Jess sat up. "Marry me, Saber. I want you in my life forever."

"You can't ask me to marry you, Jesse. Good grief, what are you thinking?" She was genuinely horrified and it showed on her face.

"I just did."

"Well, no. Of course no." She sat up too, pulling the sheet around her.

"Why?" He should have been hurt and maybe that would come later, but she was so distressed and shocked he felt the need to comfort her.

"Why?" she repeated. She pushed the heel of her hand against her eyes and shook her head before looking at him, her expression saying he was a moron. "A million reasons, but first and foremost, Jesse, you have parents."

There was a small silence while he struggled not to laugh. "I don't understand your logic here, baby."

"You understand my logic very well, Jesse. I can barely manage when Patsy comes to the house. She's wonderful, but she's like the real thing."

Now his mouth did twitch. He covered it with his hand and shook his head, more confused than ever. "Do you really think you're making sense? Because I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Patsy. Your parents. Family, Jesse." She thumped the pillow hard. "Are you crazy? I'm really upset that you would even consider marriage with me."

"Why? Do you think you're going to get into an argument with my father about politics or something and decide to give him a heart attack at the dinner table? I can't see that happening, Saber. They can drive me crazy, but I've never wanted to kill them, not even Patsy when she's interfering."

Saber covered her face with her hands. "You have to stop. You're pushing me too fast. We just...you just...I can barely keep up with what's happening between us and you want more from me." She clutched at the sheet again and peered at him, distress on her face.

"Marriage is supposed to be a good thing, Saber."

"It's not. It's absurd."

Jess leaned close to her. "You aren't really upset over this, are you?" Silence met his question. He pulled her into his arms. "Is it such a bad thing that I'm in love with you? Don't you want to be with me?"

She rocked back and forth, shaking her head.

"Is it scary to think of spending your life with me? Is it because I'm in a wheelchair?"

She glared at him, sliding off the bed, still holding the sheet around her in a show of modesty. "No. Not at all. I am insulted you would even think that-"

"Because I think I've figured out the problem with the bionics. We can fix them. You could fix them."

She stopped, her jaw dropping, mouth open in shocked disbelief. "What? Why would you think for one minute that I could fix the bionics?" She felt absolutely vulnerable-naked, unable to talk when she didn't have her clothes. On the edge of desperation, she looked around her. "I may have read the file Whitney left out, but I'm not a doctor and I don't understand half of what was in it." She looked exasperated. "I can't find my clothes."

"Saber, look at me."

"I have to go to work."

"In the report Whitney mentioned something about electricity being used for regeneration, did he?"

She spun around, her face going white. "I know you're not talking about that ridiculous article he cited. Biologists manipulating the electrical fields in tissues to regenerate amputated tails of tadpoles at a stage when they can't regenerate? Not that. Because there's a huge difference between a tadpole and a human being."

"What else did the article say?"

She swirled the sheet around her, holding it close. "It doesn't matter. I know where this is leading and I'm not going to do it."

The discussion wasn't going well, Jess decided. She was tense, her fingers twisting together, knuckles turning white as she gripped the sheet. She had a stubborn look on her face. Her mouth was set firm and her chin high.

"Just tell me what else it said."

"There was something about electrical fields helping to, and I'm quoting here, 'control cell identity, cell number, position and movement, which is relevant to everything from embryonic development to regeneration to cancer and almost any biomedical phenomenon you could imagine.' I don't want to know what that means in terms of your bionics, Jess. You can't just introduce electricity into the body. It can kill you. I ought to know."

"Or it can be used to save someone, the way it did Patsy."

She shook her head. "I'm not having this discussion with you. I'm not. I don't care if you get angry with me, I'm not risking your life. I won't do it. And you'd better keep those two friends of yours away, because neither one of them is doing it either." She sent him a smoldering look, controlled fury in her eyes. "I'm going to work. Never, and I mean never, bring this up to me again."

She turned to walk out of the bedroom. The door slammed closed, trapping her inside the room.

CHAPTER 17.

Saber turned around slowly, trying to tamp down the anger suddenly churning in her stomach. "Open it."

Jess reached down to the floor to scoop up his trousers and shirt. "We need to talk about this, and since I can't chase after you..."

"Don't you dare play your wheelchair card on me," Saber hissed. "I don't deserve it. I'm going to take a shower and find clean clothes. I'll talk to you when I've calmed down. Open the door, Jesse."

Jess realized getting her to say she would talk after a shower was the best he was going to get. If he made her any angrier, she wasn't going to listen to anything he had to say. "After your shower we can meet in the kitchen."

