Merline Lovelace - Full Throttle

“Tell you what.” Deliberately, she eased away from his touch. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to rev my engines. Until then, we focus only on our mission while on-site. Agreed?”

“If that’s what you want.”

She leveled a steady look at him. Ignored the little crinkle of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. Disregarded the way the deepening shadows cast his face into intriguing planes and angles.

“That’s what I want.”

Kate had almost as much trouble convincing her roommates she wanted to stick strictly to business as she had convincing Dave Scott.

Cari and Jill were both waiting when she returned to the modular unit that served as their quarters. The unit was functional at best—three cracker box–size bedrooms, an even smaller kitchen and a living area equipped with furniture more designed for utility than for comfort. The three women had added a few personal touches. Kate had tacked up some posters showing the earth’s weather in all its infinite variety. Cloudbursts over the Grand Canyon. Snow dusting the peaks of the Andes. The sun blazing down on a Swiss alpine meadow. Cari had added a shelf crammed with the whodunits and thrillers she devoured like candy. Jill stuck to her army roots and had draped a green flag depicting the crossed dueling pistols of the Military Police over one bare wall. The result wouldn’t win any house-beautiful awards, but the three officers had grown used to it.

They’d also grown used to each other’s idiosyncrasies. No small feat for women accustomed to being on their own and in charge. Still, their close quarters made for few secrets—as Cari proceeded to demonstrate. Curled in her favorite chair, the Coast Guard officer propped the thick technical manual she’d been studying on her chest and demanded an account.

“Okay, Hargrave, re-port. What’s with you and the latest addition to our merry band?”

“Other than the fact he drove me into the compound after my tumble this morning, nothing.”

Polite disbelief skipped across Cari’s heart-shaped face. Jill Bradshaw was more direct.

“Ha! Some weather officer you are. We all heard the thunder rumbling around you and Scott. You sure lightning isn’t about to strike?”

“I should be so lucky.”

Kate plopped down beside her on the sofa and yanked the clip out of her hair. Raking her fingers through the heavy mass, she gave the cop a rueful smile.

“I’ll tell you this much. Dave isn’t like Cody, Jill. You struck gold there.”

“Yeah, right,” the blonde snorted. “I had to put him on his face in the dirt before either of us got around to recognizing that fact. Not to mention almost arresting him for suspected sabotage.”

Kate’s smile dimmed at the memory of those tense days when a mysterious virus had attacked one team member after another. As chief of security, Jill’s investigation had centered on the Public Service officer—who just happened to be one of the country’s foremost experts in biological agents.

“Besides which,” Jill continued with a shrug, “Cody and I are doing our best to play things cool until we wind up the Pegasus project.”

It was Kate’s turn to snort. “The temperature goes up a good twenty degrees Celsius whenever you two are in the same vicinity.”

Loftily, her roommate ignored the interruption. “From where we sit,” Jill said, including Cari in the general assessment, “your Captain Scott doesn’t look like he knows how to cool his jets.”

“First, he’s not my Captain Scott. Second, we conducted a little experiment a few moments ago, the nature of which is highly classified,” she added firmly when both women flashed interested looks. “Bottom line, the captain and I agreed to focus solely on Pegasus while on-site. As the three of us should be doing right now.”

Jill took the hint and stopped probing. An intensely private person herself, she hadn’t looked forward to sharing cramped quarters with two other women. After weeks with the gregarious Kate and friendly Caroline, she’d learned to open up a bit. Falling head over heels for the handsome doc assigned to the project had certainly aided in her metamorphosis.

“Speaking of Pegasus,” Cari said, patting the thick three-ring binder propped on her stomach. “Captain Westfall sent over a revised test plan while you were out, uh, experimenting with Dave Scott. Our air force flyboy starts simulator training tomorrow morning.”

“Yikes!” Kate’s feet hit the floor with a thud. “I’d better get to work. I want to input a different weather-sequence pattern into the simulator program. Talk to you guys later.”

Heading for her bedroom, she settled at the small desk wedged in a corner and flipped up the lid of a slim, titanium-cased notebook computer. The communications wizards assigned to the Pegasus project had rigged wireless high-speed satellite links for the PCs on-site. Kate could access the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency databases from just about anywhere in the compound.

The databases were treasure troves containing information collected over several centuries. Kate took pride in the fact that NOAA could trace its roots back to 1807, when President Thomas Jefferson created the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the oldest scientific agency in the federal government. Congress got involved in 1890 when it created a Weather Bureau, the forerunner of the current National Weather Service. In 1970 President Nixon combined weather and coastal surveys, along with many other departments to create NOAA.

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