Marie, she thought.

"You said you had a girlfriend. A serious girlfriend," she reminded him.

"Sure, I was serious about her, but it wasn't mutual. And I wasn't like Jake-I wasn't insanely in love with her. Why'd I think that was okay?" he asked her. He just shook his head. "From the time I realized what Jake and Marie had going on, that was what I wanted. But I only admitted that to myself recently. Since he died, really. Most of my friends are married, most of them have ordinary relationships. They run hot and cold. A lot of them get bored or take their women for granted. But from the minute Jake and Marie got together, they were madly in love. Totally committed. I don't think that happens to too many people."

"It happens almost all the time in my family. There have been a couple of exceptions. My aunt Brie was divorced-her ex-husband was...is a real screwup. He left his second wife, too. But Brie's so solid with Mike, it's wonderful. Uncle Jack didn't get married till he was forty, never even had a close call. But as soon as he found Mel, there was no one else in the world for him."

"My brothers weren't exactly fast burners in that department. Well, Luke-he was married before. Briefly. And Aiden even more briefly. That would inspire caution in any man, I guess."

She put down her fork and tilted her head. "Every man and woman wants what your friend Jake had. Every single one. That's the dream, right? The kind of powerful love that lasts a lifetime? And no matter what you say about all the married guys you know who are bored or discontent or just too plain dumb to appreciate their good luck, I bet there are a lot of couples who appreciate their good fortune and treat their marriages very carefully." When he didn't say anything, she added, "I bet there are."

"My father was a bl.u.s.terer," Patrick said.

"And mine is the studious and silent type, all too happy to let my mother dominate the conversation. But they hold hands. They love to travel together. They surprise me all the time. Once I saw him give her a pat on the a.s.s in the kitchen and I thought, wow, they've still got it."

"I have to say, I never saw that at my house. My mother thought about being a nun. And my father was-"

"A bl.u.s.terer," she said with a laugh.

Patrick held her hand across the table. "What do you want, Angie?"

"I never saw Jake and Marie together," she said with a shrug. "And I'm the last person to ask how to guarantee the future. I mean, didn't I get an up close and personal lesson in how unpredictable life can be? So, after falling in love, what I really want is a man who believes marriage can work. A man willing to try for that. A man who won't give up. Because I already know that if I make a commitment it would take a terrible string of crises to get me to give up."

"How will you know when you're in love?"

"I'll know," she said. "I'll absolutely know."

He smiled at her. "I want you to do something for me. I want you to take the weekend off. Come with me to Colin's tomorrow night-Luke, Shelby and their little boy will be there. Jillian's sister and her family are coming over. They've been baking and freezing rolls and breads for Jack to put in the town's Christmas baskets. The house is amazing, decorated for the holidays. You'll like them-they're nice people."

"I can swing through the coast towns for a few hours and then-"

Patrick shook his head. "There won't be time. I rented us a snowmobile. For Sunday."

"You did?" she asked, coming out of her chair. "You did!"

"We're wearing helmets," he informed her. "And we're going on an approved trail so we don't run into any wire fences."

"Oh, Paddy, you are so cool. But I can still make a run through-"

He was shaking his head again. "Tomorrow we're going to sleep in, then lie around in front of the fire, have a big breakfast-not early. I know you don't like an early breakfast. Then we're going over to Colin and Jillian's. I'll give you a tour of the property on their little snowplow. You can see the greenhouses, the big Victorian they live in, the farm." He grinned at her.

"But, Patrick, I'm getting closer to the amount I need-"

He squeezed her hands. "We're going to play. Then on Monday you should call Catherine. Book the surgery for Megan because if you can drum up almost two thousand dollars in four days, you're going to get there, no sweat. And whatever else you need in the end to get it up to five thousand, I'm going to chuck in."

"Patrick..."

