She expected him to kiss her, was ready for it.

But nothing in their previous contact had prepared her for the electric jolt when he took her lower lip between his teeth. The slow, erotic nips generated shiver after shiver.

Jill gave fleeting thought to her mission, to the need to maintain distance. And then her conscious mind shut down. As greedy now as he was, Jill arched her spine to increase the contact. At that, Cody dragged his mouth from hers and forced himself to speak.

“If we’re going to stop this celebration,” he ground out, “we’d better do it now.”

He was giving her the choice. Jill blew out a ragged breath. “I vote we continue the celebration and see where it takes us.”

“Oh, I can tell you right now where it’ll take us,” he warned. “The question is, are you sure you want to go there?”

A Question of Intent
Merline Lovelace

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MERLINE LOVELACE

spent twenty-three years in the U.S. Air Force, pulling tours in Vietnam, at the Pentagon and at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform, she decided to try her hand at writing. She’s since had more than forty-five novels published, with over seven million copies of her work in print. She and her own handsome hero live in Oklahoma. They enjoy traveling and chasing little white balls around the fairways.

To Tammie and Dr. Dave—

thanks for all the years of fun family holidays and the expert medical input for this book!

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

Chapter 1

“Rattler One, this is Rattler Control.”

U.S. Army Major Jill Bradshaw took her gaze from the moon-washed desert landscape and smiled as she keyed the transmit button on her handheld communicator. When her small detachment of military police had first gathered at this supersecret test site, she’d left the choice of a call sign designator to them. After hot debate, they’d settled on Rattler in deference to the deadly diamondbacks nesting under just about every rock and bush in this patch of southeastern New Mexico. The call sign was also intended to symbolize the fact that her tough-as-nails military cops intended to inject pure poison into anyone who attempted to penetrate their remote site.

“This is Rattler One,” Jill replied. “Go ahead, Control.”

“The sensors are indicating a breach of the perimeter.”

“Is the intruder of the two- or four-legged variety?”

“I make it four-wheeled.”

After two weeks of installing the active and passive defenses for the hundred-square-mile site that ranged from flat, dry desert to high, pine-studded mountains, every member of Jill’s team had become adept at differentiating between the varying signals emitted by the sensors. They could ID a jackrabbit on the run and the coyote chasing him, as well as the occasional hunter who missed—or ignored—the Restricted Area signs and strayed onto the site.

“The vehicle was moving at approximately forty miles per hour but is now stopped.”

Stopped? Jill didn’t like the sound of that. “Give me the coordinates.”

“Alpha-three-zero-eight, kilo-six-one-two.”

She thumbed the digits into the number pad of her eBook. The handy-dandy, palm-held device was only one of the new pieces of equipment being tested in conjunction with the supersecret Pegasus Project. The small apparatus acted as a document viewer and terminal to receive data and graphics. When teamed with a body-worn computer, it gave soldiers the ability to perform computational operations, store data, view maps, coordinate troop movements, and communicate quickly and directly with one another. At thirty-one, Jill considered herself a fairly savvy representative of the electronic generation, but the whiz-bang capabilities of this palm-size gizmo continued to astound her.

“I make the intruder only a few miles from my present location,” she told the controller.

“That’s how we make him, too.”

“I’ll check him out. Contact the patrol in sector five and have them stand by in case I need backup.”

“Roger, One.”

Jill thumbed a button to activate the directional finder of the eBook and hooked the device to the dash of her souped-up dune buggy. Standard patrol cars didn’t hack it out here in the desert, where there was a whole lot more sand than tarmac. Her detachment drove a fleet of highly maneuverable ATVs fitted with mountings for a small arsenal of weapons and the latest in high-tech navigational aids. The distinctive Military Police markings on the side of the vehicle left no doubt as to who manned them.

Despite the markings, Jill and her security forces had orders to keep as low a profile as possible in conducting their duties. Most of the intruders her troops had intercepted in the past two weeks had left the area convinced they’d stumbled onto a remote patch of the Army’s White Sands Missile Test Range. Even the residents of Chorro, the sleepy, one-gas-station town some thirty miles west of the site, didn’t know an entire test complex had been shipped in and assembled in less than two weeks.

Looking back, Jill could only marvel at all that had been accomplished in those hectic two weeks. Working around the clock, her people had completed a security grid of the entire test site and set up the perimeter defenses. Prefab buildings had been trucked in, assembled, and were ready for occupancy. Racks and racks of highly sophisticated test equipment had been uncrated and set up. U.S. Navy Captain Sam Westerhall, the tough, grizzled leader of the joint service project had hit the site yesterday. The rest of his multiservice test team would arrive tomorrow.

The day after, Pegasus would roll or fly or swim in—Jill wasn’t quite sure which. She, like the other key members of the test cadre, would find out more about the top-secret project at the team’s in-briefing tomorrow.

Tonight, though, she had another fifty or so miles of perimeter to run, two patrols to check on and an intruder to intercept. She eyed the directional finder on the eBook, saw she was still two miles to target, and pressed down on the accelerator.

The wizard in charge of her fleet had modified the ATV’s mufflers to all but kill its normal growl. As Jill jounced along the narrow, two-lane dirt road, the quiet of the vast Chihuahuan Desert surrounded her. The seemingly endless patch of sand was primarily scrub and shrub. The ubiquitous creosote bush with its tarry scent and perforated branches popped up everywhere, interspersed with yucca, saltbush, and a small, night-blooming cactus that blinked delicate white eyes in the vehicle’s headlights.

Although naturally partial to her native Oregon, Jill had to admit the Chihuahuan Desert was pure magic at night. The wide-open spaces merged earth and sky until she couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other began. She felt as though she was aiming her vehicle straight at the bright, glittering stars that seemed to dangle directly in front of her.

She didn’t consider herself a romantic by any means. Few of the cops she’d worked with over the years would think of themselves that way, she suspected. Yet that incredible, sparkling curtain made her wish she had something of the poet or artist in her soul.

Tearing her gaze from the spectacular view, she checked the directional finder again. A mile to target. Slowing, she killed the headlights and activated the night-vision navigational system. A screen built into the dash showed the road ahead in glowing green detail. Night navigation would make for slower going, but there was no need to advertise her approach to the intruder if he hadn’t already spotted the spear of her vehicle’s headlights.

He could be anyone, she reminded herself as she navigated only by the light of the moon and the directional finder. A lost traveler, confused by the long, empty stretch of dirt road that cut through the desert. A hunter out to get a jumpstart on a dawn shoot. A Mescalero Apache from the reservation to the north, following in the footsteps of the ancestors who’d roamed over this land at will.

Or someone not quite as innocent.

A smuggler trucking in illegal aliens. A noisy reporter who’d gotten wind of the sudden influx of people into the area. Or a terrorist, out to sabotage the top-secret weapon the United States government hoped would be the instrument of his destruction.

Jill might not know the specifics of Pegasus Project, but the general who’d called her in and told her she’d been hand selected to head the security detail at the test site had stressed it would be a prime target for attack if word leaked out what was being done here. She’d been allowed to pick every man and woman on her detachment and had chosen only the best of the best. To a person, they were fully prepared to lay down their lives if necessary to defend the site from physical, biological or chemical attack.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she muttered to the plastic, bobble-headed Goofy stuck to her ATV’s dash with Velcro.

