"Oh, I'm just going to pick up a little," Katie replied as she started toward the kitchen with a stack of plates. "Sit still."

"Don't bother with the dishes," Cressie called after her. "I'll do them tonight after everybody's gone."

Right, Sam thought. He could just picture Katie leaving her sister with this mess. But if they all sat here long enough, she'd have the dishes done and put away.

Enough was enough. He had never offered to wash dishes in front of other men in his life, and he didn't offer then. He simply got up, picked up his plate and one of the serving dishes, and followed Katie to the kitchen.

He found her clipping her hair out of the way; she already had a ruffled ap.r.o.n tied around her waist. When she saw him enter the big kitchen, her expression was startled.

"Oh, Sam, you don't have to help!"

"Yes, I do," he said, setting the dishes on the counter. "Because I couldn't wait anymore to do . . . this." He bent to cover her parted lips with his, kissing her just long enough to let her know she was being kissed-but not so long that he'd have to wait for the effects to wear off before he could walk back into the dining room. When he straightened to look down at her, her brown eyes were soft with surprise and arousal.

"You wash. I'll clear," he said. Then, before he gave in to the urge to kiss her again, he headed to the dining room.

As he gathered up serving dishes sitting on one corner of the table, Steve asked him if he wanted to watch the Tigers' game. No, he replied, he didn't think so. It gratified him to see Judy get up and make motions toward helping. An instant later, Cressie followed Judy's lead. By the time he'd made two more pa.s.ses back and forth to the kitchen, the only ones not helping were Mr. Morgan, who'd been sent to the living room to sit with the sleeping baby and keep tabs on the ballgame, and Kyle, who'd gone outside with the other children to keep them entertained.

Judy and Cressie sc.r.a.ped plates and put away leftovers. Josh, at eighteen the adolescent of the crew, perched on the counter with a dish towel to dry gla.s.ses and stick them in the cupboard behind him. Before someone could usurp him, Sam parked himself next to Katie to dry the plates she put in the drainer, stacking them on the table behind him for Steve to put away. It got to be as noisy a scene as the dinner table had been, and Sam was feeling relaxed and pleased with himself for having engineered it. Until Steve ruined it.

"What do you say, Sam? How about taking the Mentor up with me for a little exercise?"

Sam's fingers, gripping a flowered dinner plate, tightened. In two seconds flat, his heart was pounding, and he felt the cold dampness of fear chilling his skin.

"You can help me run through the checklists," Steve continued. "By the time this KP duty is finished, we'll be ready to take off."

"Do you know about planes, too, Sam?"

Sam shot a quick glance at Josh, then, with a lift of one shoulder, muttered an affirmative response.

"Hey, come on." Steve gave him a companionable slap on the back. "In case you haven't noticed, this family doesn't stand on modesty. Except Kate. We have to twist her arm to get her to take credit for anything." Then, speaking to Josh, who was suddenly all ears, he said, "You're always asking me about planes. Well, this man can tell you about every aircraft the Air Force and Navy have used since the beginning of World War One. And you should hear him talk about jets."

"Supersonics?" Josh wanted to know.

"Yeah, and drawing-board ideas for planes most of us don't think could even exist."

"Awesome."

Sam went on doggedly wiping the same plate he'd been drying for the past two minutes, thinking he should have kept his mouth shut on Wednesday. But it had been too long since he'd talked shop with another flying addict, and he hadn't been able to resist talking to Steve. He knew Katie was casting him sideways looks; he could feel her concern, the same way he felt everyone else's eyes on him. Panic was a tight knot in his gut, but he reminded himself that, as long as he was standing there, drying dishes, he was safe. n.o.body was going to drag him into the yard and throw him into the d.a.m.ned plane.

"You know, Sam"-Judy nudged him aside and reached around Katie for a garbage bag from under the sink-"I don't think I remember hearing you say what you do for a living."

For a moment, during which his eyes bored holes in the plate he was drying, he considered lying. Finally, though, he admitted, "I work for a company called Rutger."

"Rutger . . . Hey!" Josh waved a hand holding a gla.s.s in an excited gesture. "Aren't they the ones making that wild-looking flying wing I saw a picture of in the paper two weeks ago? There was a big article."

"The Pegasus," Steve supplied. "Howard Industries gave Chris Rutger a contract to build it years ago, and the aviation mags have been speculating about it ever since."

"It looks like a monster sea gull," Josh continued. "The article said it's supposed to be real fast, too. Sam, have you seen it? In person, I mean."

Sam twisted to set the over-dry plate on the stack behind him, then picked up another. "Yeah, I've seen it."

"Jeez, you haven't flown it, have you?"

