Night Call

Night Call

All medevac helicopter pilot Jett McNally wants to do is fly and forget about the horror and heartbreak she left behind in the Middle East, but anesthesiologist Tristan Holmes has other plans.

When Jett comes home from the war and destruction in the Middle East, flying and the adrenaline rush of a crisis are the only things that make her happy, and she volunteers to fly night call where all the action is whenever she can. So maybe once in a while she takes a few chances. Hey, that’s life, right?

Dr. Tristan Holmes is an expert at two things—high-risk anesthesia and pleasing women. Tristan gave up expecting anything other than a good time from the women in her life long time ago, and casual relationships are the perfect prescription for stress release. She doesn’t do relationships, so she can’t quite understand why it bothers her when Jett makes it clear she doesn’t want one.

High-stakes medical drama, life on the edge, and love in the fast lane—it’s all just routine for Night Call.

Chapter One

Hey, Holmes! I thought you were in Vegas?”

“Yeah, I was.” Tristan sank down on the ugly green vinyl sofa that occupied one wall in the OR lounge and propped her feet up on a nearby chair. “But when I heard you all were having so much fun back here, I left early.”

Most of the Philadelphia Medical College surgeons and anesthesiologists were in Las Vegas for a trauma meeting all week, and only a skeleton staff remained at the hospital. Tristan had been there too until she’d received an emergency call from her chief. Acute staffing shortage, he’d informed her. Two of the senior anesthesia staff were unexpectedly out of commission—one with a broken leg following a collision with a goose while he was rollerblading through the park along the Schuylkill River, and the other with a family crisis.

Since Tristan was the low man—or woman, in this case—on the ladder, seeing as how she’d just started on staff only a few weeks before, she’d gamely saluted and fallen on her sword for the good of her brother and sister anesthesiologists. She’d taken the redeye back the night before and gone straight to the hospital.

The only thing that made the premature return trip and no sleep tolerable was the memory of the outrageous few hours she’d spent with a woman who had taught her a couple of things about herself and what she enjoyed in bed. For Tristan, that was a remarkable revelation, because, although she didn’t consider herself a player, she enjoyed the company of women. And being twenty-nine and single and planning to stay that way, at least for a good many more years, she enjoyed the company of women frequently. So discovering that she liked being fucked senseless by a petite toppy femme in four-inch heels, while her hands were restrained over her head, ranked right up there with some of her most enlightening experiences. So much so she couldn’t stop thinking about it—not the woman, who’d been easy to look at and interesting even when they weren’t in bed, or the admittedly mind-blowing sex—but just how much she liked being completely not in control. She doubted anyone who knew her, including herself, would have ever described her as being happy with someone else calling the shots. But she’d been more than happy having Meg direct the action; she’d been exhilarated.

“So the meeting was a drag, huh?” Charlie Dixon probed.

“Oh yeah. Deadly boring.” Tristan craned her neck and grinned up at the six-foot-four mocha-skinned trauma fellow before putting thoughts of hot blondes, power play, and multiple orgasms out of her mind. Charlie only had half a foot on her in terms of height, but he was svelte, the way some dancers were. He always made her feel like a clod with her solid build that required sweating three times a week in the gym and pounding the city streets for ten or twelve miles every few days to keep her body muscular and not just bulky.

“I hear Vegas is a swinging place,” Charlie said mournfully as he slumped into a rickety chair at the round table in the center of the room.

“Couldn’t prove it by me.”

Charlie eyed her suspiciously, but Tristan refused to bite. She’d always found that the guys she worked with accepted her being a lesbian without much fuss, but they were still curious about how she made out with women. Sex was a popular topic around the OR, since there wasn’t much to fill the long hours between emergencies most nights except talking about sex and sports. She didn’t begrudge the guys their interest, but she didn’t play to it either. Maybe she didn’t want to spend a lifetime with the women she dated, but they weren’t conquests or notches on her bedpost. And if she was seeing more than one woman at a time, she didn’t make that a secret with any of her dates. She had nice, friendly, comfortable relationships with her girlfriends, and she wanted to keep it that way. So when the guys hinted for a little kiss and tell, she just smiled and shook her head.

“Say, Charlie,” Tristan teased, “how’s your wife?”

“Bitching that she never sees me,” Charlie replied.

“Can’t blame her. It’s true, isn’t it?” Tristan didn’t really mind the long hours, especially now that she had a staff position. She kept an apartment a few blocks from the hospital in West Mount Airy for when she was on call and had fifteen acres of rolling farmland in Bucks County for the weekends when she wasn’t. She’d grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs, so a few times a month she joined her parents and one or two of her siblings at their parents’ club for dinner or some other social outing. Most of the time she was too busy to think about the fact that she hadn’t had a relationship longer than a few weeks for more than a decade, and since she rarely had difficulty finding a date whenever she needed company, she didn’t dwell on her chronic single status when she did. She loved her work, she loved women. Life was good.

“I keep telling my wife—one more year,” Charlie said. “One more year and I’ll be in the big time, just like you.”

Tristan laughed.

“Yeah, and look what I’m doing in the middle of the night on a Sunday. Sitting on my ass in the OR lounge waiting for the next—” Their beepers went off simultaneously, and Tristan grabbed for hers. “Shit.”

“There goes the rest of the night,” Charlie grumbled as the overhead announced a code red. “The chopper’s going out. Bet it’s a multiple MVA. Right time of night for it—drunks driving home or tourists coming back from the Shore for work tomorrow. Trying to make time in the middle of the night and then falling asleep. God damn it.”

Tristan pulled the trauma beeper off the waistband of her scrub pants and frowned at a number she didn’t recognize.

“Huh. Must be a mistake.”

At the sound of a knock on her door, Jett McNally, who sat with her back against the wall and her long legs stretched out on the bed, stuck her finger between the pages of the book she was reading and called, “It’s open.”

Linda, the flight nurse on Jett’s medevac team, poked her head in.

“Hey, Cap, we’ve got a scene request. I don’t have the details yet, but the first responders are calling for a physician ride-along.”

Jett shook her head in amused resignation. She’d explained to Linda she’d never been a captain, and she didn’t have a rank anymore, and she didn’t stand on ceremony anyhow, but Linda insisted on calling her Cap. Healthstar, the medevac company Jett flew for, received two types of requests—scene requests, usually accidents or some other trauma, or transfer requests, transporting patients from one hospital to another. Ordinarily, the medcrew consisted of a nurse and a paramedic, but Jett’s EC-145 Eurocopter could hold nine, including the patient, if needed. Once in a while, a physician accompanied them if the patient’s condition was extraordinarily precarious. Jett didn’t really care what kind of flight she went out on, but she preferred emergencies to transfers. The adrenaline rush of racing against time, of beating the odds, gave her the satisfaction very little else could. When the stakes were high, she felt alive.

“How far away are they?” Jett asked.

“About thirty miles.”

Jett tossed her book onto the single bed. When she had started her tour earlier that night, housekeeping hadn’t yet been by to clean the flight crews’ rooms, so she had changed the sheets and blankets herself.

The cover was tucked in so tightly the book bounced. Her DI would have been proud. “See you on deck.”

With her flight gear under her arm, Jett hustled down the hall and outside to the rooftop helo deck. One of the medcrew would get the rest of the pertinent medical information. All Jett needed to do was confirm they could fly and then prepare the aircraft. Even though she was flying civilian now, her routine was ingrained after thirteen years in the Army, including a tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. She saw no reason to change anything now, because she could go skids up in four to five minutes once the call came in, and whether it was a civilian emergency or combat, every second counted.

When she’d done her walk-around earlier at the start of her twelve-hour tour, she’d reviewed the aircraft’s maintenance logs and run through as much of the preflight checklist as she could. She’d also determined that the weather was adequate for flying. Just the same, weather could change in six hours and she was responsible for the safety of her crew. She wouldn’t fly in bad weather, even though there were injured to be evacuated. The rule was, you didn’t risk three lives for one. She’d taken chances, sure—in combat. All of the pilots had, rather than leave their comrades behind. Those few times she hadn’t been able to reach the wounded haunted her still.

Tonight the sky was nearly cloudless, a hot, hazy summer night.

The flight was a go. By the time she had suited up, climbed into the cockpit, and run through the rest of her preflight check, Linda and Juan, the paramedic, were waiting, helmets in hand, ready to board.

“Where’s the doctor?” Jett yelled from the cockpit.

“Should be here any second,” Linda called back.

Jett disliked civilian physicians in her aircraft. They weren’t used to flying and weren’t used to taking orders. With one aboard, she had one more thing to worry about, but there was nothing she could do about it. The civilian world operated differently than the Army, where rank trumped everything, including education or perceived skills.

Despite the fact that her medcrew was trained to handle anything out in the field, if the first responders wanted a physician, then a physician they would get.

At that moment, the double glass doors enclosing the elevator lobby in the far corner of the rooftop opened wide and a woman in pale blue scrubs sprinted out toward them. An assortment of beepers bounced on the waistband of her scrub pants, and a stethoscope danced around her neck. Jett gave her a cursory glance. She appeared young, probably a resident, her body muscular and fit-looking. Her collar length brunette hair was thick and casually styled. In the harsh lights of the helo deck, her blue eyes stood out in startling contrast to her olive complexion.

“Make sure she gets squared away,” Jett called to Linda before starting her engines. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Linda grab the doctor by the arm, and all three ducked their heads, ran under the spinning rotors, and climbed aboard. After giving them a second to strap in, Jett took the helicopter up from the roof of the main hospital building and headed northwest toward the turnpike. She checked her watch. Four minutes and twenty-five seconds.

She was flying. Life was good, for these few minutes, anyhow.

“What’s going on?” Tristan shouted to the woman who had introduced herself as Linda as she pulled the safety harness across her chest. She didn’t know either of the flight crew, and all she could see of the pilot was a strong profile, dark eyes, and thick sandy hair sticking out from under the back of her helmet. Tristan had a brief instant to register that the pilot was female and good-looking before her mind honed in on the question of what faced her. All she’d gotten from the paramedic who phoned her was that Healthstar needed a doctor, and Tristan’s name was on the top of the roster tonight. She was double boarded in anesthesia and critical care, like a lot of anesthesia docs, so when her new chief had asked her if she’d take trauma call, she’d said sure. She’d never been up in a helicopter before, and this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for her first time. A romantic ride with a beautiful woman around Manhattan, a view of the Statue of Liberty in the background, was more what she had pictured. Even though a glance out the window told her that the scenery from here would be pretty spectacular, knowing what waited for her—or rather, not knowing— definitely killed the mood. The two people beside her were better equipped to deal with most emergencies in the field than she was. Her expertise was hospital-based and most of what she did was in a room filled with high-tech equipment, a multitude of drugs, and sophisticated monitoring devices. “You have a report on the patient?”

“Details are sketchy,” Linda replied, handing Tristan a radio headset with a microphone. “It’s the governor’s daughter-in-law. MVA. Reports are she’s in bad shape.”

“Shit.” Tristan could see it now. Not only would they have to deal with a critically injured patient, they’d probably have news people crawling all over them, documenting everything they did or didn’t do. It was a PR nightmare, and as the physician on scene, she was going to get all the attention.

“No kidding,” Linda said.

“I’ll take a quick look at her airway,” Tristan said, “then you two concentrate on securing the victim, just like you would if I wasn’t there. Anything you need me to do, tell me. I guess you know not to talk to anyone.”

Linda grinned. “Oh yeah, we know all about that. HIPAA HIPAA hooray.”

A lot sooner than she expected, Tristan realized they were landing at the edge of a field adjoining the turnpike. The accident scene below pulsed with a life of its own as the lights of a dozen emergency vehicles beat against the night sky. Two other helicopters were setting down simultaneously, hovering like menacing behemoths over the ring of patrol cars, ambulances, and fire engines whose headlights illuminated a jackknifed tractor-trailer and three mangled automobiles. Two forlorn, white-tarp-covered forms lay alone on the oil-stained highway while rescue workers swarmed around the wreckage, tending to the still-living.

The instant the helicopter touched down, Tristan jumped out behind Linda and Juan. Following Linda’s directions, she helped unload a stretcher and rapidly piled emergency equipment on top. Then she set off running with them toward the scene.

“We’re from PMC,” Linda called to a man with a lot of gold braid on his uniform cap who Tristan figured was the incident commander. He held two radios and was waving emergency crews in various directions.

“Over there,” he directed.

Tristan looked where he pointed. A cluster of emergency personnel knelt on the highway inside a loose ring of state police. Two news vans were angled on the shoulder of the road and a handful of reporters with television cameras strained against a temporary barricade of yellow crime scene tape, trying to get footage. The patient, assuming she was in there somewhere, was not visible.

“Jesus,” Tristan muttered under her breath.

Juan cleared the way by announcing who they were, and the crowd parted enough to let them through. When she finally cleared the protective ring of cops and the assorted curious, Tristan saw a woman in her early thirties, unconscious, bleeding profusely from obvious facial injuries. Judging from the victim’s position, Tristan surmised she’d been ejected from a vehicle—probably the overturned Lexus SUV covered with flame retardant foam that was now resting on the median.

Her right leg was angulated, a portion of the femur protruding through a long rent in her once-white slacks. With trauma to both her head and lower extremities—bracket injuries—there was a good chance she had internal injuries as well. She already had IVs running in both arms.

Tristan dropped to her knees by the patient’s head and placed her stethoscope quickly on both sides of the patient’s chest, listening for breath sounds. She heard no air movement on the right. “Pneumothorax on the right.”

While Juan positioned the backboard next to the victim, Linda opened the emergency equipment box and pulled out a thin trocar with an attached flexible polyethylene tube connected to a syringe. She pushed aside the remnants of the patient’s bloodstained blouse, quickly swabbed a spot below her breast with antiseptic, and pushed the three inch needle between her ribs. Then she slid the tubing in after it and used the syringe to evacuate the air from the patient’s chest. As Tristan listened, breath sounds returned. It was a temporary measure, but it would do for now.

“Better,” Tristan said.

Despite the improvement in airflow, the patient’s breathing was labored. Fractured ribs. Tristan gently palpated her jaw. The mandible shifted beneath her fingers with a grating sensation. Fractured as well, and probably her mid-face too, if the amount of blood streaming from her nose was any indication. With this much hemorrhage and mobile facial fractures, her airway was very unstable.

“She needs to be intubated.”

When Tristan glanced up, Juan already had a laryngoscope out and handed it to her. Using the portable suction, he cleared some of the blood out of the patient’s mouth while Tristan inserted the scope’s flat metal blade with a light at the end into the back of her throat. Moving the tongue aside and carefully lifting up on the jaw so as not to move the victim’s head, Tristan squinted into the oral cavity, hoping to find some landmarks. Unfortunately, with the continued bleeding and massive swelling, she couldn’t see a thing. Still searching for anatomical landmarks, she held out her free hand for the endotracheal tube and made a blind pass in the direction of the trachea—or at least where she hoped the trachea was. She really needed to get this tube in, because the last thing she wanted to do was an emergency trach in the field. Too much risk to the patient, especially one with an unstable neck. Tristan eased the tube in a little more. God, she hated blind intubations. Please, baby, come on.

Juan pressed his fingers to the patient’s throat, and as Tristan continued to push, he nodded and said, “Feels like it’s going through the cords.”

Tristan persisted until only a few inches of the tube protruded from the patient’s mouth. Then she took the ambu bag that Linda had connected to the oxygen tank and carefully hooked it to the end of the endotracheal tube. She squeezed the inflatable bag while Linda listened to the patient’s chest.

“You got it,” Linda announced with satisfaction. “Good breath sounds on both sides.”

“All right then,” Tristan said. “Let’s get her on the backboard and go.”

Tristan stabilized the head, Juan placed a cervical collar, and then on Linda’s count, they rolled the patient, slid the backboard underneath her, and strapped her down. While Linda secured the IVs, O2, and other tubes, Juan splinted her leg. Within minutes, they were ready to go. As they worked, Tristan could hear shouted questions from the reporters.

“Is that Marsha Eisman?”

“How badly is she injured?”

“Does the governor know?”

“Is she going to die?”

Tristan ignored everyone. She’d have to face the reporters soon enough, but it wasn’t going to be out here. She had far more important things to do than worry about the hospital’s PR.

Jett checked her gauges in preparation for takeoff while she waited for the medcrew to return with the patient. She hated this part—the waiting. She wanted to be out there in the field, doing something. But her job was to get her crew out and back again as quickly and as safely as possible. She could and had assisted in retrieving the wounded. But that had been under different circumstances.

“Chief, you shouldn’t be out here! Get back to the chopper.”

The major had to scream in Jett’s face to be heard above the rattle of small arms fire and the explosion of mortar rounds that came with such rapidity the air reverberated with the continuous roar.

“The incoming fire is getting worse. We need to get the wounded aboard,” Jett shouted back. She helped the major roll an injured soldier onto the stretcher, grabbed the other end, and lifted. “Another few minutes and we might not be able to get airborne.”

“If we don’t have a pilot, it won’t matter how long we take.”

Since the major didn’t actually order her to drop the stretcher, Jett just put her head down and ran for her Black Hawk. They loaded the injured and raced back for more. After that, there wasn’t time for talk.

The medevac crew finally cleared the field of injured and Jett somehow got them up and out in one piece. As soon as she’d landed at the field hospital and the wounded were offloaded, she’d gone back out again.

The hours ran together until finally she was off duty and she staggered, weak-limbed and numb, away from her aircraft for some much-needed food and rack time. She slumped down at a table in the mess tent and mechanically shoveled whatever was on the plate into her mouth, not tasting it, not caring, just knowing she needed it if she was going to wake up in a few hours and do it all again.

“Nice flying, Chief,” a dark-haired major a few years Jett’s senior said as she sat down across the table from her. She wore medical insignia in addition to her oak cluster, and Jett figured her for one of the medcrews.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jett said, trying to put a little enthusiasm in her voice. She was so tired she could barely see her plate.

“You ought to stay with your aircraft, though. We can’t spare any of our pilots.”

Jett recognized her now from the first run of the day, which seemed like a week ago after the night she’d had. “Sorry. I didn’t recognize you, Major.”

The major smiled, and Jett tumbled into the warm blue depths of her eyes. Quickly, she looked away.

“But not sorry you put yourself in the line of fire, is that it, Chief?”

“I was only thinking of the wounded.”

“I know.” The major extended her hand across the table. “Gail Wallace.”

Jett took her hand. Her skin was smooth and warm. Warm like her eyes and her smile. Jett couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone so beautiful.

She jolted back to the present as Linda rapped one hand on the side of the helicopter. “All set, Cap.”

Jett watched the team lift the stretcher into the aircraft, and when she was sure her crew was secure, she took the helicopter up, Gail’s face still vivid in her mind. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d glanced back to see Gail behind her, tending the wounded or leaning out the door, manning a gun while Jett took off under fire. She didn’t want to think about Gail, not now, not while she was flying.

Flying had always been her escape. As soon as she was airborne, she was free—free from the memory of her father’s anger, her mother’s misery, her own helplessness. Behind the controls, she was in control.

Even in the midst of combat, she felt only exhilaration, not fear. She made choices, and no matter the outcome, she would live or die by them. No regrets. Except one.

Ignoring the familiar ache in the pit of her stomach, she gave herself over to the strong, steady hum of the rotors above her head, like the heartbeat of a lover in the dark. Even knowing it wouldn’t last, she welcomed the few moments of peace and headed toward home.

Chapter Two

Jett circled the hospital rooftop, checking her speed, her angle of approach, and the wind direction. The trauma team ringed the circle of light below, waiting to converge on the aircraft. Gently, she set her aircraft down precisely in the center of the landing pad. The doors flew open and the medcrew jumped out, guiding the stretcher out as the trauma team raced forward to meet them, heads lowered beneath the sweep of the still-turning rotors. Within a matter of seconds, Jett was alone on the rooftop, her job done. Adrenaline still surged through her bloodstream, and her hands trembled as she locked down her aircraft.

