“I’m so damned scared, Danny.”

Mary Elise’s thready words barely whispered against his neck until he might have questioned his hearing. But he felt each word and all her fear soak into him along with the heat of her rapid breaths.

“Tell me,” he coaxed. “Tell me what to do for you.”

She inched back, her hand sliding up his face again. “Oh, Danny, can’t you see that you and all this—” she slipped her hand around his neck in a sensual glide “—this tension between us that we can’t ignore is a big part of the problem? You need to believe me when I say I just can’t risk staying here with you.”

His arms around her twitched, muscles convulsively tensing to hold her closer, safer. As much as he wanted to reassure her, he couldn’t. He knew himself too well.

Strategic Engagement
Catherine Mann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CATHERINE MANN

writes contemporary military romances, a natural fit since she’s married to her very own USAF research source. Prior to publication, Catherine graduated with a B.A. in fine arts: theater from the College of Charleston and received her master’s degree in theater from UNC Greensboro. Now a RITA® Award winner, Catherine finds following her aviator husband around the world with four children, a beagle and a tabby in tow offers her endless inspiration for new plots. Learn more about her work, as well as her adventures in military life, by visiting her Web site: http://catherinemann.com. Or contact her at P.O. Box 41433, Dayton, OH 45441.

Dedication:

To military families everywhere.

Acknowledgments:

To Homer and Karen Tucker, treasured friends who are family in my heart if not by blood relation. Thank you for your never-faltering faith in my stories.

To Major Kevin “Bjorn” Brown and his wonderful wife, Leah. Thank you, Kevin, for your generous insights into the C-17 world. (Any mistakes are strictly my own!) Many thanks also to Leah, a talented author and dear friend, for cheering me on and keeping me up to date on Charleston AFB.

And as always, thank you to my very own hero, Rob, for making our happily-ever-after a beautiful adventure.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Eleven years ago Mary Elise McRae had expected to fill a hope chest for Daniel Baker. But she’d never thought she would fill it quite so literally.

Her body currently folded inside a five-by-five-foot wooden crate, Mary Elise hugged the two small boys closer. The rough-hewn box jostled on the back of the flatbed truck, jarring bony little elbows and knees against her. Hard. Not that anyone dared do more than breathe in the cedar-scented darkness.

A lone horn honked along the stretch of desert road in their escape route from Rubistan. The truck jerked to a stop. A goat blocking the way? Or a cow? Either animal slow when Mary Elise needed fast. Headlights from the truck behind them shone through the tiny slits between the boards.

A Rubistanian guard from the embassy tracking them.

She’d heard his voice during the loading onto the truck. Procedure didn’t allow him on the U.S. government’s vehicle, but those ominous beams sparked fear inside her as surely as if he’d been sitting alongside puffing away on one of those cigars he favored. Would he use this delay as an excuse to ambush them? Cause an “accident?”

The diesel engine’s growl increased and the truck lurched to life. Mary Elise exhaled her relief in the stifling enclosure. Only another half hour, max, until she delivered Trey and Austin safely aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. Then she would say her tearful farewells to the two children being smuggled out of this Middle-Eastern hell in the back of Captain Daniel Baker’s C-17.

Danny.

His name echoed in her mind amid the grind of changing gears. What would Daniel say when he saw her for the first time in eleven years? If only he had advance warning she would be with the boys, but she’d expected to stay at the embassy, not be in this sweltering crate.

With any luck, they’d be too rushed to talk. She would pass over her young charges. Thank Daniel for answering the emergency SOS she’d anonymously routed through the economic attaché. Then haul butt off the airstrip, back to her tiny apartment in Rubistan’s capital, back to her teaching post at the American embassy school.

Back to her solitary life.

She wouldn’t let memories of Daniel make her yearn for anything more. She’d worked damned hard for her pocket of peace away from Savannah. Peace bought with the help of Daniel’s father. Trey and Austin’s father, too. And today she would repay that debt.

“Mary ’Lise?” Austin whispered from under her chin. “Wanna get out. Gotta go.”

“Shh,” she urged as loudly as she dared. “Soon, sweetie. Soon.” She hoped.

Sweat trickled down her neck, caking sand to her skin as Mary Elise willed Austin silent. A crate of computers didn’t whisper for a bathroom, after all. Sure, a diplomatic pouch was immune from inspection—a pouch being U.S. government property of any size from the embassy. Totally immune. Unless that “pouch” starting talking.

Her arms locked tighter around thin, preschooler shoulders on her left and the more substantial nine-year-old frame on her right. At least Trey was old enough to follow instructions, his shoulders pumping under her arm with each heavy breath. Little Austin was a wild card.

Bracing her feet against the other side to combat jolts, she suppressed the illogical bubble of laughter. Definitely a card. Wild. Precious. And looked so much like his adult half brother Daniel.

So much like the baby she and Daniel might have had if not for the miscarriage.

Of course she hadn’t been able to turn away when Austin had pumped out tears at the sight of the crate. He’d begged for Mary ’Lise to crawl inside with him instead of his twenty-one-year-old nanny, a pale nanny who’d seemed all too willing to bow out.

The truck squealed to a stop. A tiny hand tucked into hers and clutched tight with chubby stickiness. She pressed a silent kiss to Austin’s brow.

“Well, hello there, gentlemen,” the masculine bass rumbled.

Danny.

Even with eleven years more testosterone infused into deepening his voice, she would recognize that hint of a drawl anywhere. No rushing. Even in the middle of an unstable country, on a darkened runway where threats lurked in countless shadows…Danny didn’t hurry for anyone. Life followed him. He never followed life.

His ambling lope thudded closer. Could they hear her heart thump outside the box?

A second set of footsteps sounded. Faster. Cigar smoke wafted through the thin slits between boards. The distinctive scent of imported Cubans favored by the Rubistanian guard from the embassy snaked around her.

The slower bootsteps, Daniel’s, stopped. “How downright neighborly of you to offer an escort, but my folks here can handle things now.”

“We have procedure to follow in my country, Cap-i-tain,” the guard clipped out in heavily accented English.

“Lighten up there, Sparky. I know all about your procedure. The paperwork’s pristine…well, except for some ketchup on the edge there from my fries. Now back on up so my loadmaster can finish the transfer.”

Daniel’s affected flippancy reached into the box with calming comfort. And unwelcome arousal. His voice shouldn’t still have the power to strum her numbed senses to life, especially not now. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was a mature woman with control over her life. She’d moved on after the debacle with Danny. Married someone else.

Bad example.

Lighten up, ’Lise. Danny’s mantra echoed in her head through the years. Life’s just not that complicated.

She wished.

“Time to head on out, Sparky,” Daniel called, casual and irreverent as ever. “The sooner Tag over there can load up and lock down, the sooner we’ll get off your runway and out of this…garden spot.”

A trail of tangy smoke slithered into the box. “What is your hurry, Cap-i-tain?”

“Hurry?” Daniel’s bass rumbled closer, louder. The truck shifted with the weight of another body. “I need to head home for my annual pilgrimage to the Frito-Lay factory. Besides, my copilot’s just a kid and it’s past her bedtime.”

“Hey, now,” a female voice called from below. “Frito-Lay? I thought you were going to Hershey, Pennsylvania.”

“That was last month, Wren.”

“And you didn’t bring me any chocolate? I’m crushed.”

“I thought about you. But what can I say? I got hungry on the way home.”

Their lighthearted voices filled the box, and Mary Elise resented the twinge of envy over his easy rapport with the copilot. She’d once shared that same relationship with Daniel until the summer their friendship had spiraled into something more. So much more.

Memories swirled in the murky box with oppressive weight. So Daniel still loved his junk food. They’d met twenty-two years ago over a chocolate Ho-Ho. She’d pulled the treat from her Holly Hobby lunch box to thank him for bloodying Buddy Davis’s nose after the bully made fun of her Yankee accent.

Did Daniel still like video games, too? Hide his genius brain behind jokes?

Kiss with an intense thoroughness that turned a woman’s insides to warmed syrup?

A hand patted the box once, again, and again, with slow reassurance. Daniel. “And speaking of hungry,” he said, his hand thumping a lulling lazy beat. “There’s a flight lunch and a bag of licorice with my name written all over it waiting in the cockpit. Let’s step this up.”

Smoke spiraled inside, mingling with the ripe scent of fresh-cut boards. A low wheeze hissed from Trey. His head fell back against her arm as he sucked in air.

Tension stretched inside her. Mary Elise rubbed a soothing hand along his back, a poor substitute for his inhaler, but all she could risk. The smoke, cedar and fear were too much for anyone, much less a child with asthma. As if these kids hadn’t already been through enough with their parents’ “accidental” deaths and a Rubistanian uncle trying to claim them…and their inheritance.

All the more reason to get the children to their half brother on American soil. Screw official diplomatic channels where the boys could be in college before Rubistan coughed them up.

Mary Elise hugged the boys closer, her hair snagging along the wood. Pulling. Stinging her scalp. Hard. Her eyes watered.

Oh, God. Come on, Daniel. They needed to get rid of that guard so someone could crack open the box, let Trey breathe.

And let her out.

Another puff of cigar smoke tendriled inside. “How interesting that your name tag reads Baker, Cap-i-tain. That is the last name of your ambassador who so recently died.”

The thudding stopped. Silence echoed for three wheezing breaths from Trey before the rhythmic tap resumed. “Baker’s a common last name over in America, Sparky.”