She wasn’t superstitious. Not at all. But good ol’ Goof had gone through four years of ROTC with her at the University of Oregon, had sweated through the grueling Military Police Officers’ basic and advance courses at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and accompanied her on assignments all over the globe, including Kosovo and Iraq. If she ever found a man with his long, gangly build and stupid grin, she would probably jump his bones on the spot.

Of course, the fact that Goof was the direct physical opposite of the smooth, slick, rock-you-back-on-your-heels-handsome bastard she’d tangled with her freshman year at OU might have something to do with her preference for the anatomically challenged. Shoving the memory of that grim event back into the black hole where it belonged, she checked the directional finder again, slowed the ATV to a halt and keyed her communicator.

“Control, this is Rattler One.”

“Go ahead, One.”

“Unless the target has moved, I’m within fifty meters of his position.”

“He hasn’t tripped any more sensors. We make him at the same coordinates we gave you earlier.”

“Roger, Control. I’m leaving my vehicle to recon on foot.”

“We’ll track you, One.”

Jill checked her equipment before leaving the vehicle. She carried five spare clips for her pistol on her webbed utility belt, along with a set of handcuffs, a nightstick and the long, heavy flashlight that could come in real handy if she didn’t have time to reach for her nightstick. She stuffed additional clips for her semiautomatic rifle in a side pocket on the belt and flicked a finger to set Goofy bobbing.

“Watch my six, fella.”

He nodded his vigorous concurrence. That was another thing she liked about ol’ Goof. He never disagreed with her.

Clipping the communications device to her breast pocket, Jill tucked an errant strand of her blunt-cut blond hair under her black beret. Although the Rangers and Special Forces had raised howls of outrage when the Army brass decided to issue berets to all soldiers, she had to admit the headgear looked a lot meaner than the standard BDU patrol cap.

BDU. Battle Dress Uniform. What idiot had coined that term? There wasn’t anything dressy about the baggy, green-brown-and-black camouflage pants or the matching shirt worn with sleeves rolled up to form a constricting band just above the elbow.

Swinging out of the ATV, Jill slung her rifle over one shoulder. The case containing her night-vision goggles went over the other. Fully armed, she started for the target. The August night was hot and dry, but not uncomfortable…except on her feet. The desert sand had absorbed the fierce August sun all day and was now giving it up. The heat came right through the soles of her boots.

Toasty-toed, she topped a small rise and stopped to take a reading. Affirming she was aimed in the right direction, she pulled out her night-vision goggles and squinted through the viewers. The endless vista spread out before her took on a greenish glow, brighter in some spots than others because of the heat still rising from the sands.

And from the still-warm engine of the SUV directly ahead of her.

The vehicle was parked beside a clump of jagged rock that thrust up out of the desert floor. It was one of those big, muscled monsters, favored by ranchers and yuppies alike. A Chevy Tahoe or Ford Expedition, judging by its extended frame. Jill scanned it from bumper to bumper, but saw no sign of the driver. Silently she moved close enough to make the license tag.

“Rattler Control,” she called in softly. “This is Rattler One.”

“This is Rattler Control. Go ahead, One.”

“I have the vehicle in view. Run a twenty-eight/twenty-nine on New York tag Lima-Echo-Alpha-six-four-four.”

“Will do, One.”

Jill waited while the controller put the license number through the National Crime Information Center. He was back with the requested information in less than a minute.

“The tag checks to a corporation called Ditech, Limited. The vehicle is listed as a 2001 Lincoln Navigator and doesn’t come back stolen.”

“Roger, control.” She swept the area again, searching the open stretches of desert and the shadowed rocks some distance from the parked SUV. “I don’t see the driver. I’m going in to check out the vehicle.”

Her boots crunching on the sand, she approached the midnight-blue Lincoln and aimed her flashlight at the darkened windows. The powerful beam confirmed there was no one sitting behind or slumped over the wheel. A cautious circuit of the vehicle showed all four bucket seats were empty. A roll-out shield covered the rear luggage compartment, giving no clue as to its contents.

Frowning, Jill made another circuit, aiming the flashlight at the ground this time. The sand was hard here, not like the snowy, fine-grained white stuff farther north, but her boot prints showed clearly enough. As did the faint indentations leading toward the rocky outcropping.

Jill eyed the single set of prints. Their size and shape suggested a male. A big one. That didn’t particularly worry her. She’d learned enough tricks over the years to take down any two drunken soldiers stupid enough to get crosswise of her. What worried her was why the heck this guy had stopped just inside the perimeter of the Pegasus site.

Easing her semiautomatic rifle from her shoulder, she nestled it in the crook of her arm and rested her finger on the trigger guard. The M-9 was light enough to carry easily for long distances and accurate enough to be fired on the run. Jill could attest to both attributes from past experience. Aiming the flashlight at the tracks, she followed them toward the rocks.

“There’s a set of footprints in the sand,” she advised Control, tilting her chin down to speak softly into the mike. “I’m following them to… Damn!”

What happened next was just the kind of unexpected situation she’d learned to anticipate in her years as a cop. Still, she just about jumped out of her boots when a shadowy figure suddenly rounded the rocky outcropping and almost collided with her.

“What the hell!”

His deep snarl shattered the stillness of the night. Jill danced back, her heart pumping pure adrenaline, and whipped up both her weapon and the flashlight. She caught a glimpse, only a glimpse of his startled expression before he, too, reacted with razor-edged instincts. One moment he was squinting into the blinding light. The next he was hurtling through the air like a NFL linebacker with a ten-thousand-dollar bonus riding on his next quarterback sack.

Jill’s instincts were every bit as quick. She danced to the side and resisted the impulse to bring the butt of her rifle down on the man’s neck as he barreled past. She’d been trained to use force only as a last resort, but she wasn’t above stacking the odds in her favor by thrusting out a boot.

He went down with a grunt and a thud that raised puffs of sand. If she’d been out to cuff him, she would have barked out an order for him to plant his face in the dirt at that point. Instead, she stood well away from his feet and kept a wary eye on his hands as he rolled onto his hip. As an added precaution, she aimed the powerful flashlight right at his face, effectively blinding him.

He threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the intense light, allowing Jill to catalogue his wavy black hair, a square jaw and powerful shoulders under an open-necked red knit shirt. The rest of his body matched the shoulders, she noted in a swift sweep. Narrow waist, lean hips, well muscled thighs that strained the fabric of his well-washed jeans. She also made note of the gold watch circling his left wrist.

The Lincoln and the obviously expensive watch suggested he wasn’t a hunter or a smuggler running illegal aliens. Nor did he look like your average lost tourist. A few years ago Jill might have said he didn’t look like your average terrorist, either, but the Oklahoma City bombing proved even clean-cut, ex-Marines were capable of committing the most despicable acts of violence.

“Is that your vehicle parked by the road?” she asked, keeping him pinned in the flashlight’s beam.

“Yes.”

“Who are you and what are you doing in this area?”

