Back in the Soldier's Arms (7 page)

Only to run smack-bang into the man she was crying over.

“Oops.” Daniel did a fast sideways maneuver and jumped out of her way, a plate of goodies held above his head.

“Sorry, Danny, I mean—” she stuttered, wishing she could stop herself from calling him that. “Do you, ah, need any help? I didn’t mean to leave you for so long.”

He grinned. “Everyone’s so excited to have you home. Go enjoy yourself.”

The way he looked at her, his dark hair skimming his forehead as it flicked forward slightly, made her want to twist away and run. But she stood her ground, trying to be brave.

“You want one before the kids get their sticky mitts on them?”

He lowered the tray and held it out. Penny reached for a mini hot dog and dipped it in the sauce.

“I’m so full from breakfast still.”

Daniel looked up at her with such warmth in his eyes he almost made her choke on the meat.

“How about you put the candles in the cake and I’ll ferry this out into the room?” he suggested.

Penny walked a few steps backward and watched him go.

Wishing she had the nerve to pull him in for a kiss and steal his breath away. To see if it still felt the same, to see if she could forget.

To see if what they’d once had was still there.

But she didn’t. Instead she bit the inside of her mouth and started fossicking through the nearest drawer for candles.

“They’re in the top drawer.”

Daniel’s deep voice made her hands still. Caught her unaware.

Penny froze as he hovered behind her. Daniel’s large frame had stopped, paused behind her so close she could feel him, could lean back and find herself pressed against his hard chest.

She shut her eyes. Didn’t know what to do.

Was powerless to stop the pull of her body toward the man she knew so intimately.

“Here,” he whispered, placing his hand over hers and guiding it to the right drawer.

Penny didn’t fight his touch. Couldn’t. Because it had been so long since she’d had this kind of contact with a man, with her man.

Daniel’s breath was soft on the back of her neck, made her skin prickle all over.

She could see the candles, but his hand hadn’t moved and she was powerless to move her own away from his.

“Penny,” he whispered, transferring his hold to her wrist and turning it over in his grip so that she had to turn.

She didn’t say his name back, but she didn’t resist either. Turned as he gently spun her.

To find herself facing his chest, her eyes level with his collarbone. Penny lifted her gaze slowly, up his neck, to his jaw and then to his eyes.

The need, the desire she saw there, made her step back, her bottom hitting the kitchen bench.

But Daniel was too quick, had seen it coming, and cupped her waist with both his hands to stop her from getting away.

“Let me kiss you, Penny,” he whispered, his voice low and husky.

She didn’t know what to say. She wanted it and yet she didn’t, but her body betrayed her. Her mouth parted, responding to the call his was putting out.

“Danny,” she whispered, wanting to tell him no yet failing badly.

He bent, mouth so close to crushing hers. Penny’s head dipped back, her body dangerously close to Daniel’s. “Daddy?” They both froze.

Daniel pulled back, his hands sliding from Penny’s waist to slowly hang back at his sides.

She gripped the bench behind her, legs shaking. “Yeah,” he said gruffly.

“What are you doing to Mommy? Isn’t it cake time yet?”

“We’re, um, looking for candles,” Penny said, cheeks burning at being caught by their daughter.

“Oh, okay,” Gabby said, skipping out of the room.

Daniel turned almost-black eyes at her and smiled.

“I’ll get those candles,” she said, needing the distance from him, hoping he stepped backward rather than toward her.

“I’ll, ah, take the rest of the food out.”

She listened to Daniel pick up another tray and walk out.

It only just gave her enough time to flop forward on the bench, her elbows resting on it so she could cradle her head in her hands for a moment.

Coming home was harder than she’d expected it to be. So hard it made her feel as if a ton of concrete was trapped on her chest, c th±er chest,rushing her lungs.

She’d expected to be so angry with Daniel that she wouldn’t even be able to look at him. Disgusted with what he’d done.

But now she was here, it was the memories of what they’d had that kept playing through her mind.

She still couldn’t forgive him, but forgetting their past seemed to be as difficult as forgetting what he’d done.

Penny forced her head up and reached for the candles. She chose the five prettiest ones from the pack and pushed them carefully into the cake.

Daniel had asked for a chance to prove himself last night, to pretend for Gabby’s sake.

She hadn’t wanted to hear the details before. To talk about what had gone wrong in their marriage.

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 vibrating 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.”