CR!93BHZ3MAHS4NVAVVWQG1QCZMZ0ZB

by Unknown

  “You know, when you think about it, we haven’t actually spent that much time together. Well, in the past few years anyway.”

  Daniel arched an eyebrow in her direction as he leaned back against the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

  “Meaning?”

  She finished stirring and filled another large saucepan with water for the pasta. “I just mean that in ten years together we’ve probably only spent maybe a third of that time actually together.”

  He moved his head from side to side like he was thinking about it, or maybe agreeing with her. She couldn’t tell.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Think about it,” she said. “We had one year together before we went off to the army and navy, add our terms overseas in there, and we’ve been more absent than together.”

  His eyes met hers. “Maybe that’s why this has been so hard.”

  Tears blurred her vision and she turned back to the almost boiling water. “It’s like we always had this idea of what it would be like when we both moved back here for good, but we didn’t really know what it was going to be like.”

  Daniel didn’t say anything. As if he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject, how to contribute to the conversation, without hurting her.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses, Pen, or that I want to bring this up again, but thinking you were coming home then having that snatched away from me.” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair and tugged on the end of it. “It was like we had this fantasy of what it was going to be like one day, like it would make everything right, and when that day came it wasn’t as I’d imagined it to be.”

  She kept her back turned. “What if it had worked out? What if we’d both finished up at the same time like we’d planned? Been together?”

  She heard him sigh behind her.

  “Honestly? I don’t know for sure, but maybe it wouldn’t have been so easy. Adjusting to being home full-time is hard, Penny. No matter how much you think you want to come home, you’re going to miss the army so bad you’ll feel like a crack addict trying to go cold turkey. We’ve both made out like everything’s been okay all this time, because that’s the kind of people we are, but there are times when it’s been truly hard.”

  As much as she wanted to deny it, to not believe him, she had a feeli;Hoñhad a feeng he was right. Because no matter how badly she wanted to come home, to be a full-time mommy and leave her career behind, leaving was going to be tough. Just like being a proper wife again would have been tough, even if Daniel hadn’t been unfaithful.

  Knowing that she was giving that life away forever was not an easy decision. It was one they’d both been prepared to make, a sacrifice they’d both chosen, but it wasn’t easy. But she’d only ever joined the army as a way to finish her degree, for the scholarship. She’d never intended on serving more than the mandatory four years of service.

  Penny dropped the pasta into the pot as the water started to bubble and blinked away her tears. This was not the time to be getting all emotional. She had a daughter down the hall to care for, less than four days to enjoy her company and a husband standing behind her who was trying so hard she was starting to think that maybe he did truly deserve that second chance he was asking for.

  “So what was it you said you had planned?” she asked, turning a happy face toward him when she spun around.

  Daniel was still standing on the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter, but the way he was watching her made it feel like he was standing less than a foot away. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his stubble-grazed chin, the soft curve of his mouth, the endless brown pools of his eyes …

  Hell!

  He looked … hungry. Was watching her in a way that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine and a tingle through her lower legs.

  “I want it to be a surprise,” he told her.

  She hated surprises. “I don’t know, Daniel. I’m not sure about anything that involves leaving Gabby, to be honest.”

  He shook his head.

  “How about a compromise,” he suggested. “We’ll spend as much time as a family as we can, but when Gabby goes to bed at night, then we can spend time together. The two of us.”

  Even if she was going to let him prove himself to her, being alone with him, spending intimate time together, made her feel like a schoolgirl about to go on a first date with her dream crush.

  “That’s what we did last time, Daniel, and look what happened.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m as worried about her as you are, Penny, but us spending time together is important, too.”

  She sighed, knowing in her heart that what he said was true. The last thing she wanted was to leave Gabby after what had happened, but she couldn’t blame her mother-in-law for the way things had turned out last night. It could have happened to any of them. And in less than a week, she wouldn’t have the luxury of deciding to stay home. Would have to go back to trusting Daniel and Vicki to care for Gabby in her absence.

  “Give me a chance, Penny, please.” Daniel took her hand and stared straight into her eyes. “Let me show you why I think we can find a way to make this work.”

  “I’ve already told you I will,” she said softly.

  He tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her face. There was still distance between them, a distance she wanted to close and yet didn’t. Because even the thought of letting him in again still terrified her.

  “The">&ñ“Tn show me,” he said, voice low and tender as he captivated her with his gaze. “I don’t need to tell you how few days we have left.”

  Penny looked down, couldn’t face talking about how little time she had left here.

  “Don’t remind me, Daniel,” she pleaded. “Please don’t.”

  He curled his fingers tighter for a moment, then trailed them slowly down her neck and away.

  “Let me in, Penny. If we don’t spend time together, if you don’t put your words into action, we’ll never know what could have been. This is the time we need to be honest with each other about how we’re feeling, to see if we can fix us.”

  He was right, she knew that. There was no point telling him one thing but being too scared to follow through. If she was truly going to give Daniel a chance…. Her heart thumped overtime, made her mouth dry as she tried to think what to say to him.