“The name’s Richardson. Cody Richardson.”

Jill sucked in a quick breath. She recognized the name, if not the face. Commander Cody Richardson, Public Health Service. Dr. Richardson, if she accorded him his title instead of his rank.

Jill had thoroughly reviewed the background dossiers and security clearances of every test cadre member, including that of Dr. Richardson. But the head-and-shoulders photo of the PHS officer assigned to the Pegasus Project didn’t come close to matching this hunk of raw maleness. The subject of that photo had worn wire-rim glasses, a white lab coat and scowled into the camera as if annoyed at being disturbed.

This man wore a red knit Polo shirt that clung to his wide shoulders and a pair of worn jeans that displayed lean hips and muscled thighs. Evidently the doc—if he was the physician and brilliant researcher expected at the site—believed in keeping himself in shape.

Squinting at her from under his upraised arm, he rapped out a question of his own. “Who are you?”

“I’m Major Jill Bradshaw, United States Army.”

Some of the belligerence seeped out of him. “U.S. Army?”

“That’s right.”

His tense, corded muscles relaxed. “Sorry I came at you the way I did, Major. Chalk it up to the fact that you surprised the hell out of me. I saw the rifle pointed straight at my middle and my self-preservation instincts kicked in.”

When she made no comment, he angled his head behind the shield of his upraised arm, trying to see her.

“How about you get that light out of my eyes.”

“How about you show me some ID?”

The cool response didn’t win her any Brownie points with the doc. Above the muscular forearm, his black brows snapped together. “My wallet’s in my back pocket.”

“Get up, plant your hands against the rock, and spread your legs. Please,” she tacked on after a moment.

He rolled to his feet with an athletic grace that didn’t impress her a bit. The butt-head who’d attacked her in college had been a star skier, golfer and swimmer. Personally, Jill preferred the gangly, gawky type.

She patted him down for hidden weapons, then asked him to extract his wallet from his rear pocket. Slowly. Carefully. He did so, turning around to hand her the slim leather billfold. She examined both his driver’s license and Public Health Service ID card. The ID confirmed he was, in fact, the expert in biological agents who’d been tagged to work the Pegasus Project, but Jill still had a few questions that needed answering.

“May I ask where you were headed?”

“I’m en route from San Antonio to San Francisco. I decided to cut across country and pick up I-40 in Albuquerque, but took the wrong road out of El Paso.”

She gave him full marks for a good cover story. He must have figured out by now she was with the Pegasus security team but wasn’t going to admit it until she asked for the code. She took her time doing so.

“Why did you stop here? Did you run out of gas?”

“No.”

Neither his expression nor his stance altered, but Jill didn’t miss the slight hesitation before he continued.

“I stopped to admire the view from the top of the rocks,” he said ruefully, as if admitting to an embarrassing character flaw. “It’s pretty awesome.”

Yeah, right.

Jill had been a cop too long to accept a trite explanation like that. Particularly when it was accompanied by a grin that showed a flash of even white teeth and crinkled the skin at the corners of too-blue eyes. If Dr. Cody Richardson had left his vehicle to climb the rocks, her instincts told her it wasn’t to admire the view.

Still, Richardson had been cleared for this project by the highest levels at the Pentagon. He matched the physical description in his dossier, more or less. He wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow but could have made good time on the road and decided to press on. Jill saw no other choice but to put him through one more gate.

“Do you have the time, Dr. Richardson?”

He bent his elbow. She caught another flash of gold and the ripple of muscle under his knit shirt when his shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“Sorry, my watch seems to have stopped.”

Jill dipped her head to acknowledge that he’d given the proper response. Something about this guy still didn’t sit right with her, but he’d passed every test. Filing away the nagging little doubt for further examination later, she handed him back his wallet and rendered the salute he was due because of his superior rank.

“Welcome to Site Thirty-Two, Dr. Richardson.”

He returned the salute with a precision that surprised her. Although the Public Health Service was one of the seven uniformed services, the members of their small officer corps were more noted for their medical expertise than their strict adherence to military customs and courtesies.

“My vehicle’s just over that rise,” she informed him. “Wait here until I retrieve it, then I’ll escort you to the compound.”

Cody slipped his billfold into his back pocket and watched the major stride off into the darkness. Damned if the woman hadn’t taken five years off his life, popping up out of the desert the way she had.

Given the security briefings he’d received after being selected for the Pegasus Project, Cody had fully expected to be challenged when he arrived at the test site. He just hadn’t expected that challenge to take place out here, in the middle of nowhere. Or in the form of a bristly female soldier.

Well, maybe not all that bristly. The woman’s smooth sweep of silky blond hair softened the Amazon image considerably. Not to mention the trim, tight butt he’d taken note of when she turned and strode off. Despite the beret, combat boots and bulky web belt with all its accouterments, Major Jill Bradshaw looked pretty good in her BDUs. Cody ought to know. He’d studied the human form in all its variations for going on fifteen years now.

Lord! Was it really that long since med school? That many years since he’d tumbled into love with a bright-eyed Red Cross volunteer? Those days at Duke seemed as if they’d happened in another life. To a different man.

They had, he thought grimly as he yanked at the Navigator’s door. An entirely different man. Or so Alicia had claimed the night she’d stormed out of their house three years ago. Her last, furious tirade haunted Cody to this day. Not even a velvet night and a brilliant tapestry of stars could ease his soul-searing guilt.

He wasn’t about to admit he’d stopped out here in the middle of nowhere in the vain hope of finding solace, though. Particularly to a tough, no-nonsense military cop.

Wrapping his hands around the steering wheel, he stared into the darkness and waited for the major’s vehicle to appear.

Chapter 2

Radioing ahead, Jill advised Navy Captain Sam Westfall that one of his key team leaders had appeared on the scene well ahead of his estimated time of arrival.

“I’m escorting Dr. Richardson to the compound now.”

“Good,” the commanding officer replied in his deep, gravelly bass. “Bring him to my quarters when you arrive.”

“Will do, sir.”

Hands on the ATV’s wheel, Jill navigated the dirt road shooting straight as an arrow across the desert. The headlights of Doc Richardson’s SUV speared through the darkness behind her.

“I don’t know about this guy,” she muttered to Goofy as she flicked a glance in the ATV’s rearview mirror. “He sure doesn’t look like any brilliant research scientist I ever stumbled across.”

Not that she’d stumbled across all that many. After the brutal assault in her freshman year and a subsequent bungled investigation by the campus police, Jill had made up her mind nothing like that would ever happen to her again. She’d switched her major to law enforcement and enrolled in every available self-defense course available off-campus. And once she’d been commissioned as a military police officer, she’d pretty well lived, breathed, eaten, and slept in her fatigues. She hardly knew anyone who wasn’t a cop, much less a brilliant scientist.

“Think I’ll take another look at his dossier,” she murmured to Goof. “Something about his roadside stop to drink in the stars just doesn’t sit right with me.”

Mickey’s pal bobbed his head in vigorous agreement, as he always did.

Some forty minutes later, Jill slowed for the first checkpoint. The MP who came out of the modular booth that served as a guard shack recognized her in the glare of the spot angled down from the shack’s roof. The sergeant saluted respectfully but still asked for ID. Jill handed him a flat leather case, pleased that he hadn’t let her pass on mere visual recognition.

