Strategic Engagement

The guilt had torn her. She'd chosen to marry Kent, after all. She owed him better than she'd given him, half of herself. Now from the clearer perspective of distance, she wondered if he'd somehow sensed her feelings and manipulated them all the more to persuade her to give him whatever he wanted.



Daniel shoved to his feet, pacing enough to wear tread marks in the carpet with his boots. "We'll get another restraining order. I'm here to help keep space between you and the jerk before things turn violent. Mary Elise, you can't just keep running."



"It's too late for that. I know this may be difficult to take in. There are certainly plenty of people out there who think I'm only out to tarnish his reputation. But Kent went off the deep end when I left him." She closed her eyes and sucked in air to keep her voice steady. What would she do if Danny didn't accept her story?



Mary Elise rose to her feet. She didn't have a choice but to make him believe her. He stood with his back to her, which seemed the perfect time to tell him. She wouldn't have to see his skepticism. Not right away.



"Danny, I moved to Rubistan because Kent hired a hit man to kill me." Even the words chilled her. She tamped down the images and concentrated on reading Daniel.



Tension rippled the muscles along his shoulders in visible waves under his flight suit, but still he didn't turn. Thank God, because she wasn't sure she could keep talking if she found disbelief on his face. But she would talk, had to. Damn Kent straight to hell, she wasn't the wounded woman who ran to Rubistan anymore.



"Shortly after I left him, I suspected I was being followed, but I thought it was just Kent and more of his hurtful messages, like the bottle or the plant. Then a man with a gun caught me getting out of my car in front of my apartment. He planned to fake my suicide." The remembered cold press of the gun to her temple pushed through her concentration. "He told me Kent had sent him. Even gave me a message from Kent no one else could have known."



Her secret name for their last child, a name she hadn't dared share with anyone except Kent because she couldn't take the hesitant looks from people if she dared be hopeful.



"I realize it sounds crazy. God knows the cops and even my parents were skeptics." She winced. Great. Way to go giving him the idea if he hadn't already thought of it himself. "I never dreamed something like that could happen to me. It seems the sort of story you only hear about from celebrities or in tabloids. But it happens. It happened to me."



She waited.



And waited, reassuring herself that no matter what his reaction, she would hang tough. She would be strong and walk out the door today despite Danny's offer to help. The time had come for her to deal with the shambles Kent had made of her life, but she couldn't do it here. She'd leave to protect the boys. To protect Danny.



Slowly he pivoted on his boot heel with military precision. Fury vibrated through him, so tightly reined the low hum of rage reached to her from across the room. Not at her, but for her.



He believed her.



She reached back for the arm of the sofa and let herself sit. Relief rattled her teeth for three blessed seconds. Until she realized that yes he believed her, and planned to right the wrong done to her.



Any veneer of civilized niceties peeled away from him in strips, leaving behind raw man. Man at his most elemental protector self, a primal essence that centuries ago enabled him to charge into, battle with only a sword in his hand or a knife between his teeth.



To protect.



What should have brought her breath-stealing relief instead chilled her. Daniel—she couldn't think of him as Danny right now—yes, Daniel would throw away his life to keep her safe. Looking deep into his eyes, she knew without question.



Kent was a dead man.



Chapter 11



Daniel deadened his emotions.



His brain assumed control, assimilated information. Video chirps and blasts reverberated from behind the boys' closed bedroom door. Two little boys he was almost certain had come inches away from Kent McRae in the parking lot earlier. A sick son of a bitch who'd dared to walk into Daniel's apartment. Who'd dared breathe the same air as Mary Elise.A tic twitched the corner of Daniel's eye. Yeah, deadened inside was better. Otherwise the molten rage bubbling deep within him would melt his logic with a burning need to take out the bastard.



Damn straight Kent McRae had tried his scare tactics before with that junk-mail brochure. Coincidental that it landed in the mail this week? Not a chance. And he would pay.



But first, get the facts straight. Make a plan. And don't fall victim to the distraction of vulnerable green eyes. "How long?"



"How long what?" She lifted the telephone from the end table and placed it on her knees, as if that could keep him from dialing the cops if he chose.



He let her have her phone victory for the moment. He needed every ounce of information he could wring out of her before he spoke to them, anyway. "When did you leave for Rubistan?"



"I started the teaching job at the embassy school a year ago."



A job his father had arranged for her.



More anger piled on top of a towering load. She hadn't even considered coming to him with this.



Later he would deal with the fact that he would have to reassess his father's call from Rubistan shortly before his death. His dad hadn't been informing him about Mary Elise's arrival. In fact, had known about her slimeball ex and hadn't bothered to share with Daniel, another betrayal from a man he already resented like hell. A man he would never have the chance to chew out.



But Franklin Baker had kept her safe.



As much as Daniel wished he could have been the one she'd run to, he owed his father a debt for keeping her alive so she could sit there on his sofa and frustrate him with every defensive twitch of her head. Sunlight through the window glinted along the wet sheen of her hair.



She'd been in the shower.