She stood waiting, tapping her foot in silence.

"It's easier to close doors than open them," he admitted. "I'll meet you in fifteen minutes."

Saber yanked the door open and stalked through to the hallway. She ran up the stairs, furious with Jess, angry that he would risk his life. He had a good life. Most people would have given anything to have what he had. A family. Parents who loved him. A sister like Patsy.

"Damn you, Jesse," she yelled and slammed the bathroom door.

It didn't improve her mood to find the stack of brand-new clothes neatly folded, tags still on, waiting for her. She wouldn't have minded had Patsy bought them, or even Mari, but she suspected Mari wouldn't have thought of it and Patsy was in the hospital. No, this was from Lily. All the sizes were correct and there was just about everything she would need.

She took a deep calming breath and stepped under the water, turning her face up to let the hot stream run over her. She couldn't blame Jess for asking her to try to help him walk, as much as she wanted to. He would never have been a SEAL or joined the GhostWalkers if he didn't have a strong need for action and risk. He had to be intensely patriotic and he desperately needed the use of his legs to get back into action.

As she shampooed her hair she thought about patriotism. She detested everything about Whitney and tended to want to believe the monster had no good qualities, but he was a brilliant researcher and his training methods did bring results. She was afraid of the dark, yet she could move through a house unerringly to find her target in complete darkness. Her natural personality was to be emotional, yet she could be tortured and not cry out. She wasn't good at pain, but she'd learned to accept it. And why did Whitney fool himself into believing that the end results justified the means? Patriotism.

Whitney was a patriot. She washed the soap from her hair and added conditioner. The GhostWalkers were all patriots. "I'm not." She said it aloud. Said it defiantly. She wasn't killing because some bastard high up in the government decided someone else needed to die. What was wrong with everyone? How could they trust an order that came down from someone they didn't even know? Someone who could care less about them. Someone who maybe even had their own agenda, or was as loony as Whitney. It made no sense to her.

She dried off, repeating to herself that she was not going to let Jess persuade her. It was the height of stupidity. But with a sinking heart she knew if Jesse said just the right thing, looked at her a certain way, she'd give in-because she loved him. And love seemed to make her do really stupid things.

She dressed carefully, hoping to provide herself with a little armor, and went back down to join him. Jess always took her breath away with how handsome he was. She'd seen him once standing and he'd been an imposing sight. She felt safer with him in a wheelchair. Was that the reason she wanted to say no? Was it more than her fear of harming him? She hoped not. She hoped she wasn't that petty, but for the first time in her life she'd been happy. Jess standing, walking, working as a GhostWalker would change everything.

She crossed the room to avoid getting too close to him. She perched on the countertop and folded her arms, waiting for him to speak first.

"You have to be open-minded, Saber."

He even smelled good. Her heart ached looking at him, drinking him in. It would all change. Didn't he realize that? She shrugged. "I'm trying to be, but you have to be open-minded too, Jesse. There are a million reasons not to try this. One misstep and instead of regenerating a nerve, I could give you cancer."

"Before we get into all the reasons we shouldn't try it, angel face, just tell me what you remember of the report."

Saber's blue eyes glittered at him. "I think you're crazy to even consider doing anything Whitney advises."

"Whitney may be insane, but he's still a genius. If he thinks he has a solution to making the bionics work without a power pack, I'd like to hear it." He kept his voice calm and even.

"He has a solution for a lot of things, Jesse, and none of them are acceptable in a civilized world."

He refrained from arguing. She'd stall as long as he let her. "Just give me the information."

"Fine."

She shrugged, but he noticed she twisted her fingers together and held them tightly against her middle as if her stomach was churning in protest. He wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but he stayed still, knowing she had to come to terms with the idea of using her talent on him by herself.

"Apparently it's been known for some time that using electrical currents on wounds can regenerate lost limbs and even repair severed spinal cords in a variety of fish and mammals. Fish, Jesse. Mammals. Not humans. No one has tried what you're suggesting."

"Humans are mammals," he pointed out.

"Don't even try to be funny." She jumped off the counter and began to pace with quick, restless steps. "This isn't funny, Jesse. What you're asking me to do..."

"I know it isn't funny," he replied. "But there has to be something to this."

"Maybe." She pushed at her hair, making it more tousled than ever. "Whitney concluded that the neural pathways need electrical stimulation for regeneration, and that without it, any attempt will eventually fail. There are drugs that stimulate growth, but he concludes that they will never push the neural pathways to form correctly. The downside appears to be that if you overstimulate, it can cause excessive cell growth and cause tumors. Cancer, Jesse. That's what he's talking about."

