Private Maneuvers (Wingmen Warriors 4)

Darcy pulled herself through at least seven layers of sleepy fog. She turned her face into the pillow. A pillow. Not a lawn chair. Sometime during the night, Max must have carried her back to her room.

She'd actually slept through the chance to snuggle against that muscle-cut chest again. She must have been more wasted than she'd thought. Probably for the best as she would have been tempted to pull him down onto the covers with her to discover if he had other tattoos.

To uncover more pieces of Max's past.

Darcy arched into a languorous stretch. Her leg throbbed from the bites, just as her mind throbbed with memories of moonlight and Max. She didn't want to leave the bed and lose the dreamtime with him that had so perfectly overlaid the horror from earlier.

She'd found more distraction than she'd bargained for with the hunky professor. Sure, the night glow and solitude had been sexy, but the talking had been even more intimate. Somehow confusingly different from the friendships she shared with her crewdog buddies.

None of them could have pried bits of those past Guam days out of her. Yet wasn't this trip about putting that time behind her? She wrestled with lending too much importance to her sharing with Max.

Tougher than wrestling a ten-foot snake.

As difficult as putting her past behind her.

Of course, so far she'd made zero progress in that department, too. One little encounter with a tree snake and she'd been plunged back into that nightmare time.

Get a grip, soldier.

Darcy rolled out of bed. She tested her weight on her injured calf. Winced. Wincing even more at the next three days she would spend working a desk in the squadron until she returned to flying status. Might as well get to it.

Today would be as good a time as any to start confronting those critter memories with a hike to stretch out her tension kinks. She limped over to her dresser. The scraggly, puffy-eyed image in the mirror mocked her. No wonder Max kept his distance. She grabbed a brush and started yanking it through her tangled rat's nest of hair.

Darcy paused midstroke. One of her flowered sticky notes waited on the mirror. She dropped her brush beside her day-planner and peeled the paper from the mirror.

"Meet us at the bay—6:00 p.m. Lucy and Ethel."

Anticipation, too much, stung her stomach as she remembered his insistence from the night before that he accompany her on her jungle walks. She crumpled the pink Post-It note in her fist. Damn Max Keagan and his mixed signals. Sit with me on the deck, but don't touch me. Stay away. Come see me. What did he want from her? And what did she want from this man? She had friends. She wanted him to be something more, no question, but not while he carted around baggage from a dead lover.

Opening her fist, Darcy stared down at the mangled scrap of paper from a man who'd known she wouldn't want to be alone but had let her keep her pride. A man who called few people friends, but had been there for her. Somehow, just talking to him had hauled her through a hellish night. Maybe he could pull her through the next weeks confronting her past as well.

Darcy placed the paper on her dresser and slowly smoothed out the wrinkles until it lay flat again.

No, she wasn't sure what she wanted from Max anymore. But she knew she would be sorry if she left the island before finding out.

Max eased his boat into the bay. The sight of Darcy waiting for him had become familiar over the past two weeks, since he'd issued the initial invitation to join him. An invitation to keep her safe had somehow turned into something else.

Today she'd chosen the dock rather than a sandbar, sitting on the edge with her feet dangling in the surf. Her black suit clung to her honey-tanned body, dog tags dangling from her neck. Between her breasts.

He forced his hungry eyes up. Her welcoming smile blazed brighter than the tropical sun toasting his back.

A rare thing for him, a welcome-home scenario, and yet he'd become too accustomed to it in a few short weeks. Darcy waited while he moored the boat. Sometimes she met Perry and him at the dolphin pen. Other times she waited at the boat launch. Just for him.

He'd always been a loner. His animals made more loyal companions than people, anyway. They also had fewer expectations, a corner of his brain taunted.

Yet Darcy never asked anything of him. Just that he hang with her. No great hardship, hanging with Darcy Renshaw in her bathing suit.

Sometime during the past days things had gone from professional to personal. He and Darcy had scoured nearly every inch of the island together. Whatever ghosts waited for her there, she faced them, shadows lurking in her eyes.

He knew the basics about her kidnapping from her file, not that she'd ever confided in him. At least the "critter coincidences" had stopped, but he couldn't convince himself to back away. He was just being cautious.

Yeah, right, chump.

And in another few days she would be returning home. His stint as her unknown guardian would be over and he could forge ahead with finishing his mission.

Damn, but that sandbar and dock would be empty. More so than before. He would miss talking to her. Miss that he'd never had the chance to peel her suit off.

Miss her.