Catherine Mann - Strategic Engagement

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?”

“Making my own mistakes,” Tag answered with fatherly wisdom, even though his forty-one years made any true parental connection impossible.

“She and I are history.”

Tag stayed silent.

Crap. Did parents go to a school to develop that look?

Daniel followed Tag’s gaze. Straight down to Daniel’s hand that had somehow found its way back into Mary Elise’s hair.

He untwisted his finger from the strands, not a speedy proposition. The hair unwrapped and unwrapped in a long unraveling stretch.

“History,” Daniel repeated as if he could will it so.

“Sure. You can take that route. Let go, quick and easy like. Or you can use the second chance to get your head on straight about this woman. Your choice. Don’t screw it up—” he grinned, standing “—sir. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

Tag swept aside the curtain and ducked out of the small quarters, his hard-earned wisdom lingering long after the curtain stopped rippling.

Daniel watched the pendulum swish of Mary Elise’s hair and thought of that wary flash in her eyes at the mention of her ex. More cause to be careful around her, and it wasn’t as if the woman wanted a commitment from him anymore.

He did “no commitment” damned well.

Tag’s talk of second chances had merit. Now was Daniel’s chance to right the past. He may have taken the easy route and let her send him packing eleven years ago. But he wasn’t running away from her now.

With a cool determination that had carried him through countless secret test missions, Daniel fixed his mind on a dual goal. Nothing would happen to his brothers on his watch. And no one, most especially himself, would ever hurt Mary Elise again.

Kent McRae gripped his steering wheel until it hurt. From the comfort of his Mercedes, he watched the C-17 circle above the thick band of evergreens. Night sounds and darkness wrapped around him while he waited, tucked just outside the main gate of Charleston Air Force Base.

The drive up from Savannah after the call from the economic attaché in Rubistan had given him time to think, to strategize. He didn’t like it when plans went off-kilter.

And Mary Elise had skewed his life once too often.

He forced his hold on the steering wheel to relax. No losing control. Stay steady and focused. If only she’d been inside that rigged car with Ambassador Baker as he’d been led to expect. That she’d survived, then turned to another man to help with the boys, stirred a cold wrath.

One explosion and his life could have been back on track, the past cleared away so he could start his future with a new wife. However, the week’s events would only prove a minor setback for a persistent man.

Kent raised binoculars for a better view of the circling plane. Persistence paid off, after all. If only Mary Elise could have believed him about that. But her defective body housed a defective mind. She simply didn’t comprehend, no matter how often he’d told her to keep trying and eventually they would have their perfect family.

He’d loved her, damn it. So much. And she’d left him. He’d thought he could win her back. Finally accepted otherwise. And if he couldn’t have her, at least he would have a clean slate to begin a new life with a more malleable woman.

And Baker? Every crime needed a fall guy. The appearance of a murder/suicide between old lovers should satisfy authorities.

The oversize cargo plane straightened out of the turn, lining up with the runway, lower, closer, roaring overhead. Kent watched and waited. Patient.

Persistent.

Her patience had worn thin.

Mary Elise wanted to call this day over. Now. The cargo plane had finally landed in Charleston, and they were seconds away from exiting the metal cavern that had grown more claustrophobic with each minute closer to the States.

Hitching the sleeping Austin higher on her hip, Mary Elise followed the loadmaster’s lead through the belly of the plane toward the hatch. The remaining hours of the flight had dragged, drawn tight by anxiety over what awaited her once she exited the front gate. What would she do with her life and how would she deal with the possibility that Kent might find her?

Moreover, how would she handle a week alone with Daniel?

She tried to shake off the jangle of emotions. The fear of the unknown had to be worse than reality. Surely once she had a good night’s sleep she could restore her boundaries and do away with the awful vulnerability pricking her insides.

The seal popped and swooshed as the hatch swung open. Her brief nap in the airplane barely made a dent in her weariness. Not that landing put her much closer to crawling into bed and sleeping away the exhaustion and frustration of the past hours. Trey still needed to check in with a doctor about his asthma.