"Where's Steve?"

"He's not home."

Her head jerked toward him, but she didn't say a word. And she remained very silent as they hurried the rest of the way to the plane.

When they reached it, he hopped onto the wing to open the clear plastic canopy, then pulled her up beside him. He started to lean around her to move the helmet off the seat, but when she lifted a hand and laid it against his face, his head turned sharply toward her.

Their gazes met in the darkness of the chilly spring night.

"Sam, I love you," she said.

And for a moment, he was paralyzed. No air, no sound, no strength to move. Only the words, stealing softly into his heart. Then her name-an aching gasp. And he kissed her. A hard, rough, desperate kiss. A crushing of her lips, a driving sweep of her mouth, a moment of breathing the same air she breathed. Enough to tell her, Wait. Wait until this is over. Enough to lock her words inside his heart.

Then he was helping her climb into the back of the narrow fuselage and making sure the IV and the oxygen tank and the baby weren't in the way of strapping her in. He didn't like it, but he didn't waste time arguing when she refused the helmet, saying she wouldn't be able to use the stethoscope with it on. It would be noisy, he told her, and they wouldn't be able to talk because the headset was built into the helmet. The seats were too far apart for her to reach him over the console that separated them, and he wouldn't be able to see her, either, so she was going to be back there completely on her own.

She'd be fine, she said. He shouldn't worry about her. Still, it stunned him the way she calmly put her life into his sweating, shaking, terror-numbed hands.

He slid the back half of the canopy closed over her, then swung into the front, his long legs straddling the stick, his hands reaching back to pull the canopy closed over his head.

The motions were automatic, procedures learned years ago. This was the first plane he'd ever flown, and it would be the first again. The difference was that, then, he hadn't had the sense to be scared-and, now, he was too scared to have any sense. Then, he'd taken off as fast as he thought his flight instructor would let him get away with; now, if he let himself stop and think for even a second, he'd freeze up solid, and they'd never get off the ground.

Swallowing constantly against the urge to throw up, he strapped himself in, pulled on his helmet, and took hold of the stick. A quick thumb on the boost pump brought the fuel pressure up, and a touch on the starter made the engine roar to life.

You know what you're doing. You've done it thousands of times before. There's not a single good reason to be afraid of doing it again.

The words sounded fine, but all the reasoning in the world didn't keep the memories from flooding his mind as he flipped on the lights and ran through the sketchiest checklist he'd ever performed in his life. Switches and green glowing dials blurred before the image of earth and sky tumbling out of control, until the earth won out and everything around him-and in him- exploded. The sound of his bones cracking, the smell of his flesh burning, the unG.o.dly howl of his own screaming. The pain-the blinding, shattering pain. And the dying. Oh, yes, that. Floating out of his body, looking down to see it there, on the operating table- crushed and burned and bloodied beyond recognition, and cut wide open with all those gloved hands inside him, trying to piece him together. The sadness that he should look that way. The aching sadness that it should end like this . . .

Those were the memories that swamped his senses as he brought the power up and the plane began to roll forward.

The ground was rough beneath the wheels, nothing like concrete, and the plane jostled and bounced its way along. It's a piece of cake, kid's play, no big deal, he told himself. But by the time he'd jockeyed into position, he was ready to reach for the oxygen mask, because he was so dizzy he couldn't see straight and he couldn't breathe for the tightness in his chest.

Then he saw the lights-the lights of his Jeep. Way off, at the end of the long, black field: bright spots of white and amber beneath the shadows of the trees. And, somehow, seeing them there made something inside him snap. All at once, his thoughts came into clear, sharp focus.

So he was scared. Out-of-his-mind scared. But what was he really scared of: flying the plane-or dying again? The answer was pretty simple; he'd never been scared of flying anything he could get off the ground. He didn't used to be afraid of dying, either. He'd had n.o.body he let himself care about too much, or who he thought cared about him. He'd had no commitments, no goals, no sense of the future being any different from the past. And, so, he'd had no reason to care if he died.

So he'd thought.

Never again did he want to meet the white light with empty hands and nothing he felt was worthy to show for anything he'd been or done. And he wouldn't have to; he had five months, now, of making people' s lives better that he could look at and say, "This is what I've done. This is who I've been." And the only reason he had to be afraid of dying right this minute was if this baby died and he hadn't even tried to do the only thing he could do to save him. He couldn't heal him. But he d.a.m.ned well could fly him to somebody who might.

