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After dinner, Damien cleaned up and tended to the fire, stoking it back to life. Penny made her way to the couch, her movements slow and awkward. Every step looked like it caused her pain and it occurred to him that he should check her wounds and refresh her bandages. He collected the first aid kit Magnus had packed for them and sat at the end of the couch.
“Bring your feet up here,” he motioned, patting the cushion between them. “Let me take a look.”
She swung her legs up, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Who’s the doctor, here?”
“You can direct me.” He’d seen his fair share of wounds. Riley’s had ranked as the worst, with Mia’s a close second. “Mind you, I’m not too shabby, if I say so myself.”
He shuffled closer and lifted her right leg onto his thighs. Though barely twenty-four hours old, the bandages definitely needed replacing. Unwrapping the foot, he took care when removing the layers closest to the skin. Revealing the damaged soles of her feet made him wonder how she handled any weight on them. She might be light as a feather but her wounds were swollen and angry. It looked as if someone had taken a knife to her, slicing and dicing with wanton abandon.
“It looks worse than it is,” she whispered.
He raised his head and met her gaze square on. “Liar.”
A tiny movement of her head accepted his accusation.
“You’re staying off these feet, Penny. You have to give them a chance to heal.”
“I need to move.”
He shrugged and rummaged through the first aid kit to find the antiseptic cream. “Say the word and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“No.”
His head snapped up. “Be reasonable.”
Determination squared her jaw and she held his stare. He didn’t understand why she wouldn’t let him dote on her. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not.”
Unconvinced, she shook her head. “Stop being so damned rational. Why aren’t you angry with me? After what I did?”
The venom in her voice barely matched the self-loathing in her eyes. He dared not look away for fear she would take it that he agreed with her assessment, but he had trouble keeping his emotions under control. It’d be a lie if he said the anger was completely gone but in truth, disappointment ran roughshod over everything else. To think she hadn’t felt he’d keep her safe was like a dagger deep in his heart.
“There’s some anger,” he conceded. “But mostly I’m having trouble understanding why you didn’t trust me enough to talk to me. I thought we could tell each other anything.”
She let out a small, soft noise. To him, it sounded somewhere between despair and sorrow. Not wanting to stare and make her feel like he scrutinized, he turned his attention back to her foot. He smeared the ointment over her injuries, checking each one for signs of infection first. When every laceration was covered, he found a clean bandage and began to wrap her foot.
“I just couldn’t see any other way.”
“Believe it or not, I do understand that part. It was a big decision, one with such final overtones.”
“I know. Charles tried to talk me out of it.”
He almost smiled at the thought of Charles trying to convince Penny to think twice. Aside from being stubborn, she didn’t do things without thinking of the consequences. She would have painstakingly thought through every step and considered all the angles. That hurt the most, knowing she chose to leave after having played out every possible scenario. Surely, she had to know how much it would have wounded him. And yet she went through with her plan.
“What’s on your mind?”
Her fingers on his forearm stilled his hands. Only then did he notice he’d closed his eyes to stop the tears from falling. His throat tightened but the words needed to be said. If they were going to sort through this, they both needed to be honest.
“It hurts that you felt you needed to leave. I know why you did it and I think I know what you hoped to achieve, but it feels like a betrayal.”
“Damien,” she whispered, her hand gripping his forearm. “Please, look at me.”
He took a deep breath but knew it wouldn’t stop her from seeing the truth. The double-edged sword of expressing his emotions cut deep. With just one look, he could hurt her and deepen the abyss separating them, but he wasn’t a coward and he needed to be honest. With a blink he opened his eyes and faced her. Her face softened as tears gathered in her eyes. He could practically telegraph her apology from the tremble of her chin.
“I will never forgive myself, so I can’t ask that of you. Hindsight has kicked my behind so many times over the years.”
“You could have come back.”
She shook her head, her sadness palpable. “No, honey. I couldn’t.”
Had she seen how angry he’d been, back then? Believing he’d lost the love of his life had blinded him to all rational thought. Worse still, the possibility of Mustang involvement had led him to think she’d been taken. Rage had threatened to drown him and without having to focus on their daughter, it would have killed him.
He tried to imagine Penny walking back into their lives a few months or years later but he couldn’t decide how he would’ve felt. The rawness of her loss had stayed with him for so long he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t feel it. Like an open, festering wound, the gaping hole her death had left in his heart had hardened him.
“I had already put you through so much, but I really believed my presence in your life put you in danger.”
Damien shook his head. “I was capable of doing that myself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What made you turn to the Army?”
“I found a lead on Massimo and followed it.”
Her pupils widened. How did he tell her that what he did further endangered their daughter? He couldn’t. The shame and regret he carried for those deeds would follow him to his grave. He couldn’t bear it if Penny disapproved.
“I wondered why you left the police. I kept tabs on you both as best I could,” she confessed. “It was hard. I was always on the move and then I read that you were killed. When I went to check on Ho—” she paused to correct herself, “Stevie, she’d disappeared.” She shook her head. “With you dead, I couldn’t stand to think she was alone at such a young age, but I couldn’t find her. I had no idea what happened to her until a few years ago, when I read that she’d been killed, too.”
Emotions skittered across her face. She’d endured a lot, hadn’t she? Learning of her family’s fate from across the other side of the world, a fate she’d tried to circumvent in the first place. No wonder she thought it all in vain. He thought he knew her well enough to know she would’ve punished herself. She’d always prided herself on being resourceful and resilient, but being unable to prevent her worst fear would’ve battered her sense of self.
Silence engulfed them save for the intermittent crackle and pop of the open fire. Penny’s hand on his arm trembled. Securing the bandage on her foot, he covered her hand with his. Together, they’d managed to break the other’s heart and let each other down. Perhaps the thing he had trouble reconciling the most was that they’d both abandoned their daughter in the crazy belief it would protect her.
