"Why pink? It's kind of girlie."

He grinned as she got out a skillet. "They add ferric oxide to make it red, but it looks like pink rain when it's coming down. The color marks the drop area."

She drizzled oil into the skillet from a spouted container, diced up garlic, some plump oval-shaped tomatoes, all the while asking him questions, making comments.

She certainly seemed interested, he thought, but he was having a hard time concentrating. The way she moved, the way her hands looked when she chopped and diced, the way she smiled and smelled, the way his name sounded when it came from her lips.

Her lips.

He didn't mean to do it. That's what happened when he acted before he thought. But he was a little in her way when she turned away from the work island, and their bodies b.u.mped and brushed. She tipped her face up, smiled, maybe she started to speak, but then ...

A question in her eyes, or an invitation? He didn't know, didn't think. Just acted. His hands slid onto her shoulders, and he laid his lips over hers. So soft. So sweet. Yielding under his even as her hands ran up his back, linked there to hold them together. She rose onto her toes, and the sensation of her body sliding up his simmered heat under the soft.

He wanted to burrow into her as he would a blanket at the end of a cold winter's night. He gave up her lips, rested his forehead to hers.

"It's your smile," he murmured. "It makes it hard for me to think straight."

She framed his face, lifted his head until she could look in his eyes. Sweet man, she thought. Sweet, sweet man.

"I think dinner can wait." She eased away, turned the heat off under the oil, then leaned back to look at him again. "Do you want to go upstairs with me, Lucas?"

"I-"

"We're not kids. We've both got more years behind us than ahead. When we have a chance for something good, we ought to take it. So ..." She held out a hand. "Come upstairs with me."

He took her hand, let out a shaky breath as she led him through the house.

"You don't just feel sorry for me, do you?" "Why would I?"

"Because I so obviously want ... this."

"Lucas, if you didn't, I'd feel sorry for me." Humor sparkled over her face when she tipped it up to his. "I've wondered since you called if we'd take each other to bed tonight, then I had to do thirty minutes of yoga to stop being nervous."

"Nervous? You?"

"I'm not a kid," she reminded him as she drew him into her bedroom, where the light through the windows glowed soft. "Men your age often look at thirty- somethings, not fifty-somethings. That's twenty years of gravity against me."

"What would I want with someone young enough to be my kid?"

When she laughed at that, he grinned. "h.e.l.l. It'd just make me feel old. I'm already worried I'll mess this up. I'm out of practice, Ella."

"I'm pretty rusty myself. I guess we'll see if we tune up as we go. You could start by kissing me again. We both seemed to have that part down." He reached for her, and this time her arms went around his neck. He felt her rise up to her toes again as their lips met, as they parted for the slow, seductive slide of tongues.

He let himself stop thinking, stop worrying what if. Just act. His hands stroked down her back, over her hips, up her sides, then up again to pull the pins out of her hair.

It tumbled over his hands, slid through his fingers while she tipped back her head so his lips could find the line of her throat.

Nerves floated away on an indescribable mix of comfort and excitement. She shivered when he eased back to unb.u.t.ton her shirt. As he did when she did the same for him.

She slipped out of her sandals; he toed off his shoes. "So far ..."

"So good," he finished, and kissed her again.

And, oh, yes, she thought, he definitely had that part down. She pushed his shirt aside, splayed her hands over his chest. Hard and fit from a lifetime of training, scarred from a lifetime of duty. She laid her lips on it as he drew her shirt off to join his on the floor. When he took her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands, she forgot about gravity. How could she worry when he looked at her as though she were beautiful? When he kissed her with such quiet, such total intensity?

She unhooked his belt, thrilled to touch and be touched, to remember all the things a body felt when it desired, and was desired. The pants it had taken her twenty minutes to decide on after he'd called slid to the floor. Then her heart simply soared as he lifted her into his arms.

"Lucas." Overcome, she dropped her head to his shoulder. "My whole life I've wanted someone to do that. To just sweep me up. You're the first who has."

He looked into her dazzled eyes, and felt like a king as he carried her to bed.

In the half-light, they touched and tasted. They remembered, and discovered.

Rounded curves, hard angles, with all the points of pleasure to be savored.

When he filled her, she breathed his name-the sweetest music. Moving inside her, each long, slow stroke struck his heart, hammer to anvil. She met him, matched him, her fingers digging into his hips to urge him on.

The king became a stallion, rearing over his mate.

When she cried out, fisting around him in climax, his blood beat in triumph.

And letting himself go, he rode that triumph over the edge.

"Well, G.o.d," she said after several moments where they both lay in stunned, sated silence. "I have all these applicable cliches, like it is just like riding a bike, or it just gets better with age like wine and cheese. But it's probably enough to simply say: Wow." He drew her over where she obligingly curled at his side, her head on his shoulder. "Wow covers it. Everything about you is wow to me." "Lucas." She turned her face into the side of his throat. "I swear, you make my heart skip.

n.o.body's ever said those kind of things to me." "Then a lot of men are just stupid." He twirled her hair around his finger, delighted he could. "I'd write a poem to your hair, if I knew how to write one."

She laughed and had to blink back tears at the same time. "You are the sweetest, sweetest man." She pushed up to kiss him. "I'm going to make you the best pasta you've ever eaten."

"You don't have to go to all that trouble. We could just make sandwiches or something."

"Pasta," she said, "with fresh Roma tomatoes and basil out of my garden.

You're going to need the fuel, for later." As her eyes twinkled into his, he patted her bare b.u.t.t. "In that case, we'd better get down there and start cooking."

CHAPTER 13

As her father slept the sleep of the righteously exhausted in Ella's bed, Rowan headed into her eighth hour of the battle. They'd had the fire cornered, and nearly under control, when a chain of spot fires ignited over the line from a rocket shower of firebrands. In a heartbeat, the crew found itself caught between the main fire and the fresh, spreading spots.

