Back in the Soldier's Arms (12 page)

Because her daughter, her tiny, precious daughter, was lying limply in his arms like something was seriously wrong.

“Start the car, Penny.” Daniel’s voice was grim.

Vicki appeared in the doorway behind him. She’d been crying, her eyes were red.

“What happened?” she asked again, unable to move. Penny planted her feet and refused to budge an inch.

“Penny, get in the car!” Daniel ordered, his voice low and full of determination. “I need the soldier right now, okay?”

She nodded, his words snapping logic back into her brain.

She pulled the car keys from her pocket, spun on the spot and took the porch steps two at a time. She had the back door open on the passenger side and the car started before Daniel was even on the sidewalk.

She glanced up to see Vicki still standing where they’d left her, tense worry lines creasing her usually soft face.

Penny pulled back onto the road and looked at Daniel in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”

“The hospital,” he said, his voice grim as his eyes met hers, before pulling Gabby closer against him and pressing his lips to her forehead. “She’s burning up real bad.”

“What happened?” she asked, this time focused on the task at hand. In sergeant mode, rather than helpless mommy.

Ready to do what had to be done.

“Mom was worried about her when she woke up crying, so she let her snuggle up on the couch with her,” he said, never taking his eyes or his touch from Gabby. “Then she realized she was hot and clammy, and her temperature skyrocketed.”

Penny gripped the wheel tighter, focused on driving. On getting them where they had to go as fast and as safely as possible.

“Why didn’t she call us?” She didn’t want to put any blame on Vicki though, it wasn’t her fault.

She glanced up again and saw that Daniel was watching her now that he had taken his eyes from Gabby. He was staring at her. Like he had something, a lot even, to say, but didn’t know how to go about it.

“She thought she’d be able to deal with it alone, and she didn’t want to interrupt us,” he said softly. ??áftly. She wanted us to enjoy an evening together without having to think about anything else. She called me about twenty minutes ago and I got a taxi here straightaway.”

Penny didn’t know how to answer that. There was no denying that everyone around them, especially Daniel’s family, wanted them to stay together. To work through their problems.

But Gabby was more important than everything else.

If only she hadn’t left Daniel to make his own way home!

“Is she …” She didn’t know what to ask. What to say. “What are we dealing with here?”

Daniel’s voice was its usual deep, strong tone, but there was an undercurrent of worry there that she couldn’t help but notice.

“Mom phoned me when she noticed a rash on her chest.” Penny pressed the accelerator more firmly. “She thought it might be something serious, like meningococcal. The presence of the rash makes it worse.” Geez.

“Why isn’t she awake?” Penny heard the fear in her own voice. She’d forced herself to stay calm and focus on the task at hand, but now.

They should have brought cold soaked towels to help keep the fever down. But then she guessed the most important thing was getting her to where they needed to go without delay.

“She’s sleepy because of the fever,” he said, his words muffled as he held Gabby tighter, lips against her flushed skin. “I phoned the hospital and they said to get her there as fast as possible because she’d gone downhill so fast. That we would be able to drive faster than we could get an ambulance to collect her.”

She flicked her indicator on and pulled into the general hospital entrance.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she said, emotion choking her voice.

“What are you sorry for?”

She blinked away tears as she parked in the emergency zone.

“For leaving you tonight when we should have been home with Gabby. I should never have …”

Daniel thrust open the door. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He didn’t look back, he just ran.

Penny sniffed back tears as she moved the car out into the main parking area.

If something happened to Gabby, she’d never forgive herself.

Daniel stood, catching his breath, eyes never leaving his little girl.

The doctors had assured him that she would be okay, that she’d been brought there so quickly that they’d be able to run tests and keep a careful eye on her.

But he wasn’t so sure.

Daniel looked up when he heard the clack of heels in the corridor behind him. He stepped out, seeing Penny immediately.

“Gabby? Is she …”

Daniel reached out a hand to Penny, to his wife, and let her clutch it tight.

