Tom skidded to a halt beside her. He took up a crouching stance and started firing.

“Let’s go,” he urged between bursts of gunfire.

What was she going to do now?

The SIG-Sauer pistol. Fumbling at her belt, she pulled the gun out. She shot out the door latch and all but cried in relief as the door swung open. She leaped into the seat and took a fast look around the cockpit. Everything critical to flight was in relatively the same place she was used to. She started flipping switches as fast as her hands would go.

Ping. Ping, ping.

She ducked.

A spray of bullets flew into the cockpit, piercing the tempered glass windshield on the copilot’s side, leaving three small holes with spider cracks spreading outward in jagged radials.

She sat upright again and flew through the engine start sequence. The overhead rotor started to turn sluggishly in an arc overhead. “Hurry, hurry,” she begged the helicopter.

The back door slid open. She reached for the pistol at her belt. It was Dutch and Mac.

The two men stood in the rear door of the Huey and took turns firing while the other reloaded. They were laying down a veritable curtain of lead. At that rate, their ammunition wouldn’t last long.

But then, if her plan failed they wouldn’t have long, anyway. Thirty seconds were left of the ninety that Tom had promised her.

She only prayed there was a reasonable amount of fuel in the Huey’s tanks.

Dutch and Mac fell back into the helicopter’s interior, and Doc and Tex took their places in the door.

The RPMs started winding up on the engine, and the tail rotor began to hum. The fuel gauge wound up. A full tank, thank goodness.

Howdy materialized in the doorway.

Where was Tom? She wasn’t leaving without him. She looked out her door, and he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

The overhead rotor revved up to full speed, and she flipped on the radios and remaining navigation equipment. None of it would be properly aligned, but she could glean enough information to get them north to the ocean.

“Tom!” she called into her throat mike. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”

She started violently when the copilot’s door slammed open. The dark-skinned face and red beret of a rebel soldier appeared, along with the muzzle of his rifle. Hate glinted in his eyes, and Annie stared into the face of Death.

He was going to shoot her, and nobody else would be able to fly this bird out of here. The whole team was going to die because she went and got herself killed. And then there was a flash of steel under the soldier’s chin. A fountain of blood sprayed all over the inside of the cockpit. Its warm wetness splashed her face and she tasted blood.

The soldier’s body fell aside, and Tom stood in his place. He leaped into the cockpit, shouting, “Let’s go!”

Annie was pulling back on the collective before he even closed his door.

“Strap in,” she ordered. “And close that door back there, guys. This is gonna get rough, and I don’t want to dump any of you out.”

Her own door wouldn’t latch, but she’d taken a precious few seconds to buckle herself in already.

Ping, ping.

Bullets ripped through the floor.

Annie slammed the throttle forward, and the helicopter picked up speed. Its tail tilted up sharply as she flung the craft forward, barely clearing the airplanes below her. The ground skimmed past in a dizzying blur as the helicopter’s engine screamed. She shoved the throttles all the way to the forward stop, not caring if she oversped the engine.

The airport fell behind in a matter of seconds, and she yanked up hard to clear a treeline that rushed toward them at 150 miles per hour.

“God, Annie, that was close,” Tom gasped as the trees flew past barely beneath their feet.

“I know how to fly, Tom.”

He leaned back in the seat. “Thank God.”

“Where to?”

“North. The U.S.S. Independence has pulled within twenty miles or so of shore. I don’t know exactly where, but we ought to be able to find an aircraft carrier, don’t you think?”

Annie banked the helicopter to the left and started a 180-degree turn that carried them well wide of the airport and toward safety. She eased the throttles back. “I’ll crank up the radios and get the Navy to vector us in.”

She didn’t know the standard Navy frequencies, so she tuned the VHF radio to a general emergency frequency. Chatter abruptly filled the cockpit. It was American voices. Panicked ones. Yelling about their position being overrun by rebels. Screaming for help.

Tom picked up the microphone. “Unknown rider, unknown rider, identify yourself. This is Major Tom Foley of the United States Air Force.”

“This is U.S. Marine Squad Delta Tango. We’re getting the snot shot out of us! We’re outgunned and outnumbered ten to one.”

Annie gasped. “That’s the marine detachment at the American Embassy!”

