"I'm not keeping score," Dave interrupted dryly. "You can check my bedpost. You won't find any notches carved there."

  "Until I realized I had no right to be angry," she finished firmly. "We had some fun, that's all. Neither one of us made any promises. I had no reason to feel hurt or jealous. More to the point, I don't want to feel hurt or jealous. Not again."

  "I can't change the past, Kate. Nor am I going to apologize for it. But did it ever occur to you I might just be looking for the right woman?"

  "You have my permission to keep looking, cowboy."

  "Funny," Dave mused, "I wouldn't have pegged you as a coward."

  Stiffening, she lifted her chin. Before she could lash out at him, he offered his own take on the situation.

  "I don't think you're afraid of feeling hurt or jealous. You're afraid of failing. You like to win, Kate. You want to be the absolute best you can be at everything. Golf. Work. Marriage."

  "And that's bad?"

  "No. That's good. Very good. You go into everything heart first."

  She was still stiff, still a little torqued at being called a coward. Smiling, Dave brushed a knuckle down her cheek.

  "The problem is, there are no guarantees when it comes to this love business. Not for Ryan and Jaci. Not for us."

  "Who's talking about love?"

  "I am. I think."

  At her look of astonishment, his smile took a lopsided tilt.

  "I know. Half the time I'm convinced it's only plain old-fashioned lust. All I have to do is picture you in turquoise spandex and my throat goes bone dry. Then I watch you at work, see the sweat and long hours you put into this project, and lust gets all mixed up with admiration and respect and something I've had a hard time putting a name to."

  "Dave, this is crazy. You can't... You don't..."

  She stopped, drew in a slow breath, and adopted the gentle tone of a nurse addressing a seriously ill patient.

  "Respect and admiration I appreciate. Lust I understand. I've felt more than a few twinges of all three myself where you're concerned. But love... Well..."

  She glanced to the side, as if expecting the right words to materialize on the cool, crisp air.

  "It's okay." A grin stole into his voice. "The idea kind of gives me goose bumps, too."

  It gave Kate more than goose bumps. It shook her right down to her boot tops. She'd worked so hard at convincing herself she was just another trophy in his collection, that one torrid weekend defined the parameters of their relationship. It stunned her to hear his feelings went deeper. And that they had confused him as much as Kate's had confused her.

  But love...

  Her face must have expressed her welter of uncertainty, doubt and wariness. Chuckling, Dave stroked her cheek again with the back of a knuckle.

  "I don't figure we'll sort this out tonight. Or next week. Let's just take it a step at a time. See where it goes."

  "Where can it go?" Kate asked, echoing her conversation with Cari. "Once Pegasus proves his stuff, we all head back to our separate units. Unfortunately, I've discovered I'm not real good at long-distance relationships."

  "So you stumbled once. You didn't win. Does that mean you won't ever get back in the race again?"

  He knew what buttons to push, she thought ruefully. She hadn't liked being called a coward. Nor was it in her to run away and hide from a challenge. Particularly when the stakes were as high as these.

  Could she love this man? Did she want to?

  The answer was staring her right in the face.

  "Okay," she conceded with something less than graciousness. "Consider me back in the race."

  "Good." With a satisfied smile, he slid a palm around her nape. "Just to make it official, here's the starting gun."

  "Hey!"

  That one startled yelp was all she managed to get out before his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her hard and long, apparently determined to make up the ground he'd lost over the past few days.

  His taste and his tongue sent little sparks of pleasure through Kate, heating her skin as they traveled her length. Dave added to the sensations by tunneling one hand into her upswept hair, wrapping the other around her waist and bringing her hard against him.

  She curled her fingers into the soft, worn leather covering his shoulders. Her head went back, her chin tilted to find just the right angle. Within moments, she was breathless. Moments more, and she had to drag in big gulps of air when Dave broke off the kiss. She was still gulping when he reached down, hooked an elbow under her knees and deposited her on the tailgate with a small thump.

