Strategic Engagement

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?"



"Not at all. I'm too tired to notice he's there."



Daniel eyed his bed, rumpled gray spread rising with each baby breath from Austin. "That pull-up thing is leak proof, right?"



"Says so on the package." A smile tugged at her lips as she thought of Daniel's boggled expression when they'd bought the sleeper-diapers, a purchase so conspicuously different from that of the airman behind them intent on buying a bottle of wine, a plastic-wrapped rose—and a box of condoms.



Mary Elise banished that memory. Pronto.



Daniel speared a hand through his tousled hair until it stood even more on end, much like his buddy Spike's. "I'll find bunk beds over at the base tomorrow. The BX furniture outlet has a decent enough selection."



"Uh, the boys might want to go with you and choose for themselves."



"Right. Of course." He shot her a wry smile. "Not used to accounting to other people."



He shoved away from the wall and crossed to the bed. Hands so comfortable flying an airplane fumbled a bit in fitting the bulky comforter around tiny shoulders, not that it stalled him in the task. He persevered until the shiny gray bedspread tucked as snuggly around Austin as any cotton sailboat blankie.



Her heart hitched.



Tension rippled up Daniel's back beneath the stretched green fabric: He reached toward Austin.



Swiped a tear off the cherub cheek.



Tears stung her own eyes. "He wants his mother."



A long swallow moved Daniel's throat before he dropped to the foot of the bed. Broad shoulders sagged for the first time in a day that would have leveled most men hours ago. "What the hell am I going to do with two kids, Mary Elise?"



His hoarse question filled the room. She crossed her arms over her chest to keep from gathering both Austin and Danny close. It would be difficult enough for her not to play mama to this motherless child. She damn well couldn't afford to play anything more than friends with Danny. "You'll make adjustments."



"How? My schedule's hellish. I'm gone for weeks at a time. This place is too small." He flicked a hand toward the glass doors revealing the stretch of sandy beach. "Even that's a hazard with Austin around."



His quiet anguish echoed, transporting her back to the time he'd asked her how his father could be so cliché as to opt for a trophy wife in his midlife crisis. Why couldn't the guy have just bought a freaking sports car?



Daniel rested his elbows on his knees while studying the mud-brown carpet as if it bore answers not likely held in the stack of books by his bed. "What kind of screwed-up world is this where those boys don't have anyone but me and a terrorist uncle ready to recruit them for his own special brand of 'summer camp'?"



Austin shuffled under the covers. With undue concentration, she closed the glass door and drew the steel blinds, trying to avoid other memories. Of knowing Daniel was trapped by circumstance now as he'd been years ago with her pregnancy. But even at twenty-one, he'd been a man of honor, putting others first. She'd known he would come through for their baby.



She just hadn't expected the surprise need for him to come through for her, too.



A tiny voice taunted from the far corners of her brain that she'd misjudged Kent. Horribly so.



She'd been looking for something different in those days. Her medical problems had increased, the endometriosis progressing to the point she'd realized bearing children would be doubtful. Her first miscarriage years ago hadn't been some fluke, and with the build-up of internal scar tissue over the years, even conception became difficult. She'd met Kent at a time when she'd expected to focus on her newspaper career since life had shifted her plans.



Kent changed the rules.



She refused to let her ex-husband take anything else from her, and that included what good memories she had of Daniel. Despite the traumatic last hours, she welcomed the distraction of thinking about someone else's problems, tackling concerns that didn't involve a stalker ex-husband.



Moving deeper into the room, she let her hands glide over Daniel's dresser, tap a change cup, an abacus. "The world isn't fair, Danny, and it's wasted energy expecting it to be. We make the best of what we have."



Mary Elise shuffled the abacus beads back and forth and back again. Whimsical memories slipped past her guard. "God knows, you always were one who could build a rocket out of a junior chemistry lab and a piece of your mother's Corning Ware."



A rusty chuckle slipped free. "I blew a hole in the yard big enough for a pig-roast. Man, was my father pissed."



Too easily she could see Danny standing in the middle of his parents' landscaped lawn taking a reaming from his father. The son not recognizing his father's fear for his safety. The father not recognizing his son's need for freedom and acceptance.



"But you built a rocket, Danny, when most kids were still struggling to put together store-bought model planes or cars." Forget keeping her distance. She knelt at his feet so she could see his eyes. "You can do this. You'll move to a bigger place. A live-in nanny is probably their best choice, someone they can bond with. They have money, which gives you options."



"The old man's money." He grimaced.



She raised a hand to rest on his knee. He ducked away from her touch. From her offer of comfort.



Daniel strode toward the door. "There are extra towels under the sink. Sweats on the closet shelf, T-shirts in the top dresser drawer."



She trailed him, the two of them meeting in the suddenly too small portal, a pendulum in the hall ticking away the seconds. She should have expected him to duck past. The old Danny had dodged offers of comfort over his parents' split, seeking escape in her body rather than in her arms.



His eyes narrowed, his pupils widening. Uh-oh.