“Of course. If you were related you would be in mourning, not working.”

The vehicle dipped with added weight, then footsteps shuddered the truck bed. Not Daniel’s lope. The clipped pace of the guard. “Is that a loose board I see right—”

“Don’t even think about it.” Daniel’s steely voice iced the humid air. The click of a cocked gun echoed. “If you lay so much as one finger on that box, I’ll blow your damned hand off. A diplomatic pouch is sovereign United States government territory. Move back and get off this truck. Now.”

Bugs droned in response along with the low hum of the idling plane engines. Please, please, please, be careful, Danny. She hadn’t wanted to see him and now she couldn’t bear the thought of never laying eyes on him again. She’d brought him here, hadn’t had a choice for the boys. But if things went to hell, she would never forgive herself.

An exhale sounded along with the retreat of boots and smoke. The gun snicked as it was uncocked.

The crate rolled forward.

Air rushed from her lungs. Not that she should be surprised at Daniel’s victory. The teenager she’d known carried an untamed look in his eyes, the veneer of ten generations of Savannah wealth having worn thin for him. So often he’d flung himself into brawls like a scrappy street fighter in defiance of his pedigree. In defense of her. He’d always won, too. Except once.

I’m sorry. She winged her apology for then as well as now.

He’d taken a punch from his father when she’d been as much at fault for the unplanned pregnancy. Of course Daniel had never raised a hand to defend himself.

God, she wished she had the option of fighting back against her ex-husband, fists and brawn and bluster, instead of shadow dancing with insidious threats. He’d never actually struck her, just controlled her, betrayed her body in a way so soul rending she wondered if she could ever recover. And then when she’d dared leave him, he’d hired a hit man to take her out.

Not that the police would help her, thanks to her ex’s far-reaching influence.

She wasn’t a wilting flower, but she also wasn’t stupid. So she’d run. She’d even been willing to move to a hotbed of political unrest in the Middle-Eastern country of Rubistan to stay alive. At least in Rubistan no one thought it might be a nifty idea to kill her simply because she couldn’t bear him children.

Visions of her Georgia home chilled the sweat sealing her silk shirt to her skin. Come on, come on, come on. Open the damned box.

The sides closed in with claustrophobic pressure. She shoved away the need to run. For the boys. The precious warm weights beside her who smelled of chocolate and sunshine and dreams she would never have.

The crate tipped. Mary Elise and the children slid, wedging into the corner with the minimal padding of a couple of blankets.

“Tag, go easy there,” Daniel called. “Wouldn’t want to crack a keyboard now, would we?”

“No worries, sir.” A voice sounded beside them as the box jerked to a stop. “I’ll treat it like one of my own.”

A mechanical drone built. The dim streaks of light faded. The load-ramp shutting? The world faded around her to near black until the ramp clanked closed.

She forced her breathing to regulate. Maybe they needed privacy to open the crate. That made sense. Then they could slip her back off the plane under the cover of darkness. Not ideal. But doable.

Lazy footsteps picked up speed along the metal floor. A final thump sounded on the planked top. “Lock it down tight, Tag.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The thud of boots faded. Chains jangled in the time fugue of waiting. Was it safe to talk? Engines roared and grew louder. Forget waiting.

Mary Elise opened her mouth and shouted. And couldn’t hear herself over the engines.

Her heart hammered her chest. The boys wriggled closer. She screamed. A soundless shriek swallowed by the din.

The crate vibrated, joggled as the plane moved. Faster. Forward. Picking up speed. The roar built, swelled. Tension clenched her chest until each breath became a struggle like Trey with his asthma.

The box tilted back. Gravity slid her with the boys until she landed against the wooden wall as the plane…

Went…

Up.

Oh, God. They were airborne.

Airborne. And not a damned moment too soon.

Captain Daniel “Crusty” Baker maxed the throttle. Level at twenty-eight thousand feet. Time to plow through the night sky out of Rubistanian airspace so they could crack open the crate. He’d tried to keep the takeoff as smooth as possible for the boys and their nanny, but he couldn’t risk letting them out.

Not while a pair of enemy MiG-21s flew an ominous escort in the star-studded sky.

Swiping aside the unopened bag of licorice, Crusty switched to closed interphone frequency. “Hold tough in back, we’re almost over the border.”

Where he hoped the MiGs would peel away.

“Roger, sir,” answered Senior Master Sergeant J. T. “Tag” Price, loadmaster for the mission. “We’re hanging in there.”

Relief pilot, 1st Lt. Bo Rokowsky, loomed, strapped in behind Daniel, restless energy filling the cockpit.

Copilot, 1st Lt. Darcy “Wren” Renshaw, worked from the right seat, punching numbers into the navigational system. “Five minutes and counting down.”

No room for error with those MiGs hungry for an excuse to pop them with an infrared missile. Damn, but he owed this crew. Sure the mission had been CIA sanctioned—barely. Approved in a sped-through process that would likely leave heads rolling later when their new squadron commander returned from TDY—temporary duty.

Renshaw had signed on out of friendship. Tag out of honor. Rokowsky out of craziness. The wild-eyed lieutenant constantly gave new meaning to their squadron motto of Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.

Daniel adjusted airspeed, keeping his eyes trained on the holographic HUD—heads up display—perched at the bottom of his windscreen. He owed Renshaw double. Her boyfriend, who worked for the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, had used his old CIA contacts to push through paperwork for this embassy run in less than forty-eight hours after the call from the economic attaché. The final mission orders had even included a couple of the Air Force’s elite security forces, Ravens, to accompany them.

Who couldn’t offer protection against the MiGs keeping pace alongside.

Daniel’s gun weighed like lead in his pocket. The Rubistanians knew. Of course they knew. But their government couldn’t search without concrete evidence the boys were in that crate.

His half brothers. A couple of kids he’d only seen a handful of times. Sure, he could blame that on being oceans apart, but he knew damned well it had nothing to do with distance in miles. It had everything to do with the distance between his father and him that had started eleven years ago. His father had been a senator in those days. Full of himself and his power, the old man had dumped his wife for a hot young translator from Rubistan and started a new family.

Later his father had assumed the position of ambassador to Rubistan so his wife could be near her family. Of course, then the old man had decided to dump her for a newer hottie model—until a blown-up embassy Mercedes had preempted the divorce.

Yeah, the old guy sure as hell had been a poster boy for the wisdom of bachelorhood. And damned if he didn’t feel guilty as hell for the crappy, disloyal thought. If only they’d had a chance to come close to understanding each other.

Daniel’s hand clenched around the throttle. Steady. They were almost to the border. The box was locked down tight, with the nanny inside to keep the kids calm and safe. The transfer had gone as smoothly as could be expected.

Except when he’d almost had a freaking heart attack over seeing a long wisp of red hair trailing from a crease in the crate. One glimpse of that strand glinting in the tarmac lights and he’d hauled ass onto the truck to put himself between the auburn thread and the guard. Hand behind his back, he’d given the telltale strand a quick yank—and prayed the nanny would stay quiet.

Daniel flicked at a lone red hair clinging to his sleeve. Again. He’d flung it away more than once, but the thing kept sticking to his flight suit. He shook his hand to dislodge it from his glove and tried not to think about another person with hair that shade of auburn. Why the hell was she right there in his mind today?

Mary Elise.

He damned well didn’t believe in the mystical. He preferred the mathematical precision of his world of dark ops testing. But he’d never been able to explain the connection between himself and Mary Elise that had started over a shared Ho-Ho after he’d beaten the crap out of Buddy Davis for picking on the new kid about her accent.

Years later the connection had frayed because of a night of impulsive sex. Great sex. Impossible-to-forget sex with his best friend.

Then not friends. Not anymore. No friendship. No baby. No connection with Mary Elise. Until today.

The hair drifted across his control panel.

Renshaw keyed up the mike. “Ten seconds and counting down.”

Daniel steadied his breath with each count. Focus. Fly. It must just be his father’s death two weeks ago knocking him off balance. Since he’d been so deep in-country on an assignment by the time the message reached him about his father, Daniel had even missed the memorial service. A miscommunication snafu left out his stepmother’s death, so he’d assumed the boys were fine.

Definitely a hellacious couple of weeks of surprises. At least he was in the homestretch.

“Three. Two,” Wren chanted. “One. Over the Rubistanian border.”

Daniel twisted to check-visual out the window. Like clockwork, the MiGs peeled away.

A collective sigh echoed through the headset.

In the clear. “Okay, Tag, go ahead and break open that crate now.”

He would worry later about what to do with his brothers. Between their nanny and the brand-new pair of Game Boys in his flight bag, he might not even have to figure that one out until morning.

Daniel reached to punch in the radio frequency to notify Ankara center in Turkey that they’d crossed over into their airspace. The charge of having bested the enemy stirred an adrenaline buzz.

“Captain Baker?” Tag clipped through the headset.

“Yeah, Tag?” Daniel’s hand fell away from the radio controls. “Problem?”

“As a matter of fact, there is. I think you’re going to want to come down here and check this out for yourself.”

Tension snapped through the crew compartment.

“Roger. I’m on my way.” Daniel waggled the stick, the fighterlike stick in the C-17 a sleek upgrade from the steering yoke of older cargo planes. “Wren, you got the jet?”