With her helmet tucked under her arm, she strode to the stairs and hurried down a level to the suite of rooms reserved for the flight crews.

She had her own small on-call room and private bathroom. The door from the hall opened into the room on one side and, opposite, another door led to the lounge area where the pilots and medcrews waited until a request came in. In addition to her bed, her room held a dresser, a small TV with only intermittent reception, a single straight-backed chair, and a tall narrow bookcase. She propped her helmet on her dresser, stripped off her flight suit, and draped it over the back of the chair. Then she went into the bathroom, ran cold water, and doused her head and face.

“Tough flight?”

Jett lifted the tail of her Army-issue green T-shirt and wiped her face, then turned to find the major standing just behind her. “Hot and dusty.”

Gail smiled. “Just routine, then.”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Four months,” Jett said. “This time.”

“Regular army?”

“Yes. You?”

“Sixteen toward my twenty,” Gail said.

A career Army officer. Jett had thirteen years in herself, but she’d come up a different route. She didn’t often have casual conversations with other soldiers. She talked to her fellow pilots, but mostly about the flights or their aircraft. She’d always been a solitary person; living in close proximity with men and women with whom she couldn’t be completely honest only made her more reluctant to make connections.

That’s why it was so odd that she felt comfortable talking to the major. Gail. Her name was Gail.

“Do you want to grab something to eat?” Gail asked.

Jett hesitated, uncertain if she wanted to say yes because a little friendly company would help take her mind off the horrors she witnessed every day, or because Major Gail Wallace made her heart beat faster. Because the last thing she wanted was to want something she couldn’t have.

“I should probably catch some rack time,” Jett finally said.

Gail studied her silently. “Another time, then.”

Jett hesitated a beat or two as Gail turned away. “On the other hand, I can sleep later.”

“Wonderful,” Gail said, smiling back over her shoulder at Jett. “Come on, then. I’m buying.”

A knock at her door brought Jett upright, icy water streaming from her face. She grabbed a towel on her way out of the bathroom.

“Yeah?” she called.

The door opened and Linda stuck her head in. “Do you want to pitch in for pizza? We ordered a bunch.”

Jett rubbed her face vigorously and shook the water from her hair.

“Okay. Sure. I’ll be right out.”

“Don’t wait too long or there won’t be anything left but the boxes.”

The door swung closed and Jett sank down on the side of her bed.

In the six weeks she’d been at PMC, she hadn’t gotten friendly with anyone. The first few weeks she’d spent riding with other pilots to get used to the system and the crews, rotating shifts until her mandatory probation period was over. For the last few weeks she’d been on a regular rotation and flew with the same crew more often than not. Without the division of rank, the civilian crews were more relaxed and informal than she was used to in the military. Until now, she’d been able to avoid a lot of the socializing that went on, but she couldn’t keep ducking the people she worked with without being rude. As much as she wanted to stretch out on her bed with her eyes closed and just wait, with her mind blank, until the next call out, she pulled the door open and stepped into the lounge. She could pretend to enjoy herself for a few minutes of meaningless conversation. She was good at pretending.

Tristan piled her beepers and the rest of her gear on the dull brown metal cabinet that served as a bedside table in her on-call room. After calling the page operator with her extension, she kicked off her running shoes and socks, and crawled under the sheet, still in her scrubs. The adrenaline rush was tailing off, and she was hovering on that edge between exhilaration and exhaustion. She needed to get some sleep, but her mind was racing.

More reporters had been waiting when Healthstar arrived back at the hospital. Apparently someone at the scene had called the hospital’s powers that be, too, and the chief of anesthesia had been rousted from bed and had met them on the roof with the trauma team. He was in the OR doing the case right now. Tristan wasn’t insulted that she’d been bumped, since she would have had to call in backup if she’d gone to the OR. Considering the extent of the patient’s injuries, she’d have been in the operating room all night long. Unfortunately, Tristan had been delegated to feed the reporters something so they wouldn’t begin gnawing each other’s arms off.

After fielding questions for fifteen minutes, she’d finally escaped.

The state police had verified that the woman was indeed the governor’s daughter-in-law, which meant this story was going to be top news for the foreseeable future. If she was lucky, someone else would have to deal with the press after tonight. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and tried to relax. She could feel her pulse racing, and with nowhere to divert all those jumbled hormones, her body channeled them elsewhere. She felt a familiar stirring between her legs. Great. Wired and horny.

If she’d been reasonably certain she wouldn’t be interrupted, she might have been tempted to do something about the insistent thrum of excitement in the pit of her stomach, but the last thing she wanted to do was get even more worked up and then get called before she could finish. She’d just have to tough it out, and sooner or later, her mind would shut down and she’d fall asleep. She was just on the verge of drifting off when the phone rang.

“Holmes,” she said.

“Hi, Dr. Holmes. It’s Mary up in L and D. We need you up here right away.”

“I’m on trauma call—I think maybe you want Jerry Edwar—”

“Nope, we want you. Dr. Maguire specifically asked for you if you were in-house.”

“Quinn?” Tristan thought Quinn was still in Vegas. “What’s she got to do with it?”

“Dr. Blake has been in labor since late last night. She might need to be sectioned and—”

“I’m on my way.” Tristan dropped the phone into the cradle and rolled out of bed. After pulling on her socks and running shoes, she clipped her beepers back to her waist and took off at a jog. Labor and Delivery was all the way on the other side of the hospital and up two floors. The obstetricians needed their operating rooms near the newborn nursery and neonatal intensive care units. The doctors and nurses in obstetrics had very little to do with the other hospital staff, with the exception of the pediatric intensivists, who camped out in the neonatal intensive care unit taking care of the critically ill preemies.

Honor Blake is about to deliver. Jesus. Tristan tried to remember how far along Honor was in her pregnancy. Honor was chief of emergency medicine, but Tristan knew Quinn Maguire, Honor’s partner, far better. Quinn was now the trauma chief at PMC, but before that she’d been a trauma fellow at the same hospital in Manhattan where Tristan had been an anesthesia resident. Tristan had been surprised along with everyone else when Quinn didn’t stay on at St. Michael’s in a staff position, but then she’d heard Quinn had fallen in love and settled happily in Philadelphia. Tristan had met Honor a few times when she’d been called to the emergency room. The ER at PMC handled surgical as well as medical emergencies, including trauma. Whenever she was on call, Tristan was down there at least once. Honor was smart and easy to work with, and the last time Tristan had seen her, very pregnant.

Tristan barreled through the double doors at L&D and saw Quinn, wearing rumpled navy scrubs, pacing in front of the nurses’ station.

From the looks of her, Quinn hadn’t been to bed in quite some time. Her jet black hair was disheveled, and even from the end of the hall, her blue eyes appeared bruised. Tristan couldn’t remember ever seeing Quinn so agitated. Unlike many surgeons, Quinn was the epitome of calm in the midst of crisis. She rarely raised her voice, almost never lost her temper, and had just about the fastest hands Tristan had ever seen.

If she ever woke up in the trauma unit needing emergency surgery, she wanted Quinn Maguire to be standing over her.

“Hey, Quinn, I hear you’re about to add another member to the family.”

Quinn smiled, but it seemed forced. About Tristan’s height, she ordinarily moved like an athlete, powerfully graceful. At the moment, she looked like all that power was about to roar down the hall with the force of a flash flood in a desert arroyo. Quinn was surrounded by so much nervous energy the air practically crackled. “Honor’s been in labor twenty hours. The baby’s holding up, but Honor’s getting pretty tired.”

Tristan clapped a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “Who’s the OB?”

“Deb Brandeis.”

“That’s good news.” Since Tristan spent a lot of time in OB and the NICU doing high-risk anesthesia procedures, she knew Deb well, and Deb was that rare mixture of highly competent and deeply caring.

At that moment, a small redhead in baby blue scrubs popped out of a patient room and headed toward them like a whirlwind.

“Hi, Tris.”

“Hey, Deb.” Tristan grabbed Honor’s chart off the counter and flipped through to the medical intake form. As she scanned it, she said,

“How are we doing?”

“Moving along. Quinn,” Deb said, clasping Quinn’s arm. “We just had a dip in the baby’s heart rate. It only lasted a few seconds but—”

“No more waiting.” Quinn was already halfway down the hall.

“Let’s go.”

Tristan watched her. “Jesus, she’s wound up.”

“Normal for the expectant partner at this point,” Deb said easily.

“Let me talk to Honor and tell the nurses to get the room set. Are you ready?”

“How’s the epidural?” Tristan asked. It was standard to insert a catheter into the lower portion of the spinal canal and inject anesthetic directly around the cord to reduce the pain of the labor contractions.

The mother remained awake, and the regional anesthetic avoided the need for potent sedatives that could adversely affect the baby’s heart and respiratory rates.

“The block is working great. Honor’s been pretty comfortable.”

“Then I just need to get her to sign a consent. Anything else I need to know?” Tristan joined Deb on her way down the hall.

“She’s healthy. No meds. No significant family history. She had one uncomplicated vaginal delivery about ten years ago.”

“Piece of cake, then,” Tristan said.

“Yeah, except both parents are doctors.” Deb laughed. “Why do I get them all?”

Tristan bumped her shoulder. “Must be because you’re the best.”

“Must be.”

“Don’t look so worried, baby,” Honor said, mustering as much strength and positive attitude as she could. God, she was tired. She didn’t remember this being so much work the first time she did it, but she’d been ten years younger then too. Younger and never touched by tragedy. Everything was different now, and remembering what made life so very good, she grasped Quinn’s hand. “I love you. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I know.” Quinn squatted next to the bed, holding Honor’s hand to her cheek as she stroked her damp, sun-streaked hair. Honor’s collar length waves were lusterless, her deep chestnut eyes shadowed with exhaustion. “Deb thinks you’ve about had enough hard work for one day. I agree.”

“She said that dip in the fetal heart rate wasn’t anything to worry about,” Honor said, her eyes going to the monitor by the bedside that beat at a steady hundred and sixty a minute. “The baby’s fine.”

“Absolutely,” Quinn said, her voice raspy. “But it’s time for you to rest, sweetheart.”

Honor sighed. “It will take me four times as long to recover if I have a C-section.”

Quinn grinned. “Then I guess you’ll be out of work eight days instead of two.”

“I want to be able to take care of the baby when I get home.”

“You will.” Quinn leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You’ll just need a little extra help for a week or two. Arly and Phyllis will love doing extra baby duty. So will I.”

Honor frowned at the mention of their daughter. “Have you talked to Arly? Is she okay? She’s not scared, is she?”

“Arly? Scared?” Quinn laughed. “I can’t answer her questions fast enough, starting with, why can’t she visit, followed by when can she see you and the baby. She’s waiting by the phone for my hourly updates. Phyllis said she refused to go to sleep until Phyllis promised to wake her up for my calls.”

“Thank God for Phyllis.” Honor sighed. They’d all be lost without Arly’s grandmother. “Don’t tell Arly about the surgery. I’ll explain that when I see her.”

Quinn kissed her again, this time on the lips. “I won’t.”

Quinn looked over her shoulder at the knock on the door. Deb entered with Tristan right behind her.

“Honor, honey,” Deb said. “It’s time to get this little camper some daylight.”

“Okay,” Honor said, finally giving in to the inevitable. “Hi, Tristan.”

“Hi, Honor.” Tristan put Honor’s chart on the bedside table and swung her stethoscope from around her neck. “Let me listen to your heart and lungs real fast, then I need you to sign this consent.”

“I’ll see you in the OR.” Deb patted Honor’s hand and disappeared.

A moment later, Tristan followed her out.

“Don’t go anywhere, okay?” Honor gripped Quinn’s hand more tightly. She was used to being in charge, making hard decisions quickly, and accepting responsibility. She’d been alone, raising her daughter, for a long time before Quinn, but in the last two years she’d come to accept that having a shoulder to lean on when she was tired or frightened didn’t make her weak. And that she could always trust Quinn to be there.

“I’ll be right beside you the whole way,” Quinn whispered.

Honor nodded and closed her eyes. She was safe. And she was ready.

Chapter Three

Quinn stroked Honor’s face as she watched over the sterile barricade that separated the operating field from Tristan and all her anesthesia equipment. The scene was as familiar to Quinn as her own face in the mirror, but everything this time was different.

The operating field was Honor’s abdomen, and as Deb made the first horizontal incision just above the pubis, the bright red blood was Honor’s blood. Quinn looked down into Honor’s face, trying to put every ounce of the love she felt into her eyes, aware that was all Honor could see. Tristan had allowed Honor to have one arm free so she could hold Quinn’s hand, even though ordinarily both arms would be strapped to the supports on either side of the operating table. Quinn squeezed Honor’s fingers.

“Everything looks great, sweetheart,” Quinn whispered.

Honor smiled sleepily. “Can you see the baby yet?”

“Not yet. Soon.”

“Go check. Make sure everything’s okay…all the parts.”

Quinn laughed quietly. “I will.” She glanced at Tristan and raised an eyebrow, not wanting to ask aloud if Honor was doing all right.

Ordinarily, she was too busy operating to worry about what anesthesia was doing, and she trusted them to do their job as well as she did hers.

Now, with nothing to do but watch everyone else take care of Honor, she felt helpless. Useless. And more anxious than she could ever remember feeling.

“Mama is doing fabulously,” Tristan said, leaning down so Honor could hear her.

“Wonderful stuff, whatever you gave me,” Honor said, her voice slightly slurred. She frowned. “Shouldn’t give me drugs.”

Tristan laughed. “Don’t worry, Dr. Blake, that baby is going to be out before any of what you’re getting gets down there.”

“All right then,” Honor proclaimed. She blinked and frowned again. “Quinn?”

“Right here.” Quinn pulled her gaze away from the surgical field.

Deb had delivered the uterus, which glistened a deep purple under the overhead lights, into the field. Deb murmured something to the nurses that Quinn didn’t hear, then made a one-inch incision in the lower portion of the distended muscle. Quinn bent down. “The baby’s coming in a second, sweetheart.”

“Go. Go look.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Quinn stepped around the barrier and moved behind Deb to the end of the table where the scrub nurse waited with her instruments.

“Can you toss me a gown?”

“Here you go, Doctor,” the nurse said, holding up a sterile gown for Quinn to slide her arms into. The nurse handed off a packet of sterile gloves, which Quinn pulled on. Because she hadn’t scrubbed first, she wasn’t technically sterile enough to step up to the operating table, but she could get close enough to Deb to see, and she could hold the baby without any concerns. She watched over Deb’s shoulder as Deb inserted a large pair of scissors inside the uterus and cut the rest of the way through the muscular wall. Quinn held her breath, knowing that occasionally the scissors would lacerate the baby as the baby moved around inside the uterus. Then a tremendous gush of blood-tinged fluid poured out. A second later a tiny arm poked out of the gap in the muscular uterine wall. Deb reached into the uterus with one hand, found the head and directed it up toward the incision, and the baby came swimming out on another spurt of blood and amniotic fluid. Quinn had seen cesarean sections dozens of times, but somewhere around the time the scissors had gone into Honor’s uterus, she’d stopped breathing. Now her breath whooshed out in a gasp of relief. Then her stomach plummeted. The baby was blue and not breathing. Quinn struggled not to panic.

“Get the suction up,” Deb said calmly to the nurse as she deftly clamped and cut the cord, freeing the baby from the placenta, which remained inside Honor’s uterus. As soon as Deb inserted the suction catheter inside the baby’s nose and mouth, the child cried. The scrub nurse scooped the baby up, turned, and handed it off to the waiting pediatric nurse, who carried the child to a waiting bassinet underneath a heat lamp.

“Is Honor okay?” Quinn murmured close to Deb’s ear.

“Doing fine,” Deb said. “Go see your baby.”

My baby, Quinn thought, suddenly unsteady. How life had changed. A few short years ago she’d seen herself as the star of a big city hospital trauma center, her life one adrenaline rush after another.

She’d never been one for serious relationships, but she hadn’t played around either. She’d focused on work. So she hadn’t seen a woman in her future. All that had changed when illness had nearly derailed her surgery career permanently. Then, when she thought she’d lost everything, she discovered what had been missing in her life all along.

A family of her own. Now she had Honor and Arly and Phyllis. And a new baby. From behind her, she heard Honor’s voice, sleepy but clear.

“Quinn? Tell me.”

Quinn stood next to the bassinet and looked down, amazed. They hadn’t wanted to know the baby’s sex until now, and that seemed the least important thing at the moment. “Sweetheart? Solid Apgars—all systems go. Ten fingers, all perfect. Ten toes. Equally perfect. Oh—and some extra little bits, also perfect.”

“Little bits? A boy?” Honor laughed. “We have a boy?”

“Yep. Arly has a brother. You can see him in a minute.” Quinn watched the nurse record the various vital signs, documenting the baby’s neurologic and cardiovascular status. He was crying and waving his arms and legs. He had a thatch of hair, just a shade lighter than Honor’s. His eyes were brown. “He’s beautiful, sweetheart.”

“Tris,” Deb said, “can you push some more Pitocin, please?”

Quinn suddenly realized that the room behind her had grown very quiet. She turned, heart pounding. Her eyes went first to the monitor behind Tristan’s head. Honor’s heart rate was 140, her blood pressure was down, her O2 saturation below normal. For one dizzying second, the room spun, and then Quinn’s mind snapped into sharp focus and she took three rapid strides back to the operating table. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s bleeding and the Pit doesn’t seem to be working,” Deb said, kneading the uterus between her hands, trying to coax the sluggish muscle to contract. The vessels supplying the uterus were as large as Quinn’s thumb, having increased in size during pregnancy to meet the demands of the growing fetus for blood and nutrients and oxygen. Now the inner surface of the uterus had been stripped of the placenta, and if the muscle didn’t contract, closing off the open ends of the vessels, the vast volume of blood that had gone to supply the baby would simply pour out through the opening of the uterus. At this rate, Honor would bleed to death in a matter of minutes.

Quinn wanted to push Deb out of the way and grab a clamp, a suture, anything to stop the river of blood pooling in Honor’s abdomen.

She forced herself to move to the head of the table, to Honor. Honor’s eyes were closed, and she was very pale.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Quinn whispered, kneeling so her face was close to Honor’s. “It’s going to be okay.”

Honor didn’t answer.

“You want me to tube her, Deb?” Tristan waved to the circulating nurse to get her attention. “Get an anesthesia tech in here STAT.”

God damn it. She hated when an easy case went bad. She hated it whenever that happened, but it was always so much worse when it was someone she knew, or the family or friend of someone she knew.

This time, she couldn’t even think about Quinn just inches away, fear seeping from her pores. Quinn had pulled off her sterile gloves and had one hand on Honor’s face. Her fingers trembled, something else Tristan had never seen.

Tristan checked the O2 saturation. It had fallen dangerously low.

Now the call was hers, not Deb’s. “I’m going to intubate. Where the hell’s the tech?”

“I can help,” Quinn said, straightening up. “What do you need?”

“Get me a number seven ET tube. Second drawer in my cart,” Tristan said without bothering to look up from her drug box. She pulled out ampoules and drew up the medication to paralyze Honor so she could insert the breathing tube into her trachea. “Did someone call down for blood?”

“Do we have a type and screen on her?” Deb called out. “Someone hook up another suction. I can’t see anything in here.”

“She’s A positive,” Quinn said. She held the tube next to Tristan’s right hand while Tristan inserted the laryngoscope into Honor’s mouth to hold her tongue out of the way and expose her epiglottis.

“Nice clear view for a change,” Tristan muttered, taking the endotracheal tube lightly between her thumb and first two fingers and easing it past the epiglottis, through the vocal cords, and into the trachea. “Blow up the balloon. Eight cc’s.”

