Strategic Engagement

“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.

“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.”

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.

Strategic Engagement
Catherine Mann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CATHERINE MANN

writes contemporary military romances, a natural fit since she’s married to her very own USAF research source. Prior to publication, Catherine graduated with a B.A. in fine arts: theater from the College of Charleston and received her master’s degree in theater from UNC Greensboro. Now a RITA^® Award winner, Catherine finds following her aviator husband around the world with four children, a beagle and a tabby in tow offers her endless inspiration for new plots. Learn more about her work, as well as her adventures in military life, by visiting her Web site: http://catherinemann.com. Or contact her at P.O. Box 41433, Dayton, OH 45441.

Dedication:

To military families everywhere.

Acknowledgments:

To Homer and Karen Tucker, treasured friends who are family in my heart if not by blood relation. Thank you for your never-faltering faith in my stories.

To Major Kevin “Bjorn” Brown and his wonderful wife, Leah. Thank you, Kevin, for your generous insights into the C-17 world. (Any mistakes are strictly my own!) Many thanks also to Leah, a talented author and dear friend, for cheering me on and keeping me up to date on Charleston AFB.

And as always, thank you to my very own hero, Rob, for making our happily-ever-after a beautiful adventure.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Eleven years ago Mary Elise McRae had expected to fill a hope chest for Daniel Baker. But she’d never thought she would fill it quite so literally.

Her body currently folded inside a five-by-five-foot wooden crate, Mary Elise hugged the two small boys closer. The rough-hewn box jostled on the back of the flatbed truck, jarring bony little elbows and knees against her. Hard. Not that anyone dared do more than breathe in the cedar-scented darkness.

A lone horn honked along the stretch of desert road in their escape route from Rubistan. The truck jerked to a stop. A goat blocking the way? Or a cow? Either animal slow when Mary Elise needed fast. Headlights from the truck behind them shone through the tiny slits between the boards.

A Rubistanian guard from the embassy tracking them.

She’d heard his voice during the loading onto the truck. Procedure didn’t allow him on the U.S. government’s vehicle, but those ominous beams sparked fear inside her as surely as if he’d been sitting alongside puffing away on one of those cigars he favored. Would he use this delay as an excuse to ambush them? Cause an “accident?”

The diesel engine’s growl increased and the truck lurched to life. Mary Elise exhaled her relief in the stifling enclosure. Only another half hour, max, until she delivered Trey and Austin safely aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. Then she would say her tearful farewells to the two children being smuggled out of this Middle-Eastern hell in the back of Captain Daniel Baker’s C-17.

Danny.

His name echoed in her mind amid the grind of changing gears. What would Daniel say when he saw her for the first time in eleven years? If only he had advance warning she would be with the boys, but she’d expected to stay at the embassy, not be in this sweltering crate.

With any luck, they’d be too rushed to talk. She would pass over her young charges. Thank Daniel for answering the emergency SOS she’d anonymously routed through the economic attaché. Then haul butt off the airstrip, back to her tiny apartment in Rubistan’s capital, back to her teaching post at the American embassy school.

Back to her solitary life.

She wouldn’t let memories of Daniel make her yearn for anything more. She’d worked damned hard for her pocket of peace away from Savannah. Peace bought with the help of Daniel’s father. Trey and Austin’s father, too. And today she would repay that debt.

“Mary ’Lise?” Austin whispered from under her chin. “Wanna get out. Gotta go.”

“Shh,” she urged as loudly as she dared. “Soon, sweetie. Soon.” She hoped.

Sweat trickled down her neck, caking sand to her skin as Mary Elise willed Austin silent. A crate of computers didn’t whisper for a bathroom, after all. Sure, a diplomatic pouch was immune from inspection—a pouch being U.S. government property of any size from the embassy. Totally immune. Unless that “pouch” starting talking.

Her arms locked tighter around thin, preschooler shoulders on her left and the more substantial nine-year-old frame on her right. At least Trey was old enough to follow instructions, his shoulders pumping under her arm with each heavy breath. Little Austin was a wild card.

Bracing her feet against the other side to combat jolts, she suppressed the illogical bubble of laughter. Definitely a card. Wild. Precious. And looked so much like his adult half brother Daniel.