The stick wiggled in his grip in tandem response as she signaled her control. Sweat dotted her brow, dampening her short brown hair to her head, but no hint of stress showed through her concentration. “Roger, Crusty, I have the jet.”

Daniel unplugged his headset and charged down the narrow stairwell into the belly of the plane. Victory-sparked adrenaline ignited into a darker dread.

He may not know these brothers of his, but they were counting on him, damn it. They didn’t have anyone else other than a megalomaniac uncle in Rubistan who wanted their inheritance to funnel into terrorist training camps.

No way in hell would that slime get his hands on Trey and Austin.

Daniel cleared the stairs and entered the cargo hold. His eyes adjusted to the dim glow of lights tracking the roof and illuminating the metal cave. The crate gaped open. Tag stood with boots braced, the bear of a man cradling a tousle-headed three-year-old like a seasoned parental veteran.

Austin.

Relief pounded through Daniel. His eyes jerked to the grouping by the row of seats where Trey sat with his elbows on bony knees. Everyone alive.

Cricking his neck from side to side, Daniel strode toward the cluster hovering around Trey. The two Ravens stood guard in full battle dress camouflage, machine guns slung over their shoulders. Body armor padding their chests, both men scowled down at the willowy woman kneeling in front of Trey.

Red hair trailed down her back.

Daniel shut down thoughts of another woman. Everyone seemed okay and that’s what mattered most. Some a helluva lot more than okay. The woman’s brown silk shirt clung to her slim shoulders, to her elegant arms. And legs. Man, she had long legs, legs encased in tan pants smudged with dirt. Hugging a sweetly rounded bottom that begged admiration.

Daniel scrubbed a hand over his gritty—and damned wayward—eyes. Adrenaline played hell with a man’s libido, especially after two days of no sleep. He did not need to be seducing the nanny, no matter how intriguing the idea of swiping aside all that silk and hair sounded.

He had other, more practical needs for her, rather than testing the waters to see if she might be interested in some uncomplicated sex. Uncomplicated sex was easy to find with any of the string of women who wanted to “fix” him—iron his wrinkled flight suits, make him eat right. Dealing with his brothers, however, would be complicated as hell.

Daniel shifted his attention to his nine-year-old brother. Trey hunched over, hands hooked behind his head on his buzz-cut brown hair as he sucked in gasps of air.

Crap. Daniel strode forward. “What’s going on here?”

Trey jerked upright. “No-thing,” he gasped out.

The nanny’s shoulders rippled under silk. Still kneeling, she straightened her back but didn’t turn.

His hand fell to her shoulder, wavy red hair snagging on his flight glove. A jolt shot up his arm.

Don’t be a sap. There were at least a million women with hair that color. “Ma’am? Is there something we can do for him?”

Slowly her head turned, her fiery hair tugging under his fingers. She looked up at him, and Daniel stared down into the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.

Holy hell.

There might be a million women with hair that color of auburn. But there was only one woman with eyes that particular shade of fresh-mown spring grass.

Mary Elise braced her shoulders with the same defensive bravado she’d worn when telling him the rabbit died.

“Hello, Danny.”

Chapter 2

Mary Elise decided the inside of that box might not be too bad after all. At least in there she could only hear Danny. Now she could hear and see him. All of him. Every damned fine inch of him.

Dim lights filled the gray cavern, glinting off Daniel’s dark hair, casting shadows along the angles of his face. His lanky good looks had hardened into a lean body cut with whipcord strength that stretched just shy of six feet tall.

If only she could distance herself from his appeal, but the day-from-hell wreaked havoc on her normally rigid self-control. Instead, she could only stare at him and soak up the differences wrought by age.

One gloved hand flattened against the side of the plane, he lounged with that same loose-hipped carelessness he’d worn when she’d told him she was pregnant. As if her announcement hadn’t meant the end of his Air Force Academy dream since cadets can’t marry until after graduation.

Except his dream hadn’t ended. He’d won the Academy ring and wore the flight suit now, wrinkled though it might be at the moment.

Attraction be damned, she wanted to flatten him right onto his awesome butt. Care about something. Let it be important to see the woman you almost married. She’d never been head-over-heels in love with him, but she had loved him. Once. He’d been her friend, and the betrayal of how easily he’d let go after she lost the baby had hurt.

His indifference hurt now.

He shouldn’t still have the power to wound her. Her ex had done so much worse to her and she’d held strong. She’d be damned if she’d let Daniel trample her heart with one distant look.

Mary Elise gripped the barred edge of the seat to steady her hands. She might not be able to regulate her pulse or her feelings, but she could control what she did about them. Bigger worries loomed, anyway, far more important than discovering if Daniel Baker still administered the most thorough, long and intense kisses she’d ever known.

“Danny, could you pass me the smaller bag inside the crate, please? The black canvas one. Trey needs his inhaler.”

“Don’t…want it,” Trey insisted.

Daniel’s forehead trenched. “The kid has asthma? Why didn’t someone tell me?” He shifted away, mumbling, “And why didn’t someone mention who the hell would be accompanying them?”

So it bothered him after all. Mary Elise stifled the urge to do an impromptu victory dance and rubbed soothing circles along Trey’s back while Daniel reached into the crate.

His flight suit stretched across narrow hips that veed up his back into broad shoulders. Muscles rippled under taut green fabric with restrained strength. He pivoted around with athletic fluidity, pitching the bag toward her.

“Thank you,” she said, avoiding eyes that told her too well she wouldn’t be able to dodge talking soon.

Mary Elise yanked the zipper open and rifled inside the pouch until her fingers closed around the inhaler. She snapped off the cap and thrust her hand toward Trey.

He brought the medicine to his mouth and pumped once, twice, again.

She prayed they wouldn’t be stranded in the air with Trey in a full-blown attack. “Come on, hon, take one more hit off the inhaler, okay?”

His shoulders heaved with a shuddering inhale.

Mary Elise waited for signs of relief. Years spent tending her chronically ill mother had left her with more knowledge about lung disease than some doctors. Her mother’s illness had also left her unsupervised, free to tromp alongside the neighbor boy. Never once had Danny complained about a pesky tagalong two years his junior. He’d shrugged off any teasing—when had Danny cared what others thought anyway—and labeled her his mascot.

Daniel knelt beside her. The scent of bay rum mingled with the pervasive air of hydraulic fluid. “What else can you do for him?”

Mary Elise focused on the hydraulic fluid. Fat lot of good it did her with the warmth of Danny’s arm inches away from her breast. “His nebulizer’s in the other bag. We can set that up if the Albuterol inhaler doesn’t do the trick.”

Trey’s heaving shoulders slowed.

She swept a hand over his pale brow. “Better, hon?”

The boy nodded.

Daniel held out his hand for the inhaler. “Hey, buddy, let me take that for you.”

“You’re not…my buddy. Don’t even…know you.”

Mary Elise stiffened.

Daniel stilled, then slowly retracted his hand. “That’s right.” His arms fell to rest on his knee. “We don’t know each other. And we’ll duke that one out later on terra firma back in the States. Right now you just take care of yourself.”

Trey clamped his mouth shut and fixed his gaze somewhere over his brother’s head.

Shoving to his feet by Tag, Daniel ruffled Austin’s sweaty curls. “Hey there, sport.”

Austin studied him with wary eyes, but at least not openly hostile. Daniel tugged off his flight gloves and reached into his thigh pocket. His hand whipped back out with a chocolate bar. “Snickers?”

Austin’s brown eyes sparkled.

Mary Elise rose, Daniel topping her by only a few inches. A perfect fit. Double damn. “He’s allergic to nuts.”

“How about licorice?”

“He might choke.”

Daniel’s jaw flexed. “Three Musketeers bar?”

Mary Elise refrained from asking for an apple, a senseless request after the kid had already been offered candy. “That would be fine.”

Daniel fished the treat out of his seemingly bottomless pocket for Austin, then turned back to his other brother.

Trey hunched back in the seat, arms tight across his chest. “I’m not hungry.”

Uh-oh. The kid loved licorice. Mary Elise waited for Daniel’s reaction. Prayed somewhere inside this harder new Daniel there still lived the Danny who’d sat with her during her bout with chicken pox, teaching her to play poker, tutoring her in math, making her laugh so she wouldn’t scratch.

Shrugging, Daniel zipped his thigh pocket closed. “Fair enough. I have to head back up to the crew compartment. If you decide you’re hungry later on, Tag here can give you a hand.”

Mary Elise winged a silent thanks for the easy out Daniel offered Trey. Maybe they would be okay after all.

“Mary Elise?” Daniel called. “Got a second?”

Big-time uh-oh. She didn’t want this talk right now, not when the old Danny still hovered in her memory.

Better pitch those sympathetic leanings back in the crate and maintain her distance. Keep it light. Do the old friends routine.

Old friends who happened to know every inch of each other’s body.

Daniel cupped her elbow, his grip hot, firm—familiar. And it had been so long since a man had touched her. Her body absorbed the sensation. Stupid. Wrong.

But pulling away would lend too much importance to a simple gesture. She kept her eyes forward and suppressed a shiver. He was a good-looking guy, no question, in a rumpled way that defied her need for order.

Hormones, pure and simple.

The day’s danger and stress left her vulnerable. That must be the reason she wanted to tuck against his broad chest, the only reason she yearned to savor the comfort of bay rum and chocolate.