“Say your location, Delta Tango,” Tom ordered tersely.

“We’re on the roof of the American embassy in St. George. We’ve got some sandbags and furniture up here for cover, but they’re about to come through the emergency hatch on to the roof. We’re done once they get up here.”

Annie looked over at Tom.

“How long?” he asked.

She glanced outside for reference points to orient herself. “Five, maybe six minutes, at top speed.”

“Firewall it.”

Annie shoved the throttle all the way forward again. She banked hard back in the direction they’d just come from and flew like a bat out of hell across the treetops.

Tom transmitted to the Marine, “We’ll be at your position in five minutes. Conserve your ammo and hang on.”

The voice responded, “If you don’t mind my asking, just who in the hell are you, sir?”

“Spec Ops. We’ll be coming in on a Gavronese Army painted Huey…” He released the mike button. “What’s the tail number, Annie?”

“Four Five November Yankee.”

“…on a Gavronese helicopter, tail number Four Five November Yankee,” Tom finished.

“Roger.”

Tom keyed his throat mike to his men in the back. “You guys copy what’s up?”

“Yes, sir,” Tex answered. “We’re loading up. There’s a nice little fifty-caliber machine gun back here with a crate of clips, compliments of the Gavronese Army.”

Annie breathed a sigh of relief at that news. Tom and his men had to be getting way low on ammunition after the gun battle back at the airport.

Tom looked over at her. “Have you ever practiced combat maneuvers in one of these things?”

“I’m familiar with the basic idea. Run parallel to the threat so the gunner can do his thing out the side door. Any of your guys ever work out of a helicopter with a machine gun?”

“Standard issue training for us.”

“I sure am glad you guys are on my side.”

“Let’s go rescue us some Marines.”

She streaked across St. George, painfully aware that every second was crucial. She took more than a few risks, but she got there in five minutes and ten seconds.

The embassy was hard to miss. As they neared the building, a column of black smoke rose from the residence building next door.

“The bastards are trying to burn the Marines out,” Tom growled.

“The main building’s stone. They’ll have a hard time lighting it up,” Annie replied.

“Excellent.” Tom voice was steady, reassuring. “Here we go, guys. Get the fifty-cal ready.”

The back door slid open, and Howdy swung out the door in a gunner’s harness.

“Bank it up,” Tom directed her.

Annie slowed the craft and banked toward her open door, giving Howdy the best possible angle to shoot from. The helicopter shuddered as he loosed a barrage of lead at the rebels surrounding the embassy building.

Initially the soldiers scattered and ran every which way, unsure of where the hail of bullets was coming from. She completed a circle around the building.

“Better get over the roof, Annie. They’ll start shooting back any second,” Tom directed.

She did as he suggested. A handful of Marines waved wildly as she brought the Huey to a hover over the far side of the building from them. She didn’t want her downwash to blow any of the Marines off the roof. She landed quickly.

Tom and his men leaped out, ducking under the rotor and heading for the marine position. Tom’s voice came up on her earphone. “How many men can we get in that bird, Annie?”

She glanced back at the cargo space and calculated her maximum possible takeoff weight fast. “Fourteen, if they’re all gonna die if I don’t pull them out.”

“There are sixteen people here including me and my guys.”

Annie’s heart dropped. “Sorry, Tom. Fourteen’s gonna be pushing it as it is.”

“Understood.”

Oh, Lord. Was she going to have to leave people behind to die? Again? The thought made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.

And then something odd caught her attention. The Marines and Tom’s men were shedding their weapons and laying them down in a neat row in the makeshift sandbag bunker. What in the world were they doing?

A single man in a white dress shirt and gray slacks caught her attention as he stood up from behind the sandbags. Good grief, it was Ambassador Kettering. What was he still doing here?

Tom and the ambassador ran up to her door while Tom’s men unloaded the fifty caliber gun and ammo and herded the others into the back of her bird.

“Captain O’Donnell. So glad you could join us!” Kettering yelled.

She nodded back at the ambassador.

Tom shouted, “The ambassador and I will be staying behind. Take the rest of them out to the Independence.”