"But without the electrical current, there's really no hope."

She whirled around to face him. "I knew you'd jump on that. I knew it. Whitney doesn't know everything. He doesn't, Jesse, and he's capable of terrible things. I've seen it. I've been a part of his experiments and believe me, he doesn't revere life. We're inferior to him. He wants the perfect soldier, and we're not quite up to his standards, so if he needs to find out how far electrical current can be used before it causes cells to become cancerous, he has no compunction about doing so."

"I'm aware of that." Jess kept his tone low, careful not to let the energy swirling in the room near her. He was worried enough without hearing what he already knew. "But you can manipulate the electrical current and read my rhythm at the same time, can't you? Isn't that what you do?"

"Nothing is that simple. I'll admit that the report supports findings that bioelectricity plays an important role in cell regeneration and that electrical induction of tissue regeneration may have some application..."

"Not some application, Saber. Significant application."

"Maybe. But you want neural pathways reestablished from your brain to your legs. The nerves are damaged. You have no feeling."

"I have some feeling now. Since they operated and put in the bionics. You saw me walk. Something is happening to allow that. Before the operation, I couldn't move my feet. Now I can. I have to concentrate, but I can do it."

"There you go, then. Give yourself more time."

"I would be walking by now if it was going to work."

"You don't know that, Jesse, and you're risking cancer." She knelt in front of him, looking up. "Please, for just a minute, put yourself in my place. How could I live with myself if I ever harmed you? How could I go on? Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?"

He framed her face with both hands. "Yes. I know I'm going to do this. If you don't help me, I'll ask Lily and Eric, and neither of them can monitor me the way you can. I'm asking you to do this because I believe you're my best chance."

His thumbs brushed against her soft skin as he stared down into her eyes. It was difficult to ignore the fear he saw there, but he was going to try the experiment. He'd had too many operations and had worked too hard to give up.

"Do you have any idea what this will do to us?" she asked. "The changes it will bring?" She had to bring it up. He had to go into this with his eyes open.

"Having me on my feet can only make things better."

"Is that what you really think, Jesse? Because I love you enough to try this madness with you, but you'll go back to active duty. You will. It's what you live for. You and your team will be all over the place and where will that leave me?"

He shook his head. "You're part of us, Saber."

"How? How am I part of your team? How could that ever be? I assassinate people and I do it alone."

"You can heal people, Saber. You could be the ultimate safety net for all of us."

She opened her mouth to retort, but closed it abruptly. Could that be true? Was it possible she could really use her talent for something other than death? She'd helped Patsy, but that had been a fluke. She ducked her head, not wanting him to see her expression, knowing that he'd stirred hope and it was there in her heart, in her mind. She'd always thought of herself as a kind of terrible plague people should avoid.

"Saber? Honey, look at me. You're amazing. The things you can do are amazing. And if you can do this for me, imagine what you could do with someone wounded. I've thought a lot about this."

"I could screw up big time, Jesse. My childhood was a training ground to kill, not save lives. I need to practice and I don't want it to be on you." She was listening to him, wanting it, wanting to be someone different, wanting the prize he was holding out to her, but there was a cost. She wasn't willing to gain her new life at the expense of his.

"You can already read my biorhythm, right? You monitor my pulse, even my blood pressure. Start slow. See what you can do. We don't have to do the regeneration all in one day, in one session. Neither of us knows how it will work."

"It's an experiment, Jesse, and a darned dangerous one. If Lily did this, she could have the equipment ready in case anything happened to you."

"She could have equipment ready after the fact, but you can prevent disaster from happening in the first place. You'll know if my heart starts to go crazy, or anything else goes wrong."

"Maybe-but you're betting your life on a very big maybe."

"And the other thing, Lily has no way of monitoring the cells themselves. She would have no way of knowing the cells were becoming overstimulated, so she would be guessing at the electrical pulses used. You'll be far more accurate."

"Jesse," Saber shook her head, holding her shaking hand out in front of her. "You don't have a clue of the process any more than I would have for moving objects. You're guessing because you want it to be true."

"Am I?"

Saber closed her eyes and let her breath out. Eric and Lily couldn't know the amount of electrical current to introduce. How could they? Their guesses would be less precise than hers.

"Okay. But you tell Lily."

"She'll want to be here, and I want to start now."

"I don't care. We can start, but you tell her what we're doing. If she has advice or objections, I want to hear them."

"I thought you didn't trust her," he grumbled, pushing his chair down the hall to his office, with Saber walking behind him.

"I've changed my mind."