“They don’t know what’s wrong yet, but they’re going to start trying to cool her down.” He pulled Penny gently back into the room with him.

There was a nurse standing beside Gabby, hand on her forehead. She turned to prepare what looked to be ice packs. A faediápacks. A n was blowing nearby.

Machines bleeped, but Daniel had no idea whether they were in the room and attached to his daughter or echoing from somewhere else.

“Daniel …”

No!

He pushed past Penny and ran to the bed.

Please, God, no! “Gabby, honey …”

Her tiny body had started to convulse, writhing on the bed.

The nurse stayed calm as he turned what he was sure were wild eyes toward her.

“Do something!” he pleaded. “Please. Please!”

He reached for his little girl, not aware of anything else but the terrifying movement of her body as it continued to convulse.

Hands closed over his arms and tried to drag him back, but he fought it. “Get off me!”

A blur of white to his right caught his eye, he heard Penny crying, but he wouldn’t relinquish his grip on his daughter, holding her so she wouldn’t be thrown from the bed.

“Get him out of here!”

The sharpness of a man’s direct order pulled Daniel from the void he was lost within.

He looked up, behind him, saw the nurse trying her best to pull him back. Then he saw the doctor as he bent over Gabby, watched as another doctor appeared, rushing forward.

Daniel let himself be pulled away.

“Sorry,” he whispered to the nurse whose grip he’d roughly refused. “I’m so sorry.”

Penny was beside him then, her hand finding his. The feel of her warm, smooth palm locked against his was comforting, but he couldn’t take his eyes from Gabby.

Her tiny body had stopped shaking uncontrollably now and was stripped of clothes. Cold cloths and ice packs covered her.

“Daniel, what’s happening? What’s wrong with her?”

He shook his head. Shut his eyes to block out the horror of his daughter on a hospital bed, surrounded by medical staff.

“I don’t know.” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been out on the town all night or was emerging from a month of having a cold. “I don’t know, Penny.”

One of the doctors turned to face them and walked to where they were waiting, near the back of the room.

“Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright?”

Daniel felt Penny start to shake beside him so he dropped her hand and put an arm about her, drawing her close. Trying to be strong for her.

“What’s wrong with her?”

The doctor smiled and reached out a hand to touch Penny’s other arm. The look on his face calmed Daniel, made him relax the tiniest bit.

“We need to wait for the test results to rule out the worst-case scenarios and try to figure out what’s wrong,” he said matter-of-factly. “I know that must have been scary for you to watch, but convulsions aren’t unusual with high temperatures, and your daughter’s temperature certainly peaked.”

“But it’s coming down now?”

Daniel turned at Penny’s question. He held her tighter and she reláer and shleaned into him for support.

“That’s right. We’re cooling her down now, her heartbeat is fine, and we need to continue to monitor her carefully.”

He cleared his throat and looked the doctor directly in the eye. “What’s the worst-case scenario here?”

Daniel didn’t look over at Gabby again, couldn’t bear to.

The doctor nodded. “Sure. The worst-case scenario, to be honest, would be something like meningococcal, but before you start to worry, I think that would be unlikely.”

Daniel felt Penny go limp beside him, from worry or relief he didn’t know.

“The presence of a rash does make that within the realm of possibilities, though.” The doctor looked over his shoulder and nodded as the other doctor left the room. “Best case? It’s a really bad case of the flu, the rash could be coincidental, and it caused a bad fever.”

“How likely is that?” Daniel heard himself ask.

“Likely,” the doctor insisted. “But given her age, we’re not going to take any risks when it comes to making the correct diagnosis.”

Daniel gave the doctor a tight smile and turned his attention back to Penny. She looked as if she was in shock.

“Thanks for being honest with us,” he told the doctor. “Is it all right if we stay with her?”

“She’ll need to stay overnight, at least until the tests come back. You are both more than welcome to remain with her at all times.”

Daniel was numb but he forced the feeling away. He needed to be there for his two girls. No matter how he was feeling or what he was thinking.

He was a father and a husband, and that meant he had to put his family first.

