Strategic Engagement

Given he'd dodged her comfort last night, she didn't expect him to start sobbing on her shoulder by any means. Still she would be here for him. That much he would have to accept.



Danny folded his arms across his broad chest encased in a clean—albeit wrinkled—flight suit, obviously having finally accepted she wasn't going anywhere. "What? No tips on how I should have handled that?"



She shook her head and padded across gray-speckled tile toward the coffeemaker. Colombian roast and freshly showered Danny scenting the air made an enticing morning blend. "Why would you think that?"



"First day on the parenting job and I already flunked Kids 101." He braced a boot on the cabinet behind him and sagged back with a long exhale. "Do you think I should go after him?"



She forced herself to ask instead of advise. "What do you think?"



"Me? I want to get things settled. Now." He swiped an orange juice can off the counter and crumpled it in his fist before flinging it into a recycling bin with a resounding rattle.



A confrontation when they were both angry and on edge? Ick. She unhooked a dangling black mug to keep from grabbing his arm to stop him. To keep from grabbing him period. "Do what you feel is best."



"The kid's probably in there crying. Alone. I hate that for him." His boot jammed reflexively against the gleaming metal cabinet with a single thud. "But he would resent me more for seeing it."



Bingo, Danny. "I would imagine so."



"So I'll try again later."



"And later again if that's what it takes." She leaned against the counter beside him and sipped the steaming coffee. "He just needs time to assimilate everything."



Daniel nodded.



Of its own will, her hand fell to rest on his upper arm. "I thought you did well in a situation that stinks no matter which way you look at it."



Muscles flexed beneath her touch. Her fingers itched to explore the broadened width of his shoulders. Silence echoed but for the hiss of the coffeemaker and more yearning zipping back and forth. The chill of tile floor seeped into her bare feet while the heat of his arm seared her fingers.



She jerked her hand away. Don't get involved. They needed to make their own way.



And emotions hurt.



Daniel scooped an open Pop-Tart box off the counter. Five seconds later he was slathering peanut butter on top of the purple-and-white-swirled frosting. She quelled a wince.



He chewed through a bite before cutting a glance her way. "Aren't you going to suggest eggs and wheat toast or shove me out of the way so you can whip up something healthy?"



"Daniel, you're thirty-two years old. If you want to eat chocolate frosting on your bagel for breakfast, that's your business."



"So you're not going to try to fix me or bake a casserole."



Confusion cut through the need to lick the peanut butter from the corner of his mouth. "Why would I want to do that?"



"Never mind." He jammed the rest of his breakfast in his mouth and washed it down with a swig of coffee. "I should get moving. Thank you for staying. This morning is crazy enough without worrying about rounding up a baby-sitter."



Guilt swirled through her passion like the mix of that peanut butter through the frosting. She was using him every bit as much as he was using her. Except she wasn't being straight-up honest with him.



For the best, right? Then he wouldn't get hurt trying to sort her mess.



He opened a drawer, withdrawing a notepad and pen. "I appreciate that you let me reason through how to handle Trey."



She blinked away her surprise at his perception of her motives.



He thrust the pad and pen toward her. "But I could still use your input on their routine and those EpiPen things. Could you start a list of the factual stuff?"



She eyed the pen and paper. There'd once been a time she never went anywhere without a notebook handy for capturing the flood of words always ready to pour from her mind through her fingertips.



Written words trickled from her muse in short supply these days.



He waggled the small pad. "I won't impose on you forever. Just long enough to get through settling the boys."



A list. He wanted a simple list from her, not a creative writing essay or editorial or, God forbid, a story.



She gripped the edge of the pad without touching him



"Thank you." He held firm, linking them through a silly little pad of paper with Gravity Sucks printed through an image of a crashing plane. "How weird is it that I have people I spoke to just last week, friends and old girlfriends who I should be calling to pitch in here. But yet here we are."



"I know the boys." She tried to explain away the connection with the logic Danny so valued. Fat lot of good it did her.



The silence swelled between them, filled with the knowledge that their connection was more. Would it always be like this for them?



She studied the stitches, pockets, zippers along his flight suit as if the different clothing might help convince her this was a different man from the one she'd loved years ago. Her gaze traveled across his chest, to the strong column of his throat.



Her hand inched to the neck of his flight suit where the black T-shirt peeked free. With one finger she traced the raised seam of his inside-out shirt, a sight all too familiar. "I never thought to ask why you do this?"



Brown eyes deepened from milk chocolate to an intense, darker flavor no less enticing. "Do what?"



"Wear your T-shirts inside out. You've always done it and I never thought to ask you why before. It was just a part of the Danny picture that I accepted."



"Maybe I don't notice how I put my shirts on."



She shook her head. "I don't think so. If that were the case, you'd have your T-shirts on right side out some of the time. But you don't. You think through and have a reason for everything you do, Danny. You always have."



A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Not everyone realizes that. You're scary, you know."



"Yeah, right. I'm intimidating as hell."



He chuckled. She joined in with ease, their laughs blending between them until she squeezed his hand.



His hand?



She looked down and found their fingers had entwined over the small pad. When? How?



