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End of bedtime ritual discussions. Life back in control, Daniel forged ahead into the late-morning sun.
Yeah, order. Control. Gained from a logical act of the will.
He led them toward the military ambulance, his old Air Force Academy pal Doc Kathleen Bennett waiting as promised. His freshman year at the Academy, he and his classmate Tanner Bennett had both followed her around like lost puppies. Bennett had ultimately won. For the best, since those two were meant to be together, and he hadn’t harbored any feelings deeper than a teenage case of the hots.
The flight surgeon braced her boot on the bumper, tucking a stray strand of wind-whipped red hair behind her ear. Daniel paused in his tracks. How strange he hadn’t realized something until just that moment. Every woman he’d ever dated or been attracted to had red hair.
Control spiraled into a nosedive.
CHAPTERFIVE
Mary Elise gatheredher red hair in one hand and flung the rope over her shoulder. Amid a string of stilted houses, Daniel’s condo complex loomed ahead through the windshield of his truck. Their visit with the doc had been followed by a quick-mart trip and a refueling stop at McDonald’s, which stretched her never-ending day into late afternoon. Finally she could sleep.
In Daniel’s home.
She eyed the singles-type setup, a sleek soft-gray cement three-story complex complete with a pool, hot tub, tennis courts, set on marshy beachfront property that guaranteed they couldn’t let Austin out of their sight for even a second.
At least Trey was healthy according to the flight surgeon, apparently an old classmate of Daniel’s, amarriedclassmate with a baby. Mary Elise stifled the rogue twinge of relief. No, she didn’t need to confuse herself by combating strange twinges of jealousy over women like Kathleen Bennett or the copilot, Darcy Renshaw. Instead, she faced something far more unsettling. More proof of how Daniel had made a new life with new friends —friendship far more important than fleeting flings.
While she guided a bleary-eyed Trey toward the door, Daniel unbuckled the sleeping Austin and grabbed the shopping bag of pull-ups, silent. As he’d been for hours. Not that she intended to risk chitchat before a long sleep.
An hour later she stood at the sliding balcony doors in Daniel’s bedroom, Austin snoozing in the queen-size bed behind her. She pressed a palm to the screen separating her from the glistening breakers crashing against the shoreline. Egrets bobbed on spindly legs, long beaks pecking the sand while gulls dipped and soared to find a late-afternoon snack.
A prickle of awareness tingled up her spine as she felthim,Daniel, enter the room, and she didn’t even have the energy to deny she felt him. He cruised to a stop just behind her, his heat warming her back in contrast with the gentle sea breeze caressing her front.
She glanced over her shoulder, the sleek silver and gray decor of his bedroom somehow matching the man’s precise mathematical mentality. “Trey’s asleep?”
Daniel definitely resembled the part of an overwhelmed father, hair askew, weariness stamping his handsome face. “Yeah, hopefully the dinner kept them up long enough to nudge them toward sacking out through the night. Trey didn’t even balk at the prospect of a sleeping bag on the computer room floor once I mentioned the alternative was bunking with Austin in pull-ups.”
Mary Elise offered him the obligatory chuckle he obviously expected and shifted her gaze to the artwork gracing his walls rather than the laugh lines crinkling the corners of Danny’s eyes. The framed Escher-style print of a winding staircase seemingly leading nowhere pretty much summed up her life.
He leaned a broad shoulder against the molding framing the sliding doors. “You sure you don’t mind sharing a bed with the little guy tonight?”
“Not at all. I’m too tired to notice he’s there.”
Daniel eyed his bed, rumpled gray spread rising with each baby breath from Austin. “That pull-up thing is leak proof, right?”
“Says so on the package.” A smile tugged at her lips as she thought of Daniel’s boggled expression when they’d bought the sleeper-diapers, a purchase so conspicuously different from that of the airman behind them intent on buying a bottle of wine, a plastic-wrapped rose, and a box of condoms.
Mary Elise banished that memory. Pronto.
Daniel speared a hand through his tousled hair until it stood even more on end, much like his buddy Spike’s. “I’ll find bunk beds over at the base tomorrow. The BX furniture outlet has a decent enough selection.”
“Uh, the boys might want to go with you and choose for themselves.”
“Right. Of course.” He shot her a wry smile. “Not used to accounting to other people.”
He shoved away from the wall and crossed to the bed. Hands so comfortable flying an airplane fumbled a bit in fitting the bulky comforter around tiny shoulders, not that it stalled him in the task. He persevered until the shiny gray bedspread tucked as snuggly around Austin as any cotton sailboat blankie.
Her heart hitched.
Tension rippled up Daniel’s back beneath the stretched green fabric. He reached toward Austin. Swiped a tear off the cherub cheek.
Tears stung her own eyes. “He wants his mother.”
A long swallow moved Daniel’s throat before he dropped to the foot of the bed. Broad shoulders sagged for the first time in a day that would have leveled most men hours ago. “What am I going to do with two kids, Mary Elise?”
His hoarse question filled the room. She crossed her arms over her chest to keep from gathering both Austin and Danny close. It would be difficult enough for her not to play mama to this motherless child. She couldn’t afford to play anything more than friends with Danny. “You’ll make adjustments.”