  His skin was stretched tight across his cheeks, and his wicked grin signaled his intent even before he reached for the zipper tab at the neck of her flight suit.

  "Dave!" She grabbed his hands, stilling them. "This is your idea of taking it slow?"

  "I didn't say slow. I said one step at a time. And this, my very Kissable Kate, is the next step."

  He tugged free of her hold, got the zipper halfway down, and bent to nuzzle her breasts. The warm, damp wash of his breath came through her cotton T-shirt. Shivers rippled over every square centimeter of Kate's body. Sighing, she gave herself over to the pleasure.

  Her sigh got stuck in her throat as he took little nips through the soft cotton. Pleasure gave way to hunger and Kate knew she was in trouble. But when he eased the fabric off one shoulder, common sense told her it was time to put the skids on. Unfortunately.

  "Surely you're not thinking we'll get naked out here in the middle of nowhere, are you?"

  "Oh, babe," he muttered against the curve of her shoulder, "I'm way past the point of being able to think."

  "Dave! One of Jill's patrols could come cruising by at any moment."

  "Nah." He nibbled his way back up to her throat. "I said a silent prayer to the mountain gods. Worked like a charm last time."

  "Dave, we can't. It's too cold out here. And I want an official measurement. I'm not sure this truck bed is really over the perimeter line. We might have to—"

  Suddenly, she went stiff. Her breath left on a gasp.

  "Omigod! There it is!"

  With his face buried in the silky skin of her neck and his senses already close to overload, it took Dave a second or two to realize she wasn't referring to a hidden sweet spot he'd triggered by accident.

  "Look!" Kate exclaimed, thumping him on the back with a fist. "Over there! One o'clock high."

  Swallowing a groan, Dave dragged his head up and threw a look over his shoulder at the faint green glow just visible between the peaks.

  "Now it shows," he growled, not at all happy to have his reasons for driving Kate out into the desert vindicated. She, on the other hand, could hardly contain her excitement. Wiggling free of his hands, she yanked at her zipper.

  "We've got to get back to the site. I need to access the solar observatory database, see if they're taking readings on this."

  Regret knifed into Dave at the disappearance of her lush curves. Despite her desire to return to the base, though, she couldn't seem to tear herself away. She stood transfixed, her gaze locked on the distant haze. Dave guessed she was trying to calibrate the intensity of the light waves dancing in the atmosphere and causing those weird, moving shadows.

  He had to admit they were pretty riveting. He'd pulled some temporary duty at Elmendorf AFB in Alaska, had been treated to the spectacle of the northern lights. These weren't anywhere near as intense, but they gave Dave some insight into why the rumor had persisted for so many years that aliens had landed near Roswell, New Mexico. Folks had probably spotted a green glow much like this one and let their fears prey on them. They wouldn't have had the benefit of scientific data regarding sunspots and magnetic energy and solar flares. Kate and Stu Petrie had treated Dave to an extended discourse on the phenomena, yet the dancing lights still sent prickles of unease down his spine.

  "Do you think that eerie glow will impact tomorrow's flight?"

  The casual question masked a dozen different concerns. That the team maintain the tight test schedule. That they wrap up the air portion and move on to the sea trials. That Pegasus get a chance to strut his stuff before being harnessed for plow duty in the trenches. If things turned sour down in Caribe, the Pentagon might have to move troops in and noncombatant civilians out pretty quick.

  Kate gave the haze a final, frowning glance. "At this point, I can't say what the impact will be. All I can do is check the data and see if the observatory is projecting any significant activity in the earth's ionosphere. We don't want to take any chances with you or with Pegasus."

  She started for the passenger door, stopped, and spun around. Grabbing his jacket collar, she yanked him down for a hard, fast kiss.

  "Particularly with you, flyboy."

  Ten

  Kate didn't sleep at all that night.

