Strategic Engagement (Wingmen Warriors 5)

"I asked you a question, Daniel."

Man she had that schoolteacher tone down pat, and damned if he could remember the question because he'd been busy drooling over her feet.

"Danny?" She scooped up a pinecone and pelted him on the chest, dead center on his survival vest. "I'm tired of talking about me. What have you been doing with your life since finishing the Academy?"

Talk would be good, keep his mind on task rather than on thoughts of taking her back into the cabin.

But once the sun set… He cleared his throat and mind. Talk. "I started out in a regular flying squadron—then became a test pilot with C-17s out at Edwards Air Force Base in California for a few years. Flew with all the newest cutting-edge gizmos on the planes. Figured out which ones worked, which ones didn't and why."

"You enjoyed that." Her soft affirmation blended with the rustling branches and gushing waves.

"Oh, yeah." Almost as much as he would enjoy peeling those copper-colored shorts from her body in another hour.

"Sounds dangerous."

"Sometimes." His thoughts skidded over to less tempting terrain. Would she run screaming from stories of his more-than-one emergency landing? Even a crash landing in the middle of the California desert?

"So you have connections."

Her question yanked him back to the present. "So you're a dog with a bone you're not letting go of."

She toed him in the side. "You're calling me a dog? First washed-out hag and now dog?"

He grabbed her foot in a firm hold before she could damage a kidney. "You have the prettiest feet."

She snorted.

Still, he couldn't unwrap his brain from the notion that his job bothered her, a problem he should have considered before. The stresses of military life had broken up plenty of marriages in the squadron.

Whoa. Marriage?

Wasn't he thinking about trying the dating thing as grown-ups? Not that they'd ever really dated in the first place, just shot straight from pals to nonstop sex. The next logical step included taking things slow, spending time together, healing old wounds and progressing from there.

But he couldn't stop thinking about her old engagement ring in his flight suit pocket, his permanent reminder not to repeat past mistakes. Couldn't stop remembering what it had once looked like planted on Mary Elise's finger.

She scrunched her toes, drawing him from his haze. "Ouch," she squawked.

His hand jerked away from her foot. "Damn, 'Lise, I'm sorry."

"Gotcha!" She toed him in the side again, her gaze unrelenting. "I told you already. I'm not going to break."

He smiled. God, he loved her spunk, her steely will. This woman was far from breakable.

Memories bombarded him of their hours together, rediscovering each other on the water bed. The floor. The sofa. "I figured that out."

"I'm stronger out of bed, too. I realize there are things about your job you can't tell me. But don't hold back on what you can share because you're worried I'll turn all Victorian on you and you'll need smelling salts. Got it?"

He forestalled her lethal toe. "Yes, ma'am." The ring in his pocket seemed to scorch a brand through the fabric and into his skin. If he even intended to consider those thoughts, then she needed to know more about him before they both landed in way over their heads. "About connections, let's just say once you get a high-security clearance for one mission they tend to tap you for other missions since you're already in the loop."

"And you enjoy that," she answered with understanding and no censure.

"Oh, yeah."

Her fingers trekked inside the leg of his flight suit, scratched along his calf. "And you enjoy that?"

"Oh, yeah," he repeated. "I think I could really get into this shared control gig."

Next thing he knew, he had the ring out of his pocket and wasn't sure who was more shocked, him or Mary Elise.