Strategic Engagement

Strategic Engagement
Catherine Mann

Flying a dangerous rescue into a war-torn country to save his two little orphaned brothers was all in a day's work for air force hero Daniel Baker. But finding Mary Elise McRae stowed away on board–scared, alone and living her life on the run from an ex-husband who wanted her dead–was the last thing he'd ever expected.She'd been his best friend, his lover and nearly his wife. Danny would stop at nothing to keep her safe…even if it meant falling in love with her all over again.

“I’m so damned scared, Danny.”

Mary Elise’s thready words barely whispered against his neck until he might have questioned his hearing. But he felt each word and all her fear soak into him along with the heat of her rapid breaths.

“Tell me,” he coaxed. “Tell me what to do for you.”

She inched back, her hand sliding up his face again. “Oh, Danny, can’t you see that you and all this—” she slipped her hand around his neck in a sensual glide “—this tension between us that we can’t ignore is a big part of the problem? You need to believe me when I say I just can’t risk staying here with you.”

His arms around her twitched, muscles convulsively tensing to hold her closer, safer. As much as he wanted to reassure her, he couldn’t. He knew himself too well.

Strategic Engagement

Catherine Mann

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CATHERINE MANN

writes contemporary military romances, a natural fit since she’s married to her very own USAF research source. Prior to publication, Catherine graduated with a B.A. in fine arts: theater from the College of Charleston and received her master’s degree in theater from UNC Greensboro. Now a RITA

Award winner, Catherine finds following her aviator husband around the world with four children, a beagle and a tabby in tow offers her endless inspiration for new plots. Learn more about her work, as well as her adventures in military life, by visiting her Web site: http://catherinemann.com. Or contact her at P.O. Box 41433, Dayton, OH 45441.

Dedication:

To military families everywhere.

Acknowledgments:

To Homer and Karen Tucker, treasured friends who are family in my heart if not by blood relation. Thank you for your never-faltering faith in my stories.

To Major Kevin “Bjorn” Brown and his wonderful wife, Leah. Thank you, Kevin, for your generous insights into the C-17 world. (Any mistakes are strictly my own!) Many thanks also to Leah, a talented author and dear friend, for cheering me on and keeping me up to date on Charleston AFB.

And as always, thank you to my very own hero, Rob, for making our happily-ever-after a beautiful adventure.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Eleven years ago Mary Elise McRae had expected to fill a hope chest for Daniel Baker. But she’d never thought she would fill it quite so literally.

Her body currently folded inside a five-by-five-foot wooden crate, Mary Elise hugged the two small boys closer. The rough-hewn box jostled on the back of the flatbed truck, jarring bony little elbows and knees against her. Hard. Not that anyone dared do more than breathe in the cedar-scented darkness.

A lone horn honked along the stretch of desert road in their escape route from Rubistan. The truck jerked to a stop. A goat blocking the way? Or a cow? Either animal slow when Mary Elise needed fast. Headlights from the truck behind them shone through the tiny slits between the boards.

A Rubistanian guard from the embassy tracking them.

She’d heard his voice during the loading onto the truck. Procedure didn’t allow him on the U.S. government’s vehicle, but those ominous beams sparked fear inside her as surely as if he’d been sitting alongside puffing away on one of those cigars he favored. Would he use this delay as an excuse to ambush them? Cause an “accident?”

The diesel engine’s growl increased and the truck lurched to life. Mary Elise exhaled her relief in the stifling enclosure. Only another half hour, max, until she delivered Trey and Austin safely aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. Then she would say her tearful farewells to the two children being smuggled out of this Middle-Eastern hell in the back of Captain Daniel Baker’s C-17.

Danny.

His name echoed in her mind amid the grind of changing gears. What would Daniel say when he saw her for the first time in eleven years? If only he had advance warning she would be with the boys, but she’d expected to stay at the embassy, not be in this sweltering crate.

With any luck, they’d be too rushed to talk. She would pass over her young charges. Thank Daniel for answering the emergency SOS she’d anonymously routed through the economic attaché. Then haul butt off the airstrip, back to her tiny apartment in Rubistan’s capital, back to her teaching post at the American embassy school.

Back to her solitary life.

She wouldn’t let memories of Daniel make her yearn for anything more. She’d worked damned hard for her pocket of peace away from Savannah. Peace bought with the help of Daniel’s father. Trey and Austin’s father, too. And today she would repay that debt.

“Mary ’Lise?” Austin whispered from under her chin. “Wanna get out. Gotta go.”