Damn, she was tired of living like this, but what else could she do if even her own parents didn't believe her? Postpartum delusions, Kent had told them when she'd had no choice but to break her long silence over the growing problems in their marriage. Depression from the final late-pregnancy miscarriage.
Yeah, she sure as hell was depressed over losing her child and her marriage. But no way had she imagined the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed to her head as an assassin tried to coerce her into the car so he could launch her vehicle off a bridge in a fake suicide.
All on Kent's payroll.
She'd fought. Escaped. And no one had believed her. The more she'd insisted, the stronger the accusations of paranoia became. One mention of putting her in an institution from Kent with his monied influence and she'd hauled ass out of the country.
Unease tickled along her spine, like a caterpillar making its way ever so slowly up her back. The sense of being watched. Mary Elise held herself still, refusing to cave and look. Much more of this and she would be acting as crazy as Kent convinced her parents she was.
"Mary Elise?"
She jolted. Looked up and found Darcy Renshaw climbing up the pool ladder.
Relief shuddered through her, shaking the caterpillar sensation free. She was being watched, by one of Daniel's fellow flyers.
Dripping wet, Darcy sank to the middle of the lounger and sat cross-legged with a long-legged grace that had her fiancé eyeing her with smoky appreciation from across the pool. "Can I get you something to drink?" She stretched to offer up a bag of sunflower seeds from the smorgasbord on the table. "Or anything to eat?"
"You've already done so much. All of you have. I'm a little overwhelmed by it all, so many gifts and so many people. Please say you wrote everything down, like the clothes Tag brought, or was his name Jim or J.T.?" The loadmaster with shoulders as broad as Danny's. God, she hoped his wife knew what a lucky woman she was. "See, already I can't remember half the names, and men can be dense about things like thank-you notes."
"Don't worry about it. No one expects thanks. This is what we do for each other."
"Still…"
Darcy's finger sawed along her dog tag chain pensively. "I'll bet you're tough to help."
She shrugged. Help meant dependency and debts, and she was through with that.
Darcy's laser gaze eased. "There are a lot of us to meet at once, with call signs and real names doubling up what you're trying to learn. You're probably best off just remembering the call signs." She gestured with her fistful of sunflower seeds. "Over there, the big blond guy with the baby who brought the football, that's Bronco. He's married to the flight surgeon Kathleen—or Athena, if we're using nicknames—who took care of Trey when you landed."
"Bronco?" She glanced over at the man with his wife, packing up their baby daughter to leave. "Because he looks like a bull?"
"No," she said with a wicked glint lighting her eyes. "Although I'll have to use that on him next time he rolls out a crewdog prank. Actually, he turned down a pro ball contract with the Broncos to stay in the military."
"Wow. Mind-boggling that he would give up that much." Of course Daniel had also given up his family money to pursue his own dream. A calling more than a job, he'd once explained to her as he filled out his application to attend the Air Force Academy. "So there are stories behind some of the names. I guess I just thought they usually linked to someone's personality or the last names, like yours, Wren Renshaw. Or like Danny's, Crusty Baker."
"Sure it goes with his last name, but also with the fact that he's a bit of a mess." Darcy grimaced. "Uh, I don't mean that as an insult. His scruffiness is kind of cute."
And yet there was so much more to this man who flew military planes and commanded respect from a crew with as much ease as he unraveled equations—or dunked Trey.
God, if only she could view Daniel as simply scruffy or cute it would certainly save her a lot of yearning she had no choice but to ignore. "No offense taken. I've known Daniel a long time."
Curiosity flared in Darcy's eyes again. "Then, like Bronco, other names are tied into a watershed event." Darcy pointed to the Nordic-looking guy moving in on Hannah while Bo's back was turned. "Scorch set his mustache on fire once in the Officer's Club bar with a drink called a Flaming Dr Pepper." Her finger shifted toward a laughing hulk of a man digging into the ice chest to fish out two beers, passing one to Crusty. "There's a great story about Cobra over there, but it's best not to share the details with kids around."
Slowly the men and women became more than a few names and loud revelers for Mary Elise. They took on personalities in a tight community she'd invaded.
Absorbing the pieces of Daniel's world, she realized distance didn't seem to be helping anymore. He'd exploded back into her life and mind. She wouldn't be able to stop envisioning him in his new environment, wondering about him, how he was handling the changes. Even with a live-in nanny, he would be thrown feet-first into parenting those boys. At least, she hoped he would.
Her hand gravitated to cup the back of Austin's head, protectiveness twining through her as surely as the boy's silky soft curls wrapping around her fingers.
Would Daniel find some hot-tub Hannah woman to share his life with and ease his load? Would the woman love these two precious little boys?
And one very grown man.
"Okay, fair's fair." Darcy's voice sliced through the green haze of jealousy. "I've ponied up some gossip, now how about trade some in return. Starting with how you met Danny."
Mary Elise yanked her gaze off broad bare shoulders and over to the hostess snacking on sunflower seeds with undisguised curiosity. What would it hurt to share a few harmless stories? She could leave something of herself behind in his world from her younger days, the part of her that had been fearless, strong. Willing to risk the occasional broken bone or heart.
"We grew up together." Mary Elise searched for words to explain a relationship she wasn't certain she understood anymore. She stared out over the beachy expanse, the winding island coastline glittering with lights.