Chapter 24

Penny wasn't unaware of the intensity of his gaze. She lay with her head resting against the arm of the chair, a lock of dark brown hair falling across her forehead, her eyelashes dark and dusty against the pale creaminess of her cheeks. One long slim hand tucked under her chin and the other lay along her side, relaxed and beautiful in its unconscious pose.

In those minutes of observation, Joey knew that he loved this girl. That he wanted this woman to be his. It was so sudden and unexpected as the sound of the first shell burst at the start of an attack. All his life he had waited for this moment, and now the realization that it had come at last gave him the same sense of shock as one receives when one expects a loud report, and because of the anticipation is more startled at the explosion.

It took him several moments fully to understand that what he was experiencing were the birth pains of the first real love in his life. He allowed the revelation to flow over him in w