“You’re leaving the army?”
Startled from his prayer, he jerked his head and saw Serena standing three feet away. He nodded slowly. “I wasn’t going to tell you yet.”
“When were you planning to?” A trace of anger entered her voice.
He’d thought the news would make her happy, but clearly, he’d misjudged her reaction. “Christmas. I wanted to surprise you and Cecily.”
“All week I’ve agonized about the possibility of Cecily leaving. and you’ve been planning to move back the entire time?” Her voice rose with each word, and her shoulders trembled. “You should have told me.”
Now he understood. “I’m still sorting out the details, and I wouldn’t take Cecily away from you. She belongs here.”
“That’s not what you said before. You want custody which would potentially mean summers and holidays with you wherever you happened to be stationed.”
Reaching out, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “I’m sorry for the horrible things I said before and for making you worry. Yes, I want shared custody, but I know for that to happen, I have to be here. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us to take her so far away from you.”
The shaking of her shoulders weakened under his hand. “You’re really coming home?”
“In March.”
“What will you do?”
“I have no idea.” He became too aware of his hands on her, and he backed away. “Rex always tells me he can get me in with his company. I’m don’t want to do security—I’ve had my share of putting my life on the line—but I wouldn’t mind the IT side of it.”
“I wouldn’t want you in a dangerous job.” Pink crawled up her neck. “For Cecily’s sake. She’d never recover if anything happened to you now.”
His lips curled into a smirk and he quirked a brow. “For Cecily’s sake, huh?”
“Yes. I mean, I’d be upset too. You are her dad, and you’re not all that bad.” She squirmed and shifted her balance.
He shouldn’t have teased her, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity. “Lucky forCecily, I plan on a nice, safe career after the army.”
“Good.”
When his gaze drifted to her soft lips, he knew he had to stop. “Do me a favor, and don’t tell her yet. I want it to be a Christmas surprise.”
She made a zipping motion over her mouth. “My lips are sealed.”
“What brought you out here,” he asked, realizing he hadn’t bothered to find out.
“Checking on you. You seemed distracted during the meal.”
I was. “I’ve been on my own a long time. I love my family, but they can be overwhelming when you’re not accustomed to it.”
“They’re great.” She crossed her arms, shivering as a cool wind blew through. “I always wanted a big family.”
He slipped out of his jacket and placed it over Serena’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you have one?”
She looked at him as though he’d asked the world’s dumbest question. “I wasn’t having any more children without having a husband first.”
“I’m sure you had lots of men who would have married you.”
“None that I wanted to marry.” She pressed her hand against her elbow and rubbed.
A chill coursed through him that had nothing to do with the weather. “What happened?”
“There was one man I came close to marrying.” She folded her hands into each other and twirled her thumbs. “We weren’t engaged, but we’d discussed marriage. One day the Feds showed up at my house asking questions about him. Come to find out, he was knees deep in a child porn ring.”
“Cecily wasn’t…” His heart dropped and he couldn’t finish the question.