When Quinn fumbled with the thin plastic tube attached to the balloon at the end of the trach tube, Tristan realized Quinn was in no shape to be assisting her. Carefully, she extracted her laryngoscope while supporting the tube with her other hand. “Here, I’ll do it.”

“I got it,” Quinn said gruffly. “Eight cc’s, right?”

“Right.”

Quickly, Tristan connected the endotracheal tube to a ventilator, cycled in the appropriate amounts of general anesthetic and oxygen, set the volume on the respirator, and started to relax just a little. There wasn’t much she could do now but wait, which was never easy, but

Deb was a good surgeon on top of being a good obstetrician. “How are things going over there, Deb?”

“Slowing down, but not enough. How is she?”

“She needs volume, but otherwise looking good.”

“Quinn,” Deb said, her attention still on the surgical field.

“Yes?” Quinn said sharply.

Tristan felt Quinn stiffen beside her. Someone probably should’ve gotten Quinn outside, but Tristan wasn’t quite certain how anyone would have.

“If I can’t get this bleeding stopped in another minute, I’m going to have to do a hysterectomy,” Deb said. “You’re next of kin. Do you consent?”

“I…” Quinn drew a shaky breath. “Honor and I haven’t talked about more kids…I don’t know what she wants.”

The room was silent except for the sound of the suction removing the blood that continued to flow. Tristan understood that in that moment, Quinn Maguire was no longer a calm, cool, collected trauma chief.

She was a woman faced with losing everything that mattered to her, vulnerable and alone.

“You and Honor have two kids, Quinn,” Tristan said quietly. “They need Honor. So do you.”

Quinn met Tristan’s eyes, hers filled with misery.

“Quinn?” Deb repeated.

“Yes,” Quinn said firmly. “Yes. Do it.”

Tristan stepped off the elevator onto the top floor of the parking garage and blinked in the early morning sun. For a few seconds, she struggled with the disorientation of returning to the normal world, where most people were on their way to work on Monday morning while she was on her way home to bed. At least, she should be on her way home to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t be for a while. She’d barely finished with Honor when she’d been called back to trauma admitting. Healthstar had made another run and brought in a second patient from the turnpike accident. Until Tristan’s relief had arrived at eight, she’d been in the operating room with a nineteen-year-old girl who’d been trapped in the front seat of her Mazda Miata underneath the back wheels of the tractor-trailer for forty minutes before the EMTs could extricate her. She’d lost her right leg below the knee and might lose the other, if she didn’t bleed to death from a ruptured spleen, fractured pelvis, and lacerated inferior vena cava. Her blood pressure had bounced from 40 to 200 with the rapidity of a ping-pong ball in a championship match, keeping Tristan constantly on edge.

Now she was so keyed up she felt sick, and sleep was the last thing she wanted. If she were a drinker, she’d go home and open a bottle of aged Burgundy, but even though her internal clock was upside down, she didn’t want a drink. If she had a girlfriend waiting for her, she’d break speed limits to get home and entice her lover into being late for work. Sex always took the edge off her post-call nerves. But if she wanted something quick and easy, she’d have to start calling her sometimes-girlfriends, and the chance of catching any of them at this time of day was unlikely.

She thought back to the woman she’d recently spent the night with—well, part of the night before she’d been called back to Philadelphia. Meg. Meg provided sex for money. The concept wasn’t all that strange to Tristan, particularly at the moment. Being able to release the energy that raged along her nerve endings at the same time as she obliterated the images of a devastated body from her mind was something she’d gladly pay for. The problem was, she didn’t know where to go or how to go about it. In Las Vegas anything was possible.

Unfortunately, Vegas was a long ways away.

She was so busy thinking about Meg, and how it felt to be completely powerless while Meg took her pleasure, she almost walked into the very nice ass bent over the front of a beat-up Jeep that looked like it had been to hell and back, recently.

“Jesus, sorry,” Tristan blurted.

A slender woman with thick, sandy hair and midnight blue eyes regarded her without expression. At second glance, she wasn’t so much slender as wiry. Her arms, bare below the rolled-up sleeves of her blue shirt, were deeply tanned and corded with muscle. Her hands were flat and broad, her fingers almost blunt with short, neatly trimmed nails.

She stood, shoulders squared, her wide full lips compressed into a tight line as she observed Tristan wordlessly.

“Car won’t start?” Tristan asked.

“It will, eventually.”

Tristan probably should have kept going, because the woman obviously wasn’t interested in conversation. But she didn’t want to climb into her car alone and go home alone and get into bed alone.

She didn’t want to be alone, not just yet. The night’s tragedies, and rare triumph, were too fresh in her mind. So, still pumped up, still wired, and not inclined to be brushed off, she stood her ground. “Work in the OR?”

“No.”

“Cath Lab?”

A head shake.

“ER. No, I would’ve seen you down there.” Tristan held out her hand. “I’m Tristan Holmes. Anesthesia.”

“I know.”

The woman shook Tristan’s hand while Tristan waited for a name. For more information. For something she couldn’t even identify. As if finally remembering what was expected of her, the woman said, “I’m Jett McNally. I fly for Healthstar. I flew the run you were on earlier tonight—out to the turnpike.”

“Oh, sorry,” Tristan said. “I didn’t recognize you without the helmet.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Some mess out there tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“How many runs did you end up doing?”

“Three.”

Silence fell again. Tristan knew she should leave. But she didn’t have a good reason to, having nowhere to go, and no one waiting. And this pilot and she had something in common—they’d shared something meaningful without even knowing each other’s names—the patient they’d treated, the devastation they’d witnessed out on the turnpike, and maybe the aftermath of tragedy they’d helped avert. The pilot wasn’t anything at all like the women Tristan usually gravitated toward—the fun-loving, outgoing, sparkling kind of women who you could tell just from looking at them enjoyed a good time. This woman’s eyes were wary. Everything about her sent out “keep your distance” signals.

Funny, Tristan thought, that she should meet two women in the course of just a few days’ time who telegraphed stay away, and really meant it. But she had persisted with Meg and those few hours had been more exciting, and more satisfying, than all the easy connections she’d had in the last few years. This pilot wasn’t actually running away, as Meg had at first. She didn’t need to. The barriers around her couldn’t have been more visible if they’d been constructed of stone, and Tristan couldn’t help but wonder what she might learn if she broke through them. She inclined her head toward the Jeep and the open hood. “You need a ride somewhere?”

“No, I’m fine. Aren’t you just coming off shift?”

“Yeah. Long night.”

“You’re probably ready for some rack ti—you must be tired.”

“I’m not. Are you?”

“No.” Jett closed the hood and dusted off her hands before sliding them into the pockets of her loose, faded green fatigue pants. “Wide awake.”

“Me too.” Tristan grinned. “My car’s over there. How about some breakfast?”

Jett looked like she was going to refuse, and she glanced at the sky as if expecting something to appear. After a few seconds she met Tristan’s eyes. “Coffee would be good.”

Chapter Four

As she awoke, Honor was aware of three things. Her throat was very dry, a sharp pain lanced through her abdomen each time she took a breath, and wherever she was, it was very very quiet.

Shouldn’t the delivery room be noisier? Why wasn’t the baby crying?

God, the baby! She jerked and tried to sit up. A hand on her shoulder restrained her.

“Hey, take it easy, sweetheart,” Quinn whispered. “Everything is okay.”

Honor struggled to focus on Quinn’s face. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s in the nursery, all tucked up, nice and warm. He’s fine.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in your room, on the maternity ward.”

Honor frowned. “I don’t remember getting here.”

“You’ve been asleep for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Honor reached for Quinn’s hand and could barely raise her arm. She was more tired now than she’d been after twenty hours of unrelenting labor. “Baby, you look terrible. Is he really all right?”

“Yes,” Quinn said immediately. “I wouldn’t keep something like that from you. You know that.” Quinn grinned. “He looks just like you.”

Honor laughed, then stopped abruptly as her incision screamed in protest. “You can’t possibly know that. Babies are all generic at this age.”

“He is not. He’s got your hair and your eyes. I think he’s got Arly’s chin, though.”

“She’s going to love that. Be sure to tell her.”

“I already did. Three times.”

“Have you had any sleep at all?”

“I’ve been taking naps,” Quinn said, but she looked away when she answered.

“You are such a terrible liar,” Honor said.

“Okay. I’ve been thinking about taking a nap.” Quinn leaned over and kissed Honor on the forehead. “How are you feeling? Sore?”

“A little. I’m so angry about needing this damn C-section. I didn’t have any problem with Arly.”

“Well, it was hardly your fault,” Quinn said gently. “Deb thought the head became disengaged during labor and shifted out of the birth canal. That’s why you couldn’t deliver him vaginally.”

“At least it’s not the way it used to be. A C-section doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll need one the next time. If we have another one.”

Honor laughed and gripped Quinn’s hand harder. “If you don’t lose your mind the first couple of years. You had it easy coming on board when Arly was eight.”

“Don’t worry, I’m up for it,” Quinn said, her voice rough.

Honor studied her, then shifted over, moving slowly and carefully. She patted the bed beside her. “Sit down and tell me what’s wrong.”

When Quinn looked like she was going to protest, Honor said, “Please, Quinn.”

Sighing, Quinn settled on the edge of the bed and leaned over, her arm on the far side of Honor’s hips. She was careful not to put any weight on Honor’s body. “You had a lot of bleeding after the baby was delivered.”

“How much bleeding?” Honor kept her voice steady but she knew

Quinn could feel her trembling.

“Five units’ worth.”

“God.” Honor closed her eyes for a second. “Did I get blood?”

Quinn nodded.

“What about Hep C or HIV? Quinn, am I going to be able to nurse?”

“We used the two units you had banked and made up the difference with saline. They’re crossing a unit from me against yours right now.”

Quinn caressed Honor’s hip. “I should be ready to give you another unit in a few days, but you’re going to be light-headed if you try to get out of bed right away, no matter what.”

“But I can breastfeed?”

“Yes. Deb wasn’t happy about not giving you more blood, but I knew how much you wanted to nurse the baby.”

“Thank you.” Honor kissed Quinn’s fingers. “I’m glad you were there.”

When Quinn didn’t answer, Honor got a sinking feeling in her stomach. “There’s more you’re not telling me.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I’m glad I was there too.”

“But something else happened.”

Quinn sighed. “Listen, they’re going to bring the baby in soon. All that matters is that he’s fine and you’re fine.”

“Do you really think that’s going to work?”

“Not really. But I thought you might be tired enough that I could sneak it by you.”

“You’re the one who’s really tired if you believe that,” Honor said with a weary smile. “So give me the rest of it.”

“Tristan did a great job of stabilizing you while all this was going on, but you were bleeding pretty heavily. Deb thought you needed a hysterectomy.”

Honor caught her breath. “Oh, Quinn.”

“No! No, Honor.” Quinn leaned down, cupping Honor’s face with one hand. “We didn’t do it. She was just about to. I…I told her to go ahead. Then the bleeding just stopped.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Honor.”

“Baby,” Honor whispered. She threaded her fingers through Quinn’s hair and stroked her neck. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You made the right decision. I’m glad Deb didn’t need to do it, but if she had, it would have been okay. The most important thing is being with you.” Quinn turned her face away, but not before Honor saw her tears. “Lie down next to me.”

“Honor, I’ll hurt you,” Quinn said, her voice raspy.

“You could never hurt me. And I need you. Just for a minute. Please.”

Quinn stretched out on her side on top of the covers. Honor stroked her face as Quinn buried her face in the curve of Honor’s neck. “I love you so much. I was afraid…”

“It’s all right,” Honor soothed. She knew firsthand the agony of having love wrenched from her grasp. She didn’t want Quinn to feel one moment of that pain. “I’m right here, and everything is all right.”

“I can’t even imagine being without you,” Quinn gasped. “I don’t know how you…”

Honor knew what Quinn didn’t want to say. They had talked about Terry, the love Honor had lost, many times, and each time they talked about her, Honor’s pain lessened. She would never get over the pain of losing her, but the agony of living without her diminished with each day she spent loving and being loved by Quinn. Honor loved Quinn even more because Quinn suffered for her loss, even though Honor didn’t want her to. “You don’t have to think about it, baby, because I’m here with you. And I hope you never have to think about it.” She kissed the top of Quinn’s head. “But you would have Arly, like I did, and for a while that would be enough reason to go on. And now you’ll have…what’s-his-name too.”

Quinn laughed and sat up, rubbing her tears away with the bottom of her scrub shirt.

“If you think I’m too weak to notice that you don’t have anything on underneath that shirt, pull it up again and see what happens to you,” Honor said. When Quinn wasn’t coaching softball or soccer or some other sport, she was working out at the gym, and her body was beautiful. Honor constantly found herself turning around in the morning and catching a glimpse of Quinn naked, and being suddenly overcome by a wave of unmitigated lust. It was a wonderful thing to experience after countless mornings of waking beside her.

“Maybe I should take my shirt off altogether before I tell you what I did,” Quinn said.

“Trying to distract me?”

Quinn nodded.

Honor shook her head. “It won’t work. I can do two things at once, and even though it’s hard for me to think when I’m looking at you naked, I’ll manage.”

“I let Arly pick the baby’s name.”

“Say that again.”

“She was really excited, and I could tell that she felt left out, and…”

“Oh my God,” Honor whispered, imagining calling her son Beavis or SpongeBob or something equally horrifying for the rest of his days. Of course, they hadn’t signed a birth certificate yet, so there was still time to change things. But Arly would be so upset.

“She picked Jack.”

“Jack?” Honor asked quietly.

Quinn nodded.

“Jack was Terry’s father’s name.”

“I know. When Arly picked her grandfather’s name, Phyllis cried.”

“Oh, Quinn,” Honor said. “We talked about naming him after your father if it was a boy.”

“Phyllis is Arly’s grandmother and a big part of the family,” Quinn said. “We wouldn’t make it a week without her. I think naming our son Jack is just fine. If my father is upset, which he won’t be, we can just have another one.”

Honor started to cry, something she never did. But she didn’t mind the tears, because all she felt was happy. “That’s easy for you to say.”

Quinn leaned down and kissed her. “I love you. What do you say I go get Jack?”

“Yes, but hurry back. I already miss you.”

Jett watched Tristan out of the corner of her eye as Tristan drove, trying to figure out what it was about her that had made her say yes to an offer from a virtual stranger. It wasn’t as if she longed for company. She didn’t. She had an apartment in a sprawling complex on Lincoln

Drive, where she could go for days, even weeks, without speaking to anyone and not minding. When she arrived home after her shift, she was usually too wound up to sleep right away, but she’d gotten used to that after spending months in the desert where sleep was something to be squeezed in between flights, if the heat wasn’t too bad and she could actually stay inside a tent for an hour or two. She’d learned to stay awake, running on adrenaline and caffeine and nerves. Unlike some of her fellow soldiers, she avoided drugs except for a drink now and then, and even that she monitored. Her father had been a mean drunk, and she’d often borne the brunt of his discontent. She wasn’t going to be like him, even if she did sometimes have to ride the whirlwind of her own wild temperament with nothing to blunt its force. If she was careful, if she kept tight control, she’d be fine.

In the Army there was always more work. Now when she had to take time off and she couldn’t sleep and she couldn’t shut off the pictures in her head, she restored antique timepieces. She preferred watches because the mechanisms were so small that she had to focus all her energy on manipulating the tiny parts. She couldn’t think about anything else then—not about where she’d been, or where she was going, or what she’d lost.

Flying was the same. Her aircraft, her crew, and her passengers required every bit of her concentration, and while she was flying, she had no past and no future. Only the now. No memories to expunge, no dreams to discard. In between flights, she waited for those moments to come again.

Maybe she’d said yes to this adventure because Tristan hadn’t been put off by her shields. Even now, Tristan seemed content to drive and allow silence to fall between them. Jett was grateful for that. She wasn’t any good at small talk. She had never understood the point of discussing things that had no meaning, and now, other than her job, nothing much had meaning for her. She wondered what would happen when the silence no longer protected her.

Tristan turned right onto School House Lane. She rented the second floor of an old Victorian, half a block down the street from Honor and Quinn. Quinn had actually found the listing for her right after Tristan had accepted the position at PMC. She hadn’t had time to take Quinn up on her offer of dinner at Quinn and Honor’s home, even though they were practically next-door neighbors. But she had agreed to help Quinn coach a soccer team. That seemed like the least she could do to say thanks for all Quinn’s help. The fields where she was due to start coaching soccer in another week were a quarter of a mile in the other direction. Despite being within the city limits, the residential area had an old-fashioned neighborhood feel to it. She recognized the cars parked on her street, and the kids who ran up and down the sidewalk in the late afternoon, and the women carrying shopping bags back from the Super Fresh, and the guys with six-packs tucked under their arms.

The working-class neighborhood was nothing like the enclave where she’d been raised, with manicured lawns and circular drives guarded by stone animals. She liked it much better where she was now.

“This is it,” Tristan said as she pulled into the curb in front of the sprawling three-story white structure with a wide front porch at the end of a flagstone walkway.

Jett looked out her window and frowned. “This looks like your house.”

“Yes.” Tristan turned off the engine and pulled her keys from the ignition. “I’ve got coffee and some frozen coffee cake. Hungry?”

“You didn’t say you were going to cook.”

Tristan grinned. “I was afraid to scare you away. Besides, I’m not cooking. I’m microwaving.”

Jett hesitated but Tristan was already out of the car and headed around to the sidewalk. At the very least, Jett had to get out of the vehicle, and when she did, she couldn’t just walk away. Wasn’t really sure she wanted to. Despite Tristan’s super-confident, take-charge manner, Jett didn’t feel manipulated. Tristan pushed, but she was so casually open about it, Jett was more curious than wary.

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” Jett said, climbing out and closing the door behind her. She glanced up the street, pretty certain she knew where she was. Probably no more than a mile or two from her apartment complex. She could easily walk. She could say she was more tired than she’d realized, thank this woman for the ride, and just walk away. That would be the smart thing to do. She didn’t move.

Tristan tilted her head and regarded Jett thoughtfully. She seemed ready to bolt. Tristan couldn’t tell if it was simple shyness, or something else. Jett didn’t look like the shy type. Women who flew medevac helicopters weren’t usually shy and retiring, any more than surgeons or anesthesiologists were. When you measured life or death in seconds, there wasn’t much room for uncertainty. “It’s no trouble. As I recall, I invited you.”

“Just the same.”

“Just the same, let’s go get some coffee.” Tristan turned and walked away.

Left with no choice, Jett followed her up the sidewalk, noting her long, powerful strides. Her hair shimmered like black gold in the sunlight, and her broad shoulders, narrow waist, and muscular hips and legs made Jett wonder if she was a swimmer. She had the body for it. The thought was disconcerting because Jett wasn’t accustomed to noticing women’s bodies. In the service, she’d trained herself not to.

She slowed as she approached the white stone steps that led up to the porch, thinking about all the times in her life she’d been faced with the choice between stepping into the unknown, or retreating into safety.

She almost always chose the riskier path because the excitement of challenge, the rush of danger, satisfied her in a visceral way. The only other thing that came close to the intensity of that feeling was sex, and she hadn’t allowed herself that in a long time. There was danger, and then there was foolhardiness.

“So,” Tristan said, already across the porch and holding open the door for Jett, “I’m on the second floor.”

Once again, the choice seemed clear. Jett climbed the steps and went through the door into a long hallway carpeted in a faded, dark floral print, with a staircase at the far end. She climbed up one floor and waited for Tristan on the landing.

“Where did you learn to fly?” Tristan asked as she extracted her keys.

“The Army.”

“No kidding. How long have you been out?”

Jett didn’t answer and Tristan decided it wasn’t the time to push.

She slipped past Jett to open the door to her apartment. When she did, their bodies briefly touched. Instantly, her system went on full alert.

