Page 77 of The Soldier's Homecoming

Penny was crying now, silently crying as she listened to him, but she never broke his gaze. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, and it stayed there as he brushed his fingers across them.

“I’ll never forget your lips because of the times they’ve kissed and reassured me.” He tried to stop his voice from cracking as he said the next part. The hardest part. “And I’ll never forget the way you reassured me that I’d never be like my father.”

That made Penny shake her head, expression no longer sad, determined now.

“You’re not your father, Daniel.”

“No?” he asked. “I think I am, Penny. You gave me your trust and I stomped all over it.”

It was Penny who touched his face then, who took over where he’d left off. “You’re not like him, Daniel, because he hurt your mother on purpose. Helefther and never came back.”

Daniel sighed. “I hurt you, too, Penny, and I was unfaithful. That’s enough to make me like him. But you’re right, I’m different from him, because I want to make this right. No matter what, I want us to be okay.”

She played with the hem of her dress, still wearing the same clothes she’d been in earlier.

“Penny, what I’m trying to say,” Daniel said, cupping her chin in his palm and lifting her head ever so slightly, “is that you might not be able to forget what I did, but what I can’t forget is you. I know you might not believe me, but I never think of that night, other than to wish it didn’t happen. All I remember is you, and how much I love you. How much I love everything about you, and wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. How much I wish our life could be like it was.”

“But—”

“You’re my wife, Penny, and when you stand in front of me there’s no one else I want.”

They stared at one another.

“And I cannot imagine a life without you in it. I can’t let this be the end, Penny.We can’t. We mean too much to one another to just walk away.”

Her lip trembled as she tilted her head higher. “Daniel?”

He nodded.

“Kiss me.”

He moved slowly, pausing before taking her face in his hands and touching his lips to hers.

Penny’s heartwas thumping as Daniel’s lips traced a path over hers. She couldn’t deny the mellowness in her body, the pleasure of having his mouth covering hers.

Could she do this? Could she move forward and let him back in again?

Yes. Her mind was screaming out at her, forcing her to put aside her worries.Yes.

This, right now,thisfelt right. Being in some hotel room had seemed too forced, too staged. Had been sleazy somehow.

But being here, in their own room—hearing Daniel tell her how he truly felt—this was what she’d needed to believe in him again. To know that she was what and who he wanted, to know that she wasn’t second best. That he’d never hurt her like that ever again.

“I love you, Penny. I always have and I always will.”

She couldn’t answer him, but she didn’t pull away.

Daniel was right.

They could do this.

After everything he’d seen, the look on his face when he’d been so honest with her. She knew in her heart he was being honest. That he hadn’t meant to hurt her. That she meant more to him than anyone else, thananythingelse.

“I love you, too, Daniel,” she whispered. It seemed like forever ago since she’d been able to say that to him. To tell him how much she cared for him.

“Whatever happens, Pen,” he told her, pulling back to caress her face, to talk to her, “I want you to know that you mean everything to me.”

Penny let her head fall back, neck arched as he kissed her, like the tip of a feather being tickled across her skin.

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