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by Unknown

  The scent of Spanish food hit Daniel’s nostrils as they left the staircase behind and found themselves in the middle of the restaurant. Every table was full, the atmosphere happy and lively.

  “It feels like so long.”

  Daniel looked up at Penny’s words. It looked as if she had tears in her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure, didn’t want to ask her.

  “It has been a long time, Pen. We left it way too long to come back here. To do a lot of things.”

  Her eyes questioned him but she didn’t say anything. They’d been treading on eggshells since their argument the night before.

  “Welcome!” A dark-haired waiter appeared with menus and pointed to the only empty table. A small candle blazed in the ceokeÑd in the nter, sending a flicker of light out across the tablecloth.

  Daniel waited for Penny to be seated before sitting down himself. He smiled at her across the table and received a tight smile in return.

  He knew he had to say something, do something, now before things became even more awkward and strained between them.

  “Penny …”

  “Daniel …”

  They both laughed.

  “You go,” she said, smile genuine now as it hit her eyes.

  “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night.” He paused, ran a hand through his hair before leaning back in his chair. “I hate arguing and I’m so sorry if I upset you.”

  She shook her head. Sadly.

  “I’m sorry, too, Daniel. It’s just, well.” This time it was Penny who paused, who looked at her hands before raising her eyes to meet his. “I don’t want us to be like this, but I can’t help how I feel. I’m still so angry with you, but I do want to get past this.”

  Hope flickered within him. He almost didn’t want to ask what she meant. Didn’t want her to elaborate.

  But he didn’t want to be left hanging, hoping, either.

  “When you say you want to get past this …”

  She leaned back like she hadn’t realized how her words had sounded.

  “What I mean is that I don’t want to ruin our relationship so much that all we can do is fight. We owe Gabby more than that. Hell, we owe ourselves better than that.”

  There was so much that needed to be said. So much they needed to talk about.

  But tonight was about having dinner and putting what had happened behind them. He had hoped it would be a romantic date when he’d first planned it; now he was simply pleased they were sitting down together and talking. Without fighting.

  They’d never fought in the past and he hated that they’d been reduced to that now.

  He picked up the menu. “Do we even need to look?” he asked.

  Penny seemed happy to turn the subject away from them. “No,” she said, laughing as she spoke. “Sizzling prawns in garlic to start with, and the slow-cooked lamb shoulder for a main.”

  He snapped his menu shut and waved over the waiter. “Great choice.”

  “And wine,” she said, visibly relaxing. “I think tonight calls for a good bottle of wine.”

  Daniel couldn’t have agreed more.

  “Do you remember that first time we came here?” he asked, not able to help going back into the past.

  “Yeah,” she said, fingers playing with the edge of her napkin. “I was so nervous, but you won me over with the great food.”

  He laughed. “Are you sure it was just the food?”

  She beamed back at him, like old times for a moment. “Okay, so maybe it was the wine, too.”

  Daniel bit his tongue as the waiter came back and ordered a bottle of red.

  “ntoÑSA"> If I remember correctly, you seemed to like something else about me when we left the restaurant.”

  Penny gasped, hand shooting up to cover her mouth.

  “Daniel!”

  He shrugged, leaning back in his seat and trying not to laugh at the look on her face. “Hey, you remember the food, I remember the fun outside later. Can you blame me?”

  They sat in silence, looking at one another as their wine arrived and both glasses were poured. It was like they were on a tightrope, with no idea which way they would fall, or if they could possibly make it to the other side.

  Daniel raised his glass and waited for Penny to do the same, clinking them gently together.

  “To having you home,” he said.

  “To being home,” she replied.

  Their gazes met across the table as they both sipped.

  Daniel could feel the connection they still shared, sense the past they were both remembering in such detail.

  The only difference now was that while he’d once been able to reach for his wife across the table and caress her hand, now he was forced to keep his distance. At least physically.

  And not for the first time since she’d arrived home, not being able to touch her freely was like a stake being spiked through his heart.

  Penny wanted to be angry with Daniel. Hell, he’d hurt her enough last night to make her want to hate him forever.

  But that was juvenile. She knew that.

  And a bigger part of her wanted to be happy with him, to relax in his company, even if it was simply to enjoy a meal together and talk about Gabby. About being parents. Whatever happened, they were bound by the child they’d created and loved together.

  But talking about Gabby wasn’t what she wanted.

  What she wanted was to somehow find the courage to ask him the hows and whys of what had happened to make him stray.

  Because no matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t convince herself. And now that she wasn’t so angry, Daniel’s words from the other night kept playing through her mind.

  Leaving the army was going to be harder than she expected it to be. Saying goodbye to her unit, giving up the adrenaline and the sense of achievement … it would all be hard. The problem was she’d never thought about it that deeply, had been so focused on getting home that she hadn’t even paused to think how Daniel might have felt giving up being a pilot. “Penny?”

  She glanced up, wineglass cradled in her hand.

  “Sorry, I was a million miles away.”

  “Can I ask you a tough question?”

