Femininity and more desire flared in her bottle-green eyes searing through half the slipping threads of his self-control. He cupped her shoulders to keep from sliding his arms around her back again. "But I don't understand why you initiated this when you say you're leaving."
She traced the line of his jaw, square, stubborn and the one thing he'd inherited from his father. He suspected he might need every ounce of that stubborn will to make it through this conversation.
"Chalk it up to a weak moment brought on by moonlight and old memories." She cupped his cheek, her finger tracking up to trace the chicken pox scar on his temple. "We did make some wonderful memories together, and right now I so don't want to think about the bad ones, if you don't mind. We can get to those another time."
He waited, searching for the tiniest chink in her defenses, but this woman was tougher to read than the open Mary Elise from before.
Finally her fingers fell to rest on his chest, branding his skin, except she was pushing him away.
"Danny, as wonderful as that was, I really can't stay."
He looked, studied. She wasn't lying.
"Damn it, why not? I don't expect you to move in with me or take on responsibility for the boys. They're mine now. But it would be nice for them to know you're close. There are schools and newspapers here where you could work, and it's not like you want to go back to Savannah. Heard and understood on that point. But you haven't come up with a place you do want to be since Rubistan is out."
"What happens when you're transferred? Am I supposed to follow you forever because the boys need my help? You're not making sense, Danny, and that's not like you."
Hell no, he wasn't making sense. Nothing tumbling around inside him made sense right now and that pissed him off. His whole freaking world was flipping, first his father dying, then the boys moving in. Now Mary Elise was back in his life. Once he'd depended on her to be his Voice of reason and now he didn't want to grant her any more importance in his life, power over his thoughts.
But he couldn't let her walk away again with things so unresolved. He couldn't live the rest of his life chasing redheaded women who weren't her. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you? The real reason I don't want you to go."
Panic flared in her eyes. She backed away. "No. Forget it. I'm not trying to do anything except convince you to—"
He clapped a hand over her mouth. "I want you to stay."
Her eyes closed as if that would distance her from him.
Screw this evasive crap. He might not be Captain Happily Ever After, but he wasn't a coward. He would find some closure for both of them. Even if it meant—he shuddered—talking about feelings.
"The first year without you was the strangest damned year of my life. I kept looking for you. Picking up the phone to tell you something. Hell, sometimes I even started talking before I realized you weren't there. But the next year was a bit better. Then I hit a groove, moved on. Yeah, I thought about you sometimes, but I was living my life." A life full of redheaded women. "Now it's like those eleven years are gone, and the thought of telling you goodbye is tearing me up."
Her eyes drifted open, so full of pain it hit him like a load of shrapnel to the gut.
"But, Danny, those eleven years did happen. We're different people now."
Damn, he was in over his head here. But he had her talking, and he intended to press whatever advantage he could. "I'll be straight up with you, Mary Elise. You can check my pulse if you want to prove it." He gripped her wrist and flattened her palm to his chest again, over his heart. "I still suck at romance. Don't want it and usually manage to screw it up if it comes my way. But I make a damned good friend. Just ask that pool full of people."
Her fingers flexed in an involuntary caress. "I don't have to ask them. I remember."
"Let me help you." He gripped her shoulders to keep her from running.
What the hell had gotten into him that she'd become so important to him all over again? Maybe that call from his dad had messed with his head—his control—more than he'd realized. He wasn't the kind of guy who needed more than superficial friendships, fun pals, often. But damn it all, between inheriting two kids to take care of and the cryptic message from his father that he couldn't follow up on because of those two new responsibilities, this was one of those times he could use a little backup.
Preferably from someone he knew without question he could trust. "Tell me what's wrong so you can stay and be my friend again."
The tide tugged sand from beneath their touching toes for four ripping waves and he thought maybe, just maybe he'd gotten through to her.
A sigh shuddered through her and into him. Her fingers dug deeper in his skin, held. Each breath moved harder, faster through her until… What the hell was tearing her up so much?
Forget distance. He hauled her to his chest before she could blow him off with an evasive remark. Folded his arms around her and absorbed the tremors racking through her. "God, Mary Elise. What's going on here? Talk to me."
Her fingernails bit deeper into his skin, as if she couldn't get close enough. "I'm so damned scared, Danny."
Mary Elise's thready words barely whispered against his neck until he might have questioned his hearing. But he felt each word and all her fear soak into him along with the heat of her rapid breaths.His hands roved her back, no bold lover's caress this time, instead resurrecting that friend within him. "Tell me," he coaxed. "Tell me what to do for you."
She inched back, her hand sliding up his face again. "Oh, Danny, can't you see that you and all this," she slipped her hand around his neck in a sensual glide, "this tension between us that we can't ignore is a big part of the problem? You need to believe me when I say I just can't risk staying here with you."
He sifted through her words, thought back to her sparse confidences about her divorce—marrying her "mistake." No question she closed off any time the man's name was mentioned. How badly had the ass hurt her?