All the pent-up urgency and excitement of the previous night coalesced into a simmering knot of arousal in the pit of her stomach. She’d been thinking about sex since she left the hospital, and this pilot was one attractive woman. Of course, she had no idea what Jett’s interests were, and why she was even thinking about it, she wasn’t sure. Jett hadn’t given off a single vibe in that direction, but telling her body that was pointless. Mentally sighing, Tristan opened her door and stepped inside.

She smiled at Jett. “Come on in.”

“I’m awake,” Honor called at the soft knocking on her door. She smothered a smile when she saw her best friend Linda and frowned at the small, trim blonde instead. “Oh sure, now you show up. When all the hard work is done.”

Linda, in jeans and a sleeveless yellow blouse, glanced around the room. “Where’s Quinn?”

“I finally got her to leave. She promised to take a nap in the trauma call room until the next feeding. Did you hear?”

“Uh-huh. A boy.” Linda perched carefully on the foot of Honor’s bed. “That’s wonderful, honey.”

“I wish you could’ve been here.”

“I’m sorry. I would have been, but this flu or whatever is going around has knocked out half the staff and I got called to work last night. Then it was a zoo. We spent all night in the air.”

“Right, and we all know how much you hate flying around in that helicopter.” Honor wasn’t really angry, or even hurt, but it still bothered her a little bit that Linda had left the emergency room after years of being one of the senior charge nurses to join the medevac crew when the hospital had been approved as a flight base. She missed Linda. Not just her competence, but her friendship. Even though they lived right around the corner from each other, their schedules often didn’t match, and even when they did, Linda had a toddler of her own at home, which made impromptu socializing difficult.

“Well, the scenery is nice,” Linda said, grinning.

Honor groaned. “Do you still have the hots for that new pilot?”

“Only metaphorically. You know I’m completely faithful in mind and body.”

“I know you can’t walk past a good-looking butch without feeling a tingle.”

“Wait just a second.” Linda lifted her wrist and pretended to feel for her pulse. “Yep. Still got one, so I guess you’re right.”

“You are so full of it. So, are you still flying with her?”

“The mysterious, and yummy, Jett McNally?” Linda gave a satisfied smirk. “Not only am I still flying with her, I got her to eat pizza with the gang last night.”

“Why are you so bound and determined to get her to socialize?”

Linda suddenly looked serious. “She seems sad. I hate that.”

“I love you, you know that? But you can’t fix everyone.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes it’s just a matter of giving fate a helping hand.”

“Oh no.” Honor knew Linda’s penchant for matchmaking and thought ahead to the pre-playoff softball bash Linda and Robin always hosted. “Don’t tell me you invited her to the party?”

“I didn’t,” Linda said with a note of excitement. “But it’s a really good idea. After all, it worked with you and Quinn.”

“And just exactly who do you plan on fixing her up with?”

“I haven’t worked that out yet. Mandy?”

At the thought of the much younger, incredibly well-built, seductive blonde, Honor felt her temperature climbing. “If you bring her within five miles of my lover, there will be bloodshed.”

Linda laughed. “Like Quinn would even notice.”

“The problem is, Quinn doesn’t notice. Even when Mandy is practically molesting her. And God, she just won’t quit.”

“Well, it hasn’t even been two years. Obviously, Mandy is slow.”

“One thing she isn’t is slow,” Honor snarled.

“All right. Don’t get worked up. It’s not good for the baby when you’re breastfeeding.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” Honor muttered, fussing with her covers and feeling decidedly fat and frumpy all of a sudden. “And now with this damn incision, it’s going to take twice as long before we can have sex.”

Linda leaned over and whispered dramatically, “For you to have sex. Not for Quinn. Even right after the babies are born, Robin always manages to take care of m—”

“All right,” Honor interrupted sharply. “I get the picture.”

“You can’t really think Quinn minds?”

Honor glowered. “I mind. Do you have any idea what it’s like watching her walk around in the morning and not being able to do anything about it?”

“Oh God. I wish.” Linda patted Honor’s leg. “Let me go check with the nurses and see if it’s time for Jack’s feeding. I want to watch.”

“Pervert.” Honor relaxed as Linda started for the door. “You’re the best medicine I could possibly have, next to burning up the sheets with Quinn, that is.”

Linda turned from the door and waggled her eyebrows. “Always glad to take care of a woman in need.”

Chapter Five

“Here you go.” Tristan handed Jett a cup of coffee, set the coffee cake she’d nuked on a side table, and stretched out on a lounge chair next to the one Jett occupied on the small porch off her kitchen. The second-story porch overlooked a grassy backyard. A large old oak grew beside the house, its massive branches shading the area where they sat.

“Thanks.”

Tristan leaned her head back and sighed. The sky, visible through the canopy of green, was robin’s egg blue and crystal clear. In two hours, the day would have surrendered to the July heat, but right now, she felt the slightest hint of a breeze. She was almost too tired to think, and her mind wandered in the midst of her pleasant torpor. She remembered all those carefree, lazy summer days of her youth, when the greatest crisis in her life was whether a particular girl might be interested in her “that way.” Now, what seemed like a lifetime later, she lay next to a woman still wondering the same thing. All that had changed was her—she still asked the question, but somewhere along the way she’d stopped looking for anything beyond the simple answer. If it was yes, they’d share a few hours’ pleasure. If no, she’d move on. And right now she was too damn tired to wonder why that was.

She turned her head and regarded Jett’s face in profile. Her hair was a mix of dark blond verging on golden brown, but she bet when she was younger it was corn silk yellow. Up close she could make out the fine lines around her deep blue eyes. Those and her dark tan indicated a lot of time in the sun. “Where are you from?”

If the seeming non sequitur bothered Jett, she didn’t give any indication. She answered, “New York.”

“City?”

“State. Up near the Vermont border.”

“Farmers?”

Jett shook her head and sipped her coffee. “In a way. My family has an upland apple orchard. Been in the family for a couple of generations.”

“But you didn’t want to be a farmer?”

“No,” Jett said softly. “I wanted to fly.”

Tristan drew her leg up onto the lounge chair and turned on her side, curling one arm under her head. The bones beneath Jett’s smooth, bronzed skin were sharply carved, the hollows beneath her cheekbones shadowed even in sunlight. Her nose was strong and straight, the bridge high, nearly Roman. She wasn’t beautiful, or handsome, but her face was captivating. “How did you know that? That you wanted to fly?”

“I went up in a crop duster with one of the neighbors when I was seven. She—”

“She?”

Jett nodded, a faint smile breaking the straight line of her mouth.

“She worked for herself out of a barn and a tiny airstrip down the road from us. She let me take the rudder the first time we went up.”

When Jett didn’t continue, Tristan said, “And that’s all it took?”

Jett sipped her coffee. “Yeah.”

“What did you like about it?”

“Why are you asking?”

Tristan wasn’t put off by the question, because Jett sounded more confused than put out. “I was just thinking about how oblivious I was when I was young, and how all the things I thought were important weren’t really.”

Jett laughed. “Are you feeling mellow post call?”

“Yes,” Tristan murmured. “How could you tell?”

“Sometimes when you get stripped down to the bone, you look around and everything feels different, doesn’t it?”

Tristan recognized the wistful edge of pain in Jett’s voice and knew it came from having seen too much tragedy. “You were in the war, weren’t you?”

“Two tours.”

“How long have you been back?”

“A couple of months.” Jett placed her coffee cup on the table and her expression became remote.

The movement had an edge of finality to it, and Tristan recognized once again that the subject was off-limits. “You didn’t tell me what hooked you on flying.”

Jett didn’t think anyone had ever asked her that before. When her brothers realized how much she loved to go up in the rickety single engine plane with Elenor Brundidge, skimming low over miles of green while spraying the cornfields, they’d tried to convince her father not to let her go. That had been one of the few times she could ever remember her mother taking up for her in the face of the angry, sullen men in the family. Then in the Army everyone was too busy making her prove she could do the job to care why she wanted to. Other pilots had their own reasons for loving to fly and rarely discussed it.

Jett glanced at Tristan. She looked a little sleepy, lying there in the sun, her hair tousled and her gently questioning dark eyes regarding her steadily. Tristan’s arm still curled beneath her head, but when she smiled lazily, Jett almost sensed Tristan reaching out to touch her. She’d never felt anything quite like the pull of that invisible caress. Maybe that was why she answered.

“The very first time I went up, I had the feeling I could keep going forever and never touch down.”

“An adventurous spirit?” Tristan watched Jett gesture with her hands as she spoke—gentle, eloquent movements in sharp contrast to the strength evident in her wide palms and muscular fingers. Tristan remembered the helicopter hurtling through the dark only hours before, only now she could imagine Jett guiding it with those powerful, commanding hands. Her stomach tightened at the image of those hands stripping her bare, those fingers demanding and sure. Tristan took a long breath and banished the fantasy. She couldn’t help what her body craved, but she really wanted to know why Jett loved to fly, because she sensed that was a big part of who she was. And she wanted to know who she was. “Wanderlust?”

“Maybe. I never felt like I really fit in where I was.” Jett laughed shortly, sounding raspy, as if she were out of practice. “More likely I wanted to escape my two older brothers. Somehow, I always ended up doing half their chores.”

From the bitter edge to her words, Tristan suspected there was more she wanted to escape, but she didn’t probe. When Jett fell silent, Tristan missed their brief moment of connection. “I understand the sibling thing. I’ve got three sisters, all beautiful, all successful, all super straight. We didn’t have that much in common.”

“You can’t be that much different than them,” Jett said, turning slightly to face Tristan. “You’ve got two of the three covered.”

Tristan had been hit on enough times in her life to know when she wasn’t being hit on. She might have been disappointed except for the unexpected surge of pleasure at Jett’s words. She rarely thought about her own appearance or how women looked at her. She wasn’t often called beautiful, although her appearance did sometimes elicit comments. She had her Greek mother to thank for her dark Mediterranean hair and skin coloring and her English father for her blue eyes. Either parent could be responsible for her fiery temperament. Her mother blamed her father for her womanizing, as she called Tristan’s lack of a regular girlfriend, which only made her father laugh. For his part, he insisted her stubbornness came totally from her mother. They both claimed credit for her brains and her passion. They hadn’t always been happy about her choices, and it hadn’t helped that her sisters all led storybook lives.

“I love them,” Tristan said, “but I wish I’d discovered airplanes when I was younger. There were plenty of times I wanted to disappear.”

Aware that Jett was still watching her, Tristan tried to sound casual.

“Did I mention that I’m a lesbian?”

“No.”

“I am.”

“Was that a problem for them?” Jett asked. “Your family, I mean.”

“I pretty much knew the way I felt when I was in high school, so I told them. It didn’t exactly go over well. It took me quite a while to convince them it wasn’t a phase.” Tristan thought back to the heated discussions with her parents, who were convinced that she was just trying to be different from her sisters. And her sisters all wanted her to be like them. But she wasn’t like them, and never could be. “The first few years were interesting. My sisters kept trying to fix me up on dates until I was almost out of college. When they didn’t wear me down, we all reached a truce.”

“So you still see them?”

“My family?” Tristan nodded. “How about you?”

“Not so much.”

Shadows eclipsed Jett’s sharply etched features, and Tristan imagined the story wasn’t a happy one. Jett’s gaze had drifted to some distant point in the yard, and her body had become unnaturally still— almost frozen. Tristan felt as if Jett was behind a wall of invisible glass, and if she tried to touch her, she would not be able to. That feeling of being locked outside made her want to touch her all the more.

With a shake of her head, dispelling the irrational urge, Tristan said, “Can I get you more coffee, or are you going to be too wired to sleep?”

Jett tilted her head back to look up into Tristan’s face. “I’ll sleep. How about you?”

If Jett had been any other woman, Tristan would have tried out a line. I’ll sleep better if you’re with me. I won’t have any trouble falling asleep if you join me for a little workout first. I’m sure you can think of a way to put me to sleep. Practiced lines designed to let a woman know she was interested. The kind of line that suggested an isolated encounter, a mutually enjoyable diversion, perhaps even the first of a few hot sweaty afternoons stolen from the relentless demands of work that were constant reminders of the fragility and, at times, the inhumanity of life.

“Coffee never keeps me awake,” Tristan said instead. She thought Jett was a lesbian, but she’d guessed wrong before. That wasn’t what kept her from making a suggestive response, however. And it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t find Jett attractive. A few days before, she would have sworn she knew exactly what she liked in bed, and the kind of woman she wanted. Those brief few hours of submitting to another woman’s desire had taught her that there was more than one way to give pleasure. Or to receive it. When Tristan looked at Jett, she imagined herself beneath that lean, strong body, with Jett inside her. Silently groaning, Tristan forced the image from her mind. She was just exhausted after two nights without sleep, which was why her bodily urges seemed to be running rampant. Jett gave off very clear unavailable vibes, that was easy to see. Why, Tristan wasn’t sure, but she’d like to find out.

“I’m not in any hurry to go to bed,” Tristan said. “So you’re more than welcome to stay.”

“I shouldn’t.” Jett stood.

“Do you need a ride?”

“No, I’m not that far. Thanks for the coffee.” She hesitated. “And for the company.”

“Any time,” Tristan said as she walked Jett to the door. As she said it, she realized she meant it. But she doubted she’d have another opportunity.

Jett was gone before she even left the apartment.

“I heard it was bad out there tonight. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Jett braced one arm against the side of the supply shed. Even with the non-reflective paint, the metal was burning hot to the touch. Registering the discomfort through a haze of mental and physical exhaustion, she jerked her hand away.

Gail murmured in concern and grasped Jett’s arm, turning her hand over and cradling it in her palm. “That’s going to blister if we don’t put some ointment on it. Let’s go to the med tent.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” Gail said slowly. “It’s not.” She stepped closer, brushing the hair from Jett’s forehead as she continued to hold her hand. She rubbed her thumb lightly over Jett’s cheekbone. “And neither are you. Are you sleeping?”

Jett barked out a laugh. “Is anyone?”

The bombing had picked up, and the noise and ever-present specter of death made sleeping more than an hour or two at a time impossible.

Worse, the casualty rate had risen and more and more of the injured she transported were critical. Even those who were likely to recover would never be the same. Life as they knew it, as she knew it, was forever changed.

“Come on,” Gail said. “Let’s go to my tent.”

Jett glanced around quickly, concerned that someone might have heard them. Even though the conversation was completely innocent, as was the invitation, she wasn’t so certain about her feelings.

Jett woke up with the sun in her eyes, and for a few seconds, she didn’t know where she was. She jerked upright, sweeping her surroundings, reaching for the weapon that was no longer there. She was in her room. In her apartment. Safe. She gulped in a lungful of air and let it out more slowly, assessing her situation. She was naked.

The cheap plastic clock-radio on the narrow, plain pine dresser said 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon. She was due back on shift in two and a half hours. Wondering how to fill the time, she stretched out on top of her bed again. A faint breeze came through the partially open window, cooling the sweat on her skin. Absently, she rubbed her hand over her chest and down her abdomen. The breeze and the thought of coffee made her think of the morning, and of Tristan stretched out beside her on the porch, relaxing with a mug balanced on her thigh.

That hour with Tristan was the most time she had spent alone with anyone in months, and to her surprise, she’d been comfortable. Tristan had a way of drawing her out, with her easy smile and her understated confidence. Somehow, Tristan had gotten her to talk about one of the few good things in her childhood. She hadn’t thought about flying with Elenor in years and years.

Maybe opening up to Tristan had been easy because they were both tired. Or maybe it was easy because there was nothing to explain.

Medicine and war weren’t all that far apart. Tristan had seen tragedy and defeat up close too. So maybe Tristan knew that at the end of the day, a lounge chair on a tiny porch beneath a leafy tree, quiet words wafting away on a breeze, was as close to peace as she could get.

Jett replayed the conversation and wondered what the three beautiful sisters looked like, that Tristan would somehow distinguish herself from them. Because Tristan was gorgeous. Smiling at the memory of Tristan and the lazy morning, Jett turned on her side and closed her eyes. She didn’t expect to sleep, but she was wrong.

Chapter Six

After the fourth turn around her living room, Tristan grabbed her ID from the small table inside her door, stuffed her keys in the pocket of her jeans, and took to the streets. She wouldn’t be on call again until the following night. Twenty-four hours with nothing to do. She had plenty to do, actually, but grocery shopping, laundry, or even an evening round of golf with her father were not on her list. What was on her list—right up there at the top, as usual—was a good meal, a bottle of vintage wine, and a passionate woman.

She had choices there. She could call Candace, or Darla, or Sue.

All bright, engaging women who knew how to have a good time. None of them asked where she went or who she saw when she wasn’t with them. If they already had dates, they just said so along with “maybe next time.” The same worked in reverse. She had no hold on them, and wanted none. When they were apart, she didn’t think about them, except now and then in the midst of an enjoyable fantasy.

Tristan checked her watch. Hell. Six p.m. Too late to call now with a dinner invitation. Even she couldn’t pass that off as anything other than an excuse for sex. She might be casual about her relationships, but she genuinely liked the women she dated too much to treat them like coin-operated vibrating beds. She stopped on the sidewalk by her car, considering alternatives. She could drive to Belmont Plateau, a huge grassy expanse in the center of Fairmont Park where the women’s summer softball league played three nights a week and practically all weekend from March until August. She enjoyed watching the games, but she liked watching the women even more. And she could almost always find company for the rest of the night, if she still needed to unwind.

She dug out her keys and tossed them in the air a few times, staring moodily at her twelve-year-old Saab. After four years of medical school, four years of residency, and one year of critical care fellowship, she ought to be able to sleep any time of the day or night. Usually she could, but not today. She’d been restless from the time she lay down shortly after Jett left. She’d tossed, she’d turned, she’d fallen into an uneasy sleep only to awaken every hour. Jittery and wired, she couldn’t relax. She thought about sex, but she didn’t feel like doing anything about it herself. She was still thinking about sex, but she didn’t feel like pursuing the usual avenues. She was not herself.

Leaning against the fender, she stared at her running shoes and fondled her keys. Try as she might, she couldn’t figure out what the hell was wrong with her. Jesus, she was really slipping. Why the hell hadn’t she asked Jett for her number?

“Like that would’ve done me any good,” she muttered. She pushed off from her car and started to walk. With the setting sun at her back and the neighborhood sounds surrounding her, the stretch of her muscles quelled the jangling of her nerves and she finally started to feel settled. When she reached her destination, she laughed and shook her head. Nothing had been quite right since she’d walked into the parking garage that morning and seen Jett McNally’s ass.

Now here she was back at the hospital. With a shrug she headed inside. So what if it didn’t make sense. This felt right.

Tristan knocked on the hospital room door, pushed it open an inch, and peeked inside. “Anybody home?”

“Just everybody,” Honor called back. “Tristan? Come on in.”

“Hi.” Tristan stepped inside and quickly averted her gaze. Honor held a bundle of what must be Jack, but all Tristan had seen was a snow white blanket covered with small blue flowers and a tuft of light brown, fluffy stuff that must be baby hair. And something pale and creamy that might have been a breast. “Oh, hey. Sorry. I just came to say hi. I’ll come back la—”

“No.” Honor nodded toward Quinn, who sprawled in a chair by the bed, looking supremely content as she stroked the hair of a gorgeous child sitting beside her on a footstool. “Stay. We’re all just hanging out.”

Tristan felt a surge of jealousy and couldn’t figure out why. She didn’t have the slightest desire to have children. She wasn’t looking for a wife. So there was absolutely nothing in the room she coveted, unless it was the overpowering sense of belonging that warmed the very air.

Belonging. What she’d never felt. Pushing that thought quickly away, she nodded to Quinn and tilted her chin in the direction of Honor and the baby. “Everybody good?”

“Great,” Quinn said. “You remember Arly, don’t you?”

