Strategic Engagement

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.