She stared into his brown eyes so deep and dark. He'd lost his father in a far more tragic way now than during the rift at his father's wedding. Would Daniel reach for her again? She wanted his kiss as much as—no, more than—before since she knew the promise of what they could experience together. Her body hungered for human touch.



His touch.



Except, she would have to stop as she should have done years ago. Because Danny with his restless feet didn't do forever well. Difficult enough to overcome even before she'd lost her ability to trust in forever.



In a move so quick she didn't see him shift, he pulled her to him. But not for a kiss.



Daniel gathered her against his chest, held her close and a little too tight. She wouldn't allow herself the indulgence of bringing her arms up. She simply absorbed the familiar feel and scent of him, absorbed the differences she'd observed earlier, the harder edges of a man instead of a boy.



Why was he doing this to her? To them?



Daniel pressed a brusque kiss to the top of her head, then softly spoke heated words into her hair. "Crawling into that box was the stupidest thing you could have done. You damn well could have died today."



He held her tighter for one final, eternal moment that ticked by with countless clicks from the pendulum. Then he thrust her away, the door snicking closed behind him.



She stood frozen, an odd contradiction since every 'nerve within her had flamed to life.



Stupidest thing? Not by a long shot. Crawling out of that box and agreeing to stay with Danny beat her other decision by a mile.



Pulling Mary Elise into his arms had to be the stupidest damned thing he'd done since his rocket blasted a hole in the yard and through the neighbor's stained-glass window twenty years ago.



Daniel thudded down the carpeted hall into his living room and dropped to the edge of the leather sofa. One foot at a time, he unlaced his boots and thunked them on the floor. Sleeping would be tough enough with Mary Elise a couple of doors down. Now it would be impossible with the feel of her body imprinted anew in his brain and a persistent auburn hair twined round his wrist.Sow hat if he preferred redheads? He had a "type." Big freaking deal. Most guys had a type or a preferred female attribute that attracted them. Made perfect sense and had absolutely nothing to do with Mary Elise.



Slumping back on the sofa, he scooped up a Rubik's Cube from the end table and clicked through rotations while sorting through his life. He normally liked puzzles and the order they restored to his world. He might wear wrinkled flight suits and inside-out T-shirts, but he had reasons. He appreciated order and logic.



Yeah, he had a type—spunky redheads. Except Mary Elise's spunk had been tempered to a quieter, steely will. What had happened to the scrawny girl who followed him into a nuclear plant, jotting notes for a school newspaper exposé? The coltish teen who'd chewed him out for not staying away from her chicken pox?



And what had she been holding back from telling him during the flight?



His hands whipped across the cube, lining up a new row of blues before shuffling yellows. Her voice may have quieted over the years, but the passion in her expression when she'd looked at him hadn't diminished. He'd stood in his bedroom doorway staring into her eyes, green eyes alive with confusion and pain and yes, even a desire so strong an emotional half-wit like him could read it.



Then and now he could only think what it would have been like if the day's outcome had been different. Too easily things could have gone to hell. Tag's call on the headset to alert him of a problem could have been worse. Finding Mary Elise in that crate had shocked a year off his life.



Finding her dead in that crate would have damned near killed him.



He'd forced that image out of his mind all day. During those few quiet moments in the doorway, the scenario had blindsided him like a bogey flying in from a six-o'clock position. This incredible titian-haired crusader who snuck junk food to a kid with a health food fanatic mom and crawled into crates with frightened little boys at the risk of her own life could have died before he had the chance to hold her again.



So he'd pulled her close in honor of those good memories they'd shared. And his logical brain taunted him with an irrefutable fact.



He had to hold her again.



The next morning Daniel measured coffee grounds while listening to three weeks' worth of messages on his voice mail. He'd barely had time to fling his duffel bag on the bed after a covert TDY dropping CIA officers deep into Cantou before the call from the Rubistanian attaché had rung through.



Cordless phone tucked under his chin, Daniel returned the bag of coffee to the steel cabinet in his galley kitchen and tucked the paper filter into the coffeemaker. He figured he would have at least another hour to get his head together before Mary Elise and the boys rolled out of bed. He never needed much sleep at a pop himself, and the bunking conditions hadn't been the best. A fact that had more to do with a raging arousal harder than the sofa.And a host of memories even more unrelenting. So persistent even his morning ritual of a five-mile run on the beach followed by a workout in the clubhouse gym hadn't helped. By the time he hit the cold shower and changed into a clean flight suit, he accepted the fact that Mary Elise had lodged herself in his brain again.



Daniel jammed the glass pot under the water purifier while listening through the seventy-five accumulated messages.



Two hang-ups.



The dry cleaners calling for him to pick up his service dress uniform. As much as he might wish otherwise, he couldn't get away with wearing everything wrinkled and unstarched.



Next message, an automated telemarketer.



Punching Delete, he shut the water off with his elbow, juggling the coffeepot before finally opting for speakerphone.



"Hey, Dan?" Sultry Southern tones crooned through the speaker, filling the sparse kitchen. "Hannah from upstairs in 18-B. If you get this message, give me a call and let me know when you'll be back. I can ask the superintendent to let me in so you'll have milk and stuff waiting when you get home."