"Joshua," Katie broke in, "I think you should-"

"It's all right." Sam met her worried brown gaze. No matter what, he wasn't going to let her cover for him. That would put him in the same league with her brothers and sisters-the last place he wanted to be.

Letting his gaze slide from hers, he told Josh, "Yeah, I've flown it."

"Really?" The kid's voice was full of enthusiasm. "You're a pilot? A test pilot?"

Sam gave him a single nod.

Behind him, Steve uttered a short laugh. "No wonder I got the feeling you could take the Mentor apart and put it back together in your sleep."

"What's the Pegasus like?" Josh asked.

Sam added another dry plate to the stack as he replied. "Like every other plane Chris Rutger has built -like no other aircraft ever made."

"The article said it's an executive jet, but it sure doesn't look like anything that . . . well, boring." Josh's face scrunched in a disgusted grimace.

Sam's mouth twitched at the corners. "That's what Howard Industries asked for-a big, fast executive jet-and that's what they're getting. But they're also getting a radically different kind of aircraft. The Pegasus is lightweight and highly maneuverable, and it'll give you more speed than you'll ever need if you don't care about the fuel costs. If you do, then what you've got is a plane that'll go halfway around the world without refueling."

"You make it sound like a dream." Steve came to lean against the counter next to Josh, his kitchen duties forgotten. "But I hear they've had a lot of problems with it. In fact"-he frowned thoughtfully-"I remember reading an article about a crash. It happened around the same time I bought the Men-tor-about a year ago-because I remember wondering what the devil kind of nerve it must take to fly a plane that everybody else in the industry says will never fly."

Sam's lips tightened into a bloodless line. "Oh, it flies."

"When was the last time you flew it?"

"About a year ago."

An instant of confused silence pa.s.sed. Then Steve burst out, "Sam, you aren't the pilot who-" He broke off, his expression changing rapidly from disbelief to shock. "My G.o.d, you are, aren't you?"

Behind him, Sam heard Cressie's horrified "OhmiG.o.d" and a chair sc.r.a.ping the floor as she plunked down with a whimper.

Tonelessly, he explained, "The nosewheel didn't lock on landing, but the computer didn't indicate there was a problem. So when I hit the runway, it collapsed. One wing tip caught the ground, and the plane cartwheeled. That was the original test plane. The front end's been modified since then."

"Holy h.e.l.l," Steve whispered.

"But how come-" Judy began, then hesitated, her gaze flickering over him as she stood at the counter on Katie's far side. "You must have been hurt."

Sam shrugged. "It kept me down for a while." Then, because he couldn't tolerate doing nothing while they all stared at him, he reached for another plate. But there weren't any more. Katie had stopped washing and was gripping the edge of the counter as she stared out the window over the sink.

Josh wanted to know, "So, are you still with Rutger?"

Sam uttered a harsh laugh. "Chris doesn't believe in taking anybody off the payroll unless they're dead and buried." And I get a letter from him every other week asking me when I plan to get the h.e.l.l back to work. "Officially, I'm on disability leave."

"Jeez, but . . . you're okay, aren't you?"

The boy seemed younger at eighteen than Sam remembered ever being, and his stoic expression softened a little as he said, "Yeah, I'm okay."

They were all silent for a minute.

Finally, Steve shook his head. "Well, that's one h.e.l.lova story, Sam. Flying a Pegasus . . . Lord! I'd give my eyeteeth-" He cut himself off, then murmured, "I guess I see why you don't want to bother with my T-34."

Steve was offering him an excuse. All he had to do was shrug and say something like, "Yeah, well, you know how it is. . . ." But he couldn't do it. He might be a coward, but, dammit, he hadn't lost his integrity.

Glancing briefly at Josh, he asked, "Has Steve ever told you about his plane?"

"Well, not a lot," the kid admitted, and Sam saw his gaze slide to where he knew Cressie was sitting, behind him. "We, uh, don't talk about it much."

"Then you're missing a piece of history." Flattening his hands on the counter to control their trembling, Sam spoke roughly. "The Beech Craft T-34 Mentor isn't famous, and it isn't rare. But it was put into service in the Air Force and Navy in the early fifties, and along with its successors-the T34B and C-it's been turning kids into pilots every since- including me. In fact, it's got one of the longest service records of any plane in military aviation history, and I don't know a pilot who won't say the original model's one of the best-han-dling aircraft he's ever flown. Besides that, it's fully acrobatic, which makes it just plain fun to fly."

Josh was obviously impressed, yet his look was dubious. "But it isn't like what you're used to."

"No, it sure isn't," Sam agreed. "Since I left the Navy, the planes I've flown don't have any history, and they haven't proven much of anything to anybody yet. They're just expensive pieces of hardware with possibilities and good intentions."