  She swallowed another sip of wine and wished she could drink the whole bottle for confidence. “It depends what you’re going to ask me.”

  Daniel looked thoughtful. His deep brown eyes cast down, dark lashes almost bashful. “I want to know if you would ever have come home if it wasn’t for Gabby.”

  Oh, hell.

  “Daniel, I don’t know how to answer that.”

  He reached for her hand across the table. Did it so fast that she didn?? wÑdidn t have a chance to snatch it from his grip.

  And it felt so good. Just like his touch always had. Filling her with a warmth that licked like a flame across her hand, up her arm, tingling into her shoulders.

  It was a touch she’d missed every night she’d been away.

  “Answer me from your heart.”

  She shook her head, moving it from side to side, unable to stop the rush of emotions roaring in her ears. “No,” she whispered. “No, Daniel, I don’t think I would have.”

  He sighed but didn’t let go of her hand, didn’t relinquish the contact. Instead his thumb brushed across her palm.

  “Well, I’m glad you did come home.” He paused before forcing his eyes to meet hers again. “I know we’re in a bad place right now, one that we might never recover from, but I don’t want to lose you, Pen. Regardless of what happens, I don’t want to lose you from my life.”

  She didn’t want to lose him either.

  “Hot plates coming through. Enjoy!”

  Penny pulled her hand back, away from Daniel’s, as the steaming clay dishes were placed in front of them.

  “Looks delicious,” she said, happy to change the topic. Not strong enough to go there yet. “Just like I remembered.”

  She picked up her knife and fork and cut the first prawn in
half. The garlic-infused, sizzling-hot juice begged for her to rip a piece of the fresh crusty bread in half to dunk into it. Penny’s mouth wouldn’t stop watering. “Argh!”

  She looked up to see Daniel’s mouth flapping open and shut, his fork clattering to the table. “Ouch!”

  Penny laughed, she couldn’t not. He looked so comical she almost lost the piece of bread she was holding. “Daniel.” “It’s so hot!”

  She looked across to see the adjoining table of people looking at them, but she didn’t care. It was so nice to be laughing for the hell of it again.

  To not have anything else on her mind other than her husband and his seriously burned mouth.

  “Burn your tongue?” she asked as he swallowed an entire glass of water in one gulp.

  He glared at her like it was her fault, raising an eyebrow. “Gee, you think?”

  Penny dropped her fork and held her napkin to her mouth. She couldn’t have stopped laughing if she tried.

  “How is my burning my mouth funny?” he demanded. She laughed harder, unable to stop herself. The kind of cheek-aching laugh that she hadn’t enjoyed in forever.

  Daniel went to protest again but couldn’t stutter the words out. He started laughing, too. The kind of huge, hiccuping laughs that had tears filling both their eyes.

  Her laughter slowed to a sort of hard-to-control gulping, and she was sure everyone in the restaurant must have been watching them by now.

  Daniel’s lips were still curved into the cheekiest of grins, still touched with laughter.

  “How did we get here, Penny?” His words were solemn but his face was still kind. Happy. Despite his burned flesh.

  She almost askes tÑalmost asd him what he meant, but deep down, she knew.

  “Did we grow apart?” she asked him. Although she knew in her heart she hadn’t grown away from him, even through their long absences. “Did you grow apart from me?”

  He looked sad, his expression falling. “I don’t want to make excuses, but I think we just spent too long apart. The distance became too great.”

  She wanted to be angry with him, she did. Sadness, bitterness about what had happened still circled deep within her belly like a vulture over prey. But she was able to control it.

  “Daniel, even if you hadn’t cheated, do you think it would have been easy? Coming home, both of us, and picking up where we left off? Stepping into the life we’d imagined for so long but hadn’t ever really lived?”

  The sadness of the smile he gave her told her she was right to ask the question.

  After all this time, all those hours and days she’d spent thinking about what had gone wrong, blaming him, when maybe it hadn’t been entirely his fault. When maybe his cheating had simply been the tip of a slow-forming iceberg within their marriage that they’d both ignored.

  Every day, week or month they had spent together had always been on limited time. They’d both always had to spend long absences from home, sometimes for months.

  She wasn’t going to forgive him, he’d still made vows to her, promised to remain faithful. But.

  “Penny, I’ve never stopped loving you, but maybe we did spend too long apart,” he said, voice low as his hand moved slowly across the table. As if he was asking permission to touch her this time, without wanting to say it out loud. She moved her own hand forward, let him rub his finger across hers. “The longest time we ever spent together was when Gabby was born.”

  Tears touched her eyes, tickled at the back of her throat.

  “So we were always doomed?”

  A brightness lit Daniel’s eyes, changed his expression, made him look almost fierce.

  “No,” he said. “You’re wrong, Penny.” He shook his head before squeezing her hand tight. “I stuffed this up, it’s still my fault we’ve ended up like this. But maybe we should have been more honest about our feelings, instead of trying to pretend everything was always okay to make the other feel good. When you were away and I was home I never wanted to worry you, never wanted to trouble you, and I’m guessing you felt the same when our roles were reversed.”