He aimed a small electronic sensor at her face, then ran it over her holographic ID. The flat, credit card size bit of plastic contained an astonishing array of photo imaging, retinal scan data, fingerprints, DNA information, and a special code signifying Jill’s level of access within the compound. The card also contained a built-in signal transmitter that allowed the Control Center to track the movements of the person carrying it. When the card reader gave two soft pings, the sergeant handed her back the leather case.

“You’re cleared for entry, Major.”

“Thanks. I’m escorting Dr. Cody Richardson to the site,” she told him, pointing a thumb at the vehicle behind hers. “He’s on your key personnel list.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The sergeant walked back to the idling SUV and requested the doc’s civilian ID. Angling his flashlight at Richardson, he scrutinized the physician’s face and compared it to the photo before taking the identification back into the guard post to check the access list. Tomorrow Jill would issue each of the cadre members a holographic ID similar to hers and considerably speed up the entry process.

After some moments the guard returned to Richardson’s vehicle and handed him back his ID. “Do you have a camera, computer, cell phone, or other electronic device in your vehicle, sir?”

“Just a cell phone.”

“Sorry, sir. I’ll have to take that.”

“Right.”

Reporting instructions had advised all cadre members not to bring their own computers or electronic notebooks. Encrypted versions would be issued to them. The same instructions had advised that personal cell phones used en route would have to be turned in on arrival. Any calls coming in to those phones would be routed through the Control Center to secure instruments on-site.

Once cleared, the doc followed Jill’s vehicle down another lonely five-mile stretch of road. The compound lights were mere pinpricks in the distance, almost indistinguishable from the bright wash of stars. Gradually, the pinpricks grew brighter and closer.

Jill stopped at a second checkpoint, this one guarding a cluster of prefabricated modular buildings and trailers surrounded by rolls of concertina wire. In the wash of lights mounted at regular intervals within the compound, the main site had all the charm and warmth of a lunar moonscape. There wasn’t a tree or a bush to be seen. White-painted rocks marked the roads and walkways between the buildings. Off in the distance, the hangar that would house Pegasus loomed over the rest of the structures like a big, brooding mammoth. Aside from a few picnic tables scattered among the trailers, everything was starkly functional.

Guards at the second checkpoint cleared Jill through. She waited once more for the doc, then drove across the compound to the trailer housing the commanding officer of the Pegasus test cadre. The Lincoln’s tires crunched on the hard-packed dirt as it pulled up beside her ATV. Cody Richardson climbed out, thudding the vehicle’s door shut, and gave her a questioning glance.

“These are Captain Westfall’s quarters,” Jill informed him. “He requested I bring you here.”

Nodding, Richardson followed her to the trailer. Jill’s knock brought Westfall to the door. The tall, spare Naval officer was still in his working khakis, which didn’t surprise her. The captain had only arrived on-site yesterday morning, but Jill had already formed the distinct impression he wasn’t the type to retire early or sleep late.

“This is Dr. Richardson, sir.”

She stepped aside, allowing the Public Health Service officer to brush by her and offer a crisp salute.

“Sorry I’m out of uniform, sir. I didn’t expect to report to you tonight.”

“Not a problem, Doc. Come in, come in.” Westfall speared Jill with one of his penetrating, steel-gray glances. “Thanks for delivering him, Major. Everything quiet out on the test range?”

“It is now.”

The captain raised a brow. Before Jill could elaborate, Richardson offered a cool explanation.

“The major and I ran into each other. Literally. I ate sand until she decided I was who I said I was.”

“Did you?” He tipped Jill an approving nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the in-brief.”

“Yes, sir.”

After an exchange of salutes, she made her way to her vehicle. Instead of driving back out to run the perimeter and check her patrols, however, she headed for the squat, dun-colored modular unit that served as her detachment’s headquarters and operations center.

A welcome blast of chilled air greeted her when she stepped inside, along with the even more welcome scent of fresh-brewed coffee. Rattler Control occupied the rear half of the unit; her cubbyhole of an office, the armory, and a small break area took up the front half.

She stopped at the armory first to turn in her rifle and ammo clips. That done, she made a beeline for the coffee. Filling a jet-black mug emblazoned with her unit’s self-designed crest—a rattlesnake coiled around the crossed Revolutionary-War-era pistols designating the MP Corps—she stuck her head inside the control center.

“I’ll be in my office for a while.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The lanky Oklahoman at the dispatch console spun his chair around. “That was some takedown out there.”

“Nothing like putting one of our own facedown in the dirt,” Jill agreed.

Specialist First Class Denton grinned. “I’m guessing that Public Health weenie will think twice before taking you on again.”

“I wouldn’t exactly classify Dr. Richardson as a weenie,” she replied, remembering the breadth of the man’s shoulders.

“Whatever he is, he’s the first to get a taste of Rattler venom. Good goin’, Major.”

Jill bowed to the inevitable. She knew the story of her brief confrontation with Cody Richardson was going to be repeated—and greatly exaggerated—by every one of her troops. Which wasn’t necessarily all that bad. She was long past the point of having to prove herself to either her people or to herself, but a little Marshal-Matt-Dillon-style action never hurt a cop’s image.

“I’ll be in my office,” she repeated, retreating while her invincible aura still glowed bright and strong.

Once in her closet-size cubbyhole, she wedged behind her desk and placed her mug on the red blotter. A quick click of the keyboard activated her computer. The sleek laptop was state-of-the-art, its hard drive encrypted and shielded against penetration by everyone from Kremlin spies to everyday, average teenage hackers.

The screen hummed to life and blinked open to a screensaver featuring an Army tank in full attack mode. Jill entered her access code, pulled down the menu marked Personnel and zeroed in on Dr. Cody Richardson. Mere seconds later his file painted across the screen. A click on the thumbnail sketch of his picture enlarged it to screen size.

There he was, glasses, white lab coat and all. With the same annoyed expression he’d worn earlier this evening. And the same square chin, which she’d somehow overlooked before. The guy was a Clark Kent, she decided, seemingly innocuous looking in his everyday work disguise. Very different out of it and in the flesh.

Irritated with herself for forming a preconceived concept based on a sterile looking lab environment and a white coat, she opened the doc’s background file. His credentials had impressed her the first two times she’d read them. They still impressed her.

“Graduate of the University of North Carolina,” she muttered under her breath, “with honors in chemistry and biology. M.D. from Duke. Completed an internship and residency in internal medicine, with a follow-on fellowship in clinical pharmacology and infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins. Masters in Public Health from Harvard.”

Scrolling down the screen, she skimmed over Richardson’s professional associations, publications and work history. He’d spent several years practicing medicine before going to work for a major pharmaceutical company. If Jill was reading all this technical stuff correctly, he’d then moved into the forefront of the battle against AIDs and Ebola. Three years ago, he’d jettisoned his job with the pharmaceutical giant to join the Public Health Service.