  She spent hours hunched over her computer collecting reports from every possible source. The solar observatory in Sunspot had recorded an increase in ionization in the earth's upper atmosphere, but no disruption of satellite or radio communications as yet.

  By morning, she was hungry, hollow-eyed and more nervous than she'd ever been before jumping aboard one of NOAA's planes to fly into the eye of a howling storm. She knew every piece of equipment aboard the specially modified P-3, knew just how it would respond when buffeted by hurricane-force winds.

  In contrast, Dave was going up in a new vehicle with only one operational test flight to its credit. The contractor representatives were confident they'd shaken the bugs out of Pegasus during the research and development phase—particularly after analyzing the data from the loss of the first two prototypes and incorporating design changes. But there was a good reason why the military didn't accept ships or aircraft or other highly sophisticated weapons systems without extensive field tests. Real-world conditions too often caused failure of systems that operated flawlessly in a controlled R and D environment. And high-energy solar explosions were about as real world as it gels.

  As a result, Kate approached the 8:00 a.m. pretest meeting with considerably less confidence than she had previous such meetings. She was one of the first to arrive at the small conference room in the Test Operations building. Depositing her laptop and stack of briefing books on the table, she nodded to Russ McIver.

  "'Morning, Mac."

  "Hi, Kate."

  "Are you going to load Pegasus with the equivalent weight of a full squad this morning?"

  "That's the plan. Any reason to change it?"

  Kate bit her lip. Pegasus was designed to carry a maximum of twenty fully-equipped troops or their equivalent weight in cargo. This would be the first test of how the vehicle performed fully loaded.

  "No," she said slowly, thinking of all the weight and drag Dave would have to compensate for, "no reason to change it at this point."

  The marine went back to flipping through the PowerPoint charts he'd prepared for the prebrief. Too restless to sit, Kate poured coffee into a mug emblazoned with the Pegasus test-cadre shield. Dave ar-J rived a few minutes later and joined her at the pot.

  "You look dead," he commented, eyeing her drawn face. "Gorgeous, but dead."

  "Thanks."

  By contrast, she thought wryly, he looked good enough to eat. His blond hair still gleamed from his morning shower, and his blue eyes showed none of the red tracks Kate's did.

  "Did you get any sleep last night?" he asked her.

  "Not much."

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. "Me, neither. That bit of unfinished business we started out on the perimeter kept me tossing and turning all night. We are going to finish it, Hargrave."

  Kate didn't argue. Sometime during the long hours of the night she'd accepted Dave's challenge. She was back in the race. Despite the tension that knotted the muscles at the base of her skull, she flashed him a ten-gigabyte smile.

  "If you say so, Scott."

  The rest of the cadre filed in, dumped their briefing books and hit the coffee. Everyone was in place when Captain Westfall arrived at precisely 0800. Chairs scraped back. Officers popped to attention. Even the civilians stood as a mark of respect for the naval officer whose drive and determination fed their own.

  "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Take your seats, please."

  After another shuffle, an expectant silence settled over the room. Westfall's glance moved around the U-shaped table and settled on Kate.

  "Before we get into the actual mission prebrief, I've asked Commander Hargrave to give you an update on recent solar activity. We'll make the go/no-go decision for today's flight after we hear what she has to tell us. Commander."

  Kate took the flo'or. The data she'd pored over last night was pretty well burned into her brain. She could talk her subject from memory, but had prepared a computerized slide presentation for the test team's benefit. Her palm slick from a combination of worry and nerves, she pressed the remote. The first slide cut right to the heart of the matter. It showed a soft X-ray image of the sun's "busy" side, with swirls of black clearly visible against the brilliant red corona.

  "The National Solar Observatory at Sunspot, just a little over a hundred miles from here, has been monitoring a buildup of energy in the sun's magnetic fields. This increase in energy could lead to a solar flare, such as the one shown on this slide. This particular flare is in what we call the precursor stage, where the release of magnetic energy has been triggered."

  Kate hit the remote again and brought up another slide. In this one, the dark swirls all but obscured the red ball.

