Page 56 of The Soldier's Homecoming

“Then 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 fixus.”

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.

It 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.”

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