“Yes. Hi, I’m Tristan.” Tristan smiled at the girl who looked like she’d been cloned from Honor. Her hair had that yellow shine of youth that would darken to gold with maturity, but like Honor’s, her eyes were already melted-chocolate brown, so unusual in blondes. Dressed in soccer shorts and a loose T-shirt, she leaned with her back against Quinn’s knee.

“I remember,” Arly said. “But you don’t see me, okay? Because I’m not really here.” She gazed at Quinn, adoration in her eyes. “Quinn snuck me in early to see Mom and Jack.”

“Gotcha.” Tristan rubbed her ear. “I’m not even sure I can hear you.”

Arly grinned. “Quinn said you’re going to help coach soccer. We have our first practice next weekend. Are you coming?”

Tristan glanced at Quinn, feeling slightly panicked. In a moment of weakness, she’d said yes to Quinn’s invitation to help coach, but she didn’t know a damn thing about soccer. Other than the fact someone kicked the ball. Somewhere.

Honor must have caught her look, because she started to laugh.

“You’d better be careful. This is how it started with Quinn.”

“What started?” Arly asked.

“Quinn coaching. First soccer,” Honor said teasingly, “then field hockey, then volleyball. This year it’s softball.”

“In a few years I’ll be tall enough for basketball,” Arly said eagerly.

Quinn groaned. “Hey, Tris, you play basketball?”

Shaking her head, Tristan leaned against the door, enjoying herself immensely. She’d seen Quinn in a lot of different situations, but she’d never seen her look quite this happy—as if everything that mattered in the world was right in this room. For just a second, Tristan wondered what that would feel like.

“I’ll be there,” Tristan said. “But you’ll have to help me, Arly. I’m not very good.”

“That’s okay.” Arly tossed her a grin that was pure Quinn. “I am.”

Jett carried the plastic hospital tray to a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. She had a half hour before her tour officially started, and as she did every night she was on call, she had dinner and then went up to check her aircraft. Visiting hours didn’t start at the hospital until seven p.m., so the cafeteria was almost empty except for scattered groups of house staff congregated around tables, discussing patients and signing out for the night. It wasn’t all that much different from a mess tent filled with soldiers, except none of this group had to worry about being blown to pieces before dessert.

She wondered how long it would be before she didn’t think about where she’d been and the things she’d seen every waking moment.

Actually, that wasn’t true. With a start, she realized she hadn’t thought about any of those things—the war or death or even Gail—while sitting with Tristan this morning. Tristan. Jett couldn’t figure her out.

She’d never been certain of Gail either, but that had been her own misjudgment. Maybe if she hadn’t woken up in hell every morning, knowing that she might not live through the day, she would have been more careful. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

People usually wanted something, and she’d learned long ago if she made it difficult to get close to her or to get anything from her, they quickly turned their attention somewhere else. Then she could decide who to let close, although she never felt the need. When she wanted something other than flying to satisfy her, or when she needed a way to burn off the adrenaline rush or the fear or the anger, she used sex.

She could lose herself in sex, wear herself out with sex, as long as she was careful to be sure that what she needed also worked for whoever she was with. She’d gotten good at choosing the right women, and the system of sex without intimacy had worked pretty well her entire adult life. Until Gail.

Tristan was very different from Gail. She didn’t seem to hide much, but Jett had no idea why Tristan wasn’t put off by her stay away signals. That alone was enough to make her wary. She couldn’t figure out her own response either. She hadn’t had sex in longer than she was used to, as her sleeplessness and constant unrest proved, and Tristan had a great body. But Jett didn’t have coffee and conversation with women she had sex with. She had sex with as little personal exchange as possible, other than what needed to be done to pleasure them both.

More often than not, bringing a woman to orgasm settled her enough that she didn’t need to come right away herself. She could wait until she was alone, replaying the sights and sounds and sensations, until she came in the solitary safety of the night. Thinking about Tristan jogging across the rooftop, dark hair whipping around her bold features and her powerful body covering the distance in commanding strides, or lazing beside her in the sunlight, full lips parted in a teasing smile, Jett had a feeling her imagination might be enough to hold her for quite a while.

As if conjured by Jett’s thoughts, Tristan appeared across the room, a cup of coffee in her hand. Dressed in street clothes—jeans, a white open-collared shirt, and sneakers—she looked like an ad in some trendy magazine. And just about as foreign. Tristan halted a few tables away when she saw Jett, a question in her eyes. She waited, as if signaling Jett the next move was hers.

Jett didn’t move, her gaze steady on Tristan’s. The choice was hers. The choice was easy. No attachments, no involvement. Being alone was safe. She’d learned that lesson a long time ago, and when she’d forgotten, she’d paid. She looked away, then back. Tristan still watched her, unwavering.

Why? What was Tristan offering, and why did she care? Why did the empty chairs at her table suddenly seem to take on life, mocking her for being a coward? Jett leaned over and pushed one of the chairs away from the table, making room for Tristan.

Seconds later, Tristan settled beside her. “I hope you’re working tonight.”

“I am,” Jett said. “Why?”

“Because there’s something seriously wrong if you came all the way to the hospital to eat this food for dinner.”

Jett looked down at her plate, realizing she hadn’t even noticed what she was eating. She always ordered the dinner special, no matter what it was. Tonight it was lasagna. “It’s not that bad. I think the law requires that cafeterias like this provide nutritionally balanced meals.”

Tristan stared. “Dog food is nutritionally balanced.”

Jett smiled. “You should try K-rations.”

“That bad?”

“Unimaginative.”

Tristan laughed.

“What about you?” Jett asked. “Come for the coffee?”

“No,” Tristan said, sounding perplexed. “I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I ended up here.”

“Not on call?”

“Not until tomorrow night. Usually every fourth or fifth, but we’re short right now. You work what, twelve-hour shifts?”

“Technically twelve on, twelve off for a week, then off for seven days and we start the rotation again. But sometimes we get called in or work longer if things are busy.”

Tristan sipped her coffee. “Always nights?”

“Technically I should alternate between days and nights, but I like nights, and I never have any problem switching for them.”

“Why nights?”

Jett shrugged. “More action.”

“That’s for sure.” Tristan grimaced. “You can pretty much figure after midnight the gates of hell are open.”

“There’s that,” Jett said. “Besides, I like to fly at night.”

“Why?”

Jett almost asked why she was asking, but when she searched Tristan’s face, all she saw was genuine interest. Like earlier.

“It’s more challenging,” Jett replied. “When you can’t see very far ahead of you, there’s always the chance you’ll run into trouble.”

“Or something good,” Tristan murmured.

“That hasn’t been my experience,” Jett said tightly.

“Things could always change.”

Before Jett could disagree, Tristan pushed her coffee cup away.

“So, do you have time to show me your aircraft? I didn’t get much of a chance to take a look last night.”

Jett didn’t need to look at the clock on the far wall to know what time it was. She always knew what time it was. Just the same, she checked it, because just being around Tristan threw her off. Besides not being able to get a handle on why Tristan sought her company, she couldn’t understand why she liked the fact that Tristan did. “I was about to go up and do my preflight check. You’re welcome to come along.”

“Okay.” Tristan stood.

“I don’t think you’ll find it very exciting.”

Tristan smiled. “You might be surprised.”

“Hi, Jett,” a surfer-boy-handsome blond in cargo pants and a tight white T-shirt, carrying a clipboard, called from beside the bright red helicopter with a white cross painted on its side.

“Hi, Mike.” Jett gestured to Tristan. “This is Dr. Holmes.”

“Hi,” Tristan said, extending her hand. Off to the west, the sun was just about to set, and the purple glow of the night sky and the warm wind on the rooftop made her wish that Jett weren’t working the rest of the night. It was a night made for walking along the river or through the park. As soon as she thought it, she knew why she’d come to the hospital. She’d been looking for Jett. With a start, she dropped Mike’s hand and put both of hers in her pockets. She’d been looking for a woman after all, she just hadn’t realized it. Her instincts had taken her where she needed to go.

The idea of being unknowingly drawn to Jett made her uneasy, and she quickly reminded herself that Jett just happened to be the woman she’d spent time with most recently and her subconscious naturally prodded her to reconnect. No mystery. Nothing had changed. Everything was just as it should be. Except when she looked at Jett, standing beside her with her legs slightly spread, her arms clasped behind her back, Tristan didn’t get the same urge for a quick, easy tumble. She wanted the hard weight of Jett’s body holding her down, and all that pent-up energy she sensed to be unleashed on her. Jett reminded her of storm clouds gathering on a still, heavy summer night and she wanted to be deluged by the ferocity of that storm.

Tristan eased away. She wasn’t herself. Sleep deprived, maybe.

Or maybe the encounter in Las Vegas when she’d been neatly flipped and ended up loving it had thrown her equilibrium off a little. She’d get herself together soon.

“Mike is one of the other pilots,” Jett said.

“How many of you are there?” Tristan said, not really caring, but not wanting to think any more about romantic strolls or summer storms or mind-numbing sex with Jett doing things to her she never knew she wanted.

“Four,” Jett said. “That way, we always have a backup pilot.”

Tristan laughed. “Kind of like being on second call. Which most of the time means first call.”

Both pilots laughed with her. Then Mike handed the clipboard to Jett. “Three routine runs so far today. The mechanic finished all the maintenance this morning. I’ll brief you inside whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ll be right there,” Jett said.

“No rush.” Mike gave a wave and walked away.

“I don’t want to keep you,” Tristan said, even though it wasn’t true.

She was looking at a long night alone and right now, standing around on a rooftop with Jett felt just fine as long as she didn’t think about anything except how good Jett looked in black military-style pants and a black T-shirt. The contrast with her fair coloring was striking.

“I’ve got a few minutes before I officially relieve Mike.” Jett gestured to the aircraft. “This is a Eurocopter EC-145—the elite model in its class.”

“Is this what you flew in the Army?”

Jett stiffened. “No. Black Hawks. The medevac versions mostly. Every once in a while I’d fly a UH 60L, a troop transport aircraft.”

“Are there a lot of women flying over there?” Tristan asked.

“Most of the medevac pilots are women. A lot of the troop transport pilots too.” Jett glanced past the aircraft toward downtown, where lights in the taller buildings were beginning to flicker on the horizon, and her features settled into an inscrutable expression.

Tristan recognized the look from earlier that morning. When the conversation got too close to whatever it was Jett didn’t want to talk about, she walked away. Metaphorically, at least. Tristan knew one way to get her back from wherever she had gone. “So this helicopter’s— what—a civilian version of what you flew?”

Jett refocused on Tristan. “Not exactly, but it’s easy to make the transition to one of these when you’ve been flying Black Hawks.”

She opened the door of the aircraft and gestured for Tristan to climb inside.

“You sure?”

Jett grinned. “You can’t break it. Go ahead.”

Tristan climbed inside and turned around to take in the main part of the cabin where all the medical equipment and medications she’d used the night before were neatly stowed away. There was no hint of the controlled chaos. “It looks pretty much like any EMS vehicle.”

“It is, except for the rotors.”

“Oh yeah. That small detail.” Tristan grinned. “How fast does it go?”

“Maximum speed is about two hundred eighty kph, but cruising speed is considerably less.”

The more they talked about the aircraft, the more relaxed Jett seemed to become. As she described the helicopter’s capabilities, Tristan, while interested, found herself focused more on Jett than on what she was saying. The big square halogen lights ringing the helipad came on automatically, backlighting Jett as she sat in the pilot’s seat.

The lines of her face were normally as sharp as if they’d been etched in precious metal, but as she described what she so obviously loved, her expression softened. For a fleeting second, Tristan had a glimpse of another woman behind Jett’s fierce façade. Tristan was reminded of the way she’d felt when she first discovered women, as if every one was a wonderful mystery just waiting to be explored. She hadn’t felt that way in so long, she’d forgotten how good it was. Her easy relationships were fun and physically satisfying, but they didn’t touch her deep inside.

Most of the time that was fine, except on nights like tonight when she wanted something she couldn’t quite name. Something more.

“Sorry I can’t take you up,” Jett said. “Against regulations.”

Tristan tried to focus. “That’s okay. I know this is serious stuff.”

“Well,” Jett said, “I hope I didn’t bore you.”

“You don’t bore me.” Tristan felt the pressure of time bearing down on her. Jett was going to disappear any second. “I was wondering—”

Linda appeared around the front of the helicopter and peered in.

“Hey! You two aren’t going anywhere without me, are you?”

“Did we get a request?” Jett asked, instantly serious. She climbed out of the helicopter and Tristan followed.

“No,” Linda said. “Mike said you were out here, so I figured it was a good time to catch you before the night got too crazy. Hello, Dr. Holmes.”

“Hi.” Tristan felt Linda’s curious scrutiny as she gazed from Jett to Tristan.

“I’m having a party at the house next Saturday night,” Linda said, “and I wanted to invite you before you made plans to take any extra shifts, Cap. You too, Dr. Holmes. Pretty much the whole neighborhood is coming. We hope Honor will be able to make it too.”

“That’s great,” Tristan said. “I’ll be there. And call me Tristan.”

When Jett said nothing, Linda added, “Most of the flight crew is coming. It’s casual. Some beer and burgers. That kind of thing.”

“If I don’t need to work, I’ll try to make it.” Jett glanced at Tristan. “I better get inside. Good night.”

“Hope it’s quiet,” Tristan called after her.

“We live around the corner from Quinn and Honor.” Linda gave Tristan the address. “I’m sorry we haven’t invited you over sooner. It’s been a little crazy with me switching from the ER to the medevac crew this spring.”

“That’s okay. I’m just getting settled myself.”

“You’re welcome to bring a date,” Linda said with a playful smile.

“Thanks.” Tristan eyed the stairwell where Jett had disappeared.

She’d been about to impetuously ask Jett out when Linda had interrupted her, but she wasn’t at all sure that was such a good idea. Jett really wasn’t her type, and it was never smart to change a winning game plan.

Evie or Darla would be a much better choice. “I just might do that.”

Chapter Seven

“Nice flying, Jett!” Linda held open the door to the stairwell as sheets of rain lashed the rooftop. “The ride was so smooth I wouldn’t have even known we were in the middle of a thunderstorm if it hadn’t been for the lightning.”

“Thanks.” Jett finger-combed the water from her hair as she and Linda started down the stairwell toward the crew quarters. The storm front had blown up out of nowhere while they were transporting a patient to the burn unit in Hershey, seventy miles away. The eleven year-old boy had been the sole survivor of a house fire that had claimed the rest of his family. The weather had been clear when they’d picked him up. Jett had put the helicopter down in the twisting two-lane road adjacent to the still-flaming house as fire rescue worked to quench the blaze and locate victims. Jett watched, feeling as if she’d viewed the scene a thousand times before, as first one body and then another had been brought from the smoldering structure. As each casualty emerged, draped in black plastic, she wondered if she would return to base with an empty aircraft. Already, the medical examiner’s van stood waiting with doors open twenty yards in front of her. Finally a shout went up and she could feel the excitement all the way into the cockpit. Someone had been found alive. Linda and Juan and the fire rescue personnel swarmed the stretcher, performed the initial resuscitation, and had the boy in the aircraft within minutes.

“Good save out there,” Jett said, pausing in the hallway outside the flight crew lounge.

Linda smiled wearily. “I hope so. He’s got a long road ahead of him.” She touched Jett’s bare arm. “He wouldn’t have had any chance at all if you hadn’t gotten us to Hershey. I was afraid for a few minutes there you were going to have to abort the flight.”

Jett shrugged. Flying in electrical storms was hazardous. A lightning strike would fry the radio at the very least, and worst-case scenario, the gears would mesh or the rotors debond and come apart.

She’d considered detouring to another hospital away from the storm path, but that would have delayed the boy’s essential care for too long.

Any hospital could handle most noncritical burns, but with the degree of injuries he had, even a few hours’ delay might have meant the onset of fatal respiratory or infectious complications. She’d seen enough burns to know. So she’d set a course around the worst of it and made it to the burn center. She’d pushed to the limits, but she’d still been in her safety zone. Other pilots might’ve felt differently, but other pilots hadn’t flown in the conditions she’d flown under every day for months.

“We’ve got the best aircraft going. It will take us through anything.”

Linda laughed. “I think it’s the pilot I trust the most.”

“Thanks,” Jett said again, drawing her arm away. Linda was a vibrant, sensual woman who touched easily, laughed easily, and exuded compassion. Jett knew there was nothing special about Linda’s attention, or even out of the ordinary, but she was in that place where the brush of a woman’s skin against hers could twist her insides until she couldn’t think.

“I’m going to make some fresh coffee.” Linda pushed the door to the lounge open and shot Jett a questioning look. “Coming in?”

“I was downwind most of the time out there, and the cockpit took a lot of smoke from the fire. I need to shower and change my clothes.”

“Mmm, me too.” Linda smiled. “Well, you know where it will be.”

Jett nodded and made her way to her room alone.

“The weapons fire was heavy out there tonight,” Gail said breathlessly. “They must have gotten a new shipment of ammunition from somewhere.”

Jett grimaced. “Kept our gunners busy.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to work loose some of the stiffness. She’d had a death grip on the stick, trying to maneuver her Black Hawk away from the small arms fire that hammered the air around her aircraft with lethal projectiles.

The dense black sky would have been beautiful, bursting with streaks of color, if every one of those pyrotechnic displays hadn’t been so deadly.

Since the insurgents rarely had sophisticated weaponry, they blanketed the sky with as much small arms fire as possible, hoping for a random hit. Her only choice was to fly as straight and fast as possible while hoping a round didn’t hit her fuel tank or her passengers. Or her.

“You’ve been flying for eight days straight in terrible conditions. You’ve got to be pretty beat up.”

“No more than usual,” Jett said.

“Come on, I’ve got just the thing.”

When Gail headed toward her tent, Jett hesitated. It was the middle of the night, and there wasn’t much activity in camp, so no one was likely to see them. Nevertheless, going into Gail’s tent made her uneasy. Gail was just being friendly, but Jett didn’t think spending time alone with her was a good idea. She’d been in the desert for months, and although she was certain she wasn’t the only lesbian, she restricted her sexual forays to when she was on leave. As time passed and her sense of futility and anger over the tragic waste of life escalated, her control wavered. She was edgy all the time, and nothing she managed on her own eased the relentless tension. She should go back to her own tent.

But she knew she wouldn’t sleep. A drink might help her relax, because that was surely what Gail was offering. One quick drink couldn’t hurt. She hurried to catch up. Gail’s rank afforded her semiprivate accommodations, and the other bunk in the sparse tent was empty. Gail lit a small battery-operated lamp and set it on the floor where it wouldn’t cast shadows for anyone passing by outside to see and gestured to one of the narrow beds.

“Take your shirt off and lie down.”

Jett’s whole body jerked as if she’d stepped on a high-voltage line.

Gail had already turned away and was rummaging in a locker. When she looked over her shoulder and saw Jett standing dumbfounded a few feet away, she smiled and held up a shampoo-sized bottle of gold liquid. It wasn’t booze.

“Go ahead. Strip and stretch out.” Gail unbuttoned her shirt and took it off, revealing a tight dark T-shirt underneath. Her breasts were larger than Jett had thought, broad full ovals underneath the thin cotton.

Jett needed to decide before her hesitation became awkward. Go or stay. Gail’s face was soft in the muted lamplight, her gaze welcoming.

The night was very dark and death was everywhere. Jett unbuttoned her shirt. Gail didn’t look away when Jett pulled off her T-shirt, baring herself to the waist. Her nipples tightened and she turned to the bunk, hoping to hide them. She lay face down and put her head on her arms.

The springs gave slightly as Gail sat next to her, her hip pressed to Jett’s.

“I’m sorry it’s not warm,” Gail murmured, bracing herself with one hand on Jett’s left shoulder.

