strength returned and he stood taller, looked confident and composed. The man-in-uniform kind of Daniel she was used to.
ȁhespan cC;One night,” he said, stepping forward so that he was as close as he could be to her from the other side of the bench. “Let me take us away somewhere for one night.”
She physically squirmed on the spot, unsure.
“Daniel, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea …”
He shook his head. “Please, Penny, this is really important to me.”
She didn’t want to say yes. Or maybe she did. Hell, she’d been so confused since she’d been home she hardly knew what she was thinking. What she wanted.
“Pen?”
“I don’t know what to say,” she replied honestly.
“There’s something else I want to ask you.” His voice was soft now, careful.
Penny sucked in a breath and bent to place the glass she’d held before in the dishwasher. She flicked the switch.
Then looked up.
“I completely understand why you don’t want to leave Gabby, but we need to spend time together.”
She waited as he paused, not sure what he was getting at. “Let me take you out on a date.” Oh, my. “A date?”
Daniel looked suddenly serious, solemn even. “This could be it for us, Penny, and I can’t let you go without a fight.”
“Daniel.” Sweat clammed her forehead, instantly made her feel claustrophobic beneath her sweater.
It had been a long time since she’d been on a date.
“I know we’re living together, but I want to spend time with you, just the two of us. I think we need to give us a real shot.”
She fought the barbed words in her throat that wanted to sting him.
Penny hated that they even had to try. That they’d lost what they had. But saying that all over again wasn’t going to help the situation. And she didn’t want to be bitter. Didn’t want to fight, yell, argue. It wasn’t her, and she wanted to preserve her dignity.
Even if all the people in her life that she loved already knew the truth about her marriage.
“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, Daniel. I don’t want to fight with you.”
He reached for her hand across the counter. Traced his fingertips across hers and played them softly along the top of her hand, then around her wrist, before pulling away and tilting her chin with his hand.
The touch felt intimate. Way too intimate.
She wanted to push him away and tell him he didn’t have the right to touch her body, her face, like that anymore.
But she also wanted to remember what it felt like to be touched. To be caressed by the hand of a man who had once loved her.
“It doesn’t have to be anything more than two people who know each other spending time together,” he said, his voice gruff. “We can go out once Gabby’s in bed, and it won’t impact at all on your spending time with her.”
“We’d need a babysitter,” she mumbled.
Daniel chuckled. “All taken care of. My mom’s ready and waiting to be called upon.”
sseÁ#x201D;Penny shut her eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again with a confidence that surprised her. Of course she was.
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
Penny tucked her hair behind her ears and raised her eyes to look at Daniel.
“Yes to your date,” she told him, with a bravery she didn’t truly feel. “I didn’t marry you to be divorced before my thirtieth birthday.”
He smiled. Except she wasn’t finished.
“I also didn’t expect to be dealing with a husband who’d been unfaithful and broken my heart by then either.”
The words were hard to push out, but then so was seeing the crushed look that passed across Daniel’s face.
She had to say what was on her mind, though. If she didn’t, they’d never be able to move forward. Perhaps that’s where they’d gone wrong—not being honest and up-front enough about how they felt. About the problems they were facing.
“I’m sorry, Pen,” he said, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I’m so, so sorry for what I did.”
She smiled tightly. “I accept your apology, Daniel, I do. But it doesn’t mean that we can ever go back to normal. That we could ever expect us to work again.”
“I want it to,” he said. “God, Penny, I want to be back to the way things were.”
For the first time since she could remember, Daniel had tears in his eyes. Tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. Not since her mother’s funeral, maybe since Gabby’s birth, did she recall seeing his tears.
She fought the emotion in her own throat, determined to keep her composure. At least until she was in the private sanctuary of the bathroom where she could sob quietly in peace.
Maybe they should have just argued. Maybe they needed to have a rip-roaring row and vent their anger and frustration. But that wasn’t her, she didn’t want that to be her, and she certainly didn’t want to behave like that when her daughter was asleep down the hall.
“So when’s our date?” she asked, forcing herself to smile. To stop the conversation from getting too heavy. Because she wasn’t ready to go there yet.
“Tomorrow night,” he said.
She reached for the dishcloth to give the bench a final wet down.
“Anywhere in particular?”
“Yeah.” Daniel’s face lit up with a smile. “Pedro’s,” he told her, head angled slightly to the side. “I thought I’d take you back to Pedro’s.”