Hell, who was he to talk when he'd hurt her himself years ago? And apparently she wanted to avoid an encore.
His arms around her twitched, muscles convulsively tensing to hold her closer, safer. As much as he wanted to reassure her, he couldn't. He knew himself too well. So he held her and stroked her back.
How long they stood there he didn't know. Yeah, the sex and friendship might be tangled in his head, but it felt damned good to have her back in his arms.
Finally, her breathing slowed to normal. She pulled away to let the wind slide an invisible wall between them.
Her mouth tipped in a half smile, a friend smile as if trying to jam more bricks on that wall between them. "Since I can't stay, do you want to have a quickie affair before I go?"
In spite of her kiss, she didn't mean it and they both knew it. And, hell yeah, while he wanted to sleep with her, stay awake with her, no way could he answer that one truthfully since it would send her running.
He might be confused about a boatload of things at the moment, but he knew one thing for certain. She could spit out excuses until sunrise, jam layer after layer of bricks between them, and it wouldn't change his course. More than ever they both needed closure so he didn't spend his life chasing redheads.
He would convince her to stay. He considered himself a master at tactics, his logical mind paying off big time in that arena. And a strategic retreat to regroup seemed the wisest battle plan.
Picking up her attempt at a lighthearted escape out of a land mine discussion, Daniel resurrected his best-bud smile and slung his arm around her shoulders. "Well, friend, if we do opt for that quickie, let's make sure at least one of us thinks to bring condoms this time."
Four days later, Daniel poured his third cup of coffee and scooped up a second peanut-butter-topped Pop-Tart. Only a week into his leave time and he'd made decent strides at settling the boys, thanks to Mary Elise, the master list maker.
Her lists picked up speed and length by the minute as if she had to get everything documented for him before she left. If they brushed chests passing in the kitchen, she logged the boys' favorite foods. An accidental walk in on her in her underwear—lime-green satin, heaven help him—and she'd spent an entire afternoon penning every childhood story she could remember the boys' parents ever sharing.And he was running out of excuses for her to stay.
The boys were enrolled and ready to start school in another week, after Thanksgiving break. House hunting would come after Christmas. He'd interviewed a battalion of nannies and lucked into a woman he could swear was a clone of Alice from the Brady Bunch, no less. Hell, if things went much better, Mary Elise would hit the road by sundown.
Which should be cause for rejoicing since he was losing his freaking mind locked in the condo with her. The bunk beds might be offering the boys a better night's sleep, but visions of Mary Elise alone in his queen-size bed had him twisted into trigonometric knots.
Their attraction multiplied exponentially by the minute, thanks to one kiss on the beach. Ending up horizontal together was a given before much longer.
But she would be gone soon. He could see it in her eyes even as she smiled and went through the motions of helping the boys start a new life. He knew her too well, and what parts he didn't remember from before or had changed over the years, he'd relearned with alarming speed.
That same crusader spirit of hers also made for a damned stubborn woman. It could well be his smart, crusader buddy knew what a rotten risk he was and thus had opted to stay staunchly vertical.
Of course he could see definite possibilities in vertical as well.
Sagging onto his sofa, Daniel sifted through the junk mail he'd ignored earlier in the week, tearing and pitching now that he finally had a free moment.
Free minutes sucked. Busy was better. He'd already run, worked out, showered and changed into his flight suit for a quick stop by the squadron.
But still the rest of the house snoozed on, so he would keep quiet. He felt guilty enough over how much he was demanding of Mary Elise. Her pale exhaustion tugged at him. Sure he wanted her to stay, but not because he and the boys had made her sick, for God's sake.
Shuffling the pile, he saved pizza coupons. Tore a vacation giveaway sweepstakes. Ripped over a flyer on a local women's clinic, complete with stats on infertility and other birth control factoids. He ripped that sucker in half. "Where was this when I could have used it eleven years ago?"
Daniel pitched the rest of the stack back onto the coffee table, brochures and flyers skidding into a fan across the glass top. A quick glance at the clock told him Spike wouldn't be up yet. Of course, the guy would have come by the night before if there had been any more on the answering machine message, since he'd turned the tape over to the CIA for analysis.
He had to hope his father had simply called about Mary Elise and not anything related to his death the next day. Otherwise, the international implications in an already rocky region boggled his mind. As if the military wasn't already maxed from the recent conflicts. Just what they freaking needed, another Afghanistan on their hands.
Feet shuffled down the hall, easing Daniel back to the present, home life overriding big world. He glanced up and found … a buck-naked Austin.
He sighed. Crap. Another load of laundry. Who'd have thought two kids could quadruple the wash load? The math defied logic.
Austin danced from bare foot to foot. "I gotta go."
Uh-oh. The potty dance. No arguing with that.
Sprinting across the carpet, Daniel scooped his brother up under his armpits. No direct pressure to the bladder. And face the kid forward. He'd learned that one the hard way. Nope, he didn't plan to add his own clothes to the packed hamper before he'd even finished breakfast. "Why'd you take off your pull-ups, pal?"