Strategic Engagement (Wingmen Warriors 5)

Uh-oh. The potty dance. No arguing with that.

Sprinting across the carpet, Daniel scooped his brother up under his armpits. No direct pressure to the bladder. And face the kid forward. He'd learned that one the hard way. Nope, he didn't plan to add his own clothes to the packed hamper before he'd even finished breakfast. "Why'd you take off your pull-ups, pal?">Femininity and more desire flared in her bottle-green eyes searing through half the slipping threads of his self-control. He cupped her shoulders to keep from sliding his arms around her back again. "But I don't understand why you initiated this when you say you're leaving."

She traced the line of his jaw, square, stubborn and the one thing he'd inherited from his father. He suspected he might need every ounce of that stubborn will to make it through this conversation.

"Chalk it up to a weak moment brought on by moonlight and old memories." She cupped his cheek, her finger tracking up to trace the chicken pox scar on his temple. "We did make some wonderful memories together, and right now I so don't want to think about the bad ones, if you don't mind. We can get to those another time."

He waited, searching for the tiniest chink in her defenses, but this woman was tougher to read than the open Mary Elise from before.

Finally her fingers fell to rest on his chest, branding his skin, except she was pushing him away.

"Danny, as wonderful as that was, I really can't stay."

He looked, studied. She wasn't lying.

"Damn it, why not? I don't expect you to move in with me or take on responsibility for the boys. They're mine now. But it would be nice for them to know you're close. There are schools and newspapers here where you could work, and it's not like you want to go back to Savannah. Heard and understood on that point. But you haven't come up with a place you do want to be since Rubistan is out."

"What happens when you're transferred? Am I supposed to follow you forever because the boys need my help? You're not making sense, Danny, and that's not like you."

Hell no, he wasn't making sense. Nothing tumbling around inside him made sense right now and that pissed him off. His whole freaking world was flipping, first his father dying, then the boys moving in. Now Mary Elise was back in his life. Once he'd depended on her to be his Voice of reason and now he didn't want to grant her any more importance in his life, power over his thoughts.

But he couldn't let her walk away again with things so unresolved. He couldn't live the rest of his life chasing redheaded women who weren't her. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you? The real reason I don't want you to go."

Panic flared in her eyes. She backed away. "No. Forget it. I'm not trying to do anything except convince you to—"

He clapped a hand over her mouth. "I want you to stay."

Her eyes closed as if that would distance her from him.

Screw this evasive crap. He might not be Captain Happily Ever After, but he wasn't a coward. He would find some closure for both of them. Even if it meant—he shuddered—talking about feelings.

"The first year without you was the strangest damned year of my life. I kept looking for you. Picking up the phone to tell you something. Hell, sometimes I even started talking before I realized you weren't there. But the next year was a bit better. Then I hit a groove, moved on. Yeah, I thought about you sometimes, but I was living my life." A life full of redheaded women. "Now it's like those eleven years are gone, and the thought of telling you goodbye is tearing me up."

Her eyes drifted open, so full of pain it hit him like a load of shrapnel to the gut.

"But, Danny, those eleven years did happen. We're different people now."

Damn, he was in over his head here. But he had her talking, and he intended to press whatever advantage he could. "I'll be straight up with you, Mary Elise. You can check my pulse if you want to prove it." He gripped her wrist and flattened her palm to his chest again, over his heart. "I still suck at romance. Don't want it and usually manage to screw it up if it comes my way. But I make a damned good friend. Just ask that pool full of people."

Her fingers flexed in an involuntary caress. "I don't have to ask them. I remember."

"Let me help you." He gripped her shoulders to keep her from running.

What the hell had gotten into him that she'd become so important to him all over again? Maybe that call from his dad had messed with his head—his control—more than he'd realized. He wasn't the kind of guy who needed more than superficial friendships, fun pals, often. But damn it all, between inheriting two kids to take care of and the cryptic message from his father that he couldn't follow up on because of those two new responsibilities, this was one of those times he could use a little backup.

Preferably from someone he knew without question he could trust. "Tell me what's wrong so you can stay and be my friend again."

The tide tugged sand from beneath their touching toes for four ripping waves and he thought maybe, just maybe he'd gotten through to her.

A sigh shuddered through her and into him. Her fingers dug deeper in his skin, held. Each breath moved harder, faster through her until… What the hell was tearing her up so much?

Forget distance. He hauled her to his chest before she could blow him off with an evasive remark. Folded his arms around her and absorbed the tremors racking through her. "God, Mary Elise. What's going on here? Talk to me."

Her fingernails bit deeper into his skin, as if she couldn't get close enough. "I'm so damned scared, Danny."

Mary Elise's thready words barely whispered against his neck until he might have questioned his hearing. But he felt each word and all her fear soak into him along with the heat of her rapid breaths.

His hands roved her back, no bold lover's caress this time, instead resurrecting that friend within him. "Tell me," he coaxed. "Tell me what to do for you."