And in doing so, he'd be healing himself-finally and completely. Because right here, in this dark field, with this old any-kid-can-fly-it plane, he had the chance to reclaim that piece of his past that was worth keeping and to meld it with his present in a way that made sense. He had the chance to have everything he' d ever wanted. And suddenly it was very clear to him that the thing he wanted most in the world was sitting in the seat behind him, waiting to see if he was going to let her down.

A man might be afraid, he decided. Afraid of being hurt. Afraid of having his heart broken. But no real man would let his fear stand in the way of having the woman he loved-or of giving her everything he was capable of giving that she might need or want.

"I love you." The words pulled him forward, through the darkness, toward the lights. They steadied his hand as he loaded the stick, coaxing the nosewheel off the ground. Forward a little more . . . and a little more . . . more, until the mains came up, and, suddenly, the jostling along the rough field became a smooth glide in the air.

"I love you." Unfamiliar words. Never-spoken words. Words that took the plane, and his heart, soaring over the tops of the trees and upward, into the starless night.

It was going to be all right. G.o.d Almighty, yes, it was going to be all right. If he'd thought it wouldn't worry the daylights out of Katie, he'd have laughed, shouted, hollered a little. He didn't try to fool himself; the jumping in his stomach wasn't all excitement, and he was d.a.m.ned glad he was in a plane as forgiving as the Mentor because his hands weren't all that steady on the controls. Yeah, he was still scared. But he was flying the plane, and, yes, he was sure it was going to be all right.

One thing, though-a naked little bundle wrapped against Katie's warm skin-might not be all right, if he didn't find out where the h.e.l.l he was going and get there. Fast.

With a silent thanks to Steve for having had the sense to give his old war bird an extra dose of horsepower, Sam headed the plane east, immediately contacting Marquette radio, who scrambled to respond to the situation. Heck, yes, bring it in, they said; they'd have an ambulance waiting, and they'd tell the hospital what to expect. They gave him the emergency frequency for his transponder that would put him on their radar screen, and from that moment on he was never alone. Flying became a matter of following Marquette's precise instructions. And in a few minutes' time, about twenty from the time he'd taken off, the lights of the airport appeared dimly below.

Seventeen.

Kate raised a hand in thanks to the state trooper pulling away from the curb, then turned to trudge through the door of the Marquette airport. It was 5:30 a.m., she could barely walk for exhaustion, and the cup of coffee and sandwich she'd had at two o'clock were no longer staving off the growling in her stomach. On top of that, she was a hundred miles from home, and as she made her way through the spa.r.s.e, predawn airport crowd, she didn't know what she should hope to find: That her ride had waited or left without her.

The last time she'd seen Sam, he'd been standing on the wing of the Mentor, watching the ambulance tear off with her inside of it. There'd been no question about his coming with her; it wouldn't have been allowed. For most of the night, she'd been too busy to think about him, yet when she arrived at the information desk and discovered he'd left her a message to look for him in the pilots' lounge, other people's crises faded with the night and she was forced to face her own.

Why had Sam kissed her when she told him that she loved him? Was he saying he loved her, too? Or was it a kiss goodbye? It could have been either or both. It also could have been merely a reaction to the moment. Hadn't her impulsive words been just that? She'd simply had to tell him she loved him. And after she'd already said that she wanted to have his babies . . . well, what was "I love you" saying that he didn't already know?

Probably his kiss had been the same sort of impulsive gesture. One last kiss before I die-he'd been that terrified when he climbed into the plane. As hard as he was shaking, she didn't know how he'd gotten them off the ground. He had, though, and she'd never had a flight like it in her life: encased in a bubble of plastic yet unable to see through the darkness, the roar of the engine nearly shattering her eardrums, and her anxiety over the baby, and over Sam, roiling inside her. It could have been a h.e.l.lish experience, but Sam hadn't let it become one. Despite all he'd been through and was going through then, he'd gotten them to Marquette without a single waver of a wing tip-and she was fairly certain he'd done it at a speed that would make Cressie, and maybe even Steve, faint if they knew.

Kate stopped in the doorway to the dimly lit pilots' lounge, her gaze falling upon the lanky male form stretched out on the couch along the opposite wall. His denim-clad legs were crossed at the ankles, and an open magazine covered his face. He was the only one in the small room, and as she listened to the faint sound of his snoring, she wondered if he'd already made plans to go back to Rutger. It seemed like a real possibility.