They both yanked, back.



He smacked the pad down on the counter. "The seams scratch."



"What?" She fisted her tingling hand by her side.



Daniel kept his back to her, scribbling notes along the pad. "The outside of a T-shirt is smoother than the inside with the seams. It's more comfortable to wear the shirt inside out. Damned silly to put the smoother side out just so the world thinks you look better while those seams are chaffing away."



He spun to face her, lighthearted Danny firmly stamped across his features. "Time for me to punch out of here, but I'll try to finish up soon. I have to swing by base legal and start paperwork for the boys before flight debrief, then a meeting with my commander. After that, we can head out to buy whatever you and the boys need."



She watched him move, Danny so at ease in his own skin and with the world when his life had been flipped upside down. How much of it was pretense? "You know, Trey's just like you."



He snorted. "You mean Austin, right?"



"No. You and Trey are both torn up over losing your father, and neither one of you can bear to accept a bit of comfort."



The smile fell away, replaced by the newer Danny, the man who drew a gun in foreign countries with little or no backup. "Like you're any different."



A gasp caught in her throat.



Danny tapped her forehead. "Exchanging troubles is a two-way street, Mary Elise. One neither of us seems comfortable traveling anymore."



He waited, and for a weak minute she actually considered leaning against one broad shoulder and telling him everything. Except she understood Danny too well—rather than just offer help as his father had done, he would take over, guns blazing into the middle of her mess.



Or worse yet, he wouldn't believe her about Kent's threats any more than her parents had. Either way, for the sake of the boys, she needed to keep him as far away from Kent as possible.



She stepped back. Away from Danny and the temptation of broad shoulders.



He nudged the pad toward her, no risky hand-to-hand exchange this time. "Here are numbers where you can reach me. If there's a pressing emergency, call this one. The copilot, Renshaw, lives in this complex with her fiancé."



"Spike?" She followed Daniel across the living room to the door.



"Right. Up on the second floor. He's off today and can be down in seconds," Daniel paused under the porch overhang. "Promise me you'll call if you need anything. Not just for the boys. For you too, okay?"



"Okay." She lied. And suspected he knew it.



Daniel loped toward his shiny blue truck. Apparently he took more care with his vehicle than his flight suits.



She stood in the open door, mug cradled in her hands, and let the heated ceramic warm the chill that increased as Danny backed up and drove away. She stared at his empty spot long after the truck's rumble faded.



Shaking off whimsy, she spun toward the condo. Her feet tangled on the arrangement of flowerpots by the neighbor's door. Mary Elise knelt to right one lopsided pot and scoop stray soil. She patted it back into colored planters filled with ferns, pansies and impatiens. Her hand stilled on a final one tucked in the back in an incongruous bland terracotta pot.



False Unicorn. She fingered the small greenish-white flowers, their blooms having held on beyond summer blooming season. She'd been so touched when Kent brought her a small pot similar to this once, the simple romantic gesture more special than the dozen roses he'd given her after the second miscarriage. Or so she'd thought. Then he'd explained how False Unicorn root supposedly increased fertility and prevented miscarriages.



By the end of the year, he'd bought her a window garden full of other such plants like red clover blossoms and blue cohosh. Not that he actually expected her to use them. He'd hired specialists, after all. Eventually, hope had withered along with words and creativity while her window garden blossomed in mocking contrast.



A chill iced up her spine. Rising, she searched the parking lot. Found nothing unusual. Her fingers slid from the tiny flowers and sought the warmth of her coffee mug.



Quit imagining things. The plant had nothing to do with Kent. She hadn't heard even a whisper from him in the year since moving overseas. He'd either lost her trail or the edge to his insane fury had dulled.



But those fears were difficult to shed. Trust was hard to recapture.



Mary Elise bolted inside, locked the door and tried to blot the image of the tiny plant outside. Tried. Failed. Hand gripping the knob, she sagged back.



Her gaze trekked across the living room to the bar separating it from the kitchen. Pop-Tart wrappers lay scattered across the counter with an open jar of peanut butter beside them.



Daniel's life might seem wrinkled and disorganized from the outside, but his disorder was a choice for comfort in a man totally together on the inside. While she knew her dry cleaned and wrinkle-free silks shrouded a woman with a mess of a life.



"Crap." Daniel bit out the crewdog-worthy curse with precision since there wasn't anyone but crewdogs to hear him in the squadron corridors.



In seconds he would receive an ass-chewing from the Squadron Commander for skirting rules. Technically Daniel hadn't busted a single regulation. But goodwill protocol on the other hand…Damn, but he hated playing politics. He left those niceties and games to his old man.



Or rather once had. Daniel ignored the pounding ache in his head and in a place some might call a heart while focusing on the more literal pounding yet to come.



He lengthened his strides along the industrial carpet, past photos of previous commanders, by a planning room filled with crew members at work—the kind of toe-the-line officers who made life easier for men like his father and Lt. Col. Quade. Voices drifted into the hall—Marcus "Joker" Cardenas and Jack "Cobra" Korba. Solid flyers, intense and by the rules.