Читать книгу Strategic Engagement - Catherine Mann - Страница 9

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.”