When Darcy's fiancé eased into view, Mary Elise couldn't help but welcome the distraction. She scrambled to gather thoughts scattered further than the expanse of ocean with tiny dolphin fins slicing lazy paths in the moonlit distance.
Silently Spike dropped a quick kiss on Darcy's mouth, the wren tattooed over his heart proclaiming his devotion as loud as any bullhorn. "You got the party for a while?"
"Yeah, hon, everything's winding up."
"Thanks. And no grilling the guests, okay?"
She slugged his tattooed arm, dead center on the diver-down symbol. "Love ya."
"You, too." He dropped another kiss on her lips before sprinting away.
So much devotion glowed in the woman's eyes, as she watched her spike-haired fiancé hop the fence to make his way toward the ocean, that Mary Elise felt like an intruder. "Why don't you go join him? I'm fine on my own."
Darcy shifted her attention back. "No way. We're having girl talk, and God knows I don't get much of that around these bozos." She shook her head. "Honestly, Max was pretty much an antisocial hermit when I met him. And while he's come out somewhat, he still needs his cave time on occasion. He has a cabin on one of the more remote spots of a barrier island for when the suffer dude within him needs to have a Poseidon moment," she explained with an understanding that boded well for the long term.
"I'm sure he appreciates your accepting him as he is."
"He does. And honest to God, it's a two-way street. He's given up so much for me, changing jobs, relocating from the West Coast to Charleston. He even wears a coat and tie to work when he's not out on assignment."
Darcy reached across to Austin to smooth baby-soft curls, a wistful look in her eyes. Her hand fell back to her lap. "Okay, I confess, I'm so ga-ga happy with Max I can't help but see romance everywhere. But folks really are dying to learn more about you two."
"Guess my calling him Danny gave things away." In spite of her decision to share, Mary Elise found the words tougher to spill than she'd thought. She seldom granted herself permission to look back on those times. Hadn't dared look, knowing the strong person Danny had challenged her to be then might not approve of the more cautious creature she'd become.
"We call him lots of things. But never Danny."
"Old habits are hard to break." In more ways than one. She forced herself not to let her eyes linger on the crinkle in the corner of Daniel's eyes as he smiled. "My family moved down south when I was eight. My mother's lung specialist was located in Savannah, so my father made the transfer there."
"Crusty's from Savannah? I thought he might be from the South with that hint of an accent, but I wasn't sure."
A twinge of surprise nipped her. Danny seemed close to these people, and yet they didn't even know the most basic facts about his background. "We were neighbors. Best friends since elementary school."
Laughter rode the wind, Bo flirting with Hannah as she cooed over his generosity with the bicycles.
Mary Elise smiled, pool memories merging with bike-riding jaunts. "Daniel even taught me to ride a bicycle. I was catching a lot of ribbing from the neighbors over being eight and still using training wheels. I'd fallen once before." She pointed to the scar on her knee. "One day he got a wrench and took off the training wheels, presenting me with my shiny, dangerous two-wheeler. No way did I want to climb back on that bike again. But somehow when Danny told me I could do it, that this time would be different, I believed him."
Again Daniel scooped a passing Trey into the air for a cannonball splash, but without any repeat protests from Trey. Daniel inspired trust with his oozing confidence and invincibility. Only, the stakes were so much higher now than a dunking or scraped knee.
Darcy angled back on her elbows. "I can just see you sailing down that sidewalk, red pigtails streaming behind you while Danny whooped it up cheering you on."
Mary Elise smiled at the memory close to the one Darcy described. Those soaring two minutes of freedom were incredible. Until… "I broke my wrist."
Handful of sunflower seeds pausing midway to her mouth, Darcy flinched. "Ouch."
Mary Elise nodded. He'd gotten her right back on that bike again the minute her cast had been sawed off, albeit running alongside her to steady the handlebars. But unbending in his assertion that she could do it. She wasn't going to enter the fourth grade with training wheels.
"I was a real klutz in those days, arms and legs tangling. I did fine pedaling downhill on the straight and narrow, but once it came time to turn. Bam. Right into a hundred-year-old tree. Man, did his father ever chew him out."
"Kinda like Darth did today at the squadron."
"Darth?"
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Our private name for the new Squadron Commander. Daniel decided Evil Emperor was too long and opted for Darth, as in Darth Vader."
Mary Elise shivered, remembering well the stealthy man on the runway, dark, a little menacing—and conspicuously absent from a gathering where even the prior Squadron Commander had attended.
How bad had the reaming been? Yet Danny hadn't shown the slightest sign of tension all afternoon while shopping. Had he needed support or a confidant earlier, and she'd been too wrapped up in her own problems to notice? She would have never let that happen in the old days.
Of course they'd been more in tune with each other then. Still, she was surprised how much it ruffled her feathers to think of someone giving him a hard time. "Is he in trouble at work over the flight?"