Jill didn’t know all that much about the PHS, except that it was a corps of approximately six thousand uniformed officers within the Department of Health and Human Services. These highly trained health professionals operated within all divisions of HHS, including the Center for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. They also served as a mobile force to provide primary health care to medically under-served rural and Native American populations. Cody Richardson had joined their ranks three years ago.

“Bet you took one hell of a pay cut when you made that move,” Jill murmured.

If so, he was still living off the proceeds of his former life. Lincoln Navigators and flashy gold Rolexes didn’t come cheap. She made a mental note to check into the corporation the Lincoln was registered to and continued scrolling through his file.

Heading a team of researchers at the National Institute of Health, Richardson had helped isolate the West Nile virus. He also, Jill saw, worked closely with the military services to test and field counter-toxins to various biological agents. Because of that work, he’d been hand selected to test the nuclear, biological and chemical defenses installed in Pegasus. In addition, he and a small staff would provide on-site medical care for the test cadre.

Richardson’s personal data was considerably more concise. Parents alive and living in North Carolina. No siblings. Wife deceased. No children.

Leaning back in her chair, Jill took a long swig of her coffee. Dr. Richardson’s file painted a portrait of a dedicated, hardworking physician who was also a brilliant research scientist. Nothing in what she’d read suggested a predilection for stargazing.

She’d keep an eye on the doc, she decided. A close eye. Shutting down the screen, she finished her coffee and went back to the Control Center to check the status of her deployed patrols. Just after 1:00 a.m., she called it a night.

“We have a big day tomorrow,” she reminded her dispatchers. “The rest of the test cadre is scheduled to arrive between 8:00 a.m. and noon.”

“We’re ready for ’em,” SFC Denton advised in his Oklahoma drawl. “Our welcome committee will have ’em roped, tied and branded a half hour after they hit the site.”

“Tell the welcome committee to start with Dr. Richardson. I want him tagged first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jill woke before dawn the next morning. She stretched catlike under the sheet and enjoyed the quiet of the boxy modular unit that served as her quarters. She’d had the three-bedroom, one bathroom unit to herself for the past couple of weeks. After today she’d share it with two other female officers.

Her mouth curved in a wry grimace. She wasn’t much for girl talk or gabfests. She hoped the other women weren’t, either. Probably not. One was a Coast Guard officer with several command assignments under her belt. The other a hurricane hunter with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency.

Thinking of all she had to do to get ready for the onslaught of arrivals, Jill threw back the sheet and padded to the bathroom. After a thorough scrub of face and teeth, she dragged a brush through her straight, blunt-cut bob. The straw-colored strands fell neatly into place thanks to a great cut, just brushing her jawline but well above the top of her uniform collar as required by Army regulations. A slather of lotion to protect her face from the dry New Mexico heat and a quick swipe of lip gloss completed her morning beauty regimen.

Jill had long ago found ways to satisfy her feminine side other than through cosmetics that didn’t mix well with camouflage face paint. Her neatly trimmed nails wore a coat of French-white polish, and her underwear tended more toward lace than spandex. No one could see her frilly undies under her BDUs and T-shirt, so she figured her tough-cop image was safe.

She chose an ice-blue set this morning. The bikini pants were cut low on her belly and high on her thigh. The lacy bra contained no underwiring. She didn’t carry a particularly generous set of curves on her trim frame and saw no need to torture herself with hard-wired cups. Ten minutes after slithering into the slinky underwear, she was booted, bloused, belted and ready for the day.

Six hours later, her uniform had wilted a little in the searing hundred-plus-degree heat, but all eighty-two of the Pegasus cadre members were safely on-site. Helicopters had ferried most of them down from Albuquerque, where they’d flown into either the civilian airport or the Air Force base on the city’s outskirts. A number had driven in, including one of Jill’s new roommates.

Lieutenant Commander Kate Hargrave had thoroughly impressed the gate guards by showing up at the checkpoint in a low-slung, ground-eating XJS. She impressed them even more when she climbed out of the Jag, revealing a pair of long, tanned legs and the lush curves of a Playboy centerfold.

With her troops’ break room right outside her office, Jill couldn’t help but overhear their vivid descriptions of the sexy hurricane hunter. A chance meeting with the woman outside the dining facility where the cadre was gathering for the in-brief proved her troops hadn’t exaggerated.

“Major Bradshaw?”

At the sound of her name, Jill turned to see the tall, leggy redhead weaving her way through the crowd. Since her Navy-style rank of lieutenant commander was the equivalent of Jill’s Army rank of major, the two women shook hands instead of saluting.

“I’m Kate Hargrave. I understand we’re going to be sharing a bathroom for the next few months.”

Hargrave’s crisp, tailored khaki uniform in no way disguised her hourglass figure, but her cheerful smile drew the eye as much as her curves. Jill’s eye, anyway. Most of the males going by kept their gazes well south of her nameplate.

“I haven’t shared a bathroom with anyone since I dumped my jerk of an ex,” the weather officer confessed with a grin. “I hope you don’t spend as much time in there reading the newspaper as he did.”

Jill couldn’t help but respond to that infectious grin. “Not to worry. I doubt any of us will have time to read a newspaper in the next few months.”

“Good. I like to keep busy. From the little I’ve been told about this project so far, we’re all going to have our hands— Whoa!”

The woman’s green eyes widened and fixed on something just over Jill’s shoulder.

“Things just got interesting,” she murmured in a low, throaty purr. “Very interesting.”

Jill turned and saw at once what had snagged her attention. Dr. Cody Richardson was striding across the compound. Public Health Service Officers also wore Navy-style uniforms. Jill had to admit Dr. Richardson wore his khakis extremely well.

The man could have modeled for a recruiting poster. His pants were knife creased, his short-sleeved shirt tailored to maximize the effect of his muscled torso. Black shoulder boards carried the broad gold stripes denoting his rank. The insignia on his cap featured a caduceus crossed with a fouled anchor, denoting the Public Health Service’s original charter to provide medical care to America’s sailors. Beneath his cap, Richardson’s eyes gleamed a killer blue against his tanned skin.

“Who is that?” Kate Hargrave breathed.

“Commander Cody Richardson,” Jill answered. “Public Health Service.”

“That’s the doc who’s going to be taking care of our every little cough and stubbed toe? Well, well.”

“I believe his primary duty will be to test the nuclear, biological and chemical defenses installed in Pegasus.”

Jill had no idea why the response came out sounding so stiff. It wasn’t any skin off her nose if Kate Hargrave wanted to fall all over the man.

As he approached, both women acknowledged his senior rank with a salute. Richardson returned it, gave the redhead a smile, and addressed Jill.

“Good morning, Major.”

She dipped her chin in a polite nod. “Good morning.”

“Sleep well after our little tussle last night?”

From a corner of her eye, she saw her new roommate arch an auburn-tinted brow. Jill kept both her voice and her smile even.

“As a matter of fact, I did.” With a nod at her companion, she performed the introductions. “Have you met Lieutenant Commander Kate Hargrave? Or do you prefer Dr. Hargrave?” she asked the weather officer, mindful of the string of initials after her name.

“In uniform, I use my rank.” Smiling, she offered the doc her hand. “But among friends and cohorts, it’s Kate.”

