"A regular doctor can handle this, but Danny—"
"Fine." He wrenched the zipper on the green military-issue bag closed, then slid a laptop computer off the dresser to rest beside the suitcases. "We have to swing through base, anyway, to mask our tracks and make sure no one sees us trading the boys off to Wren and Spike. We'll check in with Kathleen while we're there. Now that I think about it, Bronco's TDY—temporary duty—to McChord for two weeks. We can swap out my truck for his SUV when we leave base. I can clear a tail even if McRae's got help, but changing cars wouldn't hurt."
Damn it, she understood he had more expertise in these things, but she wouldn't be relegated to a sick bed with her pen and paper. She could pitch in with something besides lists.
She respected that Danny was loading his gun and packing for the worst, but he didn't realize Kent would never fight the kind of head-to-head battle that Danny must excel at. "Do I get any say here?"
"No."
Frustration swelled. Built. She owed him, but why did he have to be so damned stubborn with the whole his-way-no-matter-what attitude?
The doorbell pealed once, twice.
Daniel backed one step at a time. "You won't be any help to me if you pass out."
He spun away on his boot heel.
Great. He got to be bossy and right. As if the hag comment wasn't bad enough, damn his cute departing ass in a wrinkled flight suit, he had to go Cro-Magnon on her.
She should be thanking him for fixing her mess of a life, not cursing him. Except rogue thoughts of the future kept teasing her with how much these boys would need a mother's softening influence long-term so their knuckles wouldn't drag the ground on occasion, as well.
Compressing the stack of clothes, Mary Elise tucked Trey's nebulizer, an extra inhaler and the rest of his asthma meds on top, and zipped the suitcase closed.
"Boys?" She crossed the hall and opened the door to find both children perched on the bottom bunk with Game Boys in hand. They'd been told about the change in plans, but with so much to assimilate in the past week, she wasn't sure they fully understood.
Hell, she still didn't understand everything.
She held out her arms. Flinging aside the video game, Austin launched toward her and hopped up. He clung to her, spindly arms and chubby cheek pressed against her neck while Trey's thumbs flew over the handheld video.
Voices drifted from the living room, Darcy and Max with Daniel. Austin's hold tightened. Tears burned her eyes. Oh, God, she couldn't lose it in front of the kids.
"Don't wanna go wif' Wren and Spike." Austin's muffled voice rang with the steely resolve of a temper tantrum on the rise.
Guilt jabbed her like the unrelenting stab of endless needles.
She pushed back her tears and straightened his Winnie the Pooh shirt. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but it's just for a little while. You'll have fun playing with all of Darcy's family.">No way could he let her fly out of the apartment like this. He struggled to make sense of her words, a hard-as-hell proposition with her writhing under him. The glide of her body against his numbed his brain while heating other parts of him.
She clipped him on the chin.
All right, then. Passion tempered. He grabbed her flailing fists, manacled them with his hands over her head. "You need to rein it in, Mary Elise."
"Get off me, you son of a bitch, and I'll be just fine."
She glared up at him, her green eyes sparking with a mix of fury and a desperation that knocked him harder than her punch. She wasn't fighting him but some demon he couldn't combat until she let him in.
God, he never, never wanted to frighten her. As much as he knew of the old Mary Elise, he was beginning to realize he would need new instincts in dealing with this wary woman.
He gentled his grip. "Southern boys get particularly pissed when you talk bad about their mamas. Now hush up and listen for a minute." He trailed a finger down to loosen a strand of hair clinging to her full bottom lip. "You know I would never hurt you."
She stilled under his touch, br**sts pressed to his chest, legs twined. Back and forth, he traced the pad of his thumb over the giving softness of her mouth, felt the steamy rushes of breath gust over his skin.
Into him.
Her eyes darkened to that deep green of late summer grass. Oh, yeah, he remembered the shade well, felt the hitch in her breath that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with wanting.
Adrenaline-fueled desire. Logical explanation. Not that logic would stop him from—
Her face rose to meet him as he angled down. Mouth to mouth, open, ready, hungry. More adrenaline and heat and too long not touching sent his hands into the pooling mass of her hair.