Her eyes landed on the little round scar beside his brow. Two weeks after her recovery, Daniel’s chicken pox had spread fast and furious. She’d brought a deck of cards to his house and reamed him out for not telling her he hadn’t been exposed before. He’d just shrugged, scratching the corner of his eyebrow.

How could he be such a stranger and so familiar all at once?

His boots thudded along the metal tracks lining the belly of the plane as he put space between them and the boys. Tucked in a corner, he stopped, releasing her elbow. “Do I need to call ahead for an emergency landing?”

Mary Elise fingered the parachutes dangling from the wall for distraction. “I don’t think so. Where would we land, anyway?”

“We can chance it in Turkey. Germany would be better.”

“But?”

“It’s safer if we press through straight for the States. Except of course Trey’s health has to come first.”

Intimacy wrapped around her, different from the sensual atmosphere of a few moments ago. Rather a more comfortable aura of two parents discussing their children. Each parent-style word sliced her insides with endless tiny paper cuts.

She forced herself to think of Trey. “I’ll keep a close watch on him, especially for the next hour, but I think the worst has passed, now that he’s away from the guard’s smoke. Once we land, you could take him by the E.R. just to be certain.”

“I’ll have a flight surgeon waiting for us.” Daniel lifted his headset from around his neck and readjusted the fit before plugging into the mounted outlet. “Wren, patch a call through to Charleston and have Doc Bennett meet us when we land. One of the boys has asthma and I want him checked out. Make sure Kathleen knows I’m the one asking.”

Kathleen? An irrational jealousy stirred. Of course Daniel had women in his life, professionally and personally. Not that she cared.

Yeah, right.

Daniel flipped the mouthpiece away. “All set. Anything else we can do?”

She was finished playing out this bizarre pseudoparenting game. She’d made her restitution to Daniel’s father. No more guilt. The boys had their brother Danny now. He could feed them junk food until they spun out on sugar if he wished.

They weren’t her children. Even considering assuming that role poured straight alcohol on every one of her internal paper cuts.

Mary Elise retreated deeper inside herself and away from Daniel’s too familiar smile. “We’ll be okay, except he’s usually physically drained after an attack. Please pull the blankets out of the crate for me to spread out here so he can sleep.”

Daniel watched her face tighten into the prim lines meant to distance him but instead made him want to gather up a fistful of her hair and kiss the look away. All the same, her autocratic coolness evicted their brief moment of connection.

For the best while he was trying like hell to find solid ground after being knocked on his ass over finding her in his plane. He wanted nothing more than to take an hour or ten to study this new Mary Elise in front of him. To understand her. But she wasn’t a scientific equation.

A poised elegant woman stood in place of his freckled coltish friend. He’d be a fool not to notice her appeal. He’d be an even bigger fool to act on it.

Those two boys needed him. Austin would likely be a snap to figure out. The imp had a gleam in his eyes Daniel recognized well. Trey, however, looked so much like their imperious old man, he could already predict the head butting.

Time to get his mind the hell off unforgettable red hair and gentle curves.

Daniel dropped his hand from the side of the plane and allowed extra air to slide between them before he fell victim to the temptation to untangle a strand of her hair from her gold hoop earring. “There are two crew-rest bunks. We can put the boys there.”

“Does that break some kind of regulation? What about the crew’s sleep?” She straightened both of the rings on her right hand—a ruby dinner ring on her middle finger and on her thumb, a large gold band worn only half way down.

Too large to have been her wedding ring.

What had she done with her band after her divorce? She’d mailed his engagement solitaire to him once he’d returned to the Academy, in spite of his insistence that she keep it.

The diamond ring burned a hole in his sleeve pocket even now, a constant reminder to learn from past mistakes. “This whole mission breaks regs. I’m not overly concerned about a little technicality such as where they sleep. The crew can rack back here if they need to catch a nap.”

The plane jostled on an air pocket. His hand shot up instinctively to brace her waist. Her familiar scent of honeysuckle teased his nose.

His hand cupped her ribs, the underside of her breast heating his skin. Small, soft. Perfect.

Were her breasts as sensitive as they’d been in the early weeks of her pregnancy? They’d spent every one of those postpregnancy test days exploring each other’s bodies without fear of consequence since the consequences had already occurred.

The heat of her now fired memories. Fired him. If he moved his thumb…

His headset crackled in his ears.

“Crusty?” Renshaw called. “Wanna finish that update, please?”

He jerked his hand away and flipped the mouthpiece in place. “The nanny opted not to join us and sent a substitute. We have a stowaway.”

“Stowaway?” Bo Rokowsky piped up. “Man or woman?”

Daniel’s hand clenched around the memory of warm silk and soft Mary Elise against his hand. “Woman.”

“Is she hot?”

Yes. Hell, yes. “Not germane to the mission, Rokowsky.”

“’Cause if she is, I’ll take over down there and you can come up here.”

“Can it, Bo.”

“Touchy, touchy. Or maybe not enough touching lately in spite of all those women wanting to cook you dinner and iron your flight suits.”

So what if he enjoyed a few casserole gifts now and again? Big freaking deal, and nothing compared to Rokowsky’s history with women.

He wouldn’t discuss Mary Elise over interphone with the squadron Casanova. A man who sure as hell wasn’t getting anywhere near her during this flight. “Keep this up and I’ll tell her what your call sign stands for, ‘Bo.”’ The guy’s real name had long ago faded from memories as he’d gone by Bo since training days. “Meanwhile, how about working on flying the plane or something?”

Daniel flipped the mouthpiece aside again. “We need to talk.”

“We are talking.” Her spine pulled straighter—which exposed a tempting patch of graceful neck.

He nodded toward his brothers. “Away from them so they can’t read your body language. I need to know more about what happened in Rubistan if I’m going to keep them safe.”

Tension rippled through her.

He resisted the urge to stroke her arm, cup her shoulder and pull her to him. Worse than wanting to palm her breast, he wanted Mary Elise to fling her arms around his neck like so many times before.

Damn, he’d missed her. Missed their easy friendship. No surprise he’d screwed it up. A slew of failed relationships since with casserole-cooking and uniform-ironing women hammered home his shortcomings in the relationship department. The latest to walk had deemed him “emotionally unavailable.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

Sure, he was sorry when each relationship self-destructed. But not one of them had left a hole in his life. Except Mary Elise.

His grip tightened as if he could somehow reinvent the past by holding tighter. She winced.

He raised his hands, backing away. “Sorry.”

For so many damned things he wouldn’t do any differently now. Emotionally unavailable worked well for him.

“Let me get the boys settled, Danny. We can talk once they’re asleep.”

At least she didn’t argue or pretend they could ignore the fact that she stood in his plane in place of the boys’ nanny from Florida.

He didn’t know why she was here. Didn’t know why it mattered so damned much to him. But he did owe her. “Thanks for getting them out of there.”

“I’d do it for anyone.”

Yes, she would. But she hadn’t done it for anyone. She’d done it for him. And just as when she’d passed him that Ho-Ho twenty-two years ago, he couldn’t walk away.

Mary Elise sagged into the seat across from the two crew bunks in the Spartan sleeping cubicle behind the cockpit. Trey tangled in the covers on the top, slack-jawed with exhaustion. On the bottom, Austin clutched his ragged sailboat quilt, sucking on a corner as if he could somehow taste home.

How much would the little guy remember of the ordeal, the crate, the escape?

Would he remember his parents?

Franklin Baker hadn’t been the best of fathers to Daniel, but he’d been trying to compensate with Trey and Austin. Their mother may have been a dim bulb, but she’d loved her boys. They’d loved her.

Trey and Austin had been shuffled so much in their short lives—born in the States, moving a couple of years ago, now back again. And the turmoil wasn’t over yet. A new home. A guardian they didn’t even know.

Their brother.

Danny.

The mammoth aircraft seemed to shrink, the gray beams and bolts closing in on her. Such a large plane shouldn’t feel so very small, nowhere to turn without bumping into him. They must be plowing through the most turbulent stretch of airspace in the sky. One more pitch against Daniel’s rock-solid chest and she would lose her mind.

Toying with her earring, she untangled threads of hair from the hoop. He should not have the ability to unsettle her so much. She wanted to exchange a nostalgic smile and hug while they both acknowledged their lives had moved on for the best.

Except she hadn’t. What about him?

A tingle started up her spine. She could feel him, standing behind her. Danny. Mary Elise glanced up and over her shoulder, already accepting she would find him.

Not Danny, but rather the stranger, Daniel, lounged in the doorway, rumpled flight suit making her long to swipe her hands over the wrinkles.

The muscles.

Silently he stared back at her. No doubt churning the whole mess around in his analytical brain, searching for a way to make sense of it all. Then opting to cover his confusion with a joke.

She didn’t want that joke. She wanted a piece of the past to replace the awkwardness. “Remember the time you painted your face and decked out in cammo to see if you could break into the Savannah River Site plant?”

The C-17 droned for what seemed like an hour, probably closer to seconds, before a slow smile dimpled Danny’s cheeks. He canted closer to be heard over the plane’s roar, the privacy curtain swaying closed behind him. “Well, hell, Mary Elise, I was doing a public service. Anyplace constructing and testing the parts for nukes needed to have stronger security if a twelve-year-old could bust inside.”

“No respect for danger, ever.” Her eyes fell to rest on the children, checking the steady rise and fall of their chests, any snuffling breaths masked by the rumble of engines vibrating the plane. With each exhalation she thanked God for their sturdy little bodies, so resilient.