If only she’d confided in him...
No.
He couldn’t go down that road. What was done, was done, and the reality they were left with was a confused mess. Somehow, fate stepped in to correct their wayward ships and bring them back together. Now it was up to them to find their way through the confusion.
“We have a second chance,” he said but his optimism didn’t lighten Penny’s expression. Her lips pulled tight and her eyes grew worried. “What is it?”
With her free hand, she reached under her sweater and revealed two worn, tattered photos. Her hand shook as she held them out toward him. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Damien took the pictures. The first was of him and Penny, holding Stevie as a babe. He remembered the day the photo was taken. Bob had snapped them all together, in beautiful sunshine, in a moment of family bliss. They both wore proud-parent smiles as they held their daughter. Young, in love and deliriously happy, they grinned at the camera and sang cheese in giddy voices. The same image hung on the wall behind them and occupied pride of place in his wallet.
“I love this photo,” he nodded.
She didn’t say a word. Separating the images, he glimpsed the one behind and glanced at Penny. Her nod encouraged him to reveal it fully. He blinked, trying to understand what he saw. It was of Penny, holding a baby girl but Damien could see the child wasn’t Stevie. The more he looked, the more he saw the similarities to Stevie and Penny. The same button noses. The white-blond hair. The blue eyes.
“And this one?”
She swallowed, the sound audible above the crackling fire. “Your other daughter.”
He felt his eyebrows arch high on his forehead. “My other daughter?”
Penny’s hand slipped from his arm. “Do you remember our last night together?”
History exploded in his mind and he saw them dine, slow dance and make love. The force of the memory closed his eyes and he could almost hear their wedding song reach across the years. The sweetness of their night together wrapped him in love and softness, and the proof of the product of their union lay swaddled in a pink blanket in the arms of her mother. Snapping his eyes open, he studied the image.
“My other daughter. Where? Who?”
He expected her to smile, but before his eyes, her body withdrew and she shrank away from him. “Abigail.”
The name echoed through his mind but he didn’t understand Penny’s body language. “Where is she?”
“I’m not sure.”
Numbness spread through him. “Penny?”
Clasping her hands together, she pulled into a tight ball. “I couldn’t look after her. I wasn’t able. I had given you and Stevie up to protect you from my father and I knew I had to do the same for her. I felt so guilty.”
He had another daughter somewhere in the world. Stevie had a sister. The news spun his world off its axis but far from being angry, he only felt joy and hope. Anticipation spiked his blood with awe but when he saw Penny’s misery, it dissipated. He reached for her but she flinched.
“Don’t.”
He smiled. “Penny, don’t be so hard on yourself.”
She grimaced. “I gave her up, Damien. I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect her from Massimo if he ever found us. I gave her away.” She began to cry.
Damien slipped out from under her leg and shifted closer to her. He tried to take her into his arms but she shook her head and pushed him away. Undeterred, he took her hands in his and waited for her to look at him.
“Penny, look at me.”
Tears streaked down her face. “Please, Damien. Don’t.”
Despite the guilt and shame in her eyes, he waited until she had no choice but to look at him. He pressed her hands to his chest. “Penny, we have another daughter?”
“She doesn’t know we’re alive. I don’t even know if she knows she’s adopted. It’s useless to even think about it.”
He ignored her. “Do you know who took her?”
She stopped fussing and blinked at him. “I do.”
“Then we can find her.”
She bit her bottom lip and through the regret, a spark of optimism burned in her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who took her?” he persisted. “Who did you give her to?”
“Another doctor I worked with. She was leaving the foundation so she agreed to adopt Abigail.”
He couldn’t stop the flood of hope pouring through his veins. “Who?”
“Margery Winter.” Penny gaped at him, as if finding their daughter would be simple. He knew it wouldn’t but he’d never let that stop him.
He gave a nod and tugged Penny into his arms. She sagged against his chest and let him hold her. Stroking her hair, he took a deep breath to calm the storm of emotions within him. In time, he would find Abigail, but first, he needed to get to know his wife all over again, and he’d start by not referring to her as his wife anymore.
Legally, they were no longer married and in reality, they weren’t in a relationship, hadn’t been in one for more than twenty years. Aside from their history and their daughters, they had little binding them together. He needed to know whether there was a future for them as anything more than former spouses.
“Is there anything else?” he dared to ask, lifting her away so he could look into her eyes. “Anything more I need to know?”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s not enough?”
Damien heard himself chuckle. “I think that’s plenty, but I needed to ask.”
Eventually, she shook her head. “I faked my death, had a secret child, abandoned everyone and spent the last twenty-three years working for Doctors Without Borders to provide medical care. There, you have the ugly truth.”
He took her face in his hands. “It’s just the truth, Penny. I faked my death, put our daughter in harm’s way, abandoned her when she needed me the most and spent the last ten years chasing international criminals for Interpol. We all have our crosses to carry. The important thing is what we do next.”
Her eyes searched his. “Do you think she can forgive me?”
Stevie or Abigail? “Yes.”
“Can you?”
Her question took him by surprise. Instinct propelled him to say yes but his heart stopped him. While he understood her intentions, the hurt her actions caused still resonated in his soul. He didn’t know the woman she’d become and without that piece of the puzzle, he couldn’t answer her...
...yet.
“I’m working on it,” he admitted. “I know what we once had and I don’t want to believe it’s gone forever. Give me some time, Penny. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. We need to live in the present.”
The fear left her eyes and she finally smiled. “Of course.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead and heard her sigh. “I won’t give up on us if you don’t. Now, let me see that other foot.”