Strategic Engagement

“Until I find another nanny.”

Which would take at least a week. “For the boys.”

“I never thought otherwise.”

He ducked back into the crew compartment, leaving her alone with her thoughts and two sleeping children. The cubicle echoed without him, the repercussions of her decision crowding the confined space. Since Kent didn’t know her location, a week should be safe before she risked alerting him by withdrawing money from her account. She could use the time to decide where to go and what to do with her life.

A week to stay with those two boys who’d first tugged her heart because of Daniel and then stolen her heart by being themselves. She wouldn’t even let herself think about being a surrogate-mother figure to them. Her dreams of family were dead, thanks to Kent.

Mary Elise leaned forward and tucked the sailboat blanket around Austin, his puffy breaths whispering over her wrist. She started to pull away, but he grappled for her hand without waking.

Stroking a thumb over butter-soft skin, she studied the miracle of five tiny fingers and couldn’t stem memories of all the babies she’d miscarried. She’d wanted to adopt, but Kent had insisted they keep trying for a biological child. She’d gone on the pill, anyway. For all the good it had done her. Then the surprise pregnancy had lasted longer than any of her other four first-trimester miscarriages.

She’d finally dared to hope.

Losing her son at twenty-four weeks had almost destroyed her. Discovering Kent had replaced her birth control pills with placebos months earlier finished the job.

Weariness swamped her along with the memories. She surrendered to the need for sleep and the tug of a chubby little hand. Mary Elise slid into the bottom bunk, curving herself protectively around Austin.

No, Kent had never raised a hand to her, which somehow made his menacing plans after she left all the more chilling. Hindsight told her she should have seen the warning signs. He’d been abusing her and controlling her in other ways for years, culminating in that final violation of her body and trust.

Now she had one week to find a new safe haven. And pray seven days of playing house with Danny and two precious boys wouldn’t slice past her scar tissue into what little soul she had left.

One booted foot resting on the bottom crew bunk across from him, Daniel sprawled in the unrelenting seat. Well, as much as a guy could sprawl in the tight space. Another half hour and he would take over flying while Wren sacked out.

He should be sleeping, but couldn’t. Too wired. Seeing Mary Elise now when he was still reeling from his father’s death rattled him. No question.

Daniel studied the three sleeping figures that had thrown his life into chaos. Sure he didn’t give a damn about ironing his uniform or eating on a schedule, but he was in charge of his world and his emotions.

Or he had been until Mary Elise and the boys.

In the past hour he’d made strides in regaining control. She was staying. The boys would level out. And somehow that still didn’t unkink the knot in his neck that had started right about the minute she’d turned those deep-green eyes his way for the first time in eleven years.

No risk of seeing her eyes now. She lay sleeping on the bottom bunk, her back to him, her body curved around Austin. Her hair tangled around the child and over the edge of the bed. The little guy snoozed on with his knees tucked to his chest, his blanket gripped in a white-knuckled fist.

Leaning, Daniel captured a lock of her hair and tested the silky texture between two fingers. He’d done the right thing asking her to stay. The boys had already lost their parents. They needed a familiar person to ease them through the transition.

On the top bunk, Trey rolled and shifted until he settled onto his back. All three, dead to the world.

Thank God they weren’t dead period, only exhausted from the long hours and ordeal. A few more minutes of staring at them and he would have his balance back.

A shadow slid through the doorway. Daniel glanced up to find Tag waiting silently.

The Senior Master Sergeant nodded toward the bunks. “I’ll watch over them if you need to catch some sleep.”

“I’m set until we land. No worries.”

Tag studied him silently, gaze falling to the lock of hair still twined around Daniel’s fingers.

Well, hell.

Daniel dropped the strand. A lone determined hair clung to the wrist of his flight suit like before. He didn’t waste energy refuting Tag’s all-knowing expression. Why bother when he actually appreciated the older man’s no-bull approach to life? The man appreciated facts and the uncomplicated.

Years of working top-secret test projects at Edwards AFB in California had honed Daniel’s instincts. He didn’t think of those instincts as anything of a woo-hoo nature. Rather, he made observations and processed them quickly. Efficiently. Two weeks into his transfer to Charleston AFB in South Carolina, Daniel had realized Tag was a troop to trust.

Even with something as important as Mary Elise.

“You know, Tag, I believe I’ll take you up on that offer in another half hour.” Daniel flicked aside the hair on his wrist. “I don’t need sleep, but I have to head back up front soon and I’d rather not wake Mary Elise. So, yeah, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on them in case one of the boys rouses before her.”

Tag lumbered in through the door, curtain closing behind him, and lowered himself into the other seat. “Small world, her showing up on this flight.”

And an even smaller world on base. No doubt, gossip would make the rounds three times over by the next nightfall. Not from Tag, but Bo would have a helluva time sharing the inside scoop at the club.

“Family connection. We knew each other a long time ago.” Daniel shot him a half smile. “That ‘Danny’ of hers probably gave us away.”

“Ah, so you’re old friends.”

Daniel hesitated a second too long.

Tag’s quirked brow shot up toward the older man’s salt-and-pepper hairline.

Finally, Daniel settled for, “We have…history.”

Tag nodded again. Waited. Studied the sleeping trio. Finally shifted his attention back to Daniel. “Is the older kid yours?”

The notion blazed across Daniel’s mind in a flash of horror. Had she faked a miscarriage? He’d never seen Trey’s mother pregnant. He could imagine selfless Mary Elise cutting him free so he could complete his senior year at the Academy.

Simple math severed the irrational thought. Trey was over a year too young. “No. Trey’s not mine.” Daniel’s head thunked back against the bulkhead. Damn it, why couldn’t Tag have shown up fifteen minutes later once the world had stopped rocking under his boots? “Ours would have been ten now.”

Hell, he hadn’t told anyone about that time with Mary Elise. Something about the way Tag didn’t push made it easier to talk during a day when the past crowded his brain.

Daniel hooked a hand on his knee, boot propped beside the trailing hair, and lost himself in the hypnotic sway of red. “She miscarried early, before we had a chance to get married. I would have married her though. No way would I have let her down.”

But he had, in so many other ways, both of them too damned young. He’d been knocked on his ass by how much a few short weeks of making love to her had shaken him. So he’d run like hell the minute she’d given him the green light.

“And here you two are again.”

“Not for long. She’ll settle back in Savannah and I’ll be in Charleston.”

“All of two and a half hours apart,” Tag’s dry tones mixed with the rumble of four engines. “Might as well be on different planets.”

Daniel snorted. “I think I enjoyed you more when you stayed quiet.”

“My wife likely disagrees,” he answered, his dry wit more parched than normal. Not that the guy looked open to making the current sharingfest a two-way deal.

Tag canted forward, elbows on his knees. “While I’m on a roll, here’s some hard-earned wisdom you can take or leave. So you had a thing going once? But you were too young to hang on to it. Makes sense. That Mars and Venus stuff is hard as hell for an old guy like me to figure out. It can be damned near impossible when you’re younger.”

Daniel shook his head, half believing, yet knowing he couldn’t let himself off the hook that easily. “Where were you eleven years ago when I wanted to hear something like this?”