Strategic Engagement (Wingmen Warriors 5)

Daniel pushed to his feet. "So you can hit on my neighbor, then take my brothers cruising sandboxes?"

"The park's a great place to meet women. Joggers and dog walkers and babes lounging on picnic blankets." His twinkling eyes took on a rapturous gleam before he landed back in the present. "Not that you need any of that now. Have fun you two."

Winking, Bo pivoted away to jog toward the hot tub, lowering himself into the frothing bubbles beside Hannah.

With everyone assuming she and Danny were a couple in the making, it would be simple to let herself slip into that notion, as well. But while she might be willing to take pleasure from living where she could, not at so high a price. If she allowed herself to soften around Danny any more, she would crack and spill all.

The temptation was rapidly growing as strong as the desire to press her lips to his warm skin with beads of water begging to be sipped. "Go. Swim. Play. Whatever."

Please. Now.

He searched her eyes for an extended second before backing a step. "All right." He turned to Trey, the boy scowling in a pool chair with his knees hugged to his chest. "Hey, kid? Can you swim?"

Trey sniffed. "Of course I can."

"Good. Hold your breath." He scooped his brother up and launched him airborne toward the center of the pool.

Trey shrieked, closing his mouth with a gasp seconds before he landed in the water. Daniel cannon-balled a foot away from him. Spray sluiced a giant wave over the side.

Years slid away to the countless times they'd played in his parents' pool. God, she'd hated it when he'd dunked her. Until she'd learned to dunk him right back.

Daniel exploded to the surface beside Austin and shook the water out of his face.

Austin paddled, his water wings bobbing, and shouted between huffing breaths, "Mary Elise, come in. We're gonna play baseball."

Trey splashed him. "Volleyball, you dweeb."

"Yeah. That."

Mary Elise pulled her feet out of the water. "I'm not swimming today, sweetie. You just have fun with your brothers."

She backed away, mentally recording the image of Danny swimming with Austin's spindly arms locked around the strong column of big brother's neck. Daniel, a man so different from the steely warrior who'd drawn down an enemy guard in a foreign country to save his brothers less than forty-eight hours before. The dual image left her dry-mouthed. Rattled.

Intrigued.

She could watch. And she would enjoy. But she needed to keep enough distance so she could still leave.

Daniel spiked the ball back toward Tag. For all the good it did him. The loadmaster tapped it in the air with ease, setting up the next shot as he passed the volleyball to his teenage son.

Who missed it–hallelujah–since the boy was too busy ogling the high schooler springing off the diving board, Zach Dawson's daughter, Shelby.Teenage hormones packed a ferocious punch.

Daniel's gaze drifted back to Mary Elise. He looked beyond the new lines of worry and fatigue around her eyes to the clear green gaze he'd fallen hard for in his youth. Remembered how they'd known everything about each other. Shared every thought, no matter how personal.

Maybe it was the swimming scenario hammering him since they'd enjoyed countless hours in his parents' landscaped backyard and kidney-shaped pool growing up. He'd shut down those memories after they split, but now he'd have to learn to live with them bombarding him from more directions than antiaircraft fire.

"Crusty?" Tag shouted. "You with us, man?"

Daniel nodded, rejoining the game, his mind lofting back to the past as surely as the ball sailing through the air.

"I'm not swimming today, Danny."

Daniel stroked his way through the numbingly cold pool. His teenage body hungered for exercise outside the stifling formality of his parents' house. Early spring weather in Savannah made for chilly water, not that he cared. And usually Mary Elise didn't care, either.

"Why not?" He stopped inches from the cement edge where Mary Elise perched gripping her knees. "Scared of a little freezing water?" He flicked drops in her face.

"Yeah, right."

He hauled himself out to sit beside her. "What's the matter? Really? Come on, spill, because I'm not buying the scared-of-cold-water crap for even a second."