"All right, all right," Steve said, chuckling. "You've made your point. So how about we take the old war bird up for a spin? I'd like to see you wring 'er out-see if all that 'expensive hardware' I've installed was worth it."

This was it. With his vision blurring and his insides shaking, Sam didn't know what to do. It seemed his only choice was to tell the truth. Which meant looking like a fool in front of Katie . . .

"Steve, please, do you have to do it now?"

Staring at the empty dish drainer, Sam was so caught up in his inner turmoil, he almost missed Cressie's anxious question.

Steve's tone was exasperated. "Cressie, I told you I had to-"

"But the kids will want you to put on a show for them."

"Well, what's wrong with that? The plane will be gone by Tuesday. This'll be the last chance they get to see it."

"But it makes me so nervous!"

Josh groaned. "Cressie, everything makes you nervous."

"Oh, go stick your head in a bucket," she retorted. "I know you all think I'm just a nagging fishwife, but I don't care. Flying scares me, and that's the way it is."

"Aw, Cressie, for crying out loud-"

"It scares me, too."

Katie's quiet announcement brought the argument to a dead halt. Sam's gaze flashed to her, but she was looking at the others. With her hands twisting together at her waist, she seemed as anxious as Cressie.

"Kate, you've never been afraid of flying," Steve noted, clearly confused.

"I know," she said. "But all this talk about crashing is enough to make anybody nervous. I'm not doubting your judgment, Steve, but if something went wrong and Dad and the kids were watching . . . well, I don't think any of us want to stand there and see it happen. Besides, it's getting late. So let's stop this business and talk about something else. Can we?"

You bet they could. For Katie, they'd jump through any hoop. They might have ignored Cressie's objections, but all Katie had to do was let them know, in the gentlest possible way, that she didn't exactly approve, and that was the end of it. No one breathed a word about planes for the remainder of the day.

Yet Sam had to wonder. Did she know? He didn't see how she could-unless she'd heard his heart pounding. But the possibility that she might have figured it out bothered him almost as much as the idea of flying itself. It would be like having her find out he was impotent or something. Flying hadn't been only a way of making a living. It had been his life, his ident.i.ty. Take it away, and . . . well, he didn't know what was left, but he knew it wouldn't be enough. Not enough for Katie.

She needed somebody she could rely on, somebody who'd take care of her. She needed a man. And he didn't want her knowing he wasn't exactly up to standards anymore.

Eleven.

"Sam, are you going back to Rutger when you leave here?"

Riding home in semidarkness, Kate glanced at the man beside her. He'd put the Jeep's top on in deference to the chilly evening, and in the dim interior of their close quarters, she saw his mouth twist in a dry smile.

"Are you worrying again about me leaving next week?"

"That isn't why I asked. I wondered if the idea of going back to California might make you look someplace else."

He was silent a moment, then admitted, "It might. There are other companies that build planes. And there are foreign countries, too, looking for test pilots."

She looked at him sharply, but the only hint she got of his mood was the grim defiance of his tone. "You 'd consider that?"

"Why not?" he replied.

Why not, indeed.

Her fingers toyed with the scalloped edge of the crocheted shawl draped over her shoulders. "You know, with all the talk today about planes and your crashing that Pegasus thing . . . I was thinking that, with the time you spent in the hospital and the uproar since you found out about your . . . your special talents, I guess you haven't had much chance to fly. Have you?"

"Katie, I'd just as soon not talk about it if it's all the same to you."

His quiet warning had an edge to it, and she figured the smart thing would be to back off.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was just thinking how hard it would be if I had to stop work for a whole year. Lord, I think, by then, I'd be pretty desperate to get back to it." She waited for him to answer, and when he didn't, she sighed. "Then again, I guess a lot of people would love to be able to take a long vacation from their jobs. I suppose if you don't have to work, you might as well relax and enjoy the time off."

The barest trace of humor colored his tone as he asked, "Are you afraid I'm going to starve to death?"

That hadn't been her main concern, but . . .

"Sooner or later, I imagine, that would get to be a problem . . . wouldn't it?"

"Honey, I don't want to shock you, but they pay test pilots a pretty outrageous amount of money to take the risks they take, and I haven't spent much of it. It'll be a good while before I have to worry about starving."

There wasn't enough money in the world to make her think it was worth the sort of risks his job required, but she was glad to hear he didn't have financial problems to add to his troubles. Especially if her suspicion turned out to be true.

When they arrived at her house, Sam got out of the Jeep, opened her door, and walked with her up the front steps without another word being spoken between them. When they reached the door, though, Kate paused, staring at her hand wrapped around the metal handle of the screen door.

"Sam, last Friday night . . . why didn't you go with me to Marquette?"