Five miscarriages had taught her well how fragile young life could be.

Although, Danny had seemed to possess a godlike invincibility in his youth. Or perhaps that had more to do with how he’d never groused over a tagalong tired of tiptoeing so as not to disrupt her bed-bound mother. “You wouldn’t have been caught if I hadn’t snuck along.”

“You always did worry too much.” His shoulders filled the portal and her eyes.

Mary Elise welcomed the escape into happier times with smaller childhood worries. “You could have left me behind when the alarm went off. I wouldn’t have ratted you out.”

“Which is why I couldn’t leave you.”

But he had. Eventually. After her miscarriage, she’d seen the caged look in his eyes, the need to run once he was free of obligations. She hadn’t expected they would still get married—right away. She understood his need to finish school. But she had expected something more from him after all the times they’d made love following her pregnancy test. They’d moved past being friends, she’d thought. His need to escape her had hurt.

She’d hurt him right back. God, had she ever let her temper have its way with her as she’d sent him away.

Life had since taught her to contain more volatile emotions. “You always did have a soft spot for causes.”

One hint of what waited for her back in Savannah and he would grease up in cammo to take on her ex in some commando raid. All the more reason to park her butt back in Rubistan. She’d quickly discovered how little help the police could be against Kent with his wealth and power. Even her parents hadn’t believed her, instead buying into Kent’s less messy explanation of postpartum depression.

The icy press of an assassin’s gun to her temple had not been a delusion. Only quick reflexes and an escape to Rubistan had saved her life.

Danny sank into the seat beside her. “I assume you were the one who nudged the economic attaché to call me.”

His firm thigh molded to hers. She nodded, swallowed. “Uh-huh.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She pushed the words free from her cotton mouth.

He stretched his leg in front of him, rubbing a too long caress against her. “How the hell did you end up in that box in place of the nanny? Or are you their new nanny?”

She suppressed the urge to inch away. Not that she could go anywhere without slamming the wall. “I work at the embassy school, teaching English. I’m just close to the boys since they attend the school.”

“How did you go from being editor of a newspaper in Savannah to teaching in Rubistan?”

“Excuse me?” she bristled. “I don’t consider it a step down, thank you very much.”

He elbowed her gently. “Cool your jets, ’Lise. I was talking basic geography.”

She measured her words. “I wanted a change of scenery. Your father helped.”

“My father.” Muscles bunched visibly under the creased flight suit.

He’d never allowed himself to vent or rant, always taking on everyone else’s battles and ignoring his own. Who would be there to help him through the grief over his father’s death?

The Kathleen person he’d called for?

She couldn’t begrudge him that. Especially when the boys would need a woman’s influence more than ever. They also needed their brother steady. Daniel’s hero worship for his father had died in a rift they’d never bridged, which would only make the coming weeks tougher for him.

Mary Elise let herself touch him. Just his arm. Lightly. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t answer for an extended moment before he stood to leave, pulling away emotionally as well as physically. As she’d known he would. He had always been more at ease with simple. Uncomplicated.

Daniel paused in the doorway. “I’ll take you up front to patch through a call.”

She struggled to understand his words in the wake of the liquid heat pulsing through her veins. “Patch a call?”

“Home.”

She frowned. “My apartment’s empty right now.”

“I meant Savannah. I don’t have your parents’ number or I’d do it for you. Unless there’s someone else you’d prefer to contact.” His eyes chilled. “Like your husband.”

“My ex-husband.”

“Right.” His emotionless gaze pinned her. “Do you want me to call Kent McRae?”

Hearing her ex-husband’s name sent a tremor through her. Followed by a completely different shiver over realizing Daniel had cared enough to track her transition from Mary Elise Fitzgerald to Mary Elise McRae. From a single college journalism student to the wife of a major newspaper publisher.

And who was she now?

Alive. Just how she damn well intended to stay. “I’m not planning to go home. I’ll turn right around and return to Rubistan and my job.”

“Think again.” Familiar chocolate-brown eyes hardened into the different, darker Danny.

What in the world had he seen and experienced during their years apart? “Excuse me?”

“We may have escaped Rubistan without being searched. But they knew. Once you and the boys come up missing at the same time, it won’t take longer than a puff on that guard’s cigar to link you to this. If you go back, you’ll be jailed—or dead—an hour after you touch down.”

All those thousands of emotional paper cuts flamed to life in full-blown dread. The implications of the past hours swelled into certainty. She hated the helplessness. Most of all hated that she would have to turn to Danny for answers after a year of hoping never to need anyone again. “What happens after we land in Charleston?”

“What kind of ID do you have?”

“I didn’t have time to grab my purse before I got in the crate,” she answered automatically, pushing the words through numb lips. “But I always keep my passport on me.”

“Good, then you’ll be processed through the base. In the meantime, you have to stay somewhere. With your parents or me?” Daniel leaned closer, bay rum obliterating hydraulic fluid in a sensory tidal wave. “It’s your call to make, and quite frankly, I need you more right now.”

Chapter 3

“You need me?” Mary Elise enunciated slowly.

Daniel watched her brows pull together over confused green eyes. He wasn’t feeling much steadier himself.

He braced a hand against the bulkhead and planted both boots for balance. Where the hell had his words come from?

There were probably a hundred different services he could call to help at a moment’s notice. He knew at least a dozen women who would enjoy nothing more than mothering the boys as a way to entice him into being “emotionally available.”

And none of them were Mary Elise.

He tried to tell himself his motives for keeping her close were rooted in protectiveness. That long-ago connection had kicked into overdrive in the past few minutes. Right about the time he’d mentioned calling Savannah.

He didn’t consider himself an intuitive guy, a fact reinforced by his double-digit tally of breakups. But even he could sense something was wrong here. Her edginess should be easing with every mile they put between themselves and Rubistan.

Should be.

But wasn’t.

Eleven years of distance between them didn’t matter. He owed this woman, and until her frown smoothed, he wouldn’t back off.

He was doing this for her. And for the boys. Not because he wanted to find out if the freckles dotting her smooth creamy skin had faded with age. “I need your help with stuff like asthma meds and nut allergies. At this rate, the boys won’t make it through the week with me.”

Mary Elise straightened in her seat. Daniel looked deeper into those lush green eyes that had once been so expressive and wondered when she’d learned to close herself off.

“I’ll make a list.” Her cool efficiency almost covered her underlying edginess. Almost. “Starting with Austin’s EpiPen.”

“Eppie what?”

“Epinephrine injection pen. Medicine in case he accidentally eats something with nuts or peanut oil or—”

“Stop.” He made a giant T with his hands. “Time out. You can compile lists all day long and it won’t change the fact that I have no experience with kids. I need help settling the boys.”

She pleated her pants between fidgety fingers. “You haven’t made any accommodations for them?”

“Hell, Mary Elise, I was a little busy planning how to smuggle them out of Rubistan without getting our asses shot off.”

“Oh.”

“Apology accepted.”

Her hands flattened on her trim thighs, a smile playing with her lips. “Uh, sorry?”

He winked. “No problem.”

A smile and a wink linked them more than all his earlier speeches.

The deafening din of engines and the closed curtain offered a bubble of privacy and protection from being overheard. Not that he had thoughts of unrolling the past with her. He hadn’t been much for emotional sharefests then, either.

Besides, he didn’t want to trek back to the past. Too many memories waited there of a time he’d been less of a man. Too much his father’s son—seducing an innocent, betraying a friendship. His father’s wedding had marked a time of rotten decisions for everyone.

Halfway into a bottle of champagne, Daniel had found himself watching nineteen-year-old Mary Elise with new eyes. Another shared bottle and some consolation later, Daniel had found himself looking at all of Mary Elise with new eyes.

“What happens now?”

She’d asked him that then as well. What do I do now, Danny?

God help him, he’d shown her.

He’d been so pissed at his old man for going the whole trophy wife route. He didn’t deal well with emotions on a good day, and a bad day had a way of playing hell with a man’s self-control. Today marked another one of his worst days on record, but he wouldn’t screw up this time. No matter how enticing the image of draping that red hair over his chest. Mary Elise over him.

Mary Elise sighing.

“Danny?” She flung her hair over her shoulder in a crimson waterfall. “If you haven’t made arrangements for the boys, what do you propose we do once we land?”

“Hell if I know.” Then or now. “And it doesn’t look as if Trey knows what to do about me any more than I know what to do about him.”

Her brows pulled tighter, deepening her perpetual frown. “You aren’t going to give them up. Are you?”

“No. Absolutely not. I’ll figure it out. Soon.”

“Once you’re through worrying about our asses.”

He did not want to think about her ass. “Right.” Daniel scrubbed a hand over his bristly chin. “I have leave time built up. I’ll take it now until the boys and I can work out a plan. But I sure would appreciate your help for the next few days. Since you’re an American Express card short of being able to check into a Motel 6, I’m thinking we can make a trade.”

She shot him a disapproving look that had likely commanded boardrooms, then later classrooms. “Or you could do the gentlemanly thing and loan me a couple hundred bucks.”

Already he could feel her slipping away. Damn it, the boys needed her. And while he might not be Captain Communication, he wasn’t walking away without finding out what had her forehead trenched deeper than a fresh-plowed field. “Sure, I could loan you the money.”