Mary Elise had been vulnerable in the shower while McRae had rifled her bags. Walked through Daniel's place. Touched everything that was his.



Whoa. Full speed emergency stop on a short runway.



Mary Elise was not his.



Wrong.



She was under his roof. Under his protection. And hell yes, she'd once been his. If he hadn't allowed the ties to be severed between them, she would have come to him. This might well have never happened at all.



Anger and guilt tangoed big-time. "You should have told me everything when we landed. Hell, before that."



"This isn't your problem. It's mine. I didn't mean to bring you in at all. You were right that crawling into the crate was a mistake." She speared her fingers through her tangled mass of wet hair. "But I still don't know how I could have sent those boys off with Austin crying. The guard would have been on them in a minute. And once I was in that crate, everything rolled out of control so fast."



He backed up a step to keep from yanking her close again. Thoughts of her risking her life a few days ago hammered too hard and fast on the out-of-control mess at their feet right now. "That's a crock, Mary Elise. You know I would have been there for you. Why didn't you tell me?"



"Maybe there's a better answer somewhere, but I did the best I could." She freed a lock of damp hair twisted around a gold hoop earring, no doubt to avoid looking at him. "God knows Kent told me what a screw-up I was often enough. I know better, damn it. I do. But sometimes it's just hard as hell to trust your instincts. Not everyone can be so all-fired certain their choices are perfect, like you are, Danny."



Daniel's slowing steps drew him to her with the seeping realization from her words. He may not agree with her choice to stay silent, yet there was no question but that this woman selflessly had his brothers' best interest at heart. Always.



She was scared and he was grilling her. Way to go, bud.



He brushed her hand aside and finished untwisting the hair from her earring. "Damn it, Mary Elise, don't clam up now. This is too important for you to deal me half parcels of truth."



"Yes, Danny, I do know you, and I knew you'd be just like this. That you'd throw yourself in the middle of my mess, which is the last thing I want for you. Or for those boys."



His fingers gripped tighter around the silky lock. "You would have left today, without telling me."



"Of course," she answered without even a blink.



More of that anger and something else he damned well didn't want to define scratched through the numbed state. Letting her go eleven years ago had been the toughest thing he'd ever done. And yet she could just write him off. She'd put the boys first and once they didn't need her anymore, she was gone. Over and done without a wince about losing him.



That bit. Too much.



"Yes, I would have left. Would that have been the right decision? Have any of my choices been the best option? God, I don't know." Her steady gaze pinned him. "Where is it written that every choice is clear cut? Even in your logical brain, there's got to be room for shades of gray. And who says that we're perfect and had better damn well make the perfect, right decision or we're too stupid to live?"



She fisted her hands by her sides. "Kent told me for years I was defective. Incompetent. Incomplete, if I didn't live my life his way. I almost bought into it. Almost. But I got away. And I'll be damned if I'll let you take away something harder to rebuild than you'll ever understand."



Her voice didn't so much as quaver. But pain laced her words.



Psychological warfare on the home front.



He'd studied and experienced the power of mental mind games in the POW phase of military survival training. And for her, the propaganda crap had come from someone she had every right to trust, someone who'd vowed to love and cherish her.



When had anyone cherished this woman?



Damn straight he didn't agree with her decisions, but he understood how she'd arrived there. She'd been betrayed by her husband and her parents. Why should she trust him, someone who'd already let her down before?



Yet even as he saw the wounded pieces of her, he couldn't mistake the grit. Hell, yeah, she may not have made his kind of choices, but she'd kept right on moving.



He'd seen bravery and cowardice in a hundred different forms. And, God, was he ever in awe of this woman right now.



She inched her hair from between his fingers. "Are we clear? I'm leaving, and I'll be careful. I'm going to find a private investigator and try to put an end to this. But I can't let it touch you and the boys anymore. I only told you this much so you're aware and can be careful for their sakes. I did not tell you so you could launch into a commando protector and solve my problems for me. I am leaving."



Like hell.



She wasn't taking one step out that door without him five steps in front of her, between her and whatever waited. Daniel shook off the sentimental fog, emotional crap that would distract him, get her hurt. She could make this easy. Or she could make it tough.



Mary Elise picked up her suitcase.



Okay, so it would be tough.



Ducking a shoulder into her stomach, Danny hefted her up. She gasped, deep. Damn. She was gonna get vocal.



Planting a hand on her bottom—ah, hell—he forestalled her with, "Shout and you'll upset the boys."



"Danny," she threatened through gritted teeth. "Put me down." Her suitcase thumped his leg.



Deliberate? Or accidental.



Ow, damn it. Deliberate.



Daniel flung her on the sofa. On her back. Already she arched up.



Something snapped in her eyes. All that Mary Elise calm and restraint unraveled into a tangle as convoluted as her hair twisting through her hoop earrings. Any minute she would lose it, and he couldn't let that happen, for her or his brothers.



Daniel dropped, flattened her fast. His body pinned hers in a full-length press to the sofa. "You're not going anywhere."



She bucked under him. "I'm damned tired of people controlling my life."