A Question of Intent Page 5

  "The thing's fang caught in Barnes's pants," the sergeant explained. "It was either bundle it in my shirt and yank it off, or risk putting a bullet through Barnes's leg."

  "How big is it?" the doc asked, planting his black bag on the floor of the ATV.

  "Eight to ten feet of pure, hissing meanness."

  Nodding, Richardson pulled out a pair of thin rubber gloves. The chopper's powerful searchlight added to the directed beams of the soldiers' flashlights and provided more than enough light for him to examine the wound.

  "Looks good," he said when he'd removed the suction cup and gently probed the red, swollen flesh.

  Barnes craned to have a look. Sergeant Kinnear's beefy hand planted him back down on the seat and kept him in place while Richardson dug into his bag.

  "I'm going to remove the Ace bandage and administer an antivenin serum now. Given your size and the size of that rattler, I'll pump fifteen vials into you. That large a dose will make you whoozy, so don't get alarmed if your head starts to spin. Once the serum works its way into your bloodstream, we'll transport you to the chopper and back to base."

  "Whatever you say, Doc."

  Jill and Sergeant Kinnear stood back to give him room to work. The injections took only a few moments, but the wait for the serum to take effect seemed to stretch forever. Dr. Richardson reassured his patient by citing the high recovery statistics for snakebite victims, yet didn't minimize the possible side effects during the recovery process. He also voiced words of praise for Sergeant Kinnear's quick use of the snakebite kit.

  "The major's the one who deserves the credit," the grizzled veteran countered. "She made sure we all received special training to counter venomous bites the first day we arrived on-site."

  Richardson's gaze swung to Jill. "Smart thinking."

  "Just doing my job."

  She'd shrugged off the compliment, but the doc's warm approval pleased her more than she wanted to admit.

  He voiced it again an hour later, after he'd turned Sergeant Barnes over to a corpsman to watch for the rest of the night.

  " Kinnear's quick response may have saved his partner considerable discomfort and possible paralysis," he told Jill as he propped open the clinic door to allow her to precede him out into the night. "That, and the special training you provided your people."

  "Working in this environment, it only made sense." She turned to face him, intending to call it a night. "Thanks for taking such good care of my troop."

  His mouth curved. Solemnly he echoed her earlier response. "Just doing my job."

  She'd already noted how the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Now she was forced to note the effect his smile had on her respiratory system. Frowning, she checked her watch. Four-thirty. Another forty-five minutes, and her alarm would start pinging.

  "I'm too wired to go back to sleep," she said, surprising herself by adding a kicker. "Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?"

  "Sounds good."

  "My folks keep a pot on in our break area, but this time of night it generally runs to industrial-strength sludge."

  "I can handle it."

  She was beginning to believe he could. After observing him in action the past two nights, Jill had the feeling the doc could handle just about anything that came his way.

  As she led the way to the squat modular unit housing the control center, she found herself reassessing her initial doubts about Cody Richardson. Maybe she was being too suspicious. Maybe he really had stopped beside the road to stargaze. And maybe she should find out more about the man than the dry facts she'd gleaned from his background dossier and the not-so-dry tidbits Kate Hargrave had supplied. That was the reason she gave herself, anyway, for suggesting they take their coffee to the picnic table outside.

  "Just let me check in with my controllers and update them on Sergeant Barnes's status."

  Cody listened absently to the murmur of voices in the other room as he dumped several packets of sugar and creamer into his coffee to dilute its tarlike consistency. The major left hers black, he saw when she returned. If she drank very much of this stuff, it was no wonder she stayed so wired.

  Mug in hand, he followed her outside to a folding metal picnic table set a few yards from Control Center. The bench looked too narrow for comfort, so Cody opted to sit on the tabletop and prop his feet on the metal seat.

  The major did the same. Dragging off her black beret, she jammed it in the pocket on her pants leg and made herself comfortable. A whisper of a breeze coming off the desert lifted the ends of her hair, washed to a silvery gold by the moonlight.