Horror filled Annie. No. Not Tom. She couldn’t leave him again. She wouldn’t! “Tom, I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. It’s the two of us or all of them. This is the way it has to be.”

“No!” she screamed over the noise of the helicopter.

“This is an order, angel. Get those men out of here.”

The nightmare was repeating itself. Time slowed around her as disbelief turned to shock. “No-o-o,” she moaned.

Tom leaned through her open door and grabbed her shoulders. “Listen to me. We’ve got a decent arsenal up here, and we’ll be able to hold them off for a while. Maybe long enough to negotiate a surrender. I don’t think they’ll kill Ambassador Kettering if they realize who he is.”

She appealed to Kettering directly. “Don’t do this, sir! It’s suicide.”

He nodded resolutely. “You’re probably right. But just as a captain’s place is with his sinking ship, this is my post. This is American soil, and by God, I’m not handing it over to anybody without a fight. The major and I will let these bastards know they’ve had a tough time before we go down. Now you go on and get those boys out of here.”

She couldn’t believe this was happening. “Tom…”

“Honey, you need to leave. We’ll buy you enough time to get out of here.”

Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t leave you again. I love you!”

“I know, angel. Now go on.”

Tom and the ambassador backed away from her toward the makeshift bunker that had been set up around the flagpole.

Sobbing so hard she could barely see, Annie eased back gently on the controls. The helicopter groaned as it struggled to lift the weight of all the souls onboard.

Inch by bare inch, she lifted away from the ground.

She looked back to see Tom arming himself with an array of weapons while the ambassador stood ramrod straight beside him, holding an assault rifle. The rotor wash caught the American flag on the pole beside the two men and whipped it around their legs.

Without warning, Tom snapped to attention, and threw her a full-blown military salute while Old Glory’s stars and stripes wrapped themselves around him.

She saluted back as tears streamed down her face. Her heart was breaking in two. She finally gained enough altitude to bank away. She took one last look down at Tom.

He lifted his hand in a final wave of farewell and mouthed the words, “I love you.”

Moaning in agony, Annie banked away and accelerated into the morning sun.

* * *

She pushed the helicopter to the very limits of its performance and raced north as if the Devil himself was nipping at her heels. She blatantly ignored the Navy air traffic controller’s repeated instructions to slow down her approach to the Independence, and she flung her craft to the deck of the ship with reckless abandon.

Her passengers, who’d been packed in like sardines, tumbled out the door the second it was opened. A flight-deck officer pulled open her damaged door. “Welcome aboard, Captain O’Donnell. Congratula—”

“Back up,” she shouted.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stand clear. I’m taking off again.”

“You’re what? You don’t have clearance to do that!”

“I don’t recall asking for clearance!” she shouted back over the roar of her engine. She checked her gauges and throttled up.

Another voice ordered over the radio. “Captain, you are ordered to shut down. You do not have takeoff clearance.”

She picked up the microphone. “Well then, with all due respect, you better give it to me fast. I left Ambassador Kettering and the man I love behind at the American Embassy, and I’m going back for them.”

“This is an order, Captain—”

She turned off the radio.

Flight-deck crewmen scattered all over as she lifted off unexpectedly. She backed the helicopter away from the conning tower and, as soon as she was clear, banked hard left.

“One more time, baby,” she coaxed the helicopter as she pushed the engine well beyond its design limits yet again.

She flew high enough to keep salt spray from fouling the engine, but as soon as she hit the coast, she dropped down to treetop level again.

A strange calm came over her. There was no more fear, no more questioning of right and wrong. She was not leaving Tom behind. They lived or died together.

She did have the presence of mind to swing wide and approach the embassy from the opposite side this time. There was no sense getting shot down because she was too panicked to think straight.

She was horrified as the building came into sight. Soldiers in red berets were scaling the sides of the embassy itself on ropes.

But then the implications of that dawned on her. Tom and the ambassador hadn’t been killed yet! Exultation shot through her.

She could do a little something about those rebels on the ropes. She positioned the helicopter over the edge of the building, then she pulled back hard on the collective and hit the throttle simultaneously. The helicopter leaped straight up in the air and sent a tremendous surge of wind downward at close to two hundred miles per hour. She banked for a second to see the effect of her maneuver.