She should be happy for him. She was happy for him. Yet it was hard not to think that, in beating the demons that had kept him earthbound, he had given her one less reason to believe that his last, fierce kiss had meant anything at all. Her love hadn't been enough for him yesterday. Today, it was even more hopeless to think it might be, not when he could go back to doing what he liked and did best: flying never-flown-before-airplanes-alone.

Crossing the room, she stopped by the couch. An instant later, she heard his breathing change, his breath catching a little, then rushing out as his hand rose to move the magazine off his face. Blinking a couple of times, his eyes were fully alert as they focused on hers.

"The baby?" he asked immediately.

Kate managed a tired smile. "I think he's going to be fine. It'll be a while before the doctors will say that, but they sound hopeful. You have to learn to read between the lines."

"And Lynn?"

"Erik had her in a wheelchair outside the nursery window when I left. They were discussing names."

"You've got to be kidding."

"You'd never know she almost bled to death last night."

Pa.s.sing a hand over his beard-shadowed face, Sam swung his feet to the floor and sat up, mumbling, "G.o.d, to be that young and foolish again."

She was feeling ancient herself as she said, "I think they're a little less young and foolish than they were yesterday. Erik's talking about selling the camp and going to Ironwood to work for his dad, and Lynn' s saying she's not taking the baby back to that place once they let him out of the hospital." Hesitating, she added, "Both of them asked me to thank you, but they don't really understand how much they have to thank you for. Sam, it was an hour before the medevac chopper got to Lynn."

His head came up, his startled gaze flashing to hers.

"I'm sure the baby wouldn't have lasted that long," she said. "Not without a respirator. You bought him a fighting chance to survive. A good chance. And no matter what happens now, I want you to know that."

He looked at her a moment longer, then, with a faint smile, he lowered his gaze. "Well, I guess he and I are even, then."

Before she could respond, he glanced at the clock on the wall, then stood to let his gaze skim over her. "You've got to be beat," he said quietly.

"Probably no more than you are," she replied. Although, in fact, she thought he looked wonderful- sleep-hazy and unshaven and kind of glowing. The way he'd been when they woke up together, yesterday morning.

"I'm fine," he told her. "I went to sleep somewhere around midnight. I didn't know how long you'd be, and I knew I'd have to fly back, so. . . ."

He trailed off, and when he raised a hand to her face to brush aside a long strand of hair-one of many that had escaped the clips she'd stuck into it so many hours ago-she stiffened at his touch. Don't do this to me, she wanted to cry. Don't touch me or be warm and tender, when you're only going to take it away. Please, just don't make it hurt any worse than it already does.

Sensing her response, Sam hesitated, the backs of his fingers grazing her cheek. She couldn't meet his gaze but stared at the blue T-shirt molded to his chest.

Finally, he dropped his hand and sighed. "I know. I've got a couple of other scores to even, don't I?"

Kate's brow twitched into a wary frown, and she glanced at him. But he turned to snag his jacket off the couch and sling it over his shoulder. Then, catching her hand in his, he started toward the door.

"Come on, Katie. What you need is a dose of Sam's Special Elixir. It's guaranteed to cure whatever ails you. And we've got just about enough time to catch the show, too-if we hurry."

Special Elixir? The show? Her look became pained when he shot her a wink. Did he expect her to respond to his lighthearted att.i.tude? Was she supposed to put on her usual cheerful face and play along? She couldn't have done it if her life had depended on it, and as she allowed herself to be towed through the terminal, she wondered if he knew how hard it was for her right then simply to speak to him. . . . But he must know.

Her confusion deepened when he gave her a sideways grin and asked, "So, how'd it go at the hospital? Did you have to spend the night explaining away another miracle-or was this just a 'highly improbable'?"

Tossing an apology to a lady she'd b.u.mped into, Kate replied, "Neither. But if Doc hadn't been there, I might have had trouble."

"Oh?" Sam swerved around a couple of people ahead of them.

"He altered my notes on the delivery before the medevac team got there. As he pointed out to me, you may be a miracle worker, but you're not an x-ray or a sonogram-meaning, I shouldn't have used your intuition about what was going on inside Lynn as the basis for a diagnosis."

"But you knew when I told you-"

"Yes, I knew, but. . . ."

Stopping in front of a door that read FLIGHT SERVICE ST AT ION, he waited for her to finish.

She avoided his gaze as she admitted, "I don't know how I knew. I just . . ."

"Read my mind."

She hesitated. "It seemed like that. But not words. Just images."