  "My guys are already talking about constructing a pen for the rattler," she said with a grimace. "They want to make it our unit mascot. I agreed on the condition I never have to watch the thing being fed."

  A companionable silence wrapped around them. Cody sipped his coffee, oddly reluctant to break it. Curiosity about the woman beside him finally prompted an idle question.

  "How long have you been an MP?"

  "Going on eleven years now."

  "It's a tough profession."

  "It can be."

  "So tell me about it."

  She slanted him a quick glance. "Why?"

  He hooked a brow. "Oh, I don't know. Let's just chalk it up to a natural curiosity about women who plant me facedown in the dirt."

  "That still rankles, does it?"

  "Not particularly. But it does make me want to know more about you."

  "Like what, for instance?"

  God, she was bristly. Not about to give an inch. Maybe that was what intrigued him about her.

  "Like where you come from, for instance. What kind of music you listen to. How you like your work. The real story behind that scar on your neck."

  Stiffening, she speared her left hand into her hair and raked the blunt-cut ends forward. The gesture was instinctive, Cody guessed, and far more revealing than the terse reply she rifled out.

  "Oregon. Soft rock. I like it very much, and I told you the story."

  "You told me part of it. What you didn't tell me was why you were consorting with the kind of idiot who rips beer cans in half with his teeth."

  She gave him a long, considering look. "How about this, Doc? I'll tell you the details of that sorry incident if you tell me why you walked out on a six-figure job with one of the country's leading pharmaceutical companies and joined the Public Health Service."

  It was Cody's turn to stiffen. His decision to join PHS followed the worst months—and night—of his life. He would carry the guilt for that night for the rest of his life, but it wasn't something he wanted to share with anyone. Particularly this woman.

  On the other hand, he'd asked the major to reveal a part of herself she was obviously reluctant to share. Fairness dictated that he do the same. Suddenly and inexplicably, he was annoyed that he still thought of her as "the major" and she referred to him as "Doc."

  "The name's Cody," he said curtly.

  "I know the name, but I don't think it's appropriate for me to use it given the fact you outrank me."

  "That holds when we're on duty. I went off the clock when I sat down on this table."

  So did she, but it took her a while to admit it.

  "All right," she finally conceded. "Tell me why you left your civilian job...Cody."

  He gripped the mug in both hands. "My wife was killed in a car accident. After her death, I needed a change."

  It was as simple as that, and so much more complex. His jaw clenching, Cody shut his mind to the bitter arguments and recriminations preceding the accident. But he couldn't blank out the horror that came after it.

  "I'd been head of research at a major pharmaceutical company," he continued after a moment.

  "Ditech," Jill murmured.

  He nodded, not surprised. As chief of security, she would have read his background file.

  "When Alicia died, I decided to opt out of the high-powered politics of Pharmaceuticals and join PHS."

  "I bet
your exit jolted a few folks at Ditech."

  "They got over it."

  More or less. Jack Conway would never forgive Cody for walking away from the company the old man had built from the ground up, any more than he'd forgive him for his daughter's death. Cody had learned to live with his father-in-law's unrelenting enmity along with the acid of his own remorse and regret.

  "I've told you what you wanted to know," he said. "Your turn."

  She hesitated, and for a moment he thought she would welch on their deal. She didn't.

  "I was eighteen. A freshman in college. Too dumb to leave the frat party when it became clear the guy I was with had drunk too much. So dumb I actually thought I should get him upstairs and into bed before he passed out or puked all over the place."

  She shook her head, making no effort to disguise her disgust with herself.

  "I got him up to his room, but he didn't pass out. Instead, he hauled out another six-pack, popped a top and guzzled another beer."

  "At which point he ripped the can apart with his teeth?"

  "Correct. He tossed the can aside and was reaching for another when I tried to leave."

  Cody went still, snared by that "tried." He had a good idea what was coming before she picked up the thread of her story.