“But you don’t want to.” Mary Elise willed away the rogue twinge of excitement. She wanted to say her goodbyes. Right? Danny had been a generous friend. An exciting lover.

And a lousy boyfriend.

Once that boyfriend/lover line had been crossed, recapturing the friendship became impossible. She knew keeping her distance now lent more credence to her feelings all those years ago. But her heart bore too many scars to risk opening it again.

All the same, guilt nudged her to say, “The boys do need me.”

“Yes, ma’am, they do,” he continued with a sincerity too reminiscent of past times conning his way out of trouble. “This is about more than asthma and EpiPens. Trey and Austin are alone and scared. They don’t know me from Adam.”

She didn’t buy into the Danny-perfected con tones for even a minute, but his logic had merit. Turning away from Austin crying in the crate hadn’t been an option. Why did she think now would be any different?

Scar tissue also made a person tough. She would hang on to that for the next few days with Danny and the boys. “Okay, okay! I actually agreed two arguments ago. You always were persistent.”

“And you were always too nice.”

Watching the dimples creep into Daniel’s cheeks and past her defenses, Mary Elise decided “nice” didn’t factor anywhere into her swirl of emotions. “Nice? Careful, Danny, or I’ll change my mind.”

“So you’ll help me for a couple of weeks?”

“A couple of days.” Hopefully enough time to formulate a new plan.

“Until I find another nanny.”

Which would take at least a week. “For the boys.”

“I never thought otherwise.”

He ducked back into the crew compartment, leaving her alone with her thoughts and two sleeping children. The cubicle echoed without him, the repercussions of her decision crowding the confined space. Since Kent didn’t know her location, a week should be safe before she risked alerting him by withdrawing money from her account. She could use the time to decide where to go and what to do with her life.

A week to stay with those two boys who’d first tugged her heart because of Daniel and then stolen her heart by being themselves. She wouldn’t even let herself think about being a surrogate-mother figure to them. Her dreams of family were dead, thanks to Kent.

Mary Elise leaned forward and tucked the sailboat blanket around Austin, his puffy breaths whispering over her wrist. She started to pull away, but he grappled for her hand without waking.

Stroking a thumb over butter-soft skin, she studied the miracle of five tiny fingers and couldn’t stem memories of all the babies she’d miscarried. She’d wanted to adopt, but Kent had insisted they keep trying for a biological child. She’d gone on the pill, anyway. For all the good it had done her. Then the surprise pregnancy had lasted longer than any of her other four first-trimester miscarriages.

She’d finally dared to hope.

Losing her son at twenty-four weeks had almost destroyed her. Discovering Kent had replaced her birth control pills with placebos months earlier finished the job.

Weariness swamped her along with the memories. She surrendered to the need for sleep and the tug of a chubby little hand. Mary Elise slid into the bottom bunk, curving herself protectively around Austin.

No, Kent had never raised a hand to her, which somehow made his menacing plans after she left all the more chilling. Hindsight told her she should have seen the warning signs. He’d been abusing her and controlling her in other ways for years, culminating in that final violation of her body and trust.

Now she had one week to find a new safe haven. And pray seven days of playing house with Danny and two precious boys wouldn’t slice past her scar tissue into what little soul she had left.

One booted foot resting on the bottom crew bunk across from him, Daniel sprawled in the unrelenting seat. Well, as much as a guy could sprawl in the tight space. Another half hour and he would take over flying while Wren sacked out.

He should be sleeping, but couldn’t. Too wired. Seeing Mary Elise now when he was still reeling from his father’s death rattled him. No question.

Daniel studied the three sleeping figures that had thrown his life into chaos. Sure he didn’t give a damn about ironing his uniform or eating on a schedule, but he was in charge of his world and his emotions.

Or he had been until Mary Elise and the boys.

In the past hour he’d made strides in regaining control. She was staying. The boys would level out. And somehow that still didn’t unkink the knot in his neck that had started right about the minute she’d turned those deep-green eyes his way for the first time in eleven years.

No risk of seeing her eyes now. She lay sleeping on the bottom bunk, her back to him, her body curved around Austin. Her hair tangled around the child and over the edge of the bed. The little guy snoozed on with his knees tucked to his chest, his blanket gripped in a white-knuckled fist.

Leaning, Daniel captured a lock of her hair and tested the silky texture between two fingers. He’d done the right thing asking her to stay. The boys had already lost their parents. They needed a familiar person to ease them through the transition.

On the top bunk, Trey rolled and shifted until he settled onto his back. All three, dead to the world.

Thank God they weren’t dead period, only exhausted from the long hours and ordeal. A few more minutes of staring at them and he would have his balance back.

A shadow slid through the doorway. Daniel glanced up to find Tag waiting silently.

The Senior Master Sergeant nodded toward the bunks. “I’ll watch over them if you need to catch some sleep.”

“I’m set until we land. No worries.”

Tag studied him silently, gaze falling to the lock of hair still twined around Daniel’s fingers.

Well, hell.

Daniel dropped the strand. A lone determined hair clung to the wrist of his flight suit like before. He didn’t waste energy refuting Tag’s all-knowing expression. Why bother when he actually appreciated the older man’s no-bull approach to life? The man appreciated facts and the uncomplicated.

Years of working top-secret test projects at Edwards AFB in California had honed Daniel’s instincts. He didn’t think of those instincts as anything of a woo-hoo nature. Rather, he made observations and processed them quickly. Efficiently. Two weeks into his transfer to Charleston AFB in South Carolina, Daniel had realized Tag was a troop to trust.

Even with something as important as Mary Elise.

“You know, Tag, I believe I’ll take you up on that offer in another half hour.” Daniel flicked aside the hair on his wrist. “I don’t need sleep, but I have to head back up front soon and I’d rather not wake Mary Elise. So, yeah, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on them in case one of the boys rouses before her.”

Tag lumbered in through the door, curtain closing behind him, and lowered himself into the other seat. “Small world, her showing up on this flight.”

And an even smaller world on base. No doubt, gossip would make the rounds three times over by the next nightfall. Not from Tag, but Bo would have a helluva time sharing the inside scoop at the club.

“Family connection. We knew each other a long time ago.” Daniel shot him a half smile. “That ‘Danny’ of hers probably gave us away.”

“Ah, so you’re old friends.”

Daniel hesitated a second too long.

Tag’s quirked brow shot up toward the older man’s salt-and-pepper hairline.

Finally, Daniel settled for, “We have…history.”

Tag nodded again. Waited. Studied the sleeping trio. Finally shifted his attention back to Daniel. “Is the older kid yours?”

The notion blazed across Daniel’s mind in a flash of horror. Had she faked a miscarriage? He’d never seen Trey’s mother pregnant. He could imagine selfless Mary Elise cutting him free so he could complete his senior year at the Academy.

Simple math severed the irrational thought. Trey was over a year too young. “No. Trey’s not mine.” Daniel’s head thunked back against the bulkhead. Damn it, why couldn’t Tag have shown up fifteen minutes later once the world had stopped rocking under his boots? “Ours would have been ten now.”

Hell, he hadn’t told anyone about that time with Mary Elise. Something about the way Tag didn’t push made it easier to talk during a day when the past crowded his brain.

Daniel hooked a hand on his knee, boot propped beside the trailing hair, and lost himself in the hypnotic sway of red. “She miscarried early, before we had a chance to get married. I would have married her though. No way would I have let her down.”

But he had, in so many other ways, both of them too damned young. He’d been knocked on his ass by how much a few short weeks of making love to her had shaken him. So he’d run like hell the minute she’d given him the green light.

“And here you two are again.”

“Not for long. She’ll settle back in Savannah and I’ll be in Charleston.”

“All of two and a half hours apart,” Tag’s dry tones mixed with the rumble of four engines. “Might as well be on different planets.”

Daniel snorted. “I think I enjoyed you more when you stayed quiet.”

“My wife likely disagrees,” he answered, his dry wit more parched than normal. Not that the guy looked open to making the current sharingfest a two-way deal.

Tag canted forward, elbows on his knees. “While I’m on a roll, here’s some hard-earned wisdom you can take or leave. So you had a thing going once? But you were too young to hang on to it. Makes sense. That Mars and Venus stuff is hard as hell for an old guy like me to figure out. It can be damned near impossible when you’re younger.”

Daniel shook his head, half believing, yet knowing he couldn’t let himself off the hook that easily. “Where were you eleven years ago when I wanted to hear something like this?”

“Making my own mistakes,” Tag answered with fatherly wisdom, even though his forty-one years made any true parental connection impossible.

“She and I are history.”

Tag stayed silent.

Crap. Did parents go to a school to develop that look?

Daniel followed Tag’s gaze. Straight down to Daniel’s hand that had somehow found its way back into Mary Elise’s hair.

He untwisted his finger from the strands, not a speedy proposition. The hair unwrapped and unwrapped in a long unraveling stretch.

“History,” Daniel repeated as if he could will it so.

“Sure. You can take that route. Let go, quick and easy like. Or you can use the second chance to get your head on straight about this woman. Your choice. Don’t screw it up—” he grinned, standing “—sir. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

Tag swept aside the curtain and ducked out of the small quarters, his hard-earned wisdom lingering long after the curtain stopped rippling.

Daniel watched the pendulum swish of Mary Elise’s hair and thought of that wary flash in her eyes at the mention of her ex. More cause to be careful around her, and it wasn’t as if the woman wanted a commitment from him anymore.