When a stream of thick liquid coursed down the center of Jett’s back, she stiffened. Then Gail’s hands were on her, spreading oil from the base of her neck to the hollow above her buttocks. In her mind’s eye, she saw Gail leaning over her, and the press of Gail’s hands transformed into a caress. The muscles in her ass clenched as her clitoris swelled and she fought not to gasp.

“Your shoulders are so tight.” Gail brushed the hair away from the back of Jett’s neck and leaned closer, working her fingers into the knots along Jett’s spine. Her stomach pressed against Jett’s back and Jett groaned before she could stop herself. “Too hard?”

“No,” Jett rasped. “It’s fine. Good. But you must be tired. You don’t have to—”

“I want to. It relaxes me.”

Gail swept her hands up and down Jett’s back, heating her skin, inflaming her deep inside. When Gail’s fingers skimmed the outside of her breasts, Jett unconsciously tilted her pelvis into the hard mattress, as if it were a lover.

“Unbuckle your pants so I can pull them down,” Gail said.

Jett murmured a protest and tried to turn over, but Gail stopped her with a hand between her shoulder blades.

“Go ahead. I want to get to your lower back. You’ve got to be sore, strapped in that cockpit for hours.”

Jett knew she should stop what was happening, but she didn’t. She didn’t want Gail to stop either. She wanted Gail to keep touching her.

She wanted the heat of Gail’s body close to hers and the soft sigh of Gail’s exhalation teasing over her skin. She wanted her clitoris to twitch and pulse to the rhythm of Gail’s fingers until it exploded. She reached under her hips with one hand, unbuckled her belt, opened her fly, and tugged down her zipper. For one insane second she contemplated pushing her hand inside her fatigues and stroking herself. She knew even without checking that she was swollen and wet and fully aroused.

She imagined squeezing her clitoris while Gail worked the muscles in her ass until she came. Seconds, it would only take seconds. Jett jerked her hand from beneath her body and gripped the rough cotton sheets.

“Lift your hips.” Gail tugged at the waistband of Jett’s pants. Then she palmed the small, firm mounds of Jett’s ass and massaged them in firm circles. Jett moaned. “You see. You need this, I can tell.”

Gail leaned away for a second, and then Jett felt a trickle of oil run into the cleft between her buttocks. Gail’s thumbs followed, digging into the muscles on either side. Jett was so hard the pressure was painful and she desperately wanted to masturbate.

“Turn over. I should do your chest too.”

Jett’s brain was too muddled for her to do anything except obey.

With her pants pushed almost below her pelvis, she turned awkwardly, exposing the triangle of blond hair between her legs. She thought she saw Gail glance down, but her vision was hazy and she wasn’t sure. She bunched the sheets in her fists on either side of her body as Gail pressed both hands to her chest. Gail’s face was very close, leaning over her, as she smoothed her palms in circles from Jett’s breastbone out to her shoulders. Jett’s breasts ached and her nipples throbbed.

“I told you you needed this,” Gail whispered, her lips moist and full. “Aren’t I right?”

“I need…” Jett whispered.

“What? What do you need?”

Viciously, Jett twisted the shower dial to cold, gasping in shock as the frigid stream pounded against her head and shoulders. She braced one arm against the slick wall, panting as she fought to escape from the memories. She needed to come. Her legs shook and she locked her knees to stay upright. With a groan, she slid one hand between her legs and gripped her clitoris. She kept her eyes open as she squeezed and tugged, not wanting to come with Gail’s face dancing on the inside of her eyelids. She was close, so close. She leaned her forehead against the wall, fingers circling frantically. She heard Gail’s voice.

You see. You needed this.

“No,” Jett groaned, yanking her hand away. But it was too late and she was coming. She sank to her knees, closing her eyes in surrender.

“Jett?” Linda called, knocking on Jett’s door.

Jett sat on the side of her bed, dressed in clean black pants and T-shirt. She’d been sitting there for a long time, her mind mercifully blank. The second time Linda called her name, she rubbed her face and took a deep breath. Squaring her shoulders, she prepared herself to get on with business. She still had a while to go on her shift, and even if they got called with five minutes left, they’d go out.

“Come on in.” When Linda entered, Jett asked, “Another flight request?”

Linda shook her head. “We just got a call from risk management. They want flight records from one of our runs.”

“The boy with the burns?” Risk management pulled records when a case was under review or someone lodged a complaint. Jett searched her memory for anything unusual about the recovery or transport. True, she’d flown during the electrical storm, but she couldn’t imagine who would have complained about that. And certainly not so soon.

“No, sorry,” Linda said, sounding rattled. Jett could never remember her being the slightest bit off balance. “Not this shift, but one from last week.”

“Which one?”

“The multivehicle accident—the one with the governor’s daughter in-law.”

The flight where she’d first met Tristan. Jett hadn’t seen her recently, but then she wouldn’t. They worked in different parts of the hospital. She might never see her again. When her stomach tightened, she ignored it and asked sharply, “Why? What’s going on?”

Linda’s expression was grim. “I made a few calls to the nurses in the TICU right after I got off the phone with the admin from risk management. The patient arrested last night.”

“She died?” Jett wasn’t surprised, but she hated to hear it. A trauma victim who made it to the hospital alive, especially a young patient, had a very good chance of survival. Sometimes, though, even the best chance wasn’t enough.

“No, they got her back, but she’s in a coma and they’re not sure about brain function.”

“I don’t get it,” Jett said. “What does it have to do with us?”

“I’m not sure, but they want flight logs and our scene reports.”

“Okay. I’ll get my records together. You and Juan do the same. Just make sure everything you documented is accurate and complete. It was a clean run.”

“I wonder if Tristan knows.” Linda bit her lip absently. “I’m not sure if she’s working today. Maybe I should call her.”

“Risk management must have contacted her too.”

“You’re probably right.” Linda sighed. “I’ll go get started on the paperwork.”

Alone again, Jett thought back to the morning she’d spent stretched out beside Tristan in the sun. She’d never done anything like that with anyone. Just talked. There had never been anyone to talk to when she was growing up, and she’d gone right into the service after high school.

It was the quickest way she knew to get to fly. She’d made friends, of a sort. Mostly men and some women who shared the Army experience and the love of flying. No one asked about her. Where she came from or what mattered to her. Or maybe they had, and she’d shut them out.

She was good at that and it always worked. Except it hadn’t worked with Tristan.

For a second, she wished she had another hour in the shade of that oak tree to look forward to. Then she shook her head, having learned once already not to give in to wishes. She grabbed her overnight bag and headed toward the small office on the other side of the lounge where they kept their paperwork. She had a report to review, and then another twelve hours until she could return.

Chapter Eight

I’m going to take an early dinner break,” Tristan told the nurse anesthetist on call with her, a burly guy who had been a medic in the Navy before going to nursing school.

“Sure.” He grabbed the sports section from a pile of eviscerated newspapers on the table in the OR lounge and headed toward the men’s locker room. “It’ll be an hour before they get that femur washout over here anyhow.”

“Page me when the family shows up so I can get the consent.”

“No problem.”

Alone, Tristan surveyed the stark lounge and the detritus of the day’s activities. Crumpled newspapers, empty fast-food bags, coffee cups upside down by the sink. A scrub shirt rolled into a ball and tossed into a corner of the couch. A haphazardly folded blanket that before morning would cover someone—surgeon, nurse, OR tech—as they slept on the sofa waiting for the next patient to arrive. When the routine cases of the day were finished and the day shift went home, Tristan always felt a little bit marooned, as if she were completely cut off from the rest of the world, disconnected even from her own life. The handful of staff left behind to cover emergencies during the night assumed the attitude of front-line soldiers, resigned to hold on until reinforcements returned in the morning. Until the sun came up, no matter what came through the door—multiple traumas, gunshot wounds, burns, exsanguinating postoperative patients, obstetrical catastrophes—the team taking night call had to be up to the task.

Because no one stood behind them.

Tristan pulled on one of the shapeless green OR cover gowns and took the stairs down to the cafeteria on the second floor. She ordered the special and carried her tray into the dining area, checking out the occupants. When she saw Jett at the table where she’d been sitting the week before, she sighed inwardly, admitting she’d been hoping to see her. She’d had a lousy day and the worst was yet to come. The prospect of a few minutes talking to Jett inexplicably cut through the gloom. When she raised her tray in a questioning gesture to Jett, she held her breath. She’d looked for Jett every night since that night in the helicopter on the roof, but she hadn’t seen her. Maybe Jett had been avoiding her. A long minute passed, and Tristan forced a smile before starting to turn away. Then Jett beckoned her over, and a bit of the unfamiliar abandoned feeling disappeared.

“How’s the chicken à la king?” Tristan asked, setting down her tray.

“Is that what this is?” Jett’s voice rose in surprise.

“That good, huh?” Tristan laughed. “I am capable of talking about more than hospital food, but I figured since you already taste-tested it…”

“It’s hot. I recognize pretty much everything that’s in it.” Jett grinned. “That makes it close to gourmet food.”

“Is military food really that bad?”

“Not stateside. But you can’t expect much when you’re deployed.”

Busy sprinkling pepper over her meal, Tristan asked offhandedly, “You miss it at all?” When Jett didn’t answer, she looked up. Jett’s face had gone completely blank. “Sorry. Someday if you ever want to talk about it…” She let the words trail off because she realized she was being presumptuous. Whatever secrets Jett harbored were clearly not happy ones. “You know what. I’m a jerk. Just forget I said that.”

“Why did you?” Jett pushed her tray aside and focused on Tristan.

Maybe Tristan was just one of those curious people who befriended everyone casually. She’d known plenty of people like that in the Army, men and women alike. People who would talk to anyone about anything because they enjoyed social interaction, or they just liked the sound of their own voices. Jett had never been like that. She didn’t share what was important to her with anyone, because she didn’t trust anyone that much. She’d learned that lesson at a young age after her brothers scoffed at her dreams and her father tried to beat her into the shape he thought a woman should assume.

“I don’t know,” Tristan replied. “I mean, I want to know. I’m interested in you.”

Jett pushed her chair away from the table, gripped her tray, and stood up to leave. “I’m not that interesting.”

“You’re wrong about that, but I won’t argue,” Tristan said calmly. “I’m glad you know what’s in this stuff, because I’m not sure.”

Jett stopped and looked back. Tristan was pushing the food around on her plate with her fork. Her hand was shaking. Jett slid her tray onto an empty table nearby and sat back down across from Tristan. “I liked the Army because it gave me the one thing I wanted, and all I had to do in return was the job I signed up to do.”

“Just one thing?” Tristan regarded Jett intently. “All you wanted was one thing?”

Jett nodded.

“You love it, don’t you. Flying.”

Jett was so used to keeping what mattered to her to herself, she almost didn’t answer. But Tristan’s words echoed in her mind. I want to know you. She wasn’t certain that anyone had ever really wanted to know her before. “If I couldn’t fly I don’t think I’d want to do anything at all.”

“Yeah. I get that.” Tristan wondered if Jett had a woman in her life who she wanted with that much fervor. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be the focus of that kind of passion, to have all of someone’s energy poured into her. She’d had women want her because she was fun or sexy or wealthy. She’d had women beg her or tease her to touch them, to take them, to push them beyond their limits. But she couldn’t remember a single one who had begged to touch her. Hunger like she’d never known rose up inside her.

“You make me wish I were a helicopter.”

Jett laughed and after a few seconds Tristan joined her.

“Why?” Jett asked.

“You make flying sound like a love affair.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Jett said.

Tristan couldn’t miss the bitterness in Jett’s voice. Someone had hurt her, and the realization made her angry. In fact, so angry she was frightened by her own response. In defense, she intentionally changed the subject. “I guess you heard about the patient from last week. The governor’s daughter-in-law.”

“We got a call asking for records first thing this morning. I know she had some kind of problem.” Jett was relieved to get away from personal topics. Some things about civilian life were going to take some getting used to, and hearing lesbians talk openly about their love lives was one of them. Talking about romance with Tristan was way outside her comfort zone.

“I doubt it’s a secret. At least it won’t be for long.” Tristan leaned back in her chair and sighed. “A tooth turned up in her right main stem bronchus. They saw it on the x-ray after she had a respiratory arrest last night. It didn’t show up on earlier films because that part of the lung was collapsed.”

Jett hadn’t had any formal medical training, but she’d spent enough time with medics in and out of field hospitals to have picked up a lot of the terminology. “She swallowed…no, she aspirated a tooth in the accident?”

“That’s one explanation. The other popular theory is that I pushed it down into her lung when I intubated her in the field.”

“I imagine if you had, you’d have said so at the time.”

The iron band of tension that had been constricting Tristan’s head for the last eight hours dissipated as if someone had unlocked it with a key. She’d been reeling all day long from the thinly veiled accusation that she’d been hasty and reckless when she’d decided to intubate the patient at the scene under less than controlled conditions.

Having her professional competence called into question hurt. “Thanks. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.”

Jett frowned. “Is it going to be a problem for you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Is it okay for me to ask you that? I don’t want to compromise you.”

“So far, nothing official has happened,” Tristan said. “I don’t plan to discuss it with the other members of the medical team, because they’ll have to testify if it comes to legal action. You might be questioned too, but not about the medical circumstances.”

“She looked like she was in pretty bad shape when you brought her on board.”

“Major facial fractures and a lot of bleeding. Anyone familiar with that type of trauma knows you’ve got loose teeth all over the place. There was just so damn much blood.” Tristan grimaced. “I was worried she was going to choke to death on all that blood. Hell, sometimes it’s just a judgment call.”

“That’s why no one should question your actions without a damn good reason,” Jett said vehemently. “You’re the one on the line. You’re the one making the hard call. It has to be that way, and you should have the support of the hospital behind you.”

“You want to stand up in court and say that?” Tristan joked.

“I would if it would make any difference,” Jett said seriously.

“How do you know I’m worth taking a chance on?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know what you were doing. And I think if you had a problem out there, you’d say so.” Jett shrugged.

“Is it me,” Tristan dared to ask, “or do you just believe in the system that much?” She wanted to believe it was her Jett believed in, wanted it so much it scared her. Her parents hadn’t believed her, or believed in her. And her sisters said they loved her but they didn’t want to love her the way she was—they wanted to change her into a person they understood. She’d stood up to them, but it had cost her. She hadn’t wished for anyone to really see her, to believe in her, in a very long time.

Jett collected her tray and stood up. Not that long ago she had believed that the chain of command was sacrosanct. Without order there was anarchy. And in the heat of battle, chaos meant death. She didn’t believe that any longer. She looked down into Tristan’s questioning eyes and saw vulnerability as well as pain. She didn’t even hesitate.

“It’s you.”

“Thanks,” Tristan whispered.

“Don’t mention it.” Jett started away, then turned back. Tristan was hurting, and she wanted to give her just a little of the comfort Tristan had unwittingly given her. “I never said thanks for coffee the other day. I—”

Jett’s beeper went off and a second later, so did Tristan’s.

“Shit,” they both said simultaneously.

“Take it easy tonight,” Tristan called after Jett, who had left her tray on the table and sprinted away. She caught Jett’s brief wave before she took off in the same direction, wondering what Jett might have said.

When Tristan arrived in the emergency room she discovered Quinn and the other trauma personnel resuscitating two young men, both of whom appeared to have multiple gunshot wounds. Penetrating chest and abdominal injuries. Even as she called, “What do we have,” she saw the long night ahead of her in the operating room.

“This one,” Quinn said, indicating a patient in whom she had just finished inserting a chest tube, “needs to go upstairs right away. Probable punctured lung. Maybe great vessel injury.”

Tristan hurriedly assessed the breath sounds. “Portable chest x-ray?”

“It’s hanging.”

Quickly surveying the radiograph, she saw that the right lung was nearly white. Most likely filled with blood. “O2 SATs?”

“Just getting them,” one of the nurses called. “Seventy on sixty percent O2 and a rebreathing mask.”

“Hell,” Tristan muttered. “Let’s get a tube in him.”

Another one of the nurses grabbed a suction catheter and cleared blood and fluid from the patient’s mouth. For just a second, Tristan hesitated, thinking of the governor’s daughter-in-law. So much blood. Maybe she should have waited. Maybe she had been hasty.

“His pressure’s dropping,” a nurse reported.

Tristan glanced at the oxygen readout. Sixty-five. She pushed her way around to the head of the table and grabbed a laryngoscope. “Give me a number eight tube.”

In less than a minute she had inserted the tube into the trachea and was pumping in a hundred percent oxygen. The patient’s blood pressure stabilized immediately.

“His SATs are coming up,” the nurse said.

“Nice, Tris,” Quinn said.

Tristan lifted her shoulder. She had only done her job, just like everyone else in the room. With the patient secured, the tension level in the room plummeted. “So, Quinn, they finally made you come back to work, huh?”

“Honor went home today. I don’t have any more excuses.”

“How’s she doing?” Tristan taped the endotracheal tube to the patient’s face to prevent it from being dislodged during transport.

Quinn nodded, a fleeting expression of discomfort crossing her face. “Honor insisted she was ready days ago, but with the blood loss… she’s still pretty weak.”

“Jack go home too?”

“Everybody.”

“No wonder you wanted to work.”

One of the nurses poked Tristan in the arm. “Some people actually like family life.”

Tristan rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”

Quinn slid her a grin as she secured the dressing around the chest tube. “Don’t forget practice this weekend.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Coming to the party at Linda’s?” another nurse asked. “Linda invited all of us.”

“Planning on it,” Tristan muttered. She hadn’t called anyone for a date yet, although she’d thought of it several times. She wasn’t sure why she was waiting.

“Okay, that’s it,” Quinn said, stepping away from the table, all business again. “Let’s get him upstairs. The other one is waiting on vascular unless something changes. Any problems, call me.”

Tristan secured her tubes and the oxygen tank, one hand stabilizing the patient’s head as she pushed the stretcher toward the elevator. Just as she, Quinn, and a nurse crowded on, the trauma beeper went off again.

The second-call anesthesiologist was waiting in front of the elevators opposite the OR when the doors opened. “Healthstar’s on its way in with a level one,” he said to Tristan. “You want me to take it?”

“No. You take this one. I’ll get the incoming.” Tristan handed off the patient and caught the elevator doors just as they were closing. She jumped in.

When she reached the roof, the helicopter hadn’t yet landed, but several nurses and the trauma fellow were already there. Tristan stepped a little bit away from them as they chatted while waiting and watching the sky. As the helicopter settled onto the landing pad, the turbulence from the rotors and the glare of the bright landing lights brought tears to her eyes, but she stared through the sheen of moisture, hoping for a glimpse of Jett at the controls. As soon as the skids touched down, the trauma team rushed forward and she went with them.

Tristan was almost to the aircraft when the cockpit door swung open and Jett jumped out. She had a brief glimpse of Jett pulling off her helmet and rifling a hand through her hair. Their eyes met and Jett smiled. Tristan had only a second before the medevac crew delivered the patient. Even though her attention was elsewhere, she held on to the smile as if it were a gift. Just before she stepped into the elevator, she looked back. Jett still stood on the rooftop, a solitary figure backlit against the night sky, watching her.

Even though Tristan knew it was crazy, she felt as if Jett had reached out and touched her. Hell, she definitely needed a date, because she was starting to imagine things. Jett hadn’t shown any indication of interest, and even if she had, she definitely wasn’t Tristan’s type. Nothing about her suggested she did anything casually. Of course, that was exactly what made her so intriguing. Despite the almost overwhelming urge to stop and look back again, Tristan forced herself into the elevator. She had a patient to take care of, and she didn’t need any complications in her life. Everything was going along exactly the way she wanted it to go. Smooth, easy, and no strings attached. Just the way she wanted.