  "He was too drunk to listen when I said no and too furious after I kneed him in the balls to pull his punches. I went down hard, landed on the jagged can, and almost sliced my own throat. The blood sobered him up fast," she added on a dry note. "That, and my furious promise he'd finish his senior year in jail."

  "I hope to God he did."

  "He wasn't even charged. The campus cops got me to the hospital, where a blood test confirmed I'd consumed a few beers, too. The whole episode was chalked up to a lovers' spat that got out of hand."

  She downed the last of her coffee and slid off the table.

  "I'm sensitive about the scar. I admit it. But don't think I don't learn from my mistakes. I took every self-defense course available on and off campus. I also switched my major to law enforcement. As a result, I'm working in a profession I love, have no qualms about taking on anyone, male or female, and, as a bonus, I get to wear the uniform of my country. In my more generous moments," she said with a sardonic twist of her lips, "I'm almost grateful to the bastard for crunching those cans."

  Cody wouldn't go that far. He'd treated too many battered spouses during his internship and residency to feel anything but contempt for a man who would assault a woman. But in this particular instance, he couldn't help agreeing with the end result. Jill Brad-shaw had made an ugly, potentially devastating situation into a major turning point in her life.

  "Sounds like both our lives have taken a few unexpected twists and turns," he commented.

  "Everyone's does."

  "True. But not everyone winds up at a remote military site in the middle of the desert, surrounded by a quiet night and a whole lot of stars."

  With a beautiful, intriguing woman just inches away.

  He knew he shouldn't reach for her. Knew he shouldn't slide his hand under that smooth, silky hair. If her blond brows had snapped into a frown, if she'd put up even the slightest show of resistance, he probably wouldn't have curled his palm around her nape and drawn her closer. For sure he wouldn't have bent his head and brushed his mouth over hers.

  That was all he intended, anyway. Just a touch. A slow glide of lip along lip.

  Maybe it was the way her breath hitched. Or the slow heat that collected in the skin under his palm. Whatever it was brought Cody off the table and onto his feet. Using his thumb, he tipped her head to a better angle and deepened the kiss.

  Jill stood stock-still.

  As the doc's mouth moved over hers, a jumble of emotions bolted through her. Her first instinct was to jerk away. Her second, to bring up her knee. He was too big, too strong, too damned good at this. Yet she remained still, testing herself, testing him.

  To her surprise, she didn't experience so much as a dart of reluctance or distaste. His mouth and hands communicated only pleasure. Slow and tentative at first, faster and surer as his lips moved over hers.

  With deliberate detachment she catalogued each sensation. The way he maneuvered into the kiss, with no awkward bumping of noses. The bristly scrape of his chin. The heat that transferred from his palm to her throat and all points south.

  The hesitant, unsure, Goofy types she'd dated off and on over the years had never generated this much warmth so quickly. Okay, they'd never generated this much heat at all She'd never let them. The fact that she wanted this kiss to go on indefinitely surprised the heck out of her and provided exactly the impetus she needed to break it. She stepped back, her muscles tensing, almost daring the doc to try to stop her.

  He didn't. His hands dropped down to his sides and he looked almost as confused as she felt at the moment. She half expected him to apologize, was relieved when he didn't. Instead, he shagged a hand through his hair and dredged up a smile.

  "Whew! I'm not sure where that came from."

  Jill couldn't find anything to smile about. There was too much at stake.

  "Wherever it came from," she said coolly, "it had better not happen again. We need to remember that we're here to do a job. A very important, very sensitive job I suggest we both keep our minds on that and forget about this little time-out."

  Time-out, huh? Cody figured that was as good a way to describe what just happened as any. He'd taken a momentary departure from common sense.

  He'd shut himself away in a lab for too long, he decided as he walked the major back to the officers' trailers. Let his guilt eat away at him for too many months. He'd forgotten how it felt to share a quiet moment and a sky full of stars with a woman. And he'd sure as hell forgotten how something as simpie and uncomplicated as a kiss could make his whole body sit up and take notice.

