Strategic Engagement (Wingmen Warriors 5)

Silence seemed the wisest course of action. Bunk beds. They would shop for those first and then pick out sheets. Austin said he wanted sailboats. Fine. Mary Elise would help Trey open up enough for the kid to choose what he wanted, too.

Quade pushed a paper across the desk. Daniel glanced down. The guy couldn't actually intend to write him up without grounds? Daniel looked closer and found … leave papers. The commander was giving him two weeks vacation.

"Get your household in order."

Confusion shifted the ground under his feet. He'd expected to have to beg for leave. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me. This isn't some kind of personal favor. You're no good to my squadron if you're distracted." He clipped through the words, snagging a fresh file to open. "Dismissed, Baker."

O-kay. Daniel spun on his heel to leave, the prospect of bunk-bed shopping suddenly not so daunting after all.

"Baker?"

Slowly Daniel turned.

Quade stood with his back to the door, shuffling pages in the file as if Daniel only warranted half of his attention. "Boundary pushing is necessary to expand the airframe's capabilities. Confidence in the air is admirable." He tucked another page to the back. "Intellectual arrogance, however, will put you face-to-face with an enemy missile someday."

The words chaffed more than any right-sideout T-shirt. Quade reached for the file cabinet. "Close the door behind you."

Daniel stepped into the hall, shoulders tensed just as after countless confrontations with his father. Hell, yeah, he had trouble with authority figures. Didn't take a freaking Sigmund Freud to figure that one out. Still, he managed. Pushed his boundaries, stayed alive and kept his career on track, accepting the occasional chewing out as the price to pay for freedom.

What baffled him, however, was how easily he'd fallen into the old habit of keeping his temper in check with the promise of seeing Mary Elise.

Much more "seeing Daniel" and she would lose her mind.

Mary Elise plastered herself against the truck door, the back now full of bunk beds, linens, enough food to feed an army, four bags of kids' clothes and two bags for her.Never had he grown impatient, even when Austin had screamed himself purple with a temper tantrum in the Base Exchange. Not once had Daniel snapped or glanced at his watch, darker emotions apparently shunted away. Playful Danny had reemerged with a charm and ease that simultaneously dazzled and tormented her. He slid into the family routine without a misstep, as if he lived to purchase new video games and supersize an order at the golden arches.

Which of course he did.

Palmetto trees whizzed by the window along the barrier-island road. Sailboats, a barge, a shrimp trawler bobbed in the distance until she lost herself in the hypnotic regularity. What if she and Danny had stumbled on each other again through a simple passing on the Street, no dangerous ex-husband lurking in her past? Could they meet for coffee and discuss their engagement and lost baby with adult perspective, then slide back into their old friendship? Maybe something more.

But she had met Kent. Married him. And knowing him had marked her—transforming her into a different woman, one as incapable of committing words to paper as she was of committing herself to another person.

Threat or no threat, she'd changed. Not for the better. Even if she scraped deep inside herself for the pieces to try, the risk wouldn't be hers and Danny's alone. Echoes of Austin's screaming fit still reverberated in her head, his anguish because he'd lost sight of her for seven seconds when she stepped around an aisle. She wouldn't mislead those two grieving boys into expecting her to stay. They'd lost enough.

Two grieving boys in the process of beating each other to death with blow-up baseball bats that had been on special with the kids' meals at the Base Exchange food court.

Austin thunked Danny on the back of the head.

Daniel ducked. "Hey, short stuff, you're gonna land us in a ditch. Hold off another minute while I park the truck and we can cross swords on the beach."

He wove the truck past an unusual abundance of cars lining the street leading into the complex. He crept past every full visitor spot and finally nosed his Ford into a tight space on the end.

"Someone must be throwing a party," he noted offhandedly as he reached back to unbuckle Austin.

Mary Elise couldn't help but think how a week ago he would have likely been joining the party. Still, he didn't say a word or show even a hint of the frustration he must be feeling.

Don't be so wonderful, Danny. Please.

She stepped out of the truck just as one of the second-floor condo doors flung open to emit music and laughter.

Spike strode onto the balcony, his arm hooked over his fiancée's shoulders. "Come on up, Crusty. Most of the squadron's already here and ready to party."

Daniel pulled Austin out before shouting, "Thanks, man, but I need to unload the truck and start putting together furniture so we're not bunking on the floor again. Besides, uh, I've got the kids."

"No problem," Spike insisted, tucking a bathing-suit-clad Darcy Renshaw closer. "There are plenty more rug rats here."

A carrot-topped little girl crawled between Spike's legs seconds before a linebacker-size man plowed past to scoop her up. Mary Elise forced herself not to wince at the sight of a baby that too easily could have been hers and Daniel's.