The Soldier's Homecoming. DONNA ALWARD
Even now the name seemed that of a stranger. She took a deep breath. “May I see you for a moment?”
His uneven gait carried him back to the counter. “Yes?”
Shannyn forced her voice to remain professional, even as she looked up into his face. He looked the same as he had last week. That inherent neatness and military bearing, despite his disability. She had the irrational longing to reach out and lay her hands on his lapels, straightening an imaginary crease. She shook off the silly urge. It would serve no purpose. If she were sure of one thing, it was that Jonas wouldn’t stay around. She’d been burned by him before. There was no way she’d let him do it to her again.
She gripped the papers in her hand. “There are a few things I need you to authorize before I can sign off on your file and send it to the office you’ve specified.”
She handed over the proper papers and a pen. “You should be fine there, although I think Ms. Malloy is the best physiotherapist in the city. Still, once this is taken care of, all you’ll have to do is call and set up your first appointment at the new clinic.”
Jonas’s hand paused over the papers.
“Why you? I thought you were the receptionist.”
She smiled thinly. When he’d been sent to Edmonton, she’d just enrolled in business school. “I started out that way. Now I’m the office manager. Any paperwork needs to be signed off by your therapist and by me.”
“Sgt. Kirkpatrick? I’m ready for you now.” Geneva Malloy called him in.
His eyes darted up to Shannyn’s but she didn’t let her gaze waver. She wanted him to sign the papers and be free to go on his way. On the other hand, they were running behind schedule and she didn’t want to keep Geneva waiting. “I’ll hold on to these,” she said brusquely. “You can sign them after your session.”
He handed her back the pen. She tapped the papers into an orderly stack and laid them on top of his file.
“Thank you,” he replied politely. For a flash, his eyes betrayed him and she felt he wanted to say something more. Why, after all this time, did her heart still leap every time her gaze met his?
Then the look was gone and he limped his way to the facilities in the back.
She left his paperwork on the desk behind the counter and turned her attention back to her computer. This was her job, and had been for a long time. She’d done just fine, going to school, making a new life. She’d told him the truth—she’d started by answering phones and had gone on to manage the entire office. It was a good life. It was real and it was permanent and those were two things that Shannyn rated highly.
She turned her attention to her work while he was with Geneva. Checking her watch, she realized he’d been in there nearly an hour and her spreadsheet was complete. She sat back in her chair and sighed. Shortly he’d come back out, walk out the door and unless fate was unkind, she probably wouldn’t meet him again. Being near him at all stirred up too many feelings she’d tried hard to bury.
Switching physiotherapists was a godsend. She could get on with her life, and he’d never know the difference. Even as she thought it, a slick line of guilt crawled through her. Most of the time she was successful in not thinking about what she’d done. But deep down she felt some remorse at keeping her secret.
The door to the back opened and she heard Jonas’s voice talking to Geneva, thanking her politely. Shannyn turned her head toward the sound, only to snap it back abruptly as the front office door swung open carrying laughter with it.
“Mommy!”
A charged bundle in jeans and a red T-shirt barreled across the floor towards Shannyn’s desk, bouncing to a halt and grinning up precociously. “Surprise! I came from kindergarten!”
Jonas released Geneva’s hand as he turned, his heart stopping for a brief moment as the girl wrapped her chubby arms around Shannyn’s neck.
I have a daughter. The thought struck him like the sure aim of a bullet.
As if she sensed something was off, the girl turned her head and their eyes met, green to green. Every muscle in his body tightened with the impact of the truth. This is Shannyn’s daughter. She’s in school. I left six years ago. She has my eyes.
Shannyn’s cheeks colored; the blatant guilt on her face and the way she shifted in her chair seemed to confirm his suspicion. This was his daughter, one Shannyn had kept hidden from him all this time. A tiny poppet who looked eerily like the pictures of himself he remembered from his grandmother’s photo album.
All of it left him gutted. How much more could he lose? He clenched his fingers. It wasn’t enough to have the life he’d made for himself ripped away in the space of a moment. Now he had to find out he had another, separate life that he hadn’t even known existed.
It took every ounce of his self-control to not go to the little girl, to kneel before her and demand to see her eyes again. Moss green eyes. His eyes in a miniature of Shannyn’s delicate features. But what would that accomplish beyond frightening the child? She wouldn’t understand. He didn’t understand. No, it was Shannyn who owed him an explanation.
That overriding thought filled him with tense rage. And explain she would. She’d known. Known all this time and hadn’t told him he had a daughter. For six years he’d been a father. She’d deliberately kept it a secret, and then when he did return to town, she’d said nothing, even though she’d had opportunity. This was the third time they’d met and still she hadn’t breathed a single word of it to him.
Shannyn felt as if her head was moving in slow motion. Her daughter’s happy, smiling face looked up at her. Then, turning her head a few degrees, she caught Jonas watching her with a startled expression blanking his face. Emma turned to see what she was looking at and lifted moss-green eyes to the man standing across the room.
Her heart raced even as the moment froze. He would know now for sure. There was no mistaking those eyes. Her own were aqua blue, and the only reason her lashes were dark was because she’d put on mascara that morning. Emma’s eyes were his. Green with lovely thick dark lashes that curled naturally. Just like the brown curls that rested on the tips of her shoulders, the same sable color as his short spikes. She could almost see him mentally counting back six years.
Emma looked from Shannyn to Jonas and then to her baby-sitter, who stood in the doorway looking confused.
“Why’s everyone standing so still?” Emma’s voice piped up curiously in the silence that had fallen.
Shannyn shook herself out of her stupor. She forced a cheery smile to her face, the skin tightly stretched under the false expression. Right now she had to ignore Jonas and deal with Emma. Lord knew Jonas would have to be dealt with later.
“What brings you here in the middle of the day, pumpkin?”
“I told Melissa that I wanted to see you when she picked me up from school.”
Shannyn reached down and lifted Emma up so that she was on her knee, aware of Jonas’s eyes on them unwaveringly. “And how was kindergarten today? Did you have fun? Learn the secret of moonbeams? Solve the mystery of the dinosaur?”
She made jokes, but her stomach churned with anxiety. He must have put two and two together by now. If not, he would have left the office. No, he knew exactly what the deal was. That they had a child and she hadn’t told him.
He would hate her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen at all. He was supposed to be switching therapists. Out of her sphere of existence. So she and Emma could live their lives as they always had.
“Mommy, that’s silly.”
She forced a smile as Emma’s bright voice brought her back to the present. “And so are you, girly-girl.”
“Can you come home?”
Melissa,