and he meant it.

she nodded. spent.

"come here." he opened his arms.

she smiled one of those gentle mary elise smiles he'd once thought whimsical. now he knew they held more strength than most combat veterans.

"i'm not about to fall apart, danny."

"i know. come here, anyway."

she crawled up the hammock until she tucked in beside him. her head fell to rest on his shoulder, over his heart that wasn't as numb as he'd thought.

well, hell. he wasn't emotionally unavailable at all. his emotions were in total and complete working order. they'd just been in deep freeze from the moment he made the mistake of walking away from this woman.

now he felt it all chum to life inside him. her pain was his. his heart was hers.

he wouldn't have a second chance with his father, but his father had given him a second chance with mary elise. he only had to figure out how to win her back, how to be the man she deserved. because no way in hell could he lose her again.

chapter 15

mary elise flung her arm over her eyes, even though little light filtered from the moon into the cabin, and tugged the sheet higher. it inched down again.

god, danny was a covers hog. except she couldn't remember him going to sleep after they'd made love again.hmm. she snuggled deeper under the sheet. now there was a beautiful thought to savor, the way they'd come together after their discussion on the hammock.

at first she'd been worried he would stomp around, angry at kent, or push her to talk. instead he'd just let them both find escape from the roar of emotions through great sex. awesome sex. can't-imagine-it-ever-being-that-incredible-again sex.

wrapped in her memories-if not that darned slippery sheet-mary elise mentally listed ways to torment danny in turn later.

a warm tickle teased along her stomach, whisper thin and ... smelling of strawberries?

her eyes snapped open. daniel stood over her. gloriously n**ed and obviously very happy to see her. sheet in one hand, jar of preserves in the other, he poured a thin stream of the warmed syrup onto her. warm?

danny grinned. "wonders of the microwave."

oh, my. anticipation curled within her. curious as to how far he would take this, she sank back, even arched into the flow.

he drizzled higher up her body, closer, until with perfect aim, he tipped one breast, then the other. her ni**les tightened under the teasing torment of the heated liquid and daniel's unrelenting gaze. her hand drifted up, her body languid.

she swiped a finger through the sugary red thread, traced the hot length of him, tasted.

a growl tore from his throat. daniel dropped the sheet and straddled her in a clean move. "good morning."

and it was-for the first time in too long. she tore open a condom with lightning speed and sheathed him. "i sure do like the spin you put on breakfast in bed."

daniel dipped a finger into the soupy preserves pooled in the hollow of her belly and drew a circle. then again. until she tuned in to the pattern of him swirling her initials against her oversensitized skin.

"i may not do romance well, 'lise, but i do know about thorough, mathematical attention to detail."

"details. i like your details."

"what else do you like? maybe i could make a list of all the things i plan to do to you." he continued to write a veritable epistle on her body with bold fingers inking red strokes over her, all of her. "or maybe you could make a list for me of everything you want, everything you need."

playfulness lit his eyes, tinged with a deeper intensity, even an agenda of some kind. just a byproduct of maturity? the old danny blending with the new? visions of him pulling the ring out of his pocket earlier edged into her mind with thoughts of the past and future.

the flicker of nerves tickling her stomach had nothing to do with syrup. while she might be finding her footing in regaining her sense of self, there was only so much a person could handle in a few short days.

and at the moment danny was giving her all she could handle ... and more. she'd faced so many life-changing decisions in the past month, she wanted, needed a brief respite of light, simple.

this.

the rest would have to be faced eventually. if nothing else, she'd learned from the past months a person couldn't run forever. right now she wanted to embrace danny's playfulness and ignore the niggling questions in his eyes and her nervous belly.

daniel watched mary elise's eyes slide closed, pleasure flushing her skin almost as rosy as the thin sheen of syrup. victory chugged through him. he wanted her so hot for him she couldn't remember anything or anyone else. he wanted to drive them both into forgetfulness until he evaded the impending sense of doom dogging his steps. not so much over mcrae. that battle he could fight with strategy and logic and tangible defenses.

but he couldn't shake the fear that had gripped him once he acknowledged his feelings for mary elise. the risk of losing her multiplied tenfold without any formula or equation for what he could do to keep her.

this freaking intuitive crap was driving him nuts. and the best he could come up with was a damned heated jar of jelly to mark her.

"well, 'lise, my list would include everything i find totally hot about you." with dabs of jelly on his fingertip, he stroked, claimed her as his to touch, taste. love. "but i need you to let me know what you want."

the million-dollar question.

"all of that. i adore it when-" her words jumbled over themselves in nonsensical affirmations "-i really like it when you..."

he filled her.