"The whole time I was dating Leigh, she dragged me to fundraiser after fundraiser, a slew of silent auctions, raffled prizes and fancy events that required big tickets for charitable contributions. I'm scared to even think what I sh.e.l.led out and nothing I can remember felt as right as this does. Go with it, Ange. I won't get in your business and steal all your thunder in this campaign-you're doing great and I'm proud of you. But I want to have some fun this weekend and I also want to dump some money in the Megan fund."

"Wow," she said. "Do you realize how wonderful you sound?"

"Yes, I do," he said with a firm nod. "And I think I'm underappreciated."

"Well, we can't have that!" She stood up and lifted her plate and his. "I'll do the dishes."

Elbows braced on the table, fingers laced together, chin on his hands, he watched her clear away the dishes. But the minute she had them rinsed and in the sink, he stood up. He sc.r.a.ped the chair back loudly and when she turned to look at him, he was smiling that half smile and his eyes were smoldering. He approached her slowly, but then grabbed her up in his arms, lifting her off the floor. She laughed and looped her arms around his neck.

"Listen, mister. Don't think you can buy my love."

"I don't intend to. I'm going to seduce your love. Then I'm going to help buy you an operation."

Patrick felt the soaring, heard the powerful engines, the g's pulling on him. The sky above him was the kind of clean blue you can only experience from a jet. The water below barely moved. Then he reached land that was brown and gray, mountainous and stark.

Nothing in the world felt so potent to him, yet even in his deep sleep he was afraid to feel it, to let it consume him. He felt he had complete control of a mighty machine, and yet...

Viper One, target in range. Descending to ten thousand feet.

He held his breath. Even in his sleep, he stiffened and couldn't breathe. And then it happened-just as the three Hornets pa.s.sed over the mountain range with a large fortress in his sights, he felt his ship rock from an explosion, a blast of white light, flying debris, and he screamed. He banked away and brought the jet level, looking for a chute. Jake! G.o.ddammit, Jake! Where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n chute?

He screamed his friend's name, sat up in bed, covered with sweat and freezing. Panting. Gasping.

And there was Angie, kneeling beside him, running her small hand over his back and whispering his name. "Shhh, Paddy, it's all right now. Shhh, just a bad dream..."

Just? he thought. Just seeing his best friend go down over and over again, his F-18 exploding, showering the other jets with debris, then dropping from the sky in a flat spin, another explosion on impact with the side of a big, brown mountain.

Patrick groaned and fell back against the pillows. He was shaking. He pinched his eyes closed and felt Angie pull the quilt over him, but she didn't lie down beside him. She gently ran her fingers through his hair, waiting for his breathing to even, to slow. When he finally opened his eyes she asked, "The crash? Jake?"

"Did I yell?"

"No. You said his name. You made a sound. You stiffened and clenched your fists and started panting. And you wouldn't wake up."

He gave a humorless laugh. "I was busy," he said.

"Does that happen a lot?"

He let his lids close gently. "Not since you," he said softly, opening his eyes again. "It's been a couple of weeks, I guess. That's why I won't stay with my brothers. I thought I screamed. In the dream I scream. It's like the real thing."

She shook her head. "You didn't scream. I might not have known about the nightmare if I'd been in the next room."

"That's good to know."

"Can you talk about it? About what happened that day?"

He gave a shrug. "There's not too much to tell. We were locating a terrorist cell on the Libya border, flying in low, making our presence felt. There were reports of a terrorist training post. There had been heavy fire from that place-we'd had casualties and fatalities. There had been reports of a lot of grenades, IEDs, gunfire, ground missiles. A couple of sorties to the area reported surface to air Russian-made air heat seekers, which were evaded by jets. There were some close calls, near-misses, and then a NATO helicopter was taken down. We saw the flash, evaded, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d got Jake's engine. And his plane just came apart-as if it were made of nothing more than plastic. I looked for a chute. I prayed for a chute. We thought we were clear but... We weren't clear."

"Then what did you do?"