Page 54 of The Soldier's Homecoming

Gabby grinned and rubbed her tiny thumb over Penny’s hand.

“I’ll bring the car around the front,” Daniel told them, dropping a kiss to Gabby’s forehead.

Penny returned his smile even though her heart was breaking all over again. She had no idea how she was going to board that plane next week.

It was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She’d thrown grenades and completed some of the hardest combat training courses in the world. But nothing,nothing, compared to this.

All she could think about was leaving Gabby all over again, just when they’d started to connect again. Her daughter’s face lighting up at seeing her today, calling for her when she already had her beloved father beside her, it made her feel alive. Like she hadn’t been herself and she was slowly recovering from whatever had been holding her captive until now.

And Daniel. She shut her eyes for a moment. Daniel was still her husband. And she didn’t know what was going to happen there, or whatcouldhappen there. Whether they could ever go back to the way things used to be.

She had such limited time to act, to decide what to do and to figure out how she was going to cope.

What she had to do was draw on the strength of knowing that soon, shewouldbe coming home for good.

She just had to decide now what it was she’d be coming home to next time.

Gabby was settledin her room like a princess, snuggled up watching a DVD. They’d moved the television from the master bedroom onto her dresser, and she couldn’t have been happier. After a day running around looking after her, Penny was exhausted. But at least Gabby was feeling better, was starting to get her appetite back.

“I guess we’ll be having a quiet night in?” Daniel asked.

Penny kept stirring the pasta sauce, leaning over the large pot to inhale the tomato infused with fresh basil.

“As opposed to?”

Daniel came up behind her and reached for the spoon, plucking it from her hand.

“I have a few things I want to do with you, while you’re back. If you’re still up to giving me a chance, that is?”

Oh.

She watched as he tasted the sauce off the spoon, her eyes tracing his mouth as he did so.

“Perfect.”

She grabbed the wooden spoon before he could drop it back into the pot.

“No.”

“No?” he repeated.

She tried to focus on manners instead of the cheeky, irresistible-as-hell look on his face.

“You don’t put a spoon back in there after licking it!”

He shrugged, dimple creasing at the corner of his mouth as he did so. “We’re all family. What does it matter?”

“What does it matter?” Penny rolled her eyes and opened the drawer to find another spoon. “It’s not good hygiene.”

Daniel laughed. He actually opened his mouth wide and laughed at her. “Okay, I won’t do it again.” He paused, tilted his head while he was looking at her. “I think you’ve spent too long in the army and not enough time observing the disgusting things children, your daughter in particular, can do with food.”

Huh. “I guess if she’s learning her manners from you she gets up to all sorts of disgusting things.”

Penny tried to sound serious but she didn’t really care. What she liked was the easy banter between them. Play-arguing like they used to. Chatting and laughing for the sake of it.

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

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