Chapter Nine

When Quinn let herself into the house shortly after eight the next morning, she was greeted by silence. She was used to coming home after twenty-four hours on call to find Arly’s grandmother, Phyllis, busy in the kitchen making breakfast or getting Arly ready for school. In the summer when there was no school, Phyllis supervised Arly after Honor left for her shift in the ER until Quinn returned home from night call. And since Quinn would usually have been up all night operating, Phyllis often took Arly out somewhere while Quinn slept.

They never left this early, however.

Quinn checked the kitchen. A full pot of coffee sat on the warming plate of the coffeemaker. There was no sign of breakfast dishes, and the smell of pancakes or muffins was absent. Nothing felt quite right, and a wave of completely irrational panic swept through her. She shook it off quickly, knowing that if anything had happened to Honor or Arly or Jack, someone would have called her. Still, she wanted to see her family. For all of the excitement of the last week and a half, and the amazing joy of bringing Jack home, she hadn’t been able to forget or shake off those few minutes in the delivery room when she’d feared she would lose Honor. Nothing in her life had ever been as terrifying as imagining a future without her.

Telling herself there was nothing to worry about, Quinn climbed the stairs as quickly as she could while trying to be quiet. The master bedroom was situated diagonally across the hall from Arly’s room, and she passed her partially open door to peek in Arly’s open door. Arly sat cross-legged on the bed in her pajamas, a book open in her lap.

When she saw Quinn, she touched her finger to her lips and shook her head with a warning look. Instantly, Quinn’s anxiety dissipated and she crossed to the bed.

“What’s going on?” she asked in a whisper.

“Mommy and Jack are sleeping.”

“Where’s Phyllis?”

“She went home. She said we could call her when everyone got up and she’d fix breakfast.”

“Didn’t you want to go with her?” Considering that home for Phyllis was the other half of the duplex and that Honor was just across the hall, there was no reason Arly couldn’t stay on her own in her room.

After all, she slept in her room alone every night too. Still, it was a change. Everyone’s routine was disrupted.

Arly shook her head. “I wanted to stay here.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” But she didn’t look at Quinn when she answered.

Quinn sat on the bed and leaned back against the pillows. Arly curled up against her side. “What are you reading?”

“The Golden Compass.”

“Do you like it?”

Arly nodded. “It’s like Harry Potter for grown-up kids.”

Quinn smiled. She’d read some of the book. The story of a young girl in an alternate universe was wildly imaginative and beautiful at times, but darker than Harry Potter. The series was supposed to be for young readers, but some of the events were pretty sophisticated, nonetheless. “Not scary or anything?”

“It’s just make-believe, Quinn.”

“That’s right.” Quinn kissed the top of Arly’s head. “I forgot that part.”

Arly giggled. Then she slid her arm around Quinn’s middle and became quiet. After a few seconds, Quinn said, “What are you thinking?”

“Is Mom really going to be okay?”

Quinn was careful to stay relaxed because she didn’t want any of her secret fears bleeding over to her child. “Yes, she’s going to be fine. Are you worried?”

“She looks kind of sick.”

“She’s not sick, honey.” Quinn pulled Arly close. “She’s pretty tired. Mom explained about the operation that she needed so Jack could come out, right?” Arly nodded. “Well, it takes a while to get back to normal after that.”

“And then everything will be like before?”

“Things will be a little different because now instead of you and me and Mom and Phyllis being a family, there will be you and me and Mom and Phyllis and Jack.”

Arly sat up and regarded Quinn intently. “Is Jack really my brother?”

“What?” Quinn was so surprised she forgot she was supposed to be the all-knowing, rational adult. “Sure he is. How come you’re asking?”

“Tommy said that Jack can’t be my brother unless we have a father too. And we don’t have one.”

“There’s lots of ways to make families, remember, we talked about that? Families are people who live together because they love each other and want to take care of each other. Like we do.”

Arly nodded.

Quinn hugged her hard. “So now we have Jack, and your mother and I love you both and we’re all going to live together until you’re grown up. So that makes us your parents and Jack your brother.”

“So the father part doesn’t count?”

“Well, he counts if you have one, but you don’t need one.” Quinn wondered if they were going to have the birds and the bees talk now.

She glanced through the open door to the bedroom across the hall.

The door was ajar an inch or two, but Honor was probably asleep. She wished Honor would come to her rescue, but at least now she didn’t break into a cold sweat every time she had one of these conversations with Arly. She only wished she had more time to prepare for topics like this one. Someday she was probably going to say something wrong and cause permanent psychological damage.

“Quinn?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Can I call Grandma now so we can have breakfast?”

“Yes. Go call her. I’m starving.” As Arly climbed over her, Quinn swatted her on the butt. “I’m going to go check on your mother. If she’s still sleeping, we need to still be quiet.”

“Okay.”

Arly disappeared on her way downstairs to use the phone, and Quinn stood and stretched. Her lower back ached from standing most of the night repairing a torn pulmonary artery in the boy with the gunshot wound. Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, and she felt just a little bit fuzzy. Still, all that mattered was that she was home. She walked to her bedroom, cautiously opened the door wide, and paused inside the door to take in the scene.

Honor lay sleeping, Jack cradled in the curve of her arm. She appeared very pale, but incredibly peaceful. Even in her sleep, she looked happy. Quinn drank her in, still amazed that this was her life. This woman, these children, this home. More than she had ever dreamed.

Honor shifted and opened her eyes. Used to waking completely in a heartbeat, she focused on Quinn instantly. “You’re home. I thought I heard you talking a few minutes ago. Did I dream that?”

“No.” Quinn stretched out on the bed and kissed Honor’s cheek. “I was talking to Arly.”

“Mmm.” Honor looped an arm around Quinn’s neck and pulled her closer until she could kiss her on the mouth. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too.”

“Are you tired?”

“Not so much.” Quinn reached across Honor’s body and stroked the baby’s head. His hair was so soft, like nothing she’d ever felt before. He scrunched up his face and made a tiny mewling sound. “Uh-oh. Sorry.”

Honor laughed. “It’s okay if he wakes up. He’s going to soon anyhow. It’s about time for another feeding.”

“Should I do anything with him?”

“He’s good for a little while. Phyllis changed him earlier, right after he ate.” Honor caught Quinn’s hand and held their joined hands between her breasts. “Did you eat yet?”

“I was just about to go downstairs. Arly’s calling Phyllis for breakfast.”

“Phyllis isn’t here?” Honor frowned. “What was Arly doing here by herself?”

“She was reading in her room. I think she’s a little bit worried about you.”

Honor passed the baby to Quinn. “Here, take him. I need to get up so she can see that I’m all right.”

“I thought we agreed on bed rest until you get another transfusion tomorrow.” Quinn tucked the baby against her shoulder.

“I feel fine. I’m not an invalid.”

Quinn wrapped her arm around Honor’s shoulders as Honor threw back the covers and sat up. “It will only scare her if you overdo too soon and she sees you not looking good. I’ve got a better idea. Give me one minute, okay?”

“I just don’t want her—”

“One minute.” Quinn put Jack back in his bassinet by the bed, pleased when he didn’t wake up. Then she ducked out into the hallway and called softly, “Arly? Come on upstairs.”

A few seconds later Arly appeared at the foot of the stairs.

“Grandma is on her way over.”

“Perfect timing.” When Arly reached the top of the stairs, Quinn took her hand. “Let’s go see Mom for a minute.”

Quinn led Arly to the bed and patted a spot next to Honor’s hip.

“Climb up here.” Then she sat down on the far side of Arly and rested her chin on the top of Arly’s head. “So what do you think,” she whispered to Arly, “about you and me fixing Mom breakfast and bringing it up here. Then she can eat and we’ll watch Jack.”

“Yeah,” Arly said with enthusiasm. “We can make pancakes.”

Laughing, Honor extended her arms. “Come here and give me a hug first.” When Arly hesitated, she said, “It’s okay, honey. I’m a little sore but I’ll be much better in a day or two. Especially if you and Quinn are going to spoil me.”

“We can spoil you plenty.”

“I’m counting on it.” Honor met Quinn’s gaze over the top of Arly’s head as she held her. I love you, she mouthed silently.

Quinn caressed Honor’s calf beneath the sheets and whispered,

“Me too.”

She drew a breath of contentment and felt her fatigue drop away.

For most of the last twenty-four hours she’d been too busy to think about anything except the work she had to do. But in the brief respite between surgeries, after checking the postoperative patients, or while stealing a moment for a bite to eat, she thought about her family. She knew that however hard the night might be, when morning came, she’d be going home to those who gave her strength and healed her. Life was good.

Tristan headed to the locker room, finally finished making post-op rounds in the recovery room, checking on the patients in the surgical intensive care unit she’d taken care of during the night, and writing follow-up notes. She was done for the day. In fact, she was off for two days, until Sunday. Considering she’d been busy covering extra shifts with people away, first at the meeting and then on vacation, she was ready for a break. She was ready for more than that.

Anesthesia, as she and her colleagues liked to say, was a specialty marked by long periods of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer panic. Most cases were fairly routine once the patient was anesthetized and the procedure was underway. During surgery she spent her time monitoring vital signs and ensuring that the various drugs were at the appropriate levels to keep the patient unaware but not so high as to become dangerous. Induction—putting the patient to sleep—and emergence—waking them up—were the tense times for her and could be pretty challenging when complications arose. And of course, there were the heart-pounding, gut-clenching moments during a trauma resuscitation when she had to make snap judgments and perform difficult technical procedures with only seconds to spare.

She’d spent the last few hours giving anesthesia to an otherwise healthy twenty-year-old woman who’d had a few drinks too many, fallen asleep at the wheel, and driven her car into the Schuylkill River. In addition to almost drowning, she’d broken her neck and the orthopedic surgeons decided to do immediate bone grafts to stabilize her cervical spine. Once Tristan positioned her face down on the table, secured her airway, and anesthetized her, she didn’t have all that much to do. So between recording vital signs and checking on the progress of surgery, her mind drifted.

She wondered how the governor’s daughter-in-law was doing. She wanted to stop by and check her status but had resisted, fearing it would seem inappropriate. No one had actually said she couldn’t review the chart, but she didn’t think it was a good idea. Not knowing what was going on with the patient or the medical inquiry only made her more agitated, and she wasn’t sure what to do with her uneasiness. She didn’t want to talk about it with her colleagues. She was mildly embarrassed and figured everyone had a similar story, so what was the point. Still, she’d told Jett, and it felt good. Good to tell her. Good to hear the sympathy in her voice and see the trusting certainty in her eyes.

She’d thought a lot about Jett during the long hours of the night, snippets of conversation coming back to her along with the flash of her eyes or the lightning-quick grin that rarely lingered. Now that she was done for the day, she was still thinking about Jett, and that probably wasn’t the best idea. Jett reminded her of a skittish thoroughbred. Not the kind of animal to take out for a casual ride, and too fine to risk breaking with a heavy hand. No, Jett was most definitely not her usual fare. But thinking about her wound her up just the same. A heavy pulse in the pit of her stomach demanded attention.

What she needed was a diversion. Something to help her relax and take her mind off work and the accusation that she was incompetent, and to help her ignore the stirring in her depths whenever she thought about Jett’s low, calm voice and intense eyes. While she waited for the elevator to the parking garage, she scrolled through the familiar numbers on her cell phone until she found one that she thought would work. She hit speed dial and waited.

“Darla? It’s Tristan.” The elevator doors opened, she stepped on and pushed the button for her floor. “Any chance you can be late for work? I was thinking you might like some breakfast in bed. Where are you?” She got off at her floor and strode rapidly toward her car, shedding the skin of one life for another with every step away from the hospital. “I’ll pick you up right outside, then. Be there in a minute.”

She closed her phone and jumped in her car. She’d been seeing Darla, a statuesque redhead who worked in the accounting department at the medical school, fairly regularly. Darla had been in a long-term relationship that had ended messily, and she wasn’t in the mood for another commitment anytime soon. She was, however, usually in the mood for a few laughs and demanding sex. Tristan had soon discovered that Darla especially got off on sex in public places. Since it amused her to amuse Darla, she usually went along with it.

Gunning the engine, she sped down the ramp toward the exit. A little dose of Darla in the morning was just what she needed to diffuse the cloud of disquiet that hung heavy in her mind.

Jett slammed the hood of her Jeep and rocked back on her heels, resigned. After fiddling with her battery, the ignition, and the engine for an hour, Jett finally admitted she wasn’t going to get the damn thing to start. It had finally died. Since she wasn’t in the mood to hang around waiting for a tow, she’d call when she got home and make arrangements to meet someone before her shift later that night. Besides, walking two miles home would be a good way to unwind. Maybe when she got there, she’d be tired in a good way. Tired enough to sleep without dreaming.

She hustled down the stairwell to the street, blinking when she emerged from semidarkness into the bright sunlight. Hospital staffers hurried toward the main entrance and food vendors jostled for position along the curb. As she waited to cross at the corner, a familiar car slowed for the light. Tristan’s car. Jett felt a surge of unfamiliar pleasure. Maybe she could repay her for breakfast.

She leaned down to the open passenger window, about to call out a greeting and an invitation, when she realized Tristan wasn’t alone. A very attractive redhead crowded close to Tristan, her hand in Tristan’s lap as she nuzzled her neck. Tristan stared straight ahead, her hands clenched on the wheel.

Jett straightened and hurriedly stepped away. Tristan obviously already had plans for the day.

Chapter Ten

“Are you avoiding me?” Gail slid onto the bench in the mess tent next to Jett.

“No, why would I?” Jett sipped her coffee and hoped she sounded normal. In fact, she’d been all twisted around since the night she ended up in Gail’s tent. When her mind wasn’t totally consumed with staying alive, and keeping her fellow soldiers the same way, she thought about that night. About how good it felt to have someone else take charge, to have someone else take responsibility, to have someone else blot out the horrors that she could never quite erase from her mind. None of those feelings were normal for her, but then nothing here was normal and the longer she stayed, the more lost she felt. Even flying, her one true pleasure, was slowly becoming associated with tragedy and loss.

And because she wasn’t really herself, and because she’d almost let Gail do all those things she ordinarily wouldn’t want, she’d gotten as far away from her as fast as she could.

But when she closed her eyes, she thought about her.

Gail moved closer and lowered her voice. “You were upset when you left the other night. I was having such a good time, just relaxing with you, I didn’t realize you weren’t enjoying yourself.”

“That’s not true,” Jett said quickly, not all of it. She’d enjoyed it, and wished she hadn’t. And she had been avoiding Gail. She didn’t have casual friendships with women, although she was perfectly comfortable having casual sex. Gail seemed to want something else— something she didn’t know how to give. Gail wanted intimacy, and Jett wasn’t certain if that included physical intimacy or not. And that was the problem. Even though Gail outranked her, they were close enough that they wouldn’t be crossing any significant lines. Those lines were crossed every day between male and female officers, and people looked the other way. But they were both women, and that was a big line, especially with them working together. Gail wasn’t a one-night stand in some liberty town, never to be seen again. Gail was a career officer she’d see every day.

“Then where have you been?” Gail asked. “I’ve missed you.”

“It’s just been crazy around here. I haven’t been out of the aircraft for more than a few hours at a time in a couple of days.” Jett knew the excuse was feeble, but part of her didn’t want to say no. And she could hardly tell Gail she didn’t trust herself around her.

“I know. Whatever’s going on, it’s heating up. The casualty count is higher than I can ever remember it.”

Jett felt a surge of relief, glad that Gail had accepted her excuse.

She’d learned fairly early in life that on those rare occasions when she connected with someone, she connected on every level. When she let herself care about a woman, she wanted her, and more often than not that got her into trouble. So now she stopped it before it even started.

Since she was incapable of doing things by degrees, she chose not to let any relationship go too far. Fortunately military life, especially for a lesbian, wasn’t conducive to anything long-term or even short-term serious.

But things had already gone too far with Gail. Somehow, Gail had gotten past her normal defenses, and now Jett was powerless to keep her out. Just the same, she didn’t think she could offer Gail the kind of close physical contact that came naturally to Gail. Not without wanting, needing, to share everything. And there were a million reasons why that was a bad idea. No, the best course was to just stay away from her.

“I’m not going to let you get away, you know,” Gail whispered, shifting almost imperceptibly until their shoulders touched. “I never got a chance to finish with you the other night.”

Arousal punched through Jett, and if she hadn’t been sitting, she might have doubled over. She took a shaky breath, praying for the strength to resist.

“Hey, Cap! Jett!”

At the sound of her name, Jett stopped walking and stared around her in confusion. Where she expected to see an endless stretch of desert sand, she saw lush grass and thick leafy trees. The bright sun was hot but carried no hint of deadly intent. The morning was beautiful. Linda waved to her from the front seat of a dark blue convertible that idled at the curb, its top down and all the windows open.

“Do you need a ride?” Linda asked.

“No, thanks,” Jett said, still reeling from the too-fresh memories.

She hadn’t been this bad since she’d first left the service. Now she could barely keep the images at bay even when awake, and she couldn’t figure out what was triggering them. Linda regarded her expectantly, and she wondered if she’d actually answered out loud. She repeated, “No, thanks. I don’t live that far away. Just up on Lincoln Drive.”

“I’m going that way. I don’t live that far, either, but I’m glad I’m not walking after the night we had. I’ve just got to stop and pick up my daughter for a dentist appointment. She’s right on the way.” Linda waited a few seconds. “Come on, get in. It’s a beautiful morning for a ride.”

Jett was about to refuse again and then realized she didn’t really want to. She didn’t want be left alone with the recurring images of those barren, arid months when nothing was truly as it seemed except the certainty that no one could outrun death. She walked over to the car, braced her hands on the frame, and vaulted the door into the passenger seat.

“Thanks,” Jett said. “A ride would be nice.”

Linda gave her an appreciative glance before pulling away from the curb. “Nice move.”

Jett frowned. “Sorry?”

“That little show of muscle getting into the car.”

“I didn’t realize that sort of thing qualified as a move,” Jett said with a laugh.

“You’re kidding.” Linda raised an eyebrow. “You fly a helicopter and you haven’t figured out that girls love macho studs?”

“Can’t say as I have.” Jett tilted her head back and watched the clouds skim by overhead. The wind rushing by the car and the streaming clouds made her feel as if she were flying. Pleasantly relaxed, she answered without thinking. “Probably because I don’t qualify as either

macho or studly.”

“Where exactly did you grow up?” Linda signaled and turned left. “Somewhere the women were blind, obviously.”

Ordinarily Jett would have been on edge with the direction of the conversation, but Linda wasn’t saying anything Jett hadn’t heard her say in one form or another to every other member of the team. Linda was easy to be around. She played at flirting, but Jett had the clear sense it was all in fun. The undercurrent of heat was missing. “On a farm where the nearest girl my age was twenty miles away and engaged by the time she was fifteen. And she wasn’t all that unusual.”

Linda groaned. “No baby dykes?”

“If there were, we didn’t recognize each other.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you, we girls love handsome girls like you who handle big equipment with finesse.”

Jett laughed. “I never realized my aircraft would be so useful.”

“Oh yeah, that helicopter is so sexy.”

Tristan’s voice came back to her, along with the image of the mesmerizing light in her eyes when she said, You make me wish I were a helicopter. A wave of longing broke over Jett and for a second she was breathless. Then she pictured Tristan in the car with the redhead who seemed very very glad to see Tristan. Tristan obviously had her pick of women, and probably said something similar to all of them. She definitely wasn’t saying no to what the redhead was offering.

“The next time we’re headed into a thunderstorm,” Jett said, forcing a smile, “I’ll try sweet-talking my aircraft if things get bumpy.”

“Never underestimate the power of sex appeal, Captain.”

“I wasn’t a captain.”

“What were you?”

“Chief Warrant Officer.”

“Oh, I like that.” Linda gave Jett a sultry look. “Chief.”

Jett groaned and Linda laughed.

“I’ll just be a minute.” Linda slowed and stopped on the shoulder in front of a wide expanse of immaculately groomed grass where several groups of youths in various uniforms ran up and down the field.