Like hail from h.e.l.l, embers ripped through the haze, battering helmets, searing exposed skin. With a bellowing roar, a ponderosa torched, whipping flame through clouds of eye-stinging smoke. Catapulted by the wind the fire created, burning coal flew over the disintegrating line, turning near victory into a new, desperate battle.

On the shouted orders, Rowan broke away with half the crew, hauling gear at a run toward the new active blaze.

"Escape route's back down the ridge," she called out, knowing they'd be trapped if the shifting flank fed into the head. "If we have to go, drop the gear and run like h.e.l.l."

"We're going to catch her. We're going to kill her," Cards yelled back, his face fervent with dragon fever. They knocked down spots as they went, beating, digging, sawing.

"There's a stream about fifty yards over," Gull said, jogging beside her.

"I know it." But she was surprised he did. "We'll get the pump in, get the hoses going and build a wet line. We'll drown the sister." "Nearly had her back there." "Gibbons and the rest will knock the head down." She looked at him, his face glowing in the reflection of the fire while hoa.r.s.e shouts and wild laughter tangled with the animal growl of the fire.

Dragon fever, she knew, could spread like a virus-for good or ill. It pumped in her own blood now, because make or break was coming. "If they don't, Fast Feet, grab what gear you can, haul it as far as you can. The way you run, you ought to be able to outrace the dragon." "You got it."

They worked with demonic speed, dumping gear to set up the pump, run the hose, while others cut a quick saw line.

"Let her rip!" Rowan shouted, planting her feet, bracing her body as she gripped the hose. When it filled, punched out its powerful stream, she let out a crazed whoop.

Her arms, already taxed with the effort of hours of hard, physical work, vibrated. But her lips peeled back in a fierce grin. "Drink this!"

She glanced back over at Gull, laughed like a loon. "Just another lazy, hazy summer night. Look." She jerked her chin. "She's going down. The head's dying. That's a beautiful sight."

AN HOUR shy of dawn, the wildfire surrendered. Rather than pack out, the weary crew coyote'd by the stream, heads pillowed on packs to catch a couple hours' sleep before the mop-up. Rowan didn't object when Gull plopped down beside her, especially when he offered her a swig of his beer.

"Where'd you get this?"

"I have my ways." She drank deep, then lay back to watch the stars break through the thinning haze of smoke.

This, she thought, was the best-the timeless moment between night and day-the hush of forest, mountain and sky. No one who hadn't fought the war could ever feel such intense satisfaction in winning it.

"A good night's work should always be followed by beer and starlight," she decided. "Now who's the romantic?"

"That's just because I'm dazed by the smoke, like a honeybee." "I dated a beekeeper once."

"Seriously?"

"Katherine Anne Westfield." He gave a little sigh of remembrance. "Long- legged brunette with eyes like melted chocolate. I had the hots enough to help her out with the hives for a while. But it didn't work out."

"You got stung."

"Ha. The thing was, she insisted on being called Katherine Anne. Not Katherine, not Kathy or Kate or Kat, not K.A. It had to be the full shot. Got to be too much trouble."

"You broke up with a woman because her name had too many syllables?"

"You could say. Plus, I have to admit, the bees started to creep me out, too."

"I like to listen to them. Sleepy sound. Ca.s.siopeia's out," she said as the constellation cleared. Then her eyes closed, and she went out.

SHE WOKE curled up against him with her head nested on his shoulder. She didn't snuggle, Rowan thought. She liked her s.p.a.ce-and she sure as h.e.l.l didn't snuggle while coyote camping with the crew.

It was just embarra.s.sing.

She started to untangle herself, but his arm tucked her in, just a little closer.

"Give it a minute."

"We've got to get started."

"Yeah, yeah. Where's my coffee, woman?"

"Very funny." Actually, it did make her lips twitch. "Back off."

"You'll note I'm the one still in his a.s.signed s.p.a.ce, and you're the one who scooted over and wrapped around me. But am I complaining?" "I guess I got cold."

He turned his head to kiss the top of hers. "You feel plenty warm to me."

"You know, Gull, this isn't some romantic camping trip in the mountains. We've got a full day's mop-up ahead of us."

"Which I'm happy to put off for another couple minutes while I fantasize we're about to have wake-up s.e.x on our romantic camping trip in the mountains.

After which you'll make me coffee and fry me up some bacon and eggs, while wearing Daisy Duke shorts and one of those really skinny tank jobs. After that I have to wrestle the bear that lumbers into camp.

Naturally, I dispatch him after a brutal battle. And after that you tenderly nurse my wounds, and after that, we have more s.e.x." She didn't snuggle, Rowan thought, and charm cut no ice with her. So why was she snuggling, and why was she charmed? "That's an active fantasy life you've got there." "Don't leave home without it." "What kind of bear?"

"It has to be a grizzly or what's the point?"

"And I suppose I'm wearing stilettos with my Daisy Dukes." "Again, what would be the point otherwise?"

"Well, all that s.e.x and cooking and tending your wounds made me hungry."

She pushed away, sat up. "Twenty minutes in a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi, followed by a hot stone ma.s.sage. That's my morning fantasy."

Rowan dug into her pack for an energy bar. Devoured it while she studied him.

He'd scrubbed some of the dirt off his face, but there was plenty left, and his hair looked like he'd used it to mop the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

Then she looked away, to the mountains, the forest, shimmering away under the bright yellow sun. Who needed fantasies, she thought, when you could wake up here?

"Get moving, rook." She gave him a light slap on the leg. "The morning's wasting."

Gull helped break out some of the paracargo so he could get to a breakfast MRE-and more importantly, the coffee. He dropped down next to Dobie.

"How'd it go for you?"