He did “no commitment” damned well.

Tag’s talk of second chances had merit. Now was Daniel’s chance to right the past. He may have taken the easy route and let her send him packing eleven years ago. But he wasn’t running away from her now.

With a cool determination that had carried him through countless secret test missions, Daniel fixed his mind on a dual goal. Nothing would happen to his brothers on his watch. And no one, most especially himself, would ever hurt Mary Elise again.

Kent McRae gripped his steering wheel until it hurt. From the comfort of his Mercedes, he watched the C-17 circle above the thick band of evergreens. Night sounds and darkness wrapped around him while he waited, tucked just outside the main gate of Charleston Air Force Base.

The drive up from Savannah after the call from the economic attaché in Rubistan had given him time to think, to strategize. He didn’t like it when plans went off-kilter.

And Mary Elise had skewed his life once too often.

He forced his hold on the steering wheel to relax. No losing control. Stay steady and focused. If only she’d been inside that rigged car with Ambassador Baker as he’d been led to expect. That she’d survived, then turned to another man to help with the boys, stirred a cold wrath.

One explosion and his life could have been back on track, the past cleared away so he could start his future with a new wife. However, the week’s events would only prove a minor setback for a persistent man.

Kent raised binoculars for a better view of the circling plane. Persistence paid off, after all. If only Mary Elise could have believed him about that. But her defective body housed a defective mind. She simply didn’t comprehend, no matter how often he’d told her to keep trying and eventually they would have their perfect family.

He’d loved her, damn it. So much. And she’d left him. He’d thought he could win her back. Finally accepted otherwise. And if he couldn’t have her, at least he would have a clean slate to begin a new life with a more malleable woman.

And Baker? Every crime needed a fall guy. The appearance of a murder/suicide between old lovers should satisfy authorities.

The oversize cargo plane straightened out of the turn, lining up with the runway, lower, closer, roaring overhead. Kent watched and waited. Patient.

Persistent.

Chapter 4

Her patience had worn thin.

Mary Elise wanted to call this day over. Now. The cargo plane had finally landed in Charleston, and they were seconds away from exiting the metal cavern that had grown more claustrophobic with each minute closer to the States.

Hitching the sleeping Austin higher on her hip, Mary Elise followed the loadmaster’s lead through the belly of the plane toward the hatch. The remaining hours of the flight had dragged, drawn tight by anxiety over what awaited her once she exited the front gate. What would she do with her life and how would she deal with the possibility that Kent might find her?

Moreover, how would she handle a week alone with Daniel?

She tried to shake off the jangle of emotions. The fear of the unknown had to be worse than reality. Surely once she had a good night’s sleep she could restore her boundaries and do away with the awful vulnerability pricking her insides.

The seal popped and swooshed as the hatch swung open. Her brief nap in the airplane barely made a dent in her weariness. Not that landing put her much closer to crawling into bed and sleeping away the exhaustion and frustration of the past hours. Trey still needed to check in with a doctor about his asthma.

The doctor. Kathleen. The woman who would drop everything just for Danny. Of course if he had someone else in his life, that would free her.

Yeah right, like she’d ever been free of this guy’s ghost. Surely it had more to do with him being her first lover that earned him a special spot in her memories.

Daniel stepped into sight from the stairwell leading up to the cockpit. She eyed the stretch of his shoulders as she made her way toward the exit hatch. What about her spot in his memories? How much importance did she want there?

Daniel pivoted to her. “Let me take the little slugger.”

Austin clung tighter in his sleep, his grip firm around her neck and growing dangerously tight around her heart. “I can carry him.”

“The steps are steep. A tumble will land you both hard.” He leaned to whisper against her ear, his warm breath scented with chocolate and the promise of passion. “Temporary truce. Everything doesn’t have to be a battle between us.”

Score one for Daniel. She passed over the sleeping child and forced herself not to smooth the boy’s tousled curls.

Or the stray lock brushing Daniel’s brow.

Steadying her hand on the metal rail, she descended the steps and inhaled the familiar Southern aromas in front of her mingling with Daniel’s bay rum behind her. The early afternoon sun crested over the band of pine trees and live oaks bordering the stretch of cement. Nostalgia nicked her, the low country of South Carolina so like her Savannah home. A hungry longing filled her to inhale greedy gulps of both the place and the man.

Rubistan’s isolation from temptation had merit.

Mary Elise steeled herself to move forward. The hum of engines from a distant bus, truck and ambulance mingled with the symphony of crickets and June bugs. Autumn in South Carolina resembled the summer heat in many Northern climes. Her silk shirt clung to her back by the time she cleared the last step.

A byproduct of the temperature, damn it, not the lure of home. She had to stop the past from dinging her control.

Guiding a groggy Trey to the side, she waited for Daniel and the others to clear the craft. She flipped a mental switch within herself, shifting from a too-vulnerable woman to analytical reporter mode. She would observe the world around her without getting involved.

One of the copilots, the young guy with a devilish twinkle in his eyes, strutted across the cement, guitar case slung over his back. “Need any help there, sir? I’ve got extra seats in my car.”

He tossed a wink her way, his flirting complimentary without a threatening edge. She allowed herself a smile. Detached, but participating, interacting in normal human exchanges. Something she hadn’t done in so long.

Daniel stepped closer. “No, thanks, Bo. My truck has an extended cab. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay, then. Take it easy, sir.” Bo backed away, morning sun glinting off the copilot’s jet-black hair and perfect features, increasing his fallen-angel air.

Actually more like an impish fallen cherub since the guy was probably all of twenty-five, making Daniel’s hundred-percent adult male hard lines vibrate tension through the air.

Jaw set, Danny cupped her elbow as he guided her toward the waiting crew bus. “Did you want to ride with him?”

Jealousy laced his words. Surprising her. Thrilling her.

“Of course I didn’t.” The answer fell free before she could think to say something that would put more distance between them. Instead she just stared back as the thrill tripped through her, all the while blaming the yearning on a weakness born of exhaustion.

Running footsteps jarred her back to the present. The copilot, Darcy Renshaw, sprinted by toward the waiting military truck. The passenger door opened and a man stepped out, a civilian if his unconventional clothes and spiked hair were anything to go by. His seafoam-colored windbreaker clashed with flowered, knee-length swim trunks. Darcy dropped her flight bag and flung her arms around his neck seconds before he kissed her. Really kissed her, like a man who couldn’t get enough of that one woman.

Screw distance. Analytical observations went up in flames as embers of long-dead dreams sparked. What would it be like to inspire that kind of passion? She and Daniel had been on fire for each other during those uninhibited weeks of lovemaking. But sometimes she wondered if years apart might have painted her memories a deeper shade of red as her discontent in her marriage grew.

Daniel cleared his throat.

Mary Elise glanced up. “They’re married?”

“Nah, still in the newly engaged stage.”

A rush of heat swelled through her. Yeah, she and Daniel had fallen well into that can’t-get-enough engaged state. “Oh. Uh, they seem well suited.”

He patted Austin’s head to soothe the yawning child back to sleep and charged forward, the path past the necking couple the only route toward the waiting ambulance. “They met last summer on a joint mission to Guam.”

“He’s Air Force?” She eyed the man’s nonregulation hair with curiosity, hair currently getting a finger comb from an amorous lady copilot who wasn’t overly concerned about public displays of affection.

“Was CIA. Now he’s a civilian employee with the OSI—Office of Special Investigations. Kind of like the Air Force’s own CIA.” Daniel cleared his throat and urged her forward, not even breaking stride as they drew alongside the embracing couple. “Thanks for your help, Spike. I owe ya one.”

Without slowing the kiss, the man pulled his hand off Darcy Renshaw’s waist and held his palm up for a high-five.

As they strode past, realization crept over Mary Elise. Wren’s spiky-haired boyfriend who looked more like a beach bum than an OSI Special Agent had played a role in the boys’ escape as well.

Had known exactly how much danger his fiancée flew into.

Mary Elise couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder. The air crackled. Desire derived from a day filled with life and death stakes licked the air, scorching her even from a distance.

She turned her back on the image and thoughts of partnerships it inspired. “Spike? A nickname because of his hair, I assume.”

“Yeah. Normally OSI guys don’t get their own call sign, but we made Spike an honorary member of the squadron once he and Renshaw hooked up.”

The air whirled with the dynamics of so many relationships, platonic as well as passionate. Her mind and body went into sensory overload after years of deprivation.

Kent had severed ties from people except in the working environment, later taking even that from her, insisting work-related stress caused the miscarriages. The past months in Rubistan she’d soaked up the teaching time with children like a healing balm after enforced distance from little ones. Even so, those relationships were superficial. She hadn’t been a real part of any community for years.

And then it hit her what bothered her so much about this homecoming, why she wanted distance as a buffer from pain.

Daniel had moved on, made a life for himself with new friends, new direction, ever changing and growing. But she’d allowed herself to stagnate, frozen in time. How telling that when she’d needed help running from Kent’s threat, she’d turned to someone from her past. Daniel’s father. Sure, she’d escaped the immediate danger, but she still hadn’t been able to lower the walls that sealed her from experiencing emotions. She’d focused on survival for so long, she wasn’t sure she really knew how to live anymore.

Entering a world full of feelings, like love—anything—again was a scary-as-hell proposition. And not one she intended to attempt with Daniel anywhere near her.