The look on her face ignited something within Daniel that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Made him feel alive again. When for the last while, for as long as he could remember, he’d felt like a flag at half-mast. Like he was just below the surface and couldn’t quite claw his way back up.
But Penny was slowly reigniting the flame within him that hadn’t burned for a long time.
Slowly making him feel like himself again.
“PedroherÁC;Pedros,” she stuttered, her eyes as large as a cat’s in the dark. “Are you sure?”
He thrummed his fingers across the bench for something to do. Because he didn’t know how else to rid himself of the nervous energy vib
rating through his body.
“I’m positive,” he said, hoping she wasn’t going to change her mind. “It’s the first restaurant I ever took you to for dinner.”
“I know,” she whispered. “It was our first real date.”
Her gaze was sad, but the gentle curve of her mouth, the hint of a smile, was the encouragement he needed.
“We fell in love that night, Penny,” he said, walking around to stand in front of her, to touch her hair and push it over her shoulder. “It was also the place where I proposed to you.”
She gulped, he could see the movement of her throat.
They were standing close, but he wasn’t going to push his luck. Daniel wanted to know that she remembered. That even though he might have been aloof in the past about things like anniversaries, he’d never forgotten the things that mattered.
“And it’s the place I want to take you tomorrow night, because it might be the place we start to fall in love all over again,” he said, his voice laced with emotion.
In the past, he’d always told her he loved her. But maybe he hadn’t made enough of an effort. Maybe they’d just started to take each other for granted, to coast through their marriage rather than work on it. Maybe he should never have kept his feelings buried, should have been honest with her instead of trying to pretend that everything was okay between them.
That stopped here.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about, Penny, but tomorrow night I want to just enjoy one another. I want us to remember why we started dating in the first place. Why we got married.”
She looked up at him, reached for his hand, squeezed it then stepped back.
Why we should stay married, he wanted to say.
But he didn’t say anything else because he didn’t need to. The look on Penny’s face, the moistness of her eyes, told him that she knew.
That he didn’t have to tell her why tomorrow night was so important.
“You want to watch a movie tonight?”
Her question took him by surprise.
“Yeah,” he said, not able to stop the grin as it hit his face.
“I’d love to.”
Penny’s face softened, visibly relaxed. “My choice or yours?”
“Considering you haven’t been able to pick a movie for the last year, I’m gonna let you have the honor.” “Hope you’re up for a romantic comedy, then?” Daniel could tell she was making a huge effort.
He shrugged. He couldn’t care less what they watched, so long as she was up for doing something together.
Penny tucked her feet up beneath herself on the sofa. She was watching the movie but she wasn’t. Her eyes roamed the screen but her senses were focused on the man beside her.
They’dr.&Áey’ been sitting there for an hour, side by side yet not touching.
She was glad. The last thing she wanted was to complicate her feelings any further.
After what had happened earlier.
“Another glass of wine?”
Penny shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
He pushed up to his feet and reached for both their glasses. “How about a hot chocolate, then? Coffee?”
“I’m guessing you’re not enjoying the movie?” Penny laughed at the pained expression on Daniel’s face. “Looking for a chance to escape?”
He looked meek. “You got me.”
Penny reached for the remote and hit Pause. “It’s not that great anyway.”
He blew out a sigh of what she guessed was relief. “Are you sure? I don’t mind watching the whole thing.”
She shrugged. “I’m pretty tired, Daniel. Maybe we should call it a night.”
Daniel looked like he might have preferred to suffer through the movie than go to bed early, but he didn’t say.
“I’ll be down soon,” he said.
Penny gave him a small smile and stretched. She was tired. It had been a long day catching up with everyone, giving Gabby as much attention as she could. Being upbeat even though she was breaking inside at the thought of leaving again so soon after arriving home.
Was shattered at knowing her days were numbered and she’d be leaving all she loved behind and getting back on a plane by Monday. “Daddy?”
Penny stopped dead in her tracks.
Gabby’s tiny voice echoed out from her room.
“It’s Mommy.”
She heard quiet sobbing as she entered, hurried to flick on the lamp beside Gabby’s bed. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“I want Daddy.” She was crying, eyes filled with rapidly falling tears.
Penny bent to wrap her arms around her daughter, to cradle her head and comfort her.
Only to be shrugged off, Gabby’s arms being pulled up toward her eyes, knees drawn up to her chest.
“I want my daddy,” she whispered as she cried.
Penny didn’t know what to do. Whether to force the issue or to call for Daniel. To hold her daughter and comfort her even if she wasn’t the first person she’d called for. Or to give her what she wanted.