He opened the door, motioning her through it, then led her across the room to a long, high counter. Leaning on the counter he turned toward her, saying, "Images are all I get. I never know what's happening in a technical sense, unless it's explained to me. And I've never had bleeding stop, then start again, like that -like it wasn't working. It worried me, Katie, and if you hadn't been there to give me the clues I needed, I might have given up." His gaze skimmed her features, then met hers in a look that was far too intimate for her nerves. "I thought we did pretty good together," he murmured.

She'd been trying not to think about how good they'd been together. It would only be one more thing to miss.

Deliberately avoiding his clear, knowing gaze, she said, "But Doc was right. Officially, we don't know the cause of the hemorrhage. So, instead of saying Lynn had a partial previa-"

"A what?"

"A condition where the placenta covers part of the cervix. It almost always requires a C-section." Kate shook her head a little. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. The chart now reads, 'cause of bleeding unknown.' Since previas aren't a chronic or genetic thing, the chances of Lynn ever having another one are extremely slim, so-"

"So what they don't know won't hurt them," Sam concluded.

"Right."

Picking up a flight plan form off the stack on the counter and a pen from the holder in front of him, he began filling in blanks.

She watched him as she continued. "Are you aware that whatever you do to people when you heal them seems to act like a . . . a . . ."

"Megadose of vitamins?"

"Yes. The obstetrician was pretty well flabbergasted at what good condition Lynn was in, all things considered." A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she added, "Doc had a great time, acting smug in front of all those hospital doctors, saying what a fine day it was that he decided to take me on as his a.s.sociate, and how some Obs he's met would do well to take a lesson from me in labor and delivery management."

She watched Sam's face as he wrote, expecting to see him scowl. Instead, to her surprise, he began to chuckle.

"So, he handed you the rap, huh? How'd you get out of it?"

"I stammered a lot."

His earthy laugh turned into a bad-boy grin as he glanced up from his writing to touch a fingertip to her cheek. "You should have just flashed your dimples at them. They'd have been eating out of your hand."

Flashed her dimples? How insensitive could he be, making fresh remarks, flirting with her, like he'd been doing since the day they'd met? Yet as Kate felt the pain-and the anger- slice through her, a voice said, Wait. Sam wasn't insensitive or cruel, not deliberately, like this. Maybe, though, he was feeling so good about flying again that he didn't realize what his obvious happiness was doing to her. And she almost could have forgiven him for that.

Almost.

Ten minutes later, strapped in and helmeted in the back seat of the Mentor, Kate listened on the headset to the confusing radio chatter as Sam got clearance for takeoff. She didn't understand most of what was said, but she understood something more important: He wasn't scared. He was excited, though, and despite her exhaustion and heartache, his excitement was starting to affect her, too.

It was still dark as they zipped down the runway; but the weather had cleared so that, as the plane climbed, Kate saw the first blush of dawn starting to pearl the eastern horizon. The view was breathtaking, sitting high in the low fuselage of the old military plane, with nothing in the way of seeing the pink and lavender shades seep into the sky off to her right. Below, the lights of Marquette rapidly disappeared, replaced by an unrelieved inky blackness. Finally, it occurred to her that she was looking at the deep, chilly waters of Lake Superior.

Confused, Kate glanced to the left, then down, then to the right again, where the sky was growing brighter. When Sam did a banking turn to the right to head due east, she adjusted the microphone on her headset and spoke on a tentative note.

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"May I ask a dumb question?"

"Honey, you can ask me anything you want."

"Aren't we headed in the wrong direction?"

"Oh, I don't know," he drawled. Then, as the first piercing ray of sunshine shot over the horizon, he added quietly, "Are we?"

But she knew he didn't expect a reply.

It came fast, much faster than it did at ground level. The top of the sun's fiery arc appeared first, in a sliver at the watery edge, its golden beams rippling over the water's surface, reflecting in its mirror. The arc grew, swelling over the rim of the earth, the light racing ahead of it. Glittering, blinding light. Higher it rose, above the horizon, a throbbing ball of golden-white fire.

It was glorious. A breathtaking display so powerful, so pure, it could make a person forget everything else. Before long, though, the sheer physical impact of such blinding light became overwhelming, and Kate had to shut her eyes.

She was reaching to pull down the black visor on her helmet when she heard Sam mutter, "So much for the show." Then the nose of the plane took a swing upward and blocked out her view of the horizon.

Instead of turning, though, Sam kept going-straight up . . . and over, until the plane heeled onto its back. For several long seconds, the waters of Lake Superior became the sky, and the sky, the ground. Then, with a flip, the sky was where it belonged again-and her heart was somewhere down around her feet.

"Katie?"