The man of the hour beside her paused, a new tension radiating from him in waves. She didn’t have to look to know. An instinctive understanding of him that had gone dormant over the years roared to life.

Mary Elise searched the windswept stretch of cement for the source of Danny’s tension. She didn’t have to look far. From behind the driver’s side of the truck, a man in a flight suit slid out with cougarlike stealthiness.

She didn’t know much about military rank gracing the shoulders of flight suits, but even she recognized this man’s air of authority. The adversarial vibes between them snapped along the air.

A shiver ripped through her. This sort of antagonistic relationship she had experienced and understood well. While she’d learned to haul butt in the other direction for self-preservation, she couldn’t squelch a driving desire to fling herself between Daniel and the man stalking toward them.

Time for the crap to hit the fan.

Watching the new Squadron Commander stride forward, Daniel passed Austin to Mary Elise and braced his shoulders. Not that he intended to let things fly now in front of the kids.

He saluted the higher-ranking officer. “Hello, sir.”

The last word bit on its way up and out, but he knew protocol. It was just tougher to swallow with some than others.

Damn he missed the boundary-pushing days of flying cutting-edge test missions at Edwards AFB. But he had to exist in a day-to-day flying job to fill time as well as maintain cover between the higher ordered, dark ops missions that periodically came his way. Like the one he’d just completed when the call came through to retrieve his brothers.

Yeah, he missed the freedom of his old job. But even the beginning of his transfer to Charleston AFB as Chief of Training Flight hadn’t been too bad. Until the new boss took over. Lt. Col. Lucas Quade was nothing like their old commander, Zach Dawson.

The past summer had marked the end of Dawson’s reign as Squadron Commander. While he’d opted to stay on at the base for another year for family reasons, Dawson had shifted to Assistant Deputy of Operations for the Wing. Quade had transferred in from the Pentagon to take his place.

Not a smooth transition in the least for the C-17 squadron. Quade lent a darker shading to the squadron motto, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. This guy was everywhere, all the time, breathing down their necks. His ever-present scowl could melt the paint off an airplane.

Daniel stepped in front of Mary Elise and the boys, between them and the anger pulsing quietly from the commander. “I didn’t expect to see you back from your TDY to England for two more days, sir.”

At least he’d hoped not when he’d pushed this mission through in the commander’s absence.

“No doubt,” Quade answered, his low growl riding wind that didn’t dare disturb his close-cropped dark hair. “Lucky I was able to cut it short and meet you on the flight line.”

Daniel shot a pointed look toward the bedraggled children then back to his commander. “I’ll be in your office first thing tomorrow morning after I settle them in.”

“Yes, you will, Captain.” Quade nodded to Mary Elise. “Welcome back to the States, ma’am.” Spinning on his heel, he slid away as silently as he’d approached.

Mary Elise drew up shoulder to shoulder. Austin stirred, yawning, stuffing a fist against his eye.

“Crap,” Daniel mumbled under his breath.

Mary Elise cocked her head to the side. “Problem?”

There’d been a time when he’d shared everything with Mary Elise. Her insights had kept his wings level on more than one occasion. But opening that door to the past would invite a host of other issues better left alone when he needed objectivity to figure out what the hell was chugging through that brain of hers. “Normal red tape. No big deal.”

He should be covered, thanks to Spike’s CIA connections. Daniel shrugged off what couldn’t be dealt with until the next day. He’d take the fall in a heartbeat if Quade started gunning for anyone else on the crew.

Daniel tapped Trey on the shoulder and pointed to the ambulance. “You ready to get checked out so we can head home?”

Trey jammed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Just wanna go to bed.”

More concerns. Where would he put everyone in his condo? A small condo with only one bed—a big bed that he could too well envision sharing with Mary Elise.

A headache started behind his right eye, like a tiny hammer rapping with irritating persistence. “Not much longer and we’ll hit the road. You’ll be in b— Uh, you’ll be tucked in before you can say Hershey’s chocolate.”

Austin pulled his thumb out of his mouth. “Crap.”

Daniel screeched to a halt. “What?”

Trey smirked. “I think he heard you say it.”

“Thanks. I figured that.”

Mary Elise tapped Austin’s mouth. “What’s wrong, hon?”

“Got no jammies. Want my sailboat jammies. Crap.” His thumb popped back in his mouth.

Daniel flinched over the curse, but couldn’t bring himself to reprimand his brother. Poor kid had lost his parents and everything familiar in the span of a couple of weeks. “You can both wear my T-shirts. I have one with an airplane on it, just for you, pal.”

“Mary ’Lise got no jammies, neither.”

An image he did not need, thank you very much. “She can borrow a T-shirt, too.”

Another image no less tormenting than the last splayed across his mind in a tangle of long red hair and even longer legs. In his bed.

“And a toof brush and shampoo?”

Daniel blinked back to the present and Austin’s latest question. “We’ll buy some.”

“For Mary ’Lise, too?”

Already he could see, smell her shampoo in his shower.

The little hammer picked up speed and force in his head, pounding in time with each thud of his boots across cement. “You bet.”

“And toof paste? Bubble-gum kind.”

“Yes,” he promised, rushing to add before the three-year-old question machine could preempt him, “for Mary Elise, too.”

Blessed silence echoed for four strides across the tarmac before Austin’s thumb popped back out of his mouth again. “Need my pull-ups.”

He turned to Mary Elise for interpretation. “Pull-ups?”

Trey snorted. “Diapers. For babies.”

“Am not a baby!”

“Are so.” Trey sniffed. “And no way am I sharing a bed with anybody who still wears a diaper to sleep. Yuck!”

The pounding behind Daniel’s eye morphed into a jack-hammer.

Mary Elise guided Trey alongside while explaining to Danny, “They’re like underwear.”

Daniel willed Austin silent. Please Lord, no mentions of Mary Elise’s underwear from the peanut gallery. “We’ll make a quick stop by the base shoppette for necessities and buy the rest tomorrow. No worries, boys.”

End of bedtime ritual discussions. Life back in control, Daniel forged ahead into the late-morning sun.

Yeah, order. Control. Gained from a logical act of the will.

He led them toward the military ambulance, his old Air Force Academy pal Doc Kathleen Bennett waiting as promised. His freshman year at the Academy, he and his classmate Tanner Bennett had both followed her around like lost puppies. Bennett had ultimately won. For the best, since those two were meant to be together, and he sure as hell hadn’t harbored any feelings deeper than a teenage case of the hots.

The flight surgeon braced her boot on the bumper, tucking a stray strand of wind-whipped red hair behind her ear. Daniel paused in his tracks. How damned strange he hadn’t realized something until just that moment. Every woman he’d ever dated or been attracted to had red hair.

Control spiraled into a nosedive.

Chapter 5

Mary Elise gathered her red hair in one hand and flung the rope over her shoulder. Amid a string of stilted houses, Daniel’s condo complex loomed ahead through the windshield of his truck. Their visit with the doc had been followed by a quick-mart trip and a refueling stop at McDonald’s, which stretched her never-ending day into late afternoon. Finally she could sleep.

In Daniel’s home. Uh-oh.

She eyed the singles-type setup, a sleek soft-gray cement three-story complex complete with a pool, hot tub, tennis courts, set on marshy beachfront property that guaranteed they couldn’t let Austin out of their sight for even a second.

At least Trey was healthy according to the flight surgeon, apparently an old classmate of Daniel’s, a married classmate with a baby. Mary Elise stifled the rogue twinge of relief. No, she didn’t need to confuse herself by combating strange twinges of jealousy over women like Kathleen Bennett or the copilot, Darcy Renshaw. Instead, she faced something far more unsettling. More proof of how Daniel had made a new life with new friends—friendship far more important than fleeting flings.

While she guided a bleary-eyed Trey toward the door, Daniel unbuckled the sleeping Austin and grabbed the shopping bag of pull-ups, silent. As he’d been for hours. Not that she intended to risk chitchat before a long sleep.

An hour later Mary Elise stood at the sliding balcony doors in Daniel’s bedroom, Austin snoozing in the queen-size bed behind her. She pressed a palm to the screen separating her from the glistening breakers crashing against the shoreline. Egrets bobbed on spindly legs, long beaks pecking the sand while gulls dipped and soared to find a late-afternoon snack.

A prickle of awareness tingled up her spine as she felt him, Daniel, enter the room, and she didn’t even have the energy to deny she felt him. He cruised to a stop just behind her, his heat warming her back in contrast with the gentle sea breeze caressing her front.

She glanced over her shoulder, the sleek silver and gray decor of his bedroom somehow matching the man’s precise mathematical mentality. “Trey’s asleep?”

Daniel definitely resembled the part of an overwhelmed father, hair askew, weariness stamping his handsome face. “Yeah, hopefully the dinner kept them up long enough to nudge them toward sacking out through the night. Trey didn’t even balk at the prospect of a sleeping bag on the computer room floor once I mentioned the alternative was bunking with Austin in pull-ups.”

Mary Elise offered him the obligatory chuckle he obviously expected and shifted her gaze to the artwork gracing his walls rather than the laugh lines crinkling the corners of Danny’s eyes. The framed Escher-style print of a winding staircase seemingly leading nowhere pretty much summed up her life.

Daniel leaned a broad shoulder against the molding framing the sliding doors. “You sure you don’t mind sharing a bed with the little guy tonight?”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.