Daniel speared a hand through his tousled hair until it stood even more on end, much like his buddy Spike's. "I'll find bunk beds over at the base tomorrow. The BX furniture outlet has a decent enough selection."
"Uh, the boys might want to go with you and choose for themselves."
"Right. Of course." He shot her a wry smile. "Not used to accounting to other people."
He shoved away from the wall and crossed to the bed. Hands so comfortable flying an airplane fumbled a bit in fitting the bulky comforter around tiny shoulders, not that it stalled him in the task. He persevered until the shiny gray bedspread tucked as snuggly around Austin as any cotton sailboat blankie.
Her heart hitched.
Tension rippled up Daniel's back beneath the stretched green fabric: He reached toward Austin.
Swiped a tear off the cherub cheek.
Tears stung her own eyes. "He wants his mother."
A long swallow moved Daniel's throat before he dropped to the foot of the bed. Broad shoulders sagged for the first time in a day that would have leveled most men hours ago. "What the hell am I going to do with two kids, Mary Elise?"
His hoarse question filled the room. She crossed her arms over her chest to keep from gathering both Austin and Danny close. It would be difficult enough for her not to play mama to this motherless child. She damn well couldn't afford to play anything more than friends with Danny. "You'll make adjustments."
"How? My schedule's hellish. I'm gone for weeks at a time. This place is too small." He flicked a hand toward the glass doors revealing the stretch of sandy beach. "Even that's a hazard with Austin around."
His quiet anguish echoed, transporting her back to the time he'd asked her how his father could be so cliché as to opt for a trophy wife in his midlife crisis. Why couldn't the guy have just bought a freaking sports car?
Daniel rested his elbows on his knees while studying the mud-brown carpet as if it bore answers not likely held in the stack of books by his bed. "What kind of screwed-up world is this where those boys don't have anyone but me and a terrorist uncle ready to recruit them for his own special brand of 'summer camp'?"
Austin shuffled under the covers. With undue concentration, she closed the glass door and drew the steel blinds, trying to avoid other memories. Of knowing Daniel was trapped by circumstance now as he'd been years ago with her pregnancy. But even at twenty-one, he'd been a man of honor, putting others first. She'd known he would come through for their baby.
She just hadn't expected the surprise need for him to come through for her, too.
A tiny voice taunted from the far corners of her brain that she'd misjudged Kent. Horribly so.
She'd been looking for something different in those days. Her medical problems had increased, the endometriosis progressing to the point she'd realized bearing children would be doubtful. Her first miscarriage years ago hadn't been some fluke, and with the build-up of internal scar tissue over the years, even conception became difficult. She'd met Kent at a time when she'd expected to focus on her newspaper career since life had shifted her plans.
Kent changed the rules.
She refused to let her ex-husband take anything else from her, and that included what good memories she had of Daniel. Despite the traumatic last hours, she welcomed the distraction of thinking about someone else's problems, tackling concerns that didn't involve a stalker ex-husband.
Moving deeper into the room, she let her hands glide over Daniel's dresser, tap a change cup, an abacus. "The world isn't fair, Danny, and it's wasted energy expecting it to be. We make the best of what we have."
Mary Elise shuffled the abacus beads back and forth and back again. Whimsical memories slipped past her guard. "God knows, you always were one who could build a rocket out of a junior chemistry lab and a piece of your mother's Corning Ware."
A rusty chuckle slipped free. "I blew a hole in the yard big enough for a pig-roast. Man, was my father pissed."
Too easily she could see Danny standing in the middle of his parents' landscaped lawn taking a reaming from his father. The son not recognizing his father's fear for his safety. The father not recognizing his son's need for freedom and acceptance.
"But you built a rocket, Danny, when most kids were still struggling to put together store-bought model planes or cars." Forget keeping her distance. She knelt at his feet so she could see his eyes. "You can do this. You'll move to a bigger place. A live-in nanny is probably their best choice, someone they can bond with. They have money, which gives you options."
"The old man's money." He grimaced.
She raised a hand to rest on his knee. He ducked away from her touch. From her offer of comfort.
Daniel strode toward the door. "There are extra towels under the sink. Sweats on the closet shelf, T-shirts in the top dresser drawer."
She trailed him, the two of them meeting in the suddenly too small portal, a pendulum in the hall ticking away the seconds. She should have expected him to duck past. The old Danny had dodged offers of comfort over his parents' split, seeking escape in her body rather than in her arms.
His eyes narrowed, his pupils widening. Uh-oh.
She stared into his brown eyes so deep and dark. He'd lost his father in a far more tragic way now than during the rift at his father's wedding. Would Daniel reach for her again? She wanted his kiss as much as—no, more than—before since she knew the promise of what they could experience together. Her body hungered for human touch.