“Penny?”

Her eyes looked drained, empty, when she turned to face him. Her skin pale, lacking its usual golden glow.

The doctor left them, the nurse still hovering over Gabby. His wife turned her grief-stricken face toward him, reached one hand up to place it on his shoulder as she leaned into him for a hug.

Daniel held her, too, wrapped both his arms around her and squeezed her against him, lips pressed to her hair, bodies pressed hard into one another’s.

He relaxed into Penny as she held on to him like she’d never let go. Like nothing had torn them apart and they hadn’t been estranged, forced apart by distance and emotion, these past few months.

All the fighting, the pain, the heartache of what had happened fell away.

Until they were just two people who needed one another.

Two people who never wanted to let go of the other.

Penny sobbed gently in his arms, snuffling into his chest, her face tucked against him. He released one of his hands from her waist and touched the back of her hair, let his fingers work through the softness of each silky dark strand.

She tilted her head back then, tipped her tear-stained face up to him, eyes wide, worry and sadness like pools within them.

“I’m so sorry, Penny. I’m …”

She shook her head and made him stop. The tilt of her head telling him no. That sly á no. Thathe didn’t want him to talk.

Penny stood on tiptoe, her petite frame reaching up toward him.

Daniel didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Was paralyzed and unable to do a thing.

She brought her lips slowly, painfully slowly, toward his. He felt her breath whisper across his lips before her mouth touched his.

Penny moved her lips tenderly, her hand moving to hover across his cheek as she did so.

Their mouths met for only a moment, but it filled Daniel with hope. A hope that had been missing within him, but once ignited was like the steady beat of a drum, a light that had been dull and was now shining bright. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He was numb as she stepped away, hand still touching his cheek.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “For what?” he mumbled.

“For being such a great dad,” she said, quietly so they couldn’t be overheard. “There’s no one else in the world I would have trusted to leave our daughter with while I was away. You’re a wonderful father, and I don’t think I’ve ever told you that before.”

Daniel shook his head, but Penny only stepped back and pressed a finger to her lips.

“There are so many things I never told you, and I’m sorry. You gave up so much to be a great dad, and I’m proud of you.”

Daniel felt like a child who’d finally been given a gold star in class. A warmth spread through him, warming him when before he’d been chilled.

“And the answer is yes.”

“Yes?” he repeated.

She let her head move up and down in a nod. “You asked me to give you a chance. To let you prove yourself to me. And the answer is yes,” Penny told him. “I don’t know if we can ever be a couple again, Daniel, but I’m not saying no.”

He reached for her again, slung his arm around her shoulder as they both turned toward Gabby.

“She’s the most important thing in the world, Penny.”

She tucked her head against his shoulder. “She’s going to be okay, I just know it.”

They stood together and looked at their little girl, and Daniel felt a pain in his chest that threatened to stop his heart.

He had no idea how it was possible to feel such a strong pull of emotions. Having Penny by his side, feeling her body touch his when they’d spent so long with a void between them, gave him a strength he couldn’t define.

But seeing Gabby on a hospital bed, when the last time he’d set foot within a hospital was the day she’d been born, sent a shiver down his spine that threatened to chill every pore of his skin.

“Do you remember the last time we were here?”

Daniel chuckled, reaching for Penny’s hand again.

“You read my mind. I was just remembering the night we rushed in here,” he said.

“I was so scared,” Penny told him, her eyes never leaving the bed their daughter lay upon. “It all happened so fast, and the next thing I knew we were holding Gabby.”

Daniel looked up at the overhead lights to blink away o yáblink awaa row of tears as they filled his eyes.

“No matter what happens, Penny, we made the most beautiful little girl.”

Penny swiveled to look at him before moving away a step and sinking into one of the chairs beside the bed.

She reached out to hold Gabby’s hand—a hand that looked so tiny tonight he hardly recognized it.

Daniel sat down in the chair beside her.

“She’s going to be fine, Pen.”

“I know,” she replied. “But I’m just so glad that we’re both here beside her.”