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The diamond ring burned a hole in his sleeve pocket even now, a constant reminder to learn from past mistakes. “This whole mission breaks regs. I’m not overly concerned about a little technicality such as where they sleep. The crew can rack back here if they need to catch a nap.”
The plane jostled on an air pocket. His hand shot up instinctively to brace her waist. Her familiar scent of honeysuckle teased his nose. His hand cupped her ribs, her gentle curves warming his skin. The heat of her now fired memories. Fired him…
His headset crackled in his ears.
“Crusty?” Renshaw called. “Wanna finish that update, please?”
He jerked his hand away and flipped the mouthpiece in place. “The nanny opted not to join us and sent a substitute. We have a stowaway.”
“Stowaway?” Bo Rokowsky piped up. “Man or woman?”
Daniel’s hand clenched around the memory of warm silk and soft Mary Elise against his hand. “Woman.”
“Is she hot?”
Yes. Most definitely, yes. “Not germane to the mission, Rokowsky.”
“’Cause if she is, I’ll take over down there and you can come up here.”
“Not needed,” Danny snapped.
“Touchy, touchy. Or maybenot enough touchinglately in spite of all those women wanting to cook you dinner and iron your flight suits.”
So what if he enjoyed a few casserole gifts now and again? Big deal, and nothing compared to Rokowsky’s history with women.
Danny shrugged through a kink his neck. Enough of chit-chat. He wouldn’t discuss Mary Elise over interphone with the squadron Casanova. A man who wasn’t getting anywhere near her during this flight.
“Keep this up, ‘Bo,’ and I’ll tell her what your call sign stands for.” The guy’s real name had long ago faded from memories as he’d gone by Bo since training days. “Meanwhile, how about working on flying the plane or something?”
Daniel flipped the mouthpiece aside again. “We need to talk.”
“We are talking.” Her spine pulled straighter—which exposed a tempting patch of graceful neck.
He nodded toward his brothers. “Away from them so they can’t read your body language. I need to know more about what happened in Rubistan if I’m going to keep them safe.”
Tension rippled through her.
He resisted the urge to stroke her arm, cup her shoulder and pull her to him. He wanted Mary Elise to fling her arms around his neck like so many times before.
Man, he’d missed her. Missed their easy friendship. No surprise he’d screwed it up. A slew of failed relationships since with casserole-cooking and uniform-ironing women hammered home his shortcomings in the relationship department. The latest to walk had deemed him “emotionally unavailable.”
Whatever that meant.
Sure, he was sorry when each relationship self-destructed. But not one of them had left a hole in his life. Except Mary Elise.
His grip tightened as if he could somehow reinvent the past by holding tighter. She winced.
He raised his hands, backing away. “Sorry.”
For so many things he wouldn’t do any differently now.Emotionally unavailableworked well for him.
“Let me get the boys settled, Danny. We can talk once they’re asleep.” At least she didn’t argue or pretend they could ignore the fact that she stood in his plane in place of the boys’ nanny from Florida.
He didn’t know why she was here. Didn’t know why it mattered so much to him. But he did owe her. “Thanks for getting them out of there.”
“I’d do it for anyone.”
Yes, she would. But she hadn’t done it for anyone. She’d done it for him. And just as when she’d passed him that Ho-Ho cake twenty-two years ago, he couldn’t walk away.