So much like the baby she and Daniel might have had if not for the miscarriage.

Of course she hadn’t been able to turn away when Austin had pumped out tears at the sight of the crate. He’d begged for Mary ’Lise to crawl inside with him instead of his twenty-one-year-old nanny, a pale nanny who’d seemed all too willing to bow out.

The truck squealed to a stop. A tiny hand tucked into hers and clutched tight with chubby stickiness. She pressed a silent kiss to Austin’s brow.

“Well, hello there, gentlemen,” the masculine bass rumbled.

Danny.

Even with eleven years more testosterone infused into deepening his voice, she would recognize that hint of a drawl anywhere. No rushing. Even in the middle of an unstable country, on a darkened runway where threats lurked in countless shadows…Danny didn’t hurry for anyone. Life followed him. He never followed life.

His ambling lope thudded closer. Could they hear her heart thump outside the box?

A second set of footsteps sounded. Faster. Cigar smoke wafted through the thin slits between boards. The distinctive scent of imported Cubans favored by the Rubistanian guard from the embassy snaked around her.

The slower bootsteps, Daniel’s, stopped. “How downright neighborly of you to offer an escort, but my folks here can handle things now.”

“We have procedure to follow in my country, Cap-i-tain,” the guard clipped out in heavily accented English.

“Lighten up there, Sparky. I know all about your procedure. The paperwork’s pristine…well, except for some ketchup on the edge there from my fries. Now back on up so my loadmaster can finish the transfer.”

Daniel’s affected flippancy reached into the box with calming comfort. And unwelcome arousal. His voice shouldn’t still have the power to strum her numbed senses to life, especially not now. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was a mature woman with control over her life. She’d moved on after the debacle with Danny. Married someone else.

Bad example.

Lighten up, ’Lise. Danny’s mantra echoed in her head through the years. Life’s just not that complicated.

She wished.

“Time to head on out, Sparky,” Daniel called, casual and irreverent as ever. “The sooner Tag over there can load up and lock down, the sooner we’ll get off your runway and out of this…garden spot.”

A trail of tangy smoke slithered into the box. “What is your hurry, Cap-i-tain?”

“Hurry?” Daniel’s bass rumbled closer, louder. The truck shifted with the weight of another body. “I need to head home for my annual pilgrimage to the Frito-Lay factory. Besides, my copilot’s just a kid and it’s past her bedtime.”

“Hey, now,” a female voice called from below. “Frito-Lay? I thought you were going to Hershey, Pennsylvania.”

“That was last month, Wren.”

“And you didn’t bring me any chocolate? I’m crushed.”

“I thought about you. But what can I say? I got hungry on the way home.”

Their lighthearted voices filled the box, and Mary Elise resented the twinge of envy over his easy rapport with the copilot. She’d once shared that same relationship with Daniel until the summer their friendship had spiraled into something more. So much more.

Memories swirled in the murky box with oppressive weight. So Daniel still loved his junk food. They’d met twenty-two years ago over a chocolate Ho-Ho. She’d pulled the treat from her Holly Hobby lunch box to thank him for bloodying Buddy Davis’s nose after the bully made fun of her Yankee accent.

Did Daniel still like video games, too? Hide his genius brain behind jokes?

Kiss with an intense thoroughness that turned a woman’s insides to warmed syrup?

A hand patted the box once, again, and again, with slow reassurance. Daniel. “And speaking of hungry,” he said, his hand thumping a lulling lazy beat. “There’s a flight lunch and a bag of licorice with my name written all over it waiting in the cockpit. Let’s step this up.”

Smoke spiraled inside, mingling with the ripe scent of fresh-cut boards. A low wheeze hissed from Trey. His head fell back against her arm as he sucked in air.

Tension stretched inside her. Mary Elise rubbed a soothing hand along his back, a poor substitute for his inhaler, but all she could risk. The smoke, cedar and fear were too much for anyone, much less a child with asthma. As if these kids hadn’t already been through enough with their parents’ “accidental” deaths and a Rubistanian uncle trying to claim them…and their inheritance.