“Kate,” he acknowledged, taking her hand in his. “I spent most of last night reviewing medical records. Yours were particularly interesting.”

Jill just bet they were.

“I’d like to hear more about your reaction to the vaccine you were administered after exposure to the Nipah virus in Honduras last year. Your records indicated you went into shock.”

Well, that was one of the more original pick-up lines Jill had ever heard. Evidently Kate thought so, too. She flashed Richardson a hundred-megawatt smile.

“Anytime, Doc.”

When he blinked, looking more than a little stunned, Jill checked her watch and suggested they continue their conversation inside.

Excitement hummed through the air inside the large, open dining area. Jill and the other two joined the group of officers at the front of the room. A petite brunette introduced herself as Lieutenant Caroline Dunn, Coast Guard. The buzz-cut marine beside her was Major Russ McIver. The senior Air Force rep arrived a moment later. Before he could make the rounds and introduce himself, a voice bellowed at the back of the crowd.

“Room! Ha-tennnn-shun!”

Eighty-two backs went blade stiff. One hundred and sixty-four knees locked. Chests out, arms straight at their sides, hands curled into fists, the entire test cadre stood at rigid attention while Captain Sam Westfall strode to the podium at the front of the room. Even the few civilians almost lost among the sea of uniforms squared their shoulders.

The captain kept the group at attention while his gray eyes skimmed the room. There wasn’t a sound. Not so much as the shuffle of a foot or the creak of a sagging floorboard. When it seemed he’d looked every man and women present in the eye at least once, Captain Westfall put them at ease and told them to take their seats. When the scrape of chairs and rumble of everyone getting settled had died, he gave the room at large a flinty smile.

“I think you should know up-front I’ve reviewed the personnel files on each and every one of you. Most of you I handpicked for this assignment. You represent the best of the best from each of your services, all seven of which are represented in this test cadre. For that reason, you’ll be issued a special unit patch during in-processing.”

With a nod, he signaled his executive officer to come forward. The Army captain carried a large poster, placed it on a metal easel, and flipped up the top sheet. Underneath was a classic shield-shaped design. The bottom two thirds of the shield was red. The top third showed a blue field studded with silver stars.

“Please note we’ve included one star for each of the seven uniformed services,” Westfall pointed out, reaching into his shirt pocket for a collapsible pointer. He extended the metal rod and issued a request. “I’d like the senior representative to stand as I name their service. In order of precedence, they are…”

The pointer’s tip whipped against a star.

“The United States Army. Founded June, 1775.”

As the senior Army officer on-site, Jill stood and acknowledged the chorus of hoo-ah’s that rose from the grunts in the audience. When the noise faded, the captain’s pointer whapped another star.

“The United States Navy, founded October, 1775. I have the honor of being the senior rep from the sea service.”

The squids responded with a stamp of booted feet.

“The United States Marine Corps, founded November, also 1775.”

Major Russ McIver, the senior leatherneck present, led a round of “Semper Fi’s.”

“The United States Coast Guard, dating back to the Colonial Lighthouse Service established in 1789 and the Revenue Cutter Service, founded shortly thereafter.”

Lieutenant Caroline Dunn stood. The only Coast Guard rep assigned to the test cadre, the petite brunette rendered a smart salute.

“Next,” Westfall continued, “the United States Public Health Service, which traces its origins to the 1798 act that provided for the care of America’s sick and injured merchant seamen.”

“That’s me,” Dr. Richardson said, standing to nod at the crowd.

“The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency, established in 1870.”

Kate Hargrove was the NOAA rep to the cadre. When the gorgeous redhead stood to acknowledge her service, a murmur of masculine appreciation rippled through the crowd.

“Last but certainly not least,” the captain said with a nod to the blue-suiters in the audience, “the United States Air Force. Formerly the Army Air Corps, it was established as a separate service in 1947.”

The AF senior rep was a tall, ramrod-straight pilot with salt-and-pepper hair and laugh lines around his eyes. Belying his status as a member of the “baby” service, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Thompson looked tough and experienced and well able to serve as deputy director of the Pegasus Project.

Westfall let the assembled crowd enjoy the spirit of good-natured rivalry for a moment or two before continuing.

“Each of the seven uniformed services has a history rich in tradition. Each has provided long years of honorable service to our country. I know you’re proud, as I am, to wear the distinctive insignia of your branch or corps. I would remind you, though, of the oath each of you took when you joined the military. To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath transcends your individual services. As of this moment, your first allegiance will be to each other…and to the project that has brought us here.”

At a nod from the captain, his exec added an overlay to the shield. When the transparent overlay settled, a milky-white winged stallion reared on the field of red, white, and blue. Westfall let everyone in the room get a good look.

“Welcome to Project Pegasus, ladies and gentlemen. We are now one team, with one mission. Before any of us leaves this corner of the desert, the new all-weather, all-terrain attack/transport vehicle known as Pegasus will be certified to run with the wind, swim the oceans and fly to the stars. Your country is depending on you to make it happen.”

The terse pronouncement killed any tendencies toward levity among the assembled personnel.

“You’ll receive more detailed briefings on the vehicle when it arrives tomorrow. Today you’ll get security and area threat briefings, be issued your site IDs and go through a medical screening.”

The captain collapsed his pointer with a snap.

“Major Bradshaw, I’ll turn the group over to you now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jill stood at attention with the others while Captain Westfall departed. When he’d cleared the building, she moved to the podium. As she looked out over the sea of faces, the realization that she was responsible for both their safety and their adherence to ultrastrict security measures hit her smack in the chest.

One compromise of classified test information, and her neck would be on the block. One physical breach of the Pegasus site, and she could kiss her career goodbye.

Her glance slid to Cody Richardson, lingered a moment, shifted back to the crowd at large.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Major Jill Bradshaw. My security forces and I are going to be watching out for you—and watching over you—for the next few months.”

Chapter 3

Cody hooked his stethoscope around his neck and scribbled an entry in the form on the clipboard. Sixty-five patients in three and a half hours. Seventeen more to go.

All that was really required today was an intake exam—temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, updated health history, etc. The small team of highly skilled corpsmen assigned to the Pegasus site could have handled those tasks easily. Cody had wanted to meet each of the test cadre members personally, however, and get their take on their physical, emotional and mental condition.

If the first sixty-five were to be believed, he thought wryly, Captain Westfall had assembled the healthiest military team in the history of the universe. Only one had a condition that required watching. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Thompson, the Air Force rep, had mild atrial fibrillation, the most common form of heart arrhythmia. It was a lifelong condition that didn’t require medication or he wouldn’t have been cleared to fly. As a result, Cody didn’t anticipate having to spend a whole lot of time here in the clinic. Good thing, since providing medical care to the folks on-site was only the secondary reason for his presence out here in the middle of the desert.

Thinking of the twists and turns his life had taken to bring him to this place and this time, he tipped his chair against the wall. Slowly, inevitably, the familiar poison of guilt and regret seeped through his veins.

How the hell had things gone so wrong? Why hadn’t he seen the train barreling along the tracks before it ran right over him? How had he managed to lose himself long before he lost Alicia?

Knowing he’d find no answers to the questions that had plagued him more than three years now, he shoved his chair back and rejoined his team in the clinic area.