A bunch of guys in red berets sprawled on the ground like dead ants. Yes.

She repeated the maneuver on the other side of the building.

She glanced quickly toward the makeshift bunker on the roof, looking for any signs of movement, but she saw none. Smoke obscured too much of the view, and she was too occupied trying not to hit the flagpole to take a better look.

At least the immediate threat to anyone still on the roof had subsided for a minute or two. That ought to be all she’d need to find Tom, dead or alive. She landed as near the flagpole as she dared and leaped out of the cockpit, leaving the engine running.

She sprinted across the open space. A hail of bullets flew at her from a neighboring rooftop, and she zigzagged at a dead run while firing her pistol over her shoulder, just like she’d seen Tom do.

The sandbags loomed before her. She took a running leap and prayed she didn’t land on Tom and squash him.

She landed beside him.

He was covered in blood. The ambassador leaned over him, pressing down hard on a wound to Tom’s thigh, and on another high on Tom’s chest.

“Oh, God. Don’t tell me I’m too late.”

The ambassador didn’t mince any words. “Not yet, but we’re going to lose him soon. Can you lift his legs if I get his head?”

Annie jumped to obey.

They managed to half-drag, half-carry Tom to the helicopter and dump him inside. A pool of blood formed under him in a matter of seconds.

Annie’s heart flew into her throat.

She raced around the helicopter and climbed into the seat. A red beret poked over the wall in front of her.

She didn’t even wait to strap in, but yanked back on the controls. The helicopter lurched into the air. To her utter shock, gunfire started from the back of the helicopter. She glanced back to see the ambassador—and Tom—wielding pistols. Their burst forced the rebels to duck for a split second. But it was enough. She was up and away from the roof.

A hail of gunfire raked their belly, but Annie was too focused on flying to notice the holes in the floor, inches from her feet.

The helicopter lurched. She pushed the craft forward faster and climbed higher. It bucked again. A quick glance at the engine gauges showed the hydraulic system was hit. Her flight controls were going to be compromised soon. She wouldn’t be able to command the Huey to go up or down, left or right.

She couldn’t come this close to saving Tom only to crash now.

He climbed up into the cockpit beside her, and she stared at him in shock.

“What are you doing up here? Get back there and lie down so the ambassador can help you.”

“I can put pressure on my wounds as well as the ambassador can. What in the hell were you thinking, coming back for me? That was insane!”

“Do you want me to turn around and drop you back on that roof?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Inside this bird, I’m in command.”

A pause. One side of his mouth turned up in a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

She wrestled with the cantankerous helicopter for several minutes in silence.

Tom spoke from beside her. She couldn’t tell if he knew what he was saying or not. His head lolled drunkenly on his shoulders and his color was terrible. “I told you to leave the embassy. You disobeyed my direct order.”

“I did leave. You never ordered me not to come back.”

“I didn’t think I had to. This was a damn fool maneuver.”

The coastline came into view. The helicopter bucked harder this time and fell off to the right slightly. She corrected with the rudder and eased back on the throttle. The helicopter shuddered again.

“Look, Tom, I don’t have time to argue with you. This bird’s getting unruly, and we’ve still got a few minutes to go. Go lie down.”

“Like hell—”

“I give the orders here. Get back there, get horizontal, and don’t you die on me. Got it?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Got it.”

He crawled out of the seat and into the back of the helicopter. A sudden lurch threw him against the back wall, and he grunted in pain as he collapsed onto the floor.

Annie muttered to herself, “I went to a lot of trouble to fetch that guy’s worthless hide. If he dies, I swear, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Tom’s voice came over her earphone, amused.

She started. She hadn’t realized she was transmitting over her throat microphone.

“You’ve got a stuck mike, darlin’. That dive you took into the fox hole must’ve jostled something.”

“Great.”

She didn’t have any more time to argue with him because the silhouette of the Independence carrier leaped over the horizon in front of her.

The helicopter was really becoming a handful. It crow hopped and jigged like a bronco trying to toss an unwelcome rider. She babied the controls and coaxed it to cooperate long enough to get them over the carrier’s deck.