“Take your time. I’m good.”

Jett closed her eyes, determined not to think about Tristan or Gail or feelings she couldn’t understand and didn’t want. When the car rocked a little bit and a female voice very close to her ear murmured, “Hi. Who are you?” she opened her eyes. A blonde bent over her, her arms folded on the top of the door, her mouth inches from Jett’s. The position afforded Jett an unimpeded view down the blonde’s scoop-necked top, making it abundantly clear that she wore nothing underneath the tight white ribbed cotton. Her breasts were full and pale and, if the hint of pink was any indication, rose-tipped.

“Jett McNally,” Jett said, straightening in her seat and glancing toward the field. Linda was on the far side, her hand on the shoulder of a young child, talking to another adult. “I’m a friend of Linda’s.”

“Oh, goody. I was afraid for a moment you might be taken.” The blonde extended her hand, leaning even further into the passenger seat. Her breast brushed Jett’s shoulder. “I’m Mandy. I’m available.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jett shook her hand and couldn’t help but smile. Mandy’s eyes danced with unabashed invitation. The total lack of subterfuge was oddly appealing.

“So you work at the hospital?” When Jett nodded, Mandy snaked her fingers up Jett’s bare arm and underneath the sleeve of her tight black T-shirt. “I like this new look. So much better than those ugly green scrub shirts.”

“I don’t wear scrubs. I’m a pilot,” Jett replied, shivering involuntarily as Mandy played her nails over her biceps.

“Ooh. Really?” Mandy’s mouth curved into a smile, as if she had just tasted something particularly delicious. “That’s very interesting. What else can you drive?”

“Almost anything.” Jett hadn’t sought anyone out for pleasure in a very long time, and her body was telling her loud and clear the absence had been noted. Her unwanted dreams of Gail were becoming more and more frequent, and whether she welcomed it or not, her need spiraled higher every day. She was going to have to do something soon, and this woman, a very attractive ruby-lipped, full-bodied, ripe and luscious woman, was offering.

As if reading her mind, Mandy slowly trailed the tip of her tongue over the surface of her lower lip. “I’m volunteering to navigate.”

Linda pulled open the driver’s door and pushed the bucket seat forward so a young girl could climb into the backseat. “Hi, Mandy. Out hunting?”

Mandy slowly danced her fingertips up the side of Jett’s neck and ran them sensuously through Jett’s hair. “Not anymore.”

“Jett, this is Kim,” Linda said as she helped the child with her seat belt. “Jett’s a friend of Mommy’s from work, honey.”

“Hi,” Jett said, turning in her seat to greet the child.

The little girl responded with a shy smile as Linda started the car.

Mandy still clung to Jett’s arm, and Jett eased away as much as she could in the cramped quarters. “Nice meeting you, Mandy.”

“Don’t say good-bye.” Mandy stepped an inch or two away from the car. “Say you’ll call me.” She rattled off a telephone number. “I’m sure anyone who can fly an airplane—”

“Helicopter,” Jett interjected.

“Even better. A helicopter.” Mandy drew out the word with a breathy sigh. “I’m sure you can remember seven little numbers.”

Linda eased the car forward. “Bye, Mandy.”

“I am invited Saturday, aren’t I?” Mandy called.

“Of course,” Linda called back, pulling out into the street and accelerating. She glanced at Jett. “So that’s Mandy. She owns one of the local gyms and volunteers at the rec center in the summer.”

“Uh-huh.” Jett suspected there was quite a lot more to Mandy than Linda was saying, although she didn’t get the sense that Linda actively disliked her. Their interaction had a teasing, mock-challenging quality to it.

Linda glanced at the backseat, then lowered her voice. “So are you going to call her?”

Jett shrugged. She really didn’t know, because calling meant reaching out. Making an effort. Admitting to herself that she wanted contact, closeness, even if it was false. And she still carried too much anger to allow herself that little bit of comfort. “I think she’s out of my league.”

“Ah,” Linda crooned. “I do love a woman with a sense of humor.”

“Then I’m glad you put up with me.”

“You are coming Saturday, right? Mandy or not?”

“I’ll be there,” Jett said, surprising herself. Saturday began her week down between flight rotations, and usually she spent her time holed up in her apartment working on her watches and clocks, trying to sleep, and occasionally venturing out for long, solitary walks in the middle of the night. Seven days without flying, without work to distract her, often felt like seven months.

She didn’t have a lot of experience with parties, but she imagined they were a lot like bars, filled with superficial interactions that allowed her to circle the edges of real connection. Once in a while, when the urge was strong, she’d find someone willing to take what she could offer for a few hours.

“Good. It’ll be fun,” Linda said.

“Great. That sounds great.”

“Oh baby, yeah, yeah,” Darla panted. “God, you’re gonna make me come again. God, God that’s good.”

Tristan knelt between Darla’s spread thighs, sweat dripping from her forehead onto Darla’s long, taut belly. She had four fingers inside her, pushing deep with each hard thrust, her thumb banging against Darla’s clit each time she plunged. She’d already made her come three times and Darla gave no indication of quitting anytime soon. Tristan was fine with that. Darla liked it hard, and she needed the workout. She needed to burn her mind clean. So even though her arm was shaking and her vision blurring with a combination of sweat and fatigue, she kept pumping.

Darla undulated mindlessly, her legs thrashing, her neck arched, her mouth open as she implored and exhorted and exalted. At one point she reared up and clamped onto the arm Tristan was fucking her with so hard her nails broke Tristan’s skin. Tristan almost came from the unexpected surge of pain. Instead, she gripped Darla’s nipple with her free hand and twisted, and Darla gushed with another orgasm.

Eventually, Darla sagged back, moaning quietly. Tristan leaned over her, supporting herself on one arm, and kept going. Darla’s internal muscles clutched weakly at her fingers, and Darla finally pushed Tristan away.

“I’m done, baby,” Darla said drowsily. “That was fantastic.”

Tristan rolled over onto her back. Completely whipped, she closed her eyes.

“I’ll take care of you in a minute.” Darla sounded practically drunk with satisfaction.

“Don’t worry about it.” Tristan couldn’t feel anything below her aching shoulders. “I’m great.”

An hour later, Tristan drove Darla back to the medical school.

“You’re going to get me fired, you know that, baby,” Darla accused, sounding not the least bit concerned.

“You’re too good at what you do for them to fire you. Besides, don’t you get sick time?”

Darla inched close and bit Tristan’s neck while squeezing her crotch. “But I’m not sick. I might have a thing for you, but it’s a healthy addiction.”

Tristan groaned and pushed back in her seat. She was still pumped and swollen from their frantic sex, even after a shower. She hadn’t come other than a fast explosion in the car on the way to her apartment, and that had been more a nervous discharge than a full-bodied orgasm.

“Don’t get me started again. That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m selfish,” Darla whispered, rimming Tristan’s ear with her tongue.

“I don’t think that.” Tristan grasped Darla’s wrist and eased her hand away. “I think I’ve mentioned I love fucking you.”

“Well, good, then. When can we do it again?”

Tristan hesitated. Darla was exactly the kind of woman she liked to date. Darla knew what she wanted, she asked for it, and when she got it, it was enough. Ordinarily, Tristan would be ready for a repeat with her as soon as possible. Sex with Darla that morning had been just like it had been half a dozen times before. Fast and furious—a flash fire decimating everything in its path. Unlike all the other times, though, she was vaguely unsatisfied. Before she could think too much about why, she said, “How does Saturday sound? There’s a bit of a neighborhood gathering and then later, we could sneak away for our own special dessert.”

“Why sneak anywhere?” Darla nipped Tristan’s earlobe. “I bet I can find a quiet corner somewhere and you can do me right there.”

“I work with these people. Think of my reputation.”

“I am.” Darla patted Tristan’s crotch and eased back over into the passenger seat as Tristan pulled up in front of the medical school. “I guarantee after that kind of demonstration, every girl there will want you.”

“That’s the last thing I need.” Tristan laughed. She doubted someone like Jett would be impressed, and just as quickly wondered why she had immediately thought of her. She leaned over and kissed Darla. “I’ll pick you up around seven.”

“I’ll see you then.” Darla stepped out of the car, then leaned down and blew Tristan a kiss. “Thanks, baby. You’re the best.”

Tristan waited until Darla disappeared into the building, then drove toward home. She was tired. Tired and disquieted. Nothing had changed, but nothing felt quite right.

Chapter Eleven

Jett heard the music and the hum of voices before she even reached the gate in the white picket fence that fronted Linda and her partner Robin’s house in a neighborhood of Victorian twins.

Linda’s home was a brilliant robin’s egg blue with darker blue and pale yellow on the detailing along the eaves, windows, and porch. The party was apparently in full swing, which Jett had expected since she was intentionally an hour late. This way she could slip in unnoticed, and leave just as invisibly, if she wanted.

She’d debated for the last day and a half as to whether she was actually going to come to the softball party at all. She’d heard about the huge city women’s league—Linda declared it fertile ground for girl watching and general socializing—but she’d never gone to any games.

When she sought female company, she preferred the clubs. The rules were much clearer there, and almost everyone had a similar agenda.

Even though Linda had invited a lot of the hospital staff, so Jett was certain she would know people, she doubted she’d fit in very well. She just hadn’t developed an easy way of talking to people whose lives were so very different from hers. After spending all her adult life in the military with others whose experiences were almost exactly the same as hers, and having endured eighteen of the last twenty-four months in a combat zone, she didn’t know what to talk about with people whose lives revolved around things as simple and uncomplicated as mutual friends, children, and harmless hospital intrigue.

She stared at the warm, friendly-looking house, her hand on the gate latch, and asked herself why she had come. An answer formed in the back of her mind, one that left her even less willing to step through the gate. Tristan would be there. Tristan would be there and she wanted to see her. They’d had a few easy conversations, a rarity for Jett, and Tristan had somehow gotten her to talk about herself. That event was so unusual, Jett still sensed the inner click of connection whenever she replayed the encounter, which was often. But judging from what she’d seen outside the hospital the other day, Jett was certain Tristan would be with a woman. She’d probably already forgotten their conversation.

“If you’re looking for the party, you’re in the right place.”

A woman approached juggling a case of beer and a grocery bag overflowing with chips and other snacks. Her solid build and bold blue eyes were familiar. Jett only caught glimpses of the trauma team as they huddled on the roof, waiting for the medcrew to offload patients from the helicopter, and she was usually busy securing her aircraft and not watching what was happening outside. Still, she’d seen this woman enough times to recognize her as one of the trauma surgeons.

“Let me give you a hand,” Jett said, reaching for the shopping bag.

“Thanks. I’m Quinn Maguire.” Quinn handed over the sack.

“Jett McNally. I fly for Healthstar.”

“Oh, so you’re responsible for stealing Linda away from us. You’d better not advertise that too loudly. My partner is the ER chief and she hasn’t gotten over Linda’s defection yet.”

“Sorry.” Jett grinned. “Actually, I don’t think I’m responsible. I think it’s the helicopter.”

Quinn laughed and pushed open the gate, motioning Jett to go ahead. “I can see Linda being into that. Seriously, you guys make a huge difference. Since the hospital got flight approval, I’ve seen a real decline in our mortality stats.”

“That’s good to know.” Since the choice had been made for her, Jett stepped into the yard and followed a stone pathway around the side of the house. The wood-fenced backyard was bigger than she expected and crowded with women and men and children.

“I’ve got to dump this stuff inside and find Honor,” Quinn said.

“We’ve got a new baby and Honor is probably due for a little break about now.”

“Here,” Jett said, shifting the groceries to one arm and reaching for the beer with the other. “Where do you need this?”

“Thanks. In the kitchen, I guess.” Quinn pointed to the back porch and the open back door. “Straight through there.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Appreciate it. Nice talking to you.”

Quinn sauntered off into the crowd, and Jett went in search of the kitchen. Having something to do made her feel slightly more comfortable. She nodded to women she didn’t know who smiled as she passed, said hi to Juan, who leaned against the railing with a pretty woman she assumed was his wife, and edged open the back door with her shoulder. The kitchen was as crowded as the yard, filled with people replenishing drinks, exchanging empty bowls of food for full ones, and standing in groups talking. To her relief, Jett saw Linda immediately and headed for her.

“I ran into Quinn. Special delivery.”

“Hey,” Linda said with a big smile. “You made it. That’s great. Oh good, more beer. I should’ve remembered that softball players aren’t big on wine. They’re going through the beer like mad. The backup coolers are in the dining room. Would you mind putting these on ice in there for now?”

“Sure. Where’s the dining room?”

Linda squeezed Jett’s arm. “Sorry. Through that door and to the right. Did you get something to eat?”

“Not yet. I’m good.”

“Well, don’t wait if you get hungry. Soon there won’t be anything left but the carcasses.”

“Got it.” Jett hefted the case of beer and worked her way through the crowd into the relative peace and quiet of the dining room. The table was covered with a paper tablecloth and platters, mostly empty, of the usual summer party fare—salads, burgers, chicken, and pasta dishes. Four coolers sat on plastic sheets against one wall. She set down the case of beer and checked the coolers. When she found one with only a few cans of beer remaining, she squatted to transfer the beer into it.

“Need help with that?”

At the sound of Tristan’s voice, Jett’s pulse jumped a little and she took a couple of seconds to steady herself. Then she looked up. From her position, she was just about at eye level with the fly of Tristan’s low slung jeans. Tristan wore a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Her dark hair was tousled, the way it had been that morning out on her porch, and her lips curved into a smile that Jett could have interpreted as pleasure, if she’d wanted to. She didn’t. She rose quickly, needing the advantage of being eye to eye. Actually, she was just a little taller than Tristan, which helped when she was so off balance around her.

“All taken care of. Are you running low outside?” Jett asked.

Tristan slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. I saw you come in with Quinn. I was wondering if you were going to show.”

“Linda is hard to say no to.”

“I’m glad you made it.”

Jett didn’t know what to say to that, because she didn’t know how to interpret it. Tristan didn’t seem to do small talk, but Jett might be imagining the connection she felt. Fortunately, she was saved from replying when several people wandered in, chatting as they began gathering the empty dishes from the table. Jett moved out of their path and Tristan followed her. Jett backed up, aware of Tristan inches away, until she turned the corner into the living room, which was empty. Somehow they ended up standing in the far corner next to an entertainment center.

“When I first saw you out there, I thought for a second you were going to dump that beer and leave.” Tristan leaned against the wall, her right hand in her front pocket. Her pose was casual but her eyes were hot and hard as they roamed over Jett’s face. “You don’t like crowds much, do you?”

Jett laughed. “I’ve spent the last thirteen years living in other people’s pockets. Sleeping in barracks, riding in troop trucks, eating in mess halls—this is nothing.” When Tristan only stared, Jett contemplated walking away. Tristan saw things she didn’t want seen. And she asked questions that Jett didn’t want to answer.

“But you really don’t want to be here, do you?” Tristan said.

“I’m not much for socializing.”

Tristan laughed softly. “How about dating? Are you much for that?”

Jett’s stomach tightened. The sun had been setting when she’d walked over, and now it was nearly dark outside. No one had turned the room lights on, and she and Tristan stood in shadow. A hot breeze blew through the window, and she pictured them in her tent on a still, sultry night, skins wet with sweat, blood pounding as their arms and legs tangled. She shook her head, as much to dispel the image as to back Tristan off. “I don’t date.”

“But you do like women.”

“I think you know that,” Jett murmured.

“Hoped.” Tristan ran her finger inside the open collar of Jett’s short-sleeve cotton shirt, along Jett’s collarbone.

Jett tensed. Tristan’s touch drew a line of fire over her skin. This was nothing like Gail. She hadn’t known what Gail wanted and wasn’t sure of Tristan either, but Tristan at least was honest about this much.

Tristan’s message was clear and Jett’s body responded to the invitation. A throb of arousal beat hard between her thighs. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you…” Tristan’s voice was hoarse and she swallowed. “I want you to go out with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t go out with just anybody, and I want it to be me when you do.”

“Maybe I just don’t like people,” Jett said lightly, trying to break the spell of Tristan’s gaze. Tristan had dropped her hand, but they’d both shifted so their bodies very nearly touched. Jett’s nipples were tight and aching. She wanted to capture the pulse dancing at the base of

Tristan’s throat in her teeth.

“You must care about people, or you wouldn’t do the work you do.” Tristan eased one leg forward until her thigh grazed Jett’s. “So that’s pretty much bullshit.”

“I do what I do because I love to fly.” Jett’s temper flared. Tristan pissed her off, pushing and probing, wanting to get inside her. The anger fused with her arousal until her whole body trembled with the need to put her hands on Tristan. She wanted to strip her bare, the way Tristan was slicing away her defenses. She wanted to be inside her, buried in her, the way Tristan was penetrating her. She wanted to make her cry out, with shock and pleasure, the way Tristan was forcing her to feel her own needs and desires.

“Uh-huh.” Tristan’s breath shuddered out and she tilted her head, her eyes on Jett’s as she inched closer. Another fraction and they’d be kissing, if Jett didn’t move. “You don’t trust people very much, do you?”

“I haven’t had much reason to.”

“Why? Who hurt you?”

“That’s enough,” Jett whispered.

Tristan blinked, gasping suddenly as if she’d been held underwater until she was almost drowning and had just struggled to the surface.

She clasped Jett’s waist with both hands and leaned in for the kiss. “I’m sorry. You do things to me. You make me want—”

“Tristan, don’t.” Jett saw the redhead coming and backed away.

“There you are,” Darla said brightly as she wrapped her arms around Tristan from behind. She kissed the side of her neck. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Tristan stiffened and her face went blank. Still watching Jett, she said casually, “Shop talk.”

“God, don’t you doctors ever get enough.” She kissed Tristan again, then leaned around her and held out her hand to Jett. “Hi, I’m Darla.”

“Jett. Nice to meet you.” Jett edged past Tristan toward the door. “Have a nice night.”

Jett hadn’t made it out of the room before she heard Darla say, “You owe me dessert.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Darla wrap her arms around Tristan’s neck and press her back against the wall, kissing her hungrily.

As Jett escaped, she felt no anger or disappointment, only relief. She’d wanted that kiss, she’d wanted more than that. And now she could stop wanting.

“Uh-oh,” Linda murmured.

“What?” Honor had almost fallen asleep stretched out in a lounge chair on the lawn. Robin had hung candle lights from the fence and several trees, drenching the wide yard with a warm, yellow glow. Honor felt the warmth inside, supremely content and satisfied.

“Nothing.”

Honor sat up, instantly alert to the oh-so-casual note in Linda’s voice. She scanned the yard and in less than a second found the source of Linda’s remark. Mandy had cornered Quinn at one of the picnic tables and was practically straddling her lap. Probably the only reason she wasn’t actually in Quinn’s lap was that Quinn had Jack in a baby carrier across her chest.

“Okay,” Honor said lightly, pushing herself upright with one arm. “Time to kill her.”

“Wait,” Linda said, grabbing Honor’s arm.

“Nope. No more waiting. I’ve been patient for almost two years. Enough is enough.”

Linda was laughing.

“I’m serious,” Honor said calmly.

“I know. I know. But look at her face.”

Honor was afraid that one more look at Mandy sniffing around Quinn was really going to make her lose her temper. She didn’t actually plan on creating a scene, but she did intend to make it clear that Quinn was off-limits, once and for all. Nevertheless, she checked Mandy out again. After a second, she laughed too. Quinn sprawled back against the picnic table, relaxed and sexy as all get-out. Just the sight of her made Honor want to drag her away somewhere and get her naked. As Quinn grinned up at Mandy, she absently patted Jack’s back.

Mandy stared at Jack with undisguised horror, as if he were an alien creature that had somehow landed on Quinn’s chest. Ever so slowly, she backed up.