Free Back in the Soldier's Arms by Soraya Lane, Karina Bliss Page B

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.
    Daniel bent to retrieve his sweater, pulled it on then let himself out the gate. He needed to take a walk, even just down the street.
    And he needed to give Penny some breathing space to gather her own thoughts, too.
    Their discussion hadn’t gone well, but then he’d never really expected it to.
    Although he’d never thought it would be quite that bad.
    Penny was furious. Mind-jarring, body-shaking, wild kind of furious.
    How dare he? How could he think that there was any excuse for the way he’d behaved? The way he’d hurt her?
    She’d been away on tour with a huge number of men. All types of different guys, plenty of them handsome and charming, but she’d never once even considered giving in to temptation. No matter how sad or lonely she was.
    Because her marriage meant too much to her.
    Was she meant to feel sorry for him? Think it was okay that he’d been with another woman because he’d been lonely?
    She would have traded anything not to have to go away again. To be here with Gabby instead of serving overseas. She’d done her time, fulfilled her duty, and now she wanted to come home. No matter how much she loved her unit, liked being part of a team and making a difference.
    And Daniel was wrong. She knew exactly what it meant to be lonely.
    She’d been living lonely ever since she’d flown out and left her husband standing beside her daughter. Looked over her shoulder and seen the pair of them holding hands while she had to board a plane and leave them for months on end. 201Áhs on endWhen she’d never expected to have to go on tour again. When her contract said that after four years of service she’d be free to be a civilian again.
    She’d miss the people she served with, too, but she’d trade it all for being right back here at home.
    Penny threw a pillow and a blanket out onto the sofa and hoped Daniel got the message.
    Pretending or not, she had no intention of sharing a bed with him. Not tonight, and maybe not ever again.
    Back in the Soldier’s Arms/Here Comes the Groom

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CHAPTER EIGHT
    A KNOCK echoed out down the hall. Penny looked up. She was sitting on the sofa reading to Gabby. The last thing she needed was a visitor. Her head was still pounding from the night she’d spent tossing and turning, eyes no doubt verging on seriously bloodshot.
    “I’ll get it!” Daniel called out.
    She glimpsed him as he walked past the living room door, jeans slung low on his waist, towel still in his hand as he rubbed at his damp hair.
    Penny wished she hadn’t seen him. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of how good he looked bare. The golden color of his flat torso, the breadth of his shoulders.
    Clearly leaving the navy hadn’t taken a toll on his appearance.
    “Oh, hey,” she heard him say.
    Gabby jumped up. “Is that Grandma?”
    Penny strained her ears but couldn’t hear. “I don’t know, hon. Why don’t you go take a look?”
    She watched as her daughter bounded off down the hall, returning less than a minute later towing her grandmother.
    “Hi, Penny.”
    “Oh. Hi, Vicki,” she responded.
    She ran her hands over her rumpled jeans before playing anxiously with her ponytail. She was suddenly conscious that the house was a mess. That she didn’t even