  “How about tomorrow night?” she croaked. Daniel’s smile lit his entire face. “Tomorrow night,” he repeated.

  She turned back to the pasta sauce, nervously stirring it, unsure what else to do.

  “We’re almost ready here,” she told him.

  She could sense Daniel behind her but he didn’t touch her. Penny was relieved. Her feelings, emotions, were all over the place. She didn’t know what she wanted, what she thought, what she should do.

  “Should we eat dinner in Gabby’s room with her?”

  “That’d be great.”

  Daniel shuffled behind her and Penny held her breath. It was like her body was on high alert, mind thrumming with energy and worried thoughts, waiting for his touch. For his words.

  For his anything.

  “I’ll go tell her and set up while you serve.” “Sure.”

  Penny waited until his feet echoed on the timber floor before she pivoted to steal a glance at him as he walked away.

  Daniel had always appealed to her physically, from the first time she’d ever set eyes upon him. His thick, dark hair that begged for fingers to be run through it, the breadth of his shoulders and biceps, muscled and strong from all the years he’d spent training with the navy.

  From behind, he looked big. But had she been standing in front of him, she’d have seen how his physique was balanced by a softness that had always appealed to her. He could protect her if ever she needed it, but his eyes had a kindness, an openness that showed how gentle he was inside.

  Penny turned back to her sauce as he disappeared down the hall and flicked the gas hob off. She reached
for the bowls to start serving dinner, trying to distract herself but unable to.

  She’d tried so hard to push him away. Had had every right to want to end things, to not even attempt to forgive him. But in her heart she wanted to give him a chance. A real chance. No matter how hard or impossible that might seem now.

  This was never going to get any easier. She could either block him out and keep her heart locked away to stop it from being hurt again. Or she could put her feelings and emotions on the line, open up and face hurt again, to see if she could ever trust and love Daniel.

  Itrd ñ=“DB80M”> was what she wanted, what she wished she could do, but she couldn’t stop the worry, the terror trembling through her body at the thought of following through with her thoughts and hopes.

  Because that would mean working through something she had no idea how she’d ever forget. Letting Daniel touch her, really touch her again. Letting him in both physically and emotionally.

  And no matter how much she wanted to, it was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever tried to do.

  “You need any help?” Daniel called out to her.

  Penny put the spoons down, took a deep breath and called back to him.

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  She started spooning sauce over the spaghetti.

  If she didn’t let him in now, actually give him a chance to prove himself, she was going to run out of time.

  Daniel stood beside the bed before settling down on Gabby’s chair. The action itself set her off into hysterical giggles.

  “Daddy! That’s way too small for you.”

  He fidgeted until he made her small wooden chair creak, like a giant in a fairy’s seat.

  “Daddy!”

  He started to slurp his pasta, trying hard not to laugh as he ignored Gabby’s protests at his behavior.

  “Daddy!”

  Penny joined in, sitting cross-legged on Gabby’s bed. “Daniel, be careful,” she scolded.

  He shrugged dramatically, finishing his mouthful. “What?” Gabby bounced so hard she splashed sauce on the bed. “You’re too heavy! You’ll break it.” He put down his fork and grinned at her. “I promise I won’t, honey.”

  She huffed. “You will.”

  He glanced at Penny and saw the smile on her face. She’d looked happy while she was here, especially at Gabby’s party, but this was the first time he’d seen her so relaxed. The kind of relaxed they’d always used to be around one another.

  “Sweetheart, I was only playing around.”

  Gabby still looked worried. “Come up on the bed and sit with us.”

  There wasn’t much room but he wasn’t going to say no.

  “This is fun,” said Gabby, as he climbed on. “I feel way better now, you know.”

  Daniel was listening to his daughter, but his eyes were on Penny. Her expression hadn’t changed, she was still relaxed, comfortable looking, even though he was now cross-legged beside her, knee touching hers.

  She picked up her fork again and started to twirl her spaghetti. Gabby was happily doing the same.

  But it was Penny who he couldn’t take his eyes off, and she returned his gaze. Even though her flushed cheeks signaled a hint of embarrassment, she only glanced away to bring the pasta to her mouth, before turning her eyes back to his again.

  “What are we going to do tomorrow?” he asked.

  Penny didn’t respond. Gabby practically started to bounce again. Clearly over the worst of her flu.

  “What about work?”

  “It’s the weekend,??tñend, he told her. “And stop bouncing, you’ll make yourself sick.”

  “But you sometimes work on a Saturday,” Gabby said, ignoring him.

  Daniel shook his head and pushed his knee a little firmer against Penny’s.

  “Not tomorrow, kid. Tomorrow we spend the entire day together.”

  Penny reached out an arm and put it around Gabby.

  “And then tomorrow night, we thought we’d ask your grandma over again.”

  “We did?” Daniel raised an eyebrow as he asked.

  “Yeah,” Penny said, throwing him a smile as she kissed Gabby on the head.

