The Soldier's Homecoming. DONNA ALWARD

of a curly haired poppet with his eyes, vibrant and excited. A huge argument wouldn’t accomplish anything, and he knew it. But keeping his cool outwardly didn’t stop the shock or the anger pulsing through him.

      He’d never wanted to be a father. But finding out he was one, knowing she’d kept it a secret, made his blood boil. What had he ever done that was so bad she thought to punish him in this way? The fact that she wouldn’t have said anything if she hadn’t been caught only fueled his anger.

      “You shouldn’t have done it,” he finally ground out through his teeth. He kept his voice as level as he could; too many people were around and he didn’t want to make a huge spectacle. “You had no right to deny me my own child.”

      Shannyn moved a step or two closer. “I can explain.”

      Jonas stared out over the river. How much time had he spent in this very water during his training? How many times had they gone boating or swimming, feeling the cold slickness of the water on each other’s skin? How had things gotten to this point? How could it be that they were in this place again, strangers dealing with something as intimate as a shared child?

      His heart pounded as memories flooded back, unfaded by time. When had Emma been conceived? On a day like today? Years ago, on an afternoon like this, he would have found a secluded spot downriver. He would have made love to her there in the heat of the afternoon. Things had burned hot between them from the very beginning. And fires that burned hot usually were extinguished just as quickly.

      Only it hadn’t. It had smoldered all this time in his memories of her.

      He had good memories. Memories of the two of them together during a summer that had been more than a fling. Memories he’d kept tucked away, bringing them out only when the pressure got to be too much. Memories that were now suddenly tarnished by a gigantic lie.

      “Nothing you can say will justify keeping this from me.”

      “Please Jonas, just hear me out.”

      “Hear you out? What can you possibly say that will make this right? I left for Edmonton six years ago. And you knew you were carrying my child and let me go anyway, none the wiser.”

      His hand automatically found his thigh, rubbing it absently as he’d had a way of doing since his injury.

      “I didn’t know I was pregnant when you left.”

      The defense rang false. “Don’t give me that. You would have found out within a few weeks. You knew where I was stationed, knew my battalion. You could have gotten in touch if you’d wanted.”

      She came closer and sat on the opposite end of the bench. “You’re right. It was my choice not to tell you.”

      “Why?” He thought briefly of how his grandmother would have loved seeing her great-granddaughter, her namesake, and the single word came out thick with emotion as anger and loss poured through him in waves. It was a struggle to keep his voice steady and low. He was glad she was sitting closer, so not every person wandering the walking path could hear the sordid details.

      “There were lots of reasons. For one, you left me. You never once said you wanted me with you. I knew if I told you and you came back, it would be out of obligation and not a…deeper emotion.”

      “I had my reasons,” he bit out. He knew she was referring to love. He hadn’t said it back then, hadn’t wanted to.

      “I’m not saying you were wrong. I’m saying what I based my decision on. Let’s face it. If you’d wanted more from me, you could have called. Or sent a letter. You left and I never heard from you again.”

      “You’re blaming me?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. Somehow she was making this his fault? Just because he hadn’t said I love you? He’d lost his daughter for five years because she felt spurned?

      “No, Jonas, of course not.” Her words came faster, and he sensed her desperation. “But what I am saying is that our situation, our personal status, wasn’t one that supported the idea of us and a baby. I knew you didn’t want marriage and a family. And I wasn’t about to put Emma through what I went through as a kid. Divorce sucks.”

      She sighed and softened her tone. “But that wasn’t the only factor.”

      “Go on.”

      He met her eyes as she folded her hands in her lap. Good Lord, she was beautiful. Maybe even more so now than she’d been then. Her blond, streaked hair was gathered up in a clip, the ends falling in artful disarray. Her eyes were blue and clear as a morning sky over the Arabian Sea. Her skin was sun kissed and dotted with light freckles.

      He’d been enchanted back then, not knowing she’d have the ability to do something like this to him. It irked him to find that he still responded to her girl-next-door sort of beauty, even when he was as angry as he’d ever been in his life.

      “Oh, Jonas, look at you,” she lamented, her lips downturned as she struggled to explain. “You were young, we both were. You were in the military, on the fast track to Special Forces. I knew it. You would be moving around all the time or deployed. And what would we do when you were gone for months at a time? Wait for you to come back, perhaps more of a stranger each time? A part-time father for a daughter who didn’t understand why Daddy wasn’t around? Or worse—what if you didn’t come back at all? I didn’t want to give my daughter a father only to have him ripped away from her in some foreign country.”

      “So you took her away from me. Denied me the chance to know my own flesh and blood.”

      “I protected her!”

      “From me! From her father!”

      “Not from who you were. From what you were.”

      Heads turned in their direction as their voices rose. She took a deep breath, spoke more calmly and tried a different tack. “Did you want to be a father then? Be honest.”

      He paused, clamping his lips together. Of course he hadn’t. He’d been twenty-two, at a brand-new posting with a new stripe on his sleeve. He’d been well on his way to becoming the best shot in the regiment. He’d had his eye set on deployment and making his mark. And as much as he’d cared for Shannyn, the last thing he’d wanted was to be tied to a wife. A family. He’d had things to accomplish first. A wife and children had no place in that world.

      “That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a right to know.”

      She turned away so she was staring at the lighthouse in the distance. “I did what I thought was best for my daughter.”

      “Our daughter.”

      Even saying it felt foreign on his tongue.

      How had his life come to this? Back where he started? He stretched out his leg, trying to relieve the ache that settled in his quadricep. Why couldn’t things have just stayed the same? Being with the battalion. Doing what he did best. Being the best.

      He stared ahead. He could see Chris’s face before him still, wide and smiling after cracking some joke. The two of them running laps around the compound before the desert got too hot to breathe. The quiet, reassuring sound of his voice while Jonas stared through the scope.

      Their last mission:

      The taste of dust was everywhere.

      Parker’s voice was low beside him telling him to hold his shot. The midday sun beat down harshly, and Jonas wondered if it was possible to bake in one’s own skin. He held his position; sweat trickled down his neck, sticking to his skin, but he didn’t move a single muscle. Hadn’t moved for the past three hours, twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds. “We’ve got someone at the door, Park.”

      “It’s not him. Not yet.”

      Godforsaken desert, Jonas thought, biding his time. He’d been in the desert long enough that he was sick and tired of it. There were nights when he lay awake for hours, thinking of home. Of cold beer in a sports bar and a bacon cheeseburger,