Catherine Mann - Strategic Engagement

Cricking his neck from side to side, Daniel strode toward the cluster hovering around Trey. The two Ravens stood guard in full battle dress camouflage, machine guns slung over their shoulders. Body armor padding their chests, both men scowled down at the willowy woman kneeling in front of Trey.

Red hair trailed down her back.

Daniel shut down thoughts of another woman. Everyone seemed okay and that’s what mattered most. Some a helluva lot more than okay. The woman’s brown silk shirt clung to her slim shoulders, to her elegant arms. And legs. Man, she had long legs, legs encased in tan pants smudged with dirt. Hugging a sweetly rounded bottom that begged admiration.

Daniel scrubbed a hand over his gritty—and damned wayward—eyes. Adrenaline played hell with a man’s libido, especially after two days of no sleep. He did not need to be seducing the nanny, no matter how intriguing the idea of swiping aside all that silk and hair sounded.

He had other, more practical needs for her, rather than testing the waters to see if she might be interested in some uncomplicated sex. Uncomplicated sex was easy to find with any of the string of women who wanted to “fix” him—iron his wrinkled flight suits, make him eat right. Dealing with his brothers, however, would be complicated as hell.

Daniel shifted his attention to his nine-year-old brother. Trey hunched over, hands hooked behind his head on his buzz-cut brown hair as he sucked in gasps of air.

Crap. Daniel strode forward. “What’s going on here?”

Trey jerked upright. “No-thing,” he gasped out.

The nanny’s shoulders rippled under silk. Still kneeling, she straightened her back but didn’t turn.

His hand fell to her shoulder, wavy red hair snagging on his flight glove. A jolt shot up his arm.

Don’t be a sap. There were at least a million women with hair that color. “Ma’am? Is there something we can do for him?”

Slowly her head turned, her fiery hair tugging under his fingers. She looked up at him, and Daniel stared down into the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.

Holy hell.

There might be a million women with hair that color of auburn. But there was only one woman with eyes that particular shade of fresh-mown spring grass.

Mary Elise braced her shoulders with the same defensive bravado she’d worn when telling him the rabbit died.

“Hello, Danny.”

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.”