  “Of course.” Daniel shook his head as he realized that was her way of telling him she’d decided to agree to his date suggestion. “Because tomorrow night I’m taking your mom out dancing.”

  “Dancing?” Penny and Gabby said the word at exactly the same time, only Penny sounded terrified and Gabby looked beside herself with excitement.

  “Yes, dancing,” he repeated, before turning his gaze to Penny and giving her a wink. “And we’re going to have a great time.”

  They hadn’t been out on the town since before they were married, but tomorrow night he was going to make sure they had a great time. Like they used to have.

  “I didn’t even know you could dance, Daddy,” Gabby said.

  Penny laughed and he tried to frown and failed miserably, cheeks burning from trying so hard not to smile.

  “It’s your mom who can dance,” he told Gabby. “She’s the best dancer I’ve ever seen. Me? I just shuffle along beside her.”

  Penny hugged Gabby tighter as Daniel watched her, but she didn’t argue. The playful twinkle in her eyes was all he needed as encouragement.

  For the first time in a long while, it was like a cloud of happiness was shining over him, rather than a gray cloud of gloom.

  Back in the Soldier’s Arms/Here Comes the Groom

  CR!93BHZ3MAHS4NVAVVWQG1QCZMZ0ZB

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PENNY stretched her limbs and kept her eyes firmly shut. It seemed like forever since she’d been able to lie in bed without waking at the crack of dawn.

  She raised her head and squinted at the bedside clock.

  Who was she kidding. It had been forever since she’d been able to do this.

  Only the last thing she wanted to be doing today, with so few days left here, was lounging about in bed. No matter how good it felt.

  She didn’t need to look to her right to see if Daniel was still beside her. He was heavy enough to weigh his side of the bed down ande t t‡ she would have known if he was there. Even though they didn’t touch in the night, she always knew he was there. Knew that his body was beside hers.

  Penny forced her legs from the bed and straightened her pajamas. Voices wafted down to her and she followed them.

  She was tempted to pause in the hall and listen, but she didn’t want to sneak up on them. Gabby was yapping away to Daniel, and he was hardly getting a word in. Not that he’d care.

  Penny peeked into the bathroom to find Daniel leaning over the hand basin shaving, with Gabby standing on a stool beside him.

  She put her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing. So they didn’t know she was standing in the doorway.

  Gabby’s face was reflected in the mirror, covered in Daniel’s white shaving cream. She was using a toothbrush to scrape the cream off, copying her father.

  She’d never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

  No matter what happened between her and Daniel, she couldn’t ask for a better father for their daughter. He’d royally stuffed up as a husband, but as a dad? He couldn’t be faulted.

  And she was starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, Daniel couldn’t shoulder all the blame for their marriage falling apart.

  “Hey, you.” Daniel had a towel tucked around his waist, torso bare from his shower. “I didn’t want to wake you so I used this bathroom.”

  “Thanks for letting me sleep in.”

  Gabby patted more shaving cream onto her cheeks. “Do you want to see me shave, Mommy?”

  Penny did her best to keep her mouth in a straight line. “Sure.” She averted her gaze from Daniel, knowing they’d both crack up if they made eye contact.

  “I’m going to shave just like Daddy when I grow up.”

  This time she did look at Daniel and they laughed.

  “What?” Gabby asked, all open-mouthed and innocent-eyed.

&
nbsp; Penny tried to avert her gaze from Daniel’s and ended up with her eyes trailing dangerously over his torso. Down the tiny smattering of hair that spiked down low, golden skin so taut and soft …

  Oh.

  She looked up to see he was watching her back, that he’d seen exactly what she was looking at. Would be able to tell what she was thinking.

  Gabby was still busily swiping at her face with her toothbrush and rinsing it off just like Daniel had been with his razor.

  But there was a heat in the room now that had nothing to do with the hot tap being run. And it terrified her.

  Because she was so worried about being intimate with Daniel again, after so long and after what had happened, and yet her body was rebelling with a mind all its own.

  Knowing he was in bed beside her was one thing, but touching him again? Actually being husband and wife again in the truest sense? That was what scared her.

  “Mommy? Are you okay?”

  She backed up a couple steps. “Oh, it’s nothing, honey. I’m just so pleased I’m here to see you do things like shave with your dad in the morning.”

  Gabby grinned and went back to playiwas�€ng at the basin.

  Daniel tightened the towel around his waist like he didn’t know what else to do.

  “How about we head out for breakfast somewhere?”

  Penny was pleased to have an excuse to escape. “Sounds good.”

  “For pancakes?” Gabby piped up.

  “Sure, kiddo,” Daniel said. But his eyes never left Penny’s, made her feel like there was no one else in the world except for her. That she was so special to him that he didn’t care what else went on around them.

  It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a long while. A warm, settling sensation that she’d missed so bad it had been like a mother being torn from her child forever.

  “I’ll go get ready,” Penny told them.

  Daniel was still watching her, but Gabby was otherwise occupied.

  Penny fled down the hall like someone had lit the back of her pajamas alight.

  Running scared, but at the same time ready to run back into the fire to risk being burned.