“Who’s next?”

“Major Jill Bradshaw,” a white-suited corpsman replied, handing him another clipboard. “She’s in cubicle two.”

A ripple of completely unprofessional anticipation feathered along Cody’s nerves. He’d been waiting for this particular patient.

“Is Petty Officer Ingalls with her?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hospital Corpsman Second Class Beverly Ingalls was one of only two women on Cody’s medical staff. She’d assisted him in the exam of other females assigned to the Pegasus cadre. She’d assist him in this one, as well.

As he walked toward the curtained cubicle, Cody skimmed Jill Bradshaw’s chart. Her vitals looked good. Better than good. So did her physical stats. Age, thirty-one. Height, five-seven. Weight, 121. Nonsmoker. Occasional social drinker. No history of serious or debilitating diseases.

Lifting the curtain, he nodded to the woman seated on the exam table, swinging a boot impatiently. “Hello again, Major.”

“Sir.”

She ran a quick glance down the white coat he wore over his uniform and cocked her head. “No glasses?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The photo in your background file shows you in a lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses. I sort of assumed the two went together.”

“Not anymore. It got to be a pain sliding my glasses up on my forehead whenever I bent to look in a microscope so I had Lasik surgery earlier this year.” He flipped through the forms on the clipboard. “I skimmed through your medical history. On paper you look pretty healthy.”

In Cody’s considered opinion, she looked pretty darned good in the flesh, too. Her skin glowed with a rosy tint that owed more to exercise and a sensible diet than cosmetics, and her corn-silk hair had a smooth, glossy sheen that dared a man to run his hands through it. Resisting the impulse, he handed Petty Officer Ingalls the chart and dragged his stethoscope from around his neck.

“Unbutton your shirt, please.”

While the major slipped the buttons on her BDU shirt, Cody wrapped himself in a cloak of professional detachment. Or tried to. For reasons he didn’t stop and analyze at the moment, he had trouble viewing Major Jill Bradshaw with his usual impassive objectivity.

If any of the patients he screened in the past ninety minutes was going to rouse the male in him, Cody would have bet money on the flame-haired knockout. Lieutenant Commander Hargrave filled out a uniform like no one he’d ever examined before. Yet he’d experienced no more than a fleeting appreciation at her perfect symmetry of face and form. In contrast, he felt his breath hitch as Jill Bradshaw’s hair parted to give him a glimpse of soft, white nape.

Suddenly Cody stiffened. Beneath that spun-gold silk lay one of the most vicious scars he’d seen since his E.R. rotation at Raleigh’s busy Memorial Hospital. The puckered seam of flesh tracked a path from just behind her left ear to her collar before disappearing under the crewneck of her regulation brown T-shirt.

“Someone left you quite a souvenir,” Cody commented, reaching up to finger the ridged flesh.

She jerked away as if stung. A quick rake of her fingers through her hair settled the sleek cap over the scar. The reaction intrigued him as much as the wound.

“Did you get that injury in the line of duty?”

“No.”

The curt reply suggested the subject was off-limits. Cody ignored the warning. “Knife or broken glass?”

“Neither.”

She flicked him an annoyed glance, saw he wasn’t going to go away, and shrugged.

“The cut was made by the jagged edge of an aluminum beer can. The jock I was out with had been demonstrating his intellectual prowess by ripping them in half with his teeth. I tripped, fell on one, and walked away with a permanent reminder of the consequences of consorting with idiots.”

“You’re lucky you walked away at all. Another inch to the right and you would have severed your carotid artery.”

“So I’ve been told.”

There was more to the story than that, but the glint in her brown eyes said that was all Cody would get. Today, anyway. He’d find out the rest of the tale sometime in the very near future, he promised himself as he plugged in the eartips of his stethoscope.

Jill left the clinic more rattled than she wanted to admit. What was it about the man that set off her silent alarms? It wasn’t just her usual conditioned response to big, too-handsome types. Or her still-unanswered questions about why he’d stopped to contemplate the night sky. This guy got to her in a way no man had in longer than she wanted to remember.

She’d had to force herself not to react when he’d leaned over her to press the stethoscope amplifier to her back. She’d also done her damnedest to ignore his unique blend of aftershave and antiseptic, but the scent seemed to follow her when she walked out into the slowly purpling dusk.

After two weeks she was still getting acclimated to New Mexico’s spectacular sunsets. With reds and pinks and blues pinwheeling across the sky, she reviewed her plans for the evening. She’d hit the northeast sector, she decided. Run the perimeter where it cut across the southern tip of the Guadalupe Mountains.

First, though, she would chow down. The fluttery feeling in her stomach probably had nothing to do with the doc and everything to do with the fact she’d gobbled a honey-oat bar and three cups of coffee for breakfast and been too busy for lunch.

The scent of sizzling steak drew her to the dining facility. With the arrival of two additional cooks, the kitchen was now in full operational mode. After two weeks of prepackaged meals supplemented by their one cook’s valiant attempts to set up the kitchen and serve at least one hot entree, Jill was ready for a full-course dinner.

As during the earlier in-brief, the dining facility buzzed with the lively conversation of people getting to know one another. A quick glance told Jill members of the individual services had pretty much clumped together. Natural, she supposed for the first night. Once the test project swung into full gear, the service lines would break down and they’d meld into a team. Hopefully!

To aid the process she opted not to join her military cops and took her tray to a table of Air Force blue-suiters instead. In quick order she met a range instrumentation technician, a vehicle maintenance specialist and a computer systems analyst. The motor pool sergeant talked the universal language of transmissions and drive shafts, but the instrumentation expert and the analyst soon lost Jill in the technical dust. She left the dining facility knowing at least three of the test cadre a little better.

When she returned to her quarters just after 10:00 p.m., she got to know her roommates, as well.

Kate Hargrave had obviously just returned from a run or a workout in the site’s small gym. A sweat-band held back her sweat-dampened hair. Tight biker shorts clung to her trim thighs, and her gray jersey top sported damp patches. She’d abandoned a pair of well-used running shoes and was busy applying a coat of cherry-colored polish to her toenails.

Caroline Dunn lounged in the one comfortable chair in the unit, a paperback novel propped in front of her nose. Like Kate, the brunette had changed out of her uniform and wore a stretchy lycra halter with elastic-waist shorts. Lowering the book, she sent the newcomer a warm smile.

“There you are. Kate and I were about to give up on you.”

Jill barely suppressed a groan. After running a long stretch of perimeter and checking on two patrols, sand had seeped into every pore. All she wanted was to hit the shower and the sack.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk much at the in-brief,” the Coast Guard officer said, laying her book across her bare midriff. “Since we’ll be sharing a head and a living space smaller than the ward room on my first patrol boat, I thought it might make the next couple of months easier if we confessed to any weird habits or personal preferences right up-front.”

Not a bad idea, Jill thought, giving the coastie full marks. With all her years aboard ship, Dunn had probably raised the art of sharing cramped quarters to its highest level.

“Sounds good to me,” she said. “Just let me shed my gear and grab something cold to drink.”