  When his lips had covered hers, he'd felt the impact of her warm, seductive mouth in every muscle and nerve in his body. He was still feeling it, judging by the slight hitch in his walk.

  Disconcerted by the jolt Jill Bradshaw had given his system, Cody left her at her quarters and retreated to his own.

  Chapter 5

  Pegasus arrived just past one the following afternoon.

  By then Jill had conducted the morning guard mount, briefed her people on the snakebite incident, visited the dispensary to check on Sergeant Barnes and spent a good chunk of time on the horn with her counterpart up at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque to confirm the size and composition of the security team that would escort Pegasus to his new stable.

  A C-5 cargo plane flew the boxcar-size transporter into Kirtland just after nine. Once there, it was loaded onto a flatbed track and escorted south. The convoy commander advised Jill when they were an hour out.

  She notified Captain Westfall, who assembled his key officers at the facility that would both house Pegasus and shield him from prying eyes in the sky. As the team waited in the cavernous hangar with mounting impatience and excitement, Jill skimmed a glance around the tight circle. They were all there, the leaders of the Star-Spangled Brigade: Captain Westfall, whipcord lean in his khakis; his second in command, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Bill Thompson; Lieutenant Commander Kate Hargrave, her hair a bright red flame; Major Russ McIver standing ramrod straight and lantern-jawed like any good marine; Caroline Dunn, looking crisp and all business; Dr. Cody Richardson...

  Her glance skidded to a halt, snagged by broad shoulders covered in khaki and the strong, tanned column of his neck. As if feeling her gaze on him, he looked her way. For a moment the memory of their kiss in the moonlight sizzled between them.

  Deliberately Jill forced her attention to the civilians and enlisted personnel fanning out on either side of the officers. They were backed by test stands containing racks and racks of equipment. Pegasus would remain tethered to those racks until ready to run.

  Jill's radio crackled, and her announcement that Pegasus had just been cleared into the test compound brought heads snapping
up. The assembled group heard the rumble of the semi before it nosed around the hangar. Swinging in a wide arc, the vehicle backed up and stopped with the transporter just inside the open hangar doors.

  The prime contractor's senior test representative crawled out of the semi's cab. A leather-tough, former Navy test pilot, he'd put Pegasus through his paces during the research and development phase. The fact that two of the three prototypes had crashed and burned probably accounted for the deep grooves bracketing the man's mouth, Jill thought.

  The contractor was frantically assembling more prototypes, but urgent requirements had led the brass to press forward with operational test and evaluation of the one remaining vehicle. Pegasus's performance during this phase would determine whether or not the Department of Defense went ahead with its planned buy of the multimillion-dollar vehicle. Years of research and development were on the line here.

  She held her breath as the boxlike transporter's rear doors opened and a long ramp slid out. Jump-suited contractor personnel climbed inside the box to remove the restraints. A few moments later Pegasus rolled down the ramp.

  "Doesn't look like much from where I'm standing," Kate Hargrave murmured.

  Jill had to agree. She'd seen classified photos of the prototypes in different operational modes— churning up dirt, plowing through heavy seas, soaring above the clouds. This cigar-shaped pod with its bubble canopy and single tail fin bore little resemblance to those sleek vehicles.

  True, it wore a coat of gleaming white paint on its composite, radar-evading skin. And the letters X-2, designating its status as a test vehicle, stood tall on its tail fin. Jill wasn't particularly impressed, though, until the contractor personnel hooked the vehicle up to generators and activated its systems.

  A rear hatch slid open with a swoosh. The test pilot strode up the ramp and disappeared inside. Jill waited along with the others until his head appeared inside the bubble canopy. Suddenly doors lifted on two side narrow panels and Pegasus spread his wings.

  "Whoa!" the Air Force rep exclaimed. "Look at that!"

  The wings slid out with a whir, giving the vehicle a swept-back delta shape. A moment later, blades fanned out on the rear-mounted engines. Then it looked like a delta with propellers.