her accent.
Years later the connection had frayed because of a night of impulsive sex. Great sex. Impossible-to-forget sex with his best friend.
Then not friends. Not anymore. No friendship. No baby. No connection with Mary Elise. Until today.
The hair drifted across his control panel.
Renshaw keyed up the mike. “Ten seconds and counting down.”
Daniel steadied his breath with each count. Focus. Fly. It must just be his father’s death two weeks ago knocking him off balance. Since he’d been so deep in-country on an assignment by the time the message reached him about his father, Daniel had even missed the memorial service. A miscommunication snafu left out his stepmother’s death, so he’d assumed the boys were fine.
Definitely a hellacious couple of weeks of surprises. At least he was in the homestretch.
“Three. Two,” Wren chanted. “One. Over the Rubistanian border.”
Daniel twisted to check-visual out the window. Like clockwork, the MiGs peeled away.
A collective sigh echoed through the headset.
In the clear. “Okay, Tag, go ahead and break open that crate now.”
He would worry later about what to do with his brothers. Between their nanny and the brand-new pair of Game Boys in his flight bag, he might not even have to figure that one out until morning.
Daniel reached to punch in the radio frequency to notify Ankara center in Turkey that they’d crossed over into their airspace. The charge of having bested the enemy stirred an adrenaline buzz.
“Captain Baker?” Tag clipped through the headset.
“Yeah, Tag?” Daniel’s hand fell away from the radio controls. “Problem?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. I think you’re going to want to come down here and check this out for yourself.”
Tension snapped through the crew compartment.
“Roger. I’m on my way.” Daniel waggled the stick, the fighterlike stick in the C-17 a sleek upgrade from the steering yoke of older cargo planes. “Wren, you got the jet?”
The stick wiggled in his grip in tandem response as she signaled her control. Sweat dotted her brow, dampening her short brown hair to her head, but no hint of stress showed through her concentration. “Roger, Crusty, I have the jet.”
Daniel unplugged his headset and charged down the narrow stairwell into the belly of the plane. Victory-sparked adrenaline ignited into a darker dread.
He may not know these brothers of his, but they were counting on him, damn it. They didn’t have anyone else other than a megalomaniac uncle in Rubistan who wanted their inheritance to funnel into terrorist training camps.
No way in hell would that slime get his hands on Trey and Austin.
Daniel cleared the stairs and entered the cargo hold. His eyes adjusted to the dim glow of lights tracking the roof and illuminating the metal cave. The crate gaped open. Tag stood with boots braced, the bear of a man cradling a tousle-headed three-year-old like a seasoned parental veteran.
Austin.
Relief pounded through Daniel. His eyes jerked to the grouping by the row of seats where Trey sat with his elbows on bony knees. Everyone alive.
Cricking his neck from side to side, Daniel strode toward the cluster hovering around Trey. The two Ravens stood guard in full battle dress camouflage, machine guns slung over their shoulders. Body armor padding their chests, both men scowled down at the willowy woman kneeling in front of Trey.
Red hair trailed down her back.
Daniel shut down thoughts of another woman. Everyone seemed okay and that’s what mattered most. Some a helluva lot more than okay. The woman’s brown silk shirt clung to her slim shoulders, to her elegant arms. And legs. Man, she had long legs, legs encased in tan pants smudged with dirt. Hugging a sweetly rounded bottom that begged admiration.
Daniel scrubbed a hand over his gritty—and damned wayward—eyes. Adrenaline played hell with a man’s libido, especially after two days of no sleep. He did not need to be seducing the nanny, no matter how intriguing the idea of swiping aside all that silk and hair sounded.
He had other, more practical needs for her, rather than testing the waters to see if she might be interested in some uncomplicated sex. Uncomplicated sex was easy to find with any of the string of women who wanted to “fix” him—iron his wrinkled flight suits, make him eat right. Dealing with his brothers, however, would be complicated as hell.
Daniel shifted his attention to his nine-year-old brother. Trey hunched over, hands hooked behind his head on his buzz-cut brown hair as he sucked in gasps of air.
Crap. Daniel strode forward. “What’s going on here?”
Trey jerked upright. “No-thing,” he gasped out.
The nanny’s shoulders rippled under silk. Still kneeling, she straightened her back but didn’t turn.
His hand fell to her shoulder, wavy red hair snagging on his flight glove. A jolt shot up his arm.
Don’t be a sap. There were at least a million women with hair that color. “Ma’am? Is there something we can do for him?”
Slowly her head turned, her fiery hair tugging under his fingers. She looked up at him, and Daniel stared down into the greenest eyes he’d ever seen.
Holy hell.
There might be a million women with hair that color of auburn. But there was only one woman with eyes that particular shade of fresh-mown spring grass.
Mary Elise braced her shoulders with the same defensive bravado she’d worn when telling him the rabbit died.
“Hello, Danny.”
Chapter 2
Mary Elise decided the inside of that box might not be too bad after all. At least in there she could only hear Danny. Now she could hear and see him. All of him. Every damned fine inch of him.
Dim lights filled the gray cavern, glinting off Daniel’s dark hair, casting shadows along the angles of his face. His lanky good looks had hardened into a lean body cut with whipcord strength that stretched just shy of six feet tall.
If only she could distance herself from his appeal, but the day-from-hell wreaked havoc on her normally rigid self-control. Instead, she could only stare at him and soak up the differences wrought by age.
One gloved hand flattened against the side of the plane, he lounged with that same loose-hipped carelessness he’d worn when she’d told him she was pregnant. As if her announcement hadn’t meant the end of his Air Force Academy dream since cadets can’t marry until after graduation.
Except his dream hadn’t ended. He’d won the Academy ring and wore the flight suit now, wrinkled though it might be at the moment.
Attraction