“I brought in a few emergency supplies,” Kate Hargrave put in, waving the polish brush toward the half-size refrigerator in the galley. “We have soft drinks, instant iced tea, a rather nice chilled Riesling, and beer.”

A nice chilled Riesling, huh? Maybe this roommate business wouldn’t be such a pain, after all.

Retreating to her bedroom, Jill shed her beret and heavy web belt. Ingrained habit had her extracting the .9mm Beretta from its holster and checking to see the safety was on before ejecting its magazine. A quick tug on the slide confirmed no round was chambered. Returning the weapon to its holster, she stripped off her boots and BDUs.

She was twenty pounds lighter and a good deal cooler when she returned to the living area in gray sweat shorts and an oversize red T-shirt with a grinning Goofy on the front. Placing her eBook on the counter that served as both desk and dining table, she poured some wine into a blue plastic cup and plopped down on one of the counter stools.

“Since this was my idea,” Lieutenant Dunn said with a lazy stretch, “I’ll start. I prefer Cari to Caroline and will warn you right up-front I’m addicted to gory police procedurals and international thrillers. Reach for one of my Tom Clancy’s or Robert Ludlum’s before I’ve finished it and you’ll lose an arm.”

If that was the worst of her roommates’ idiosyncrasies, Jill figured they’d all make it through the next few months in one piece. She took a sip of her wine, savoring its light, fruity bouquet, while Cari turned the floor over to the next in line.

“Kate? How about you?”

“I’m easy.” The weather scientist decorated another toe with a streak of cherry red. “Nothing very much bothers me—with the distinct exception of poaching on another woman’s territory. Comes from being cast in the classic cheated-on wife role.”

Cari winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, ouch.” Kate wiggled her foot to check out the paint job. “Don’t take me wrong. My husband and I didn’t have what you’d call the perfect marriage. I had pretty much decided to break it off. What got to me was that I was too busy—and too stupid—to realize he’d already made the same decision. Only he’d made it in the bed of a nineteen-year-old bim-bette. Now that hurt,” she admitted with a wry chuckle.

“I’ll bet.”

“Which is why I’m real careful to watch where I step. So what’s with you and the doc, roomie? Do you two have something going?”

Jill sputtered into the plastic cup, sending a spray of fruity bubbles up her nose. She sneezed them out and shot the other woman a quick frown.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. I got the scoop on that tussle Cody mentioned. Sounds like the two of you had some fun out in the desert last night.”

Cody, was it? Lieutenant Commander Hargrave didn’t waste any time. It also sounded as though the rumor mill was already up and working. Nothing like a small, isolated site to bare every wart and wrinkle.

“Look,” Jill said carefully, “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here, but I don’t think what happened between Dr. Richardson and me last night is—”

“Any of my business?” Kate finished with one of her flashing grins. “It might have been, if I hadn’t seen the way the man looked at you this morning. I was the invisible sidekick standing next to this woman,” she added for Cari’s benefit.

Somehow Jill didn’t think the flamboyant redhead could ever qualify for invisible status.

“I checked him out for you,” Kate announced, giving her little toe a final dab before capping the polish bottle. “He lost his wife several years ago, and he’s currently uninvolved, so you wouldn’t be poaching. Although I understand there’s a media consultant back in Virginia who’d like nothing more than to sink her claws into the man.”

Cari looked amused. Jill was astounded. “You’ve only been on-site a little over eight hours. How did you find all that out?”

“I asked him. Not directly, of course, but he gave me sufficient information for my purposes.”

“Good grief! You’re in the wrong profession. You ought to be in counterintelligence.”

“When I get tired of being buffeted around the skies, I might consider it. So back to my original question, Bradshaw. What are your intentions regarding our hottie of a doc?”

She probed with such breezy cheerfulness that Jill couldn’t take offense. “Dr. Richardson and I met for the first time last night. I barely know the man.”

“Hmm. My considered opinion is the doc would like to change that situation. It’s only an opinion, mind you, but…” She let her voice trail off suggestively.

Enough was enough. Jill wasn’t about to admit Cody Richardson already occupied too big a chunk of her thoughts. Deliberately she changed the subject.

“I doubt any of us is going to have time for playing the kind of games you’re suggesting. I had a peek at the preliminary test schedule. The whole on-site cadre goes into 24/7 mode after Pegasus arrives tomorrow.”

As she’d anticipated, she snagged the others’ instant attention. Whatever their personal idiosyncrasies, they were each top-notch professionals in their respective fields. Kate dropped her cherry-tipped feet to the floor and leaned forward, folding her arms across her knees. Cari tossed her paperback aside.

“After I was cleared for this project, I read every report on Pegasus I could get my hands on,” the Coast Guard officer said. “The test vehicle took some severe hits going through the research and development phase.”

Kate nodded. “Congress tried to cut the program at every major milestone. The fact that two of the three initial prototypes crashed and burned didn’t help matters.”

“From what I hear, the president and the joint chiefs of staff are pinning all their hopes on us.” Cari’s small, heart-shaped face took on a grim cast. “If we don’t demonstrate that Pegasus can swim…”

“And fly,” Kate put in.

“And climb,” Jill said, thinking of the steep mountains in the northeastern corner of the test site.

“…the services will be out a state-of-the-art, all-weather, all-terrain attack/transport vehicle capable of hunting down and ferreting out terrorists wherever the bastards try to hide,” Cari finished.

Silence invaded the small living area as the three women felt the weight of their individual responsibilities.

“Well,” Kate said after a moment, “I think I’ll hit the rack. I want a clear head for the briefing tomorrow.”

Cari pushed out of her chair. “Me, too.”

She started for her bedroom, paused and turned back to Jill. “You never got a chance to tell us your likes or dislikes. Anything Kate and I should be aware of?”

“Nothing other than a propensity to receive alerts from my Control Center at any hour of the night and day.” Jill palmed the small communications device that acted as her link to her on-duty controllers. “If I get called out, I’ll try not to disturb you.”

The Coast Guard officer tipped her a grin. “Don’t worry about us. I’ve learned to snatch catnaps aboard ships plowing through gale-force seas. Kate, I imagine, has had to curl up in the back end of a plane and ignore the drone of four turbo-prop engines for hours on end.”

“More times than I can count,” the hurricane hunter drawled. “Neither one of us will break a snore if you get paged in the middle of the night.”

Jill hadn’t planned on testing her roommates’ ability to tune out disturbances that very night. Some hours later, however, her communicator pinged and dragged her from a deep, dreamless sleep. She jerked her head up, blinking away the cobwebs, and fumbled for her communicator.

“Major Bradshaw.”

“This is Rattler Control, ma’am.”

Jill raked a hand through her hair and squinted at the digital clock beside her bed. Two forty-five.

“Go ahead, Rattler control.”

“We have a report of an S-80.”

Oh, jeez! Snakebite.

If Jill were ever dumb enough to let herself get talked into a show like Fear Factor, all they’d have to do is wave a harmless little garter snake in her direction and she’d concede the game right then and there. Anything poisonous—like the diamondbacks that owned this corner of New Mexico—sent chills skittering down her arms. Gulping, she keyed her communicator.

“I copy, Control. Who took the hit?”

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