  "In the second or impulsive stage, protons and electrons accelerate to high energy and are emitted as radio waves, hard X rays and gamma rays."

  The next slide depicted a glowing red ball with only a few black swirls.

  "In the final stage, we can measure the gradual buildup and decay of soft X rays. Each of these stages can last as little as a few seconds or as long as an hour."

  She had their attention, Kate saw. Dave had received much of this information during their visit to the observatory. It was new stuff for the others.

  "Solar flares are the most intense explosions in the solar system," she continued, bringing up the next slide. "The energy released may reach as high as ten-to-the-thirty-second-power ergs. That's ten million times greater than the energy released in a volcano, and we all know the devastation that resulted when Mount St. Helens erupted."

  "The problem is when the intense radiation from a solar flare enters the earth's atmosphere. It can disrupt satellite transmissions, increase the drag on an orbiting vehicle and generally wreak havoc with anything electronic."

  "Oh, great!"

  The muttered exclamation came from Jill Brad-shaw, but Kate saw the same concern reflected in every face at the table. A click of the remote brought up a bar graph charting the sun's magnetic-field activity for the past two decades.

  "Solar flares generally occur in cycles," she informed her audience. "As you can see, 2000 and 2001 were peak years. This was predicted and planned for."

  "Planned for how?" Russ McIver wanted to know.

  "A 1998 flare knocked out the Galaxy 4 satellite and disrupted some eighty percent of commercial cell phone and pager use in the United States. As a result, military and civilian communications agencies took a hard look at systems dependent on satellite signals and built in more redundancy. For example, radio, television, bank transactions, newspapers, credit card systems and the like are now spread across a wider spectrum of low- to mid-altitude satellites. Some might get knocked out, but the others would be at different points in their orbit and be protected from the solar blast by the curvature of the earth."

  Caroline Dunn sat forward in her chair. Her brown eyes grave, she studied the bar graph. "Looks like flare activity has been minimal since 2001. Are you saying there's a chance that could change in a hurry?"

  "I'm saying there's a possibility," Kate replied carefully. She had to walk a fine line between predicting something that might not happen and minimizing the potential, only to have it blow up in her face. "Some of you may have noticed a green glow in the sky, similar to the northern lights only much less intense. It's caused by higher than normal ioni-zation levels in the upper atmosphere."

  "High enough to disrupt communications or interfere with the instrumentation on Pegasus?"

  Kate answered Dave's question as truthfully as she could. "Not at present."

  "But you're concerned another burst of ergs will come zinging my way?"

  "Yes."

  They were speaking one-to-one now. The others were still there, within their field of vision, but relegated to the background.

  "Pegasus comes equipped with a lot of that redundancy you mentioned," Dave reminded her. "Backup communications, laser-guided navigational systems, fly-by-wire manual controls in the event of hydraulic failure."

  "I know."

  "There's also the fact I'm a test pilot. I've logged over a thousand hours in both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft." His lips tipped into a grin. "I also survived almost every natural and unnatural disaster you threw at me during those hours in the simulator."

  "It's the 'almost' part that worries me."

  "That part worries us all," Captain Westfall interjected dryly. "I need your best professional guesstimate, Commander Hargrave. On the basis of the data available to you at this point, do you recommend we press on with the mission or scrub it?"

  Kate fingered the remote. She knew the situation in Caribe had added to pressure on the captain. On them all. She also knew how little room there was for a slip in the schedule even without the Pentagon's latest worries.

  She had to accept the possibility that one of the swirling sunspots could generate enough energy to fry every circuit aboard Pegasus. There was also the chance Dave and his craft could wing across a clear blue sky.

  She didn't look at Dave. This was her time in the box. Captain Westfall would ask for his input in a few minutes.

  "Based on all data currently available, sir, I recommend we continue the mission. I'll monitor the situation continuously. If I receive any indication of increased solar activity, we can terminate immediately."