All the more reason to get the children to their half brother on American soil. Screw official diplomatic channels where the boys could be in college before Rubistan coughed them up.

Mary Elise hugged the boys closer, her hair snagging along the wood. Pulling. Stinging her scalp. Hard. Her eyes watered.

Oh, God. Come on, Daniel. They needed to get rid of that guard so someone could crack open the box, let Trey breathe.

And let her out.

Another puff of cigar smoke tendriled inside. “How interesting that your name tag reads Baker, Cap-i-tain. That is the last name of your ambassador who so recently died.”

The thudding stopped. Silence echoed for three wheezing breaths from Trey before the rhythmic tap resumed. “Baker’s a common last name over in America, Sparky.”

“Of course. If you were related you would be in mourning, not working.”

The vehicle dipped with added weight, then footsteps shuddered the truck bed. Not Daniel’s lope. The clipped pace of the guard. “Is that a loose board I see right—”

“Don’t even think about it.” Daniel’s steely voice iced the humid air. The click of a cocked gun echoed. “If you lay so much as one finger on that box, I’ll blow your damned hand off. A diplomatic pouch is sovereign United States government territory. Move back and get off this truck. Now.”

Bugs droned in response along with the low hum of the idling plane engines. Please, please, please, be careful, Danny. She hadn’t wanted to see him and now she couldn’t bear the thought of never laying eyes on him again. She’d brought him here, hadn’t had a choice for the boys. But if things went to hell, she would never forgive herself.

An exhale sounded along with the retreat of boots and smoke. The gun snicked as it was uncocked.

The crate rolled forward.

Air rushed from her lungs. Not that she should be surprised at Daniel’s victory. The teenager she’d known carried an untamed look in his eyes, the veneer of ten generations of Savannah wealth having worn thin for him. So often he’d flung himself into brawls like a scrappy street fighter in defiance of his pedigree. In defense of her. He’d always won, too. Except once.

I’m sorry. She winged her apology for then as well as now.

He’d taken a punch from his father when she’d been as much at fault for the unplanned pregnancy. Of course Daniel had never raised a hand to defend himself.

God, she wished she had the option of fighting back against her ex-husband, fists and brawn and bluster, instead of shadow dancing with insidious threats. He’d never actually struck her, just controlled her, betrayed her body in a way so soul rending she wondered if she could ever recover. And then when she’d dared leave him, he’d hired a hit man to take her out.

Not that the police would help her, thanks to her ex’s far-reaching influence.

She wasn’t a wilting flower, but she also wasn’t stupid. So she’d run. She’d even been willing to move to a hotbed of political unrest in the Middle-Eastern country of Rubistan to stay alive. At least in Rubistan no one thought it might be a nifty idea to kill her simply because she couldn’t bear him children.

Visions of her Georgia home chilled the sweat sealing her silk shirt to her skin. Come on, come on, come on. Open the damned box.

The sides closed in with claustrophobic pressure. She shoved away the need to run. For the boys. The precious warm weights beside her who smelled of chocolate and sunshine and dreams she would never have.

The crate tipped. Mary Elise and the children slid, wedging into the corner with the minimal padding of a couple of blankets.

“Tag, go easy there,” Daniel called. “Wouldn’t want to crack a keyboard now, would we?”

“No worries, sir.” A voice sounded beside them as the box jerked to a stop. “I’ll treat it like one of my own.”

A mechanical drone built. The dim streaks of light faded. The load-ramp shutting? The world faded around her to near black until the ramp clanked closed.

She forced her breathing to regulate. Maybe they needed privacy to open the crate. That made sense. Then they could slip her back off the plane under the cover of darkness. Not ideal. But doable.

Lazy footsteps picked up speed along the metal floor. A final thump sounded on the planked top. “Lock it down tight, Tag.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The thud of boots faded. Chains jangled in the time fugue of waiting. Was it safe to talk? Engines roared and grew louder. Forget waiting.

Mary Elise opened her mouth and shouted. And couldn’t hear herself over the engines.

Her heart hammered her chest. The boys wriggled closer. She screamed. A soundless shriek swallowed by the din.

