Back in the Soldier's Arms (8 page)

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 being 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.

“Penny, Gabby does love you. Please don’t think any differently.”

She didn’t say anything straight away. Sucked in deep breath after deep breath, as if trying to compose herself.

“I know.” She cleared her throat, voice stronger the second time. “I know, I do, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“It’s been hard on me, too, Penny. I know that might sound like a cop-out to you, but it has.”

Something flashed through her gaze then, something he could see even in the dark.

Anger maybe. Or perhaps disbelief.

“But you’ve been here, Daniel. You’ve been here and I’ve been away.” She shook her head. “It’s not fair, Daniel, none of this is fair.”

He stood, not wanting to sit any longer.

Not sure if he was ready to have this conversation yet after all.

“You think it’s been easy for me?” he said in a low voice, refusing to let anger creep into his tone. Unable to shoulder all the blame any longer. “You think it was easy for me to pretend to you like everything was okay when I was dying inside here? When I didn’t know how to be a full-time dad, when all I knew was how to be a pilot? I’d give up anything for my family, but leaving the navy behind was nothing like easy.”

PconÁd=“AFMC1”enny looked up then, too, drew her body up tall even though she was still seated.

“Let’s not talk about easy, Daniel.” Her tone was cold, angry. Like she hadn’t heard anything he’d said except that one word. “Don’t even get me started on easy.”

Fury built within him until he felt like a jug about to boil over. A volcano about to blow its top after centuries of being dormant.

“And what exactly is that meant to mean?”

The tears were gone now, only to be replaced by a strong, calm anger that made him realize why she was so good at her job. Why his young wife had made sergeant. Why the United States Army was so darn keen to keep her in their service.

“I take it you were pretty easy the night you cheated on me.” She spat the words at him now. “Or have you forgotten about that already? Forgotten that when all we had was trust, when I was on the other side of the world and couldn’t do anything about it, you decided to throw our marriage away like it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.”

“How dare you.” His body was shaking. “How dare you make out like our marriage means nothing to me?”

“How dare I?” Penny jumped to her feet then. “I have never been unfaithful, Daniel. In all the years we’ve been together, I have never once been tempted by another man.”

They glared at one another. Yeah, he’d done something stupid, hated that he’d hurt her, but she didn’t understand. He hated himself for what he’d done. But he was hurting, too.

“You left me here, Penny. You left me and I had nothing.”

She laughed. “Nothing? You had our daughter, you had your family and you had your job.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. Sad now instead of angry. “I had no wife, I had to figure out how to look after a four-year-old girl on my own, and I had to deal with losing my identity. The navy had been my whole life, Penny, and it would have been different to give that up and come home to you. But it was the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt alone. Every time we spoke I pretended like everything was okay, but it wasn’t. I’ve never felt so sad and alone in all my life, okay? But I wanted to shield you from it and so I suffered on my own. I kept my mouth shut.”

She was still glaring at him, but she didn’t say a thing.

“Yeah, I stuffed up, but I would do anything to take that back. I’ve never, ever wanted to hurt you, and if I hadn’t been so damn drunk, so miserable, so lonely, I …”

“Am I meant to feel sorry for you?”

He reached for her hand, wanting this fight to be over. Wanting her to understand. Not knowing what to say or how to say it. Wishing he’d kept it all to himself again.

“If I could take it back, I would. I know it was wrong, but at the time, hell, I don’t know. I felt like I was sinking, at the bottom of a well with no hope of fighting my way to the top.

I was stupid-drunk, I know that’s no excuse, but I swear on my life that I’ll never, ever hurt you again.”

“My mother fell pregnant with me to a man she thought loved saÁught loveher. And what did he do once she told him? He left her. Because he had a wife he’d never told her about.” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “I grew up without a father as the result of infidelity. Your own father cheated on your mother and left you without a dad to rely on.”

He stared at her.

“Don’t ever compare me to my father.” He heard the coolness of his tone but was powerless to stop it. He despised the man.

“I grew up believing that I’d never find a man I could trust. That I could love. Because of what my mother had told me about my own father.” Tears started to fall down her cheeks again as she spoke. “But then I met you, Daniel, and I trusted you. I gave you my heart and never once doubted your love, or that you’d always be there for me. I loved you so much that it hurt sometimes, and now I have to think about that man whom I trusted so much with another woman. With his arms, his hands, his lips on another woman’s. And it’s something I don’t know how to forget.”

“I’m sorry, Penny. I know I’ve hurt you, but …”

“Screw you, Daniel.”

Penny spun around, his sweater falling from her shoulders, hair swinging as she flung the door open.

He stood still. He couldn’t do anything else.

In the ten years he’d been with Penny, in all that time of knowing her, he’d never seen such anger in her gaze. Never felt the sting like a slap to his cheek of Penny firing such venom-laced words at him.

Never. Not as a nineteen-year-old and not as a grown woman.