  She dropped contact with him, picked up her fork again and speared a prawn. Her appetite had fallen away, there was no longer a hunger growling in her stomach, but she still wanted to eat. Didn’t want to waste the beautiful food in front of her.

  And she needed time to think.

  Because he was right.

  “I wish everything had gone to plan, Danny.” She slowly ate the prawn, then another, before dunking her bread and eating that, too. “I feel so bitter about my service being extended. I know it’s wrong, that I should just get on with it and focus on finishing this tour, but leaving Gabby behind will be so hard this time. And then I start to wonder if we’d have been okay, if none of this would have happened, if my term had finished up when it was supposed to.”

  His expas ÑUK">His eression told her that he needed to know if she’d miss him, too.

  “Leaving you the last time, knowing what you’d given up for us to be a family, I’ll never forget that. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.” She tried her hardest to squeeze the pain away. “And I’m guessing I underestimated how tough it was for you, too. What you lost at the same time.” Penny paused, swallowed the thickness in her throat. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t there for you. I know that you’re not the only one at fault here.”

  Daniel’s hand appeared to be shaking as he reached for his glass. It was something she’d never seen before. Her big, strong husband was unflappable, he always had been. He was tall and broad, his physical stature alone telling other men to back off if they tried to confront him. Nothing could usually rattle him.

  But the softness within him, that she could see right now, it scared her more than anything physical could have.

  “I’ll be honest, Penny. You being sent back overseas when I’d given up my career for us to be a real family, it hurt. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over that. It was hard, so hard that at the time I didn’t know how I was going to pull myself through.”

  She watched him swallow, like he was fighting an emotion that she’d never seen before. Because he’d always been so strong, and now she could see that he was hurting, too. That maybe he’d been hurting bad all along and she’d been so focused on her own pain of leaving, of being away, that she hadn’t recognized it before.

  Did he regret what he’d done? What he’d given up for her and for Gabby?

  Because she knew, deep within her soul, that she would give up everything in the world for her daughter, to be home. That no matter what the sacrifice, to her it would be worth it.

  “I feel like a nobody now. Like I have nothing,” he said, the pain leaching into his voice. “I’m a dad, sure, and that’s more important than anything, but it’s like I no longer have my own identity. I’ve lost that thing that used to make me me.”

  “You’re wrong, Daniel,” she whispered, reaching a hand to touch his cheek. She couldn’t help it, yearned to touch him so much that she couldn’t resist. “You’re still that same man.”

  She knew he was. No matter how angry she was with him, he was a fabulous father. Coming home and seeing that bond between him and Gabby, closer than ever, was all the evidence she needed.

  But she still couldn’t trust him. Couldn’t truly understand what he’d done. No matter how much she could find fault with the way she’d ignored his feelings, or could recognize the cracks that had slowly shattered like a pane of glass within their marriage. She couldn’t understand how he’d been pushed far enough to be unfaithful.

  He stared into her eyes, not pulling away from her caress.

  “You’re still the same Daniel I met ten years ago, I promise you are.”

  “Then why do I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore? Like I’m losing everything?”

  Penny let her hand drop from his cheek, pushed her plate away for something to do.

  “All I know is that;d Ñnow is th I don’t want this to end,” he said, his v
oice low and serious. Deep and husky. “You and me, I gave up everything for us and I still would all over again if I had to. For our family. For our marriage.”

  Penny didn’t answer him. Couldn’t.

  “Penny?” he asked.

  She knew what he wanted to know.

  “I need time, Daniel.” Heavens, did she need time.

  His head moved from side to side. “We don’t have time, Pen. You fly out in less than five days, and then we won’t see each other for months again.”

  She knew that. Hell, didn’t he know that she knew that?

  “If we can’t survive now, if we can’t save our marriage now, then we never will,” he said. “I don’t know if I can be the husband you deserve anymore, but what I do know is that I’m not scared of trying. If there’s one thing you can believe, even if you don’t trust me, believe that I’ll try. I won’t give up, not until you tell me to.”

  There was an edge of finality to his tone that terrified her. Because she knew it was true.

  If she was home for good and Daniel said he was going out with a friend or with his brother, would she believe him any longer? Or would she always worry, have her thoughts betrayed time and again, that he was sneaking off to meet a woman? That he’d hurt her again?

  Would she ever be able to look into the eyes of this man sitting before her and trust that it was honesty shining from them? That the words falling from his pillowy lips were honest? Truthful?

  “Penny?”

  “Don’t pressure me, Daniel. Please,” she pleaded. “I’m not ready to give you an answer.”

  The waiter came, cleared the table.

  Penny was wondering how she would even stomach the main course, even though she’d been ravenous when they’d first arrived.

  “I’m sorry, Penny,” he told her. “I’ll say it a thousand times if it helps. Because I honestly, truly, hand on my heart mean it.” His chocolate-brown eyes bored into hers, filled with more emotion that she could ever believe could be held in a single expression. “I’m so sorry that it’s killing me. Even if we can’t work through this, even if it is over, I need to know you forgive me.”