"yes." a purr vibrated her chest against his. "when you do that."

he moved again. and again, all the while grappling for self-control, a damned elusive commodity around mary elise.

love wasn't easy and warm like friendship. this gripped him and held him as firmly as her body gliding against his, faster, leaving him no choice but to just move with it, with her, because he'd tried running, only to find she would always be a part of him, anyway.

he gritted his teeth against release, waiting, watching her, touching until he saw, heard her unravel in his arms. her purr swelled into a cry of pleasure so sweet he waited until the last echoes faded from his head before he cut the bands of control, surrendered to a flat spin fall, ending in an explosion of emotion and raw need.

each slug of his heart taunted him. no, he wouldn't walk away, but this new mary elise had a will of steel he couldn't bend, and this time he could be the one left behind.

mary elise perched on a bar stool, monitoring the two laptop computers while danny took a power nap on the sofa. he'd vowed no way would he be able to drift off in the water bed scented with strawberries and sex.

she smiled. she was officially a strawberry addict.the computers hummed reassurance beside her with video views of sunrise filtering over the trees, the marshy beach clear except for the occasional pelican or egret scrounging for breakfast. alarms stayed silent.

quiet settled, deep and odd after so long on the run with fear roaring in her ears. for the first time since she'd found that hypodermic needle in her bag, she allowed herself to contemplate a future beyond the cabin. she thought ... and came up blank. she knew all the logical answers, but taking the last step toward them seemed a bigger stretch than everything that had come before.

because of everything that had come before with danny.

start small. think about basics. she picked up an ink pen and pad, paused, exchanged the blue ballpoint for a red pen, strawberry red. surely that was a good omen to use for making a list of the things she would need to do to reestablish her life. where?

charleston?

logically, yes. she loved danny. now admitted she always had. how could she not? she loved the boys too. so why the can't-breathe feeling constricting her chest?

the last step stretched further in front of her.

with kent out of the way, she wouldn't have any more excuses. she would have to face danny. face herself. face risking forever with someone. she should be rejoicing.

instead she was scared to death.

it was one thing to dream of a future, another to actually live it. risk it.

and therein lay her core fear-how much it would hurt to fail with him again. taking danny's diamond solitaire off her finger had been hell before. this time her emotions went well beyond the teenage swells of first love that had characterized her feelings for him a decade ago.

her hand slowed on the paper. she glanced down at her list of things to accomplish, things she wanted to tell the boys. her hand stopped altogether. how strange. her list had taken on a more conversational tone than a note written in bullet statements.

slowly she began adding connector phrases, and a letter to trey and austin took shape. she let the words flow into a second letter, this time to her parents. another to kent that left her hand shaking.

she was writing, certainly not anything like the editorials she'd once written in hope of shaping readers' thoughts and politics. but words poured from her fingers in a healing balm she'd denied herself as if denying the need for a cure negated the ailment.

time melded into a stack of papers scattering the counter, even the floor around her feet as she wrote to everyone.

except daniel.

words failed her there. she let the half-spent pad of paper fall to her lap and studied him instead. arms folded tightly over his chest, he didn't seem to he in the least relaxed. she would have thought him awake if it weren't for the soft snore and the quirky twitch of his booted foot propped on the end of the sofa.

that hint of movement spoke of restless dreams. her fault, no doubt. she considered nudging him, but he needed the sleep, restless though it was, to prep for possible waking nightmares later outside.

setting the notebook aside, she walked around the edge of the sofa to sit cross-legged on the rug beside him. her hand lifted, carefully. she smoothed his hair back, and when he didn't stir, stroked again and again until his foot slowed.

would he have let her soothe him if he'd been awake? part of her shouted to quit with the psychobabble self-analysis and grab at this chance for happiness. once upon a time she would have, except this newer daniel had reminded her she should expect more from life, herself. even him.

and if the pushing for more shoved him away again? her foot twitched this time at even the thought of losing him. if only he would tell her what rumbled around in that thick, dear head of his, maybe then she wouldn't be so afraid of that last step.

leaning forward on her knees, she brushed her lips to his brow and let the bottled words flow free, an easy enough risk while he slept. "i love you, danny baker."

"i love you, danny baker."

daniel forgot to tread, almost choked on a gulp of chlorinated water, before he made his feet move again. "uh, me, too."correct response, right? he was going to be her husband in four days. so, sure, he loved her, too.

damn. except he didn't know what the hell he was feeling these days, mostly just putting one foot in front of the other. marching, focused on the steps like in pt training or cadence calls in formation.

daniel slid his hands down mary elise's slick sides, bared by her bikini, leaned to kiss her so they wouldn't have to talk anymore. laughing, she ducked away at the last second, diving beneath him. he took chase, both knowing she wouldn't get far, but still enjoying the ritual of their water games. why did things have to change?

he had his application to the university of georgia ready to hand-carry to the dean, with his father's help-a fact that chewed his pride almost as much as leaving the academy when he'd reached his senior year. another administrative mess his father would have to smooth over.

only four more days and it would all be real, marriage, different college ... baby on the way.

for now he just wanted to pretend he was home for the summer. of course his newly invented reality would still include sex with mary elise. he sure didn't want to backtrack that far.