Because what was the point in Gabby getting used to calling for her mother if she wasn’t going to be here?
She sucked in a big breath. Even so, she wanted to be the one to comfort her. “Honey, I’m here. Mommy’s here.”
Was it so bad to want to care for her own daughter?
Gabby pulled her arms away and pushed her palms down flat into the bed. When she looked up, her brown eyes were like saucers, glimmering with dampness, her cheeks pink, hair mussed up all around her face.
“But I don’t want you,” she sobbed. “I want my dad.”
Penny’s heart physically shattered into a million shards. Te19;Á shards. ars filled her own eyes, drowned her tear ducts.
“Everything okay down here?”
Gabby began to wail, the noise subsiding only when Daniel flopped down on the bed beside her and cradled her tiny body against his large one.
Penny couldn’t watch. Couldn’t deal with the pain of knowing her daughter didn’t want her.
Her husband hadn’t wanted her, had been unfaithful when she needed him the most, and now her daughter didn’t want her, didn’t need her, either.
“Pen …”
She shook her head, glaring at Daniel with tear-filled eyes even though she knew he didn’t deserve her anger. It wasn’t his fault that Gabby wanted him and not her.
He couldn’t help the way Gabby was behaving. And neither could Gabby. She was used to her father, loved her father, and had relied on him for months while her mother had been a memory, someone to look forward to seeing again one day.
These past months, Daniel had been her everything.
Daniel had been Gabby’s entire world.
“Penny, stay,” he whispered, chin resting on Gabby’s head.
No. She felt like an intruder just being here.
Like she had no place here anymore.
“I need some fresh air.” She expelled the words before the need to cry overwhelmed her so much she doubted she’d be able to speak. Would be able to keep her body upright.
Daniel’s eyes pleaded with her as she walked backward then fled down the hall.
But she didn’t need comforting, she needed to be alone.
Daniel gently eased his arm from beneath Gabby’s shoulders, holding his breath as he waited to see if she would wake.
She didn’t, her body relaxed and floppy with slumber as he tucked the covers up to just under her chin.
He dropped a kiss to her cheek and tiptoed out of the room, his legs aching from the tail end of a cramp in his calf muscles after being tucked up on the small bed with his daughter. Now he needed to find Penny.
He didn’t know where she’d gone, what she was feeling, what he would even say to her when he found her. But one thing was sure—he needed to talk to her. Because she was alone now and he knew what being alone felt like.
Because he’d been so alone when she’d left, had been on the verge of having a breakdown from suddenly bein
g back home, a single dad, having lost the camaraderie he’d enjoyed his entire adult life being in the navy. From walking away from what he loved—being in the air, the feeling of being on top of the world in a helicopter.
And no matter how long they put this off, there were words that had to be said. He’d wanted to delay it, to stall this conversation for at least a day or two, but now he didn’t have a choice.
No fancy date night and drawing on happy memories from the past was going to heal their marriage if they kept skirting around their problems.
He’d tried to convince himself otherwise, but he was wrong.
Daniel peeked into their bedroom, knowing she wasn’t in there before he even looked. He’d heard tf, Á9;d heardhe back door click shut not long after she’d walked out of the room.
He found his shoes, pulled them on and reached for a sweater.
It wasn’t as if he could leave Gabby in the house alone, but he could walk around outside, see if he could spot her in the street from their yard.
Daniel swung the door open and nearly tripped his way to the bottom step.
Penny hadn’t gone far.
She was sitting, body hunched, sobbing quietly in the dark. Perched on the cold concrete step. Alone.
“Oh, Penny.” His voice was low, husky with an emotion he couldn’t explain. Seeing her sitting like that, so sad and alone, twisted him up inside.
She didn’t look up.
“You must be freezing.” He pulled off the hooded sweater he’d only just put on and wrapped it around her shoulders. It looked huge on her small frame, but it would take the chill away. “Come inside.”
Her body was shaking.
He didn’t know if it was the cold, because she was so upset, or both.
Daniel sighed and dropped to sit beside her. The step was narrow so he was pressed against her, thigh to thigh, knee to knee.
She didn’t protest. Didn’t try to move away.
“Penny, you’re cold,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders, wanting to warm her with his own body. “I know you’re upset, but you need to come inside.”
“No,” she whispered, voice unsteady. “Leave me, Daniel.”
Her words went deeper than talking about right here, right now. She might not have meant anything by it, but he felt that walking away now to leave her alone and sad outside in the dark would mean walking away for good.