The crate vibrated, joggled as the plane moved. Faster. Forward. Picking up speed. The roar built, swelled. Tension clenched her chest until each breath became a struggle like Trey with his asthma.

The box tilted back. Gravity slid her with the boys until she landed against the wooden wall as the plane…

Went…

Up.

Oh, God. They were airborne.

Airborne. And not a damned moment too soon.

Captain Daniel “Crusty” Baker maxed the throttle. Level at twenty-eight thousand feet. Time to plow through the night sky out of Rubistanian airspace so they could crack open the crate. He’d tried to keep the takeoff as smooth as possible for the boys and their nanny, but he couldn’t risk letting them out.

Not while a pair of enemy MiG-21s flew an ominous escort in the star-studded sky.

Swiping aside the unopened bag of licorice, Crusty switched to closed interphone frequency. “Hold tough in back, we’re almost over the border.”

Where he hoped the MiGs would peel away.

“Roger, sir,” answered Senior Master Sergeant J. T. “Tag” Price, loadmaster for the mission. “We’re hanging in there.”

Relief pilot, 1st Lt. Bo Rokowsky, loomed, strapped in behind Daniel, restless energy filling the cockpit.

Copilot, 1st Lt. Darcy “Wren” Renshaw, worked from the right seat, punching numbers into the navigational system. “Five minutes and counting down.”

No room for error with those MiGs hungry for an excuse to pop them with an infrared missile. Damn, but he owed this crew. Sure the mission had been CIA sanctioned—barely. Approved in a sped-through process that would likely leave heads rolling later when their new squadron commander returned from TDY—temporary duty.

Renshaw had signed on out of friendship. Tag out of honor. Rokowsky out of craziness. The wild-eyed lieutenant constantly gave new meaning to their squadron motto of Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.

Daniel adjusted airspeed, keeping his eyes trained on the holographic HUD—heads up display—perched at the bottom of his windscreen. He owed Renshaw double. Her boyfriend, who worked for the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, had used his old CIA contacts to push through paperwork for this embassy run in less than forty-eight hours after the call from the economic attaché. The final mission orders had even included a couple of the Air Force’s elite security forces, Ravens, to accompany them.

Who couldn’t offer protection against the MiGs keeping pace alongside.

Daniel’s gun weighed like lead in his pocket. The Rubistanians knew. Of course they knew. But their government couldn’t search without concrete evidence the boys were in that crate.

His half brothers. A couple of kids he’d only seen a handful of times. Sure, he could blame that on being oceans apart, but he knew damned well it had nothing to do with distance in miles. It had everything to do with the distance between his father and him that had started eleven years ago. His father had been a senator in those days. Full of himself and his power, the old man had dumped his wife for a hot young translator from Rubistan and started a new family.

Later his father had assumed the position of ambassador to Rubistan so his wife could be near her family. Of course, then the old man had decided to dump her for a newer hottie model—until a blown-up embassy Mercedes had preempted the divorce.

Yeah, the old guy sure as hell had been a poster boy for the wisdom of bachelorhood. And damned if he didn’t feel guilty as hell for the crappy, disloyal thought. If only they’d had a chance to come close to understanding each other.

Daniel’s hand clenched around the throttle. Steady. They were almost to the border. The box was locked down tight, with the nanny inside to keep the kids calm and safe. The transfer had gone as smoothly as could be expected.

Except when he’d almost had a freaking heart attack over seeing a long wisp of red hair trailing from a crease in the crate. One glimpse of that strand glinting in the tarmac lights and he’d hauled ass onto the truck to put himself between the auburn thread and the guard. Hand behind his back, he’d given the telltale strand a quick yank—and prayed the nanny would stay quiet.

Daniel flicked at a lone red hair clinging to his sleeve. Again. He’d flung it away more than once, but the thing kept sticking to his flight suit. He shook his hand to dislodge it from his glove and tried not to think about another person with hair that shade of auburn. Why the hell was she right there in his mind today?

Mary Elise.

He damned well didn’t believe in the mystical. He preferred the mathematical precision of his world of dark ops testing. But he’d never been able to explain the connection between himself and Mary Elise that had started over a shared Ho-Ho after he’d beaten the crap out of Buddy Davis for picking on the new kid about 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.”