But setting the bird down was another matter. Her vertical control was all but gone, and she swooped and dipped like a swallow in flight. Her tail winged around in a sickening 360-degree arc, almost taking out two flight-deck crewmen. But finally her right skid impacted the deck. For a second the helicopter tipped up on its right side. She chopped the throttle, and it rocked down to the deck with a hard thud.

Annie cut the engine and leaped out of the craft, screaming for a medic.

A team must’ve been standing close by because in seconds Tom’s unconscious form in the back of her bird was surrounded by paramedics. Some of them poked needles into him and hung bags of blood and plasma around him, while others worked on stemming the flow of blood from his wounds.

Annie hovered protectively over the whole proceeding, keeping up a constant stream of conversation with Tom, begging him to stay alive and keep fighting. She held on to his hand with bruising force, as if she could will her own life energy into him.

When he was stabilized enough to move, four men picked up the stretcher and lifted him out of the helicopter. They took off running for a doorway with Annie still grasping Tom’s cold fingers.

“Excuse me, Captain. You need to come with me.”

Annie shrugged off the hand that tapped her shoulder. “I’m staying with him,” she replied.

“I’m sorry but that won’t be possible. The admiral wants to see you right away. And besides, the doctors won’t let you stay with him while they work on him.”

“I’m not leaving him!” Her voice climbed on a hysterical note.

The flight-deck officer took her upper arm in a strong grasp and forcibly guided her away from the stretcher. Tom’s fingers fell away from hers, and it was as if a piece of her heart had been ripped out. He couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.

The officer spoke forcefully to her. “You’ve got to let him go, Captain! He needs medical attention, and you’d be in the way.”

She tried one more time to follow Tom’s retreating form, but the flight-deck officer was having none of it. Like it or not, he steered her across the deck and into a different part of the ship.

In a daze, she allowed herself to be led through a maze of corridors and hatches. She only vaguely registered the flight-deck officer’s tirade about snot-nosed pilots who disobeyed orders and endangered his crewmen. Fortunately, he wound down before they got to the admiral’s office.

She was directed to a wooden chair in the admiral’s outer office to wait. Slowly awareness of her surroundings came back to her. It was all well and good to have disobeyed orders and to have done her damnedest to save Tom’s life, but now it was time to pay the piper.

Sick dread filled her. She’d worked hard to be a good officer and, to date, had led a distinguished career. But this episode had pretty much blown it.

A sailor finally led her into the admiral’s beautifully appointed office and left, closing the door behind him with an ominous click. She stood glumly at attention. Her knees were shaking. It wasn’t from fear of the butt-chewing she was about to get, though. It must be shock setting in.

As she’d expected, the admiral worked up a good head of steam and ripped into her hard for disobeying his officers. She put on an appropriately remorseful expression and rode out the storm in silence.

Getting court-martialed would be worth it if Tom lived. Even if she spent the next ten years in jail at Fort Leavenworth, at least she’d know he was alive. She could live with that.

Finally the admiral stopped shouting and came around from behind his desk, his face thunderous. She braced herself. But then he broke into a big grin. And walked right past her to greet someone who stepped into the room behind her. She looked over her shoulder.

Ambassador Kettering shook hands warmly with the Navy flag officer. “George, long time no see! How the hell are you?”

“I’m fine, Jack. But what in the hell were you doing in a firefight on top of the embassy?”

“Defending the good old U.S. of A.”

“Hell, you got out of the Navy twenty years ago. Aren’t you a little old to play soldier?”

Annie stood by quietly as the two men traded quips.

Finally the admiral remembered her presence and turned to the ambassador. “So what am I supposed to do with this young captain? She disobeyed a direct order from my flight-deck crew not to take off and go rescue your crusty old hide.”

“Actually, sir,” Annie replied, “I disobeyed several direct orders.”

The ambassador’s mouth twitched, but the admiral looked stony. “I ought to have you court-martialed and strung up from the yardarm, Captain.”

“Yes sir, you should,” she answered.

“But seeing as how you just pulled off one of the sweetest pieces of flying I’ve seen in a long time, I think I’m going to have to shake your hand and tell you to get yourself down to the infirmary to visit the man you love.”

Annie blushed. He’d heard about that, had he?

“Uh, thank you, sir. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen…” She looked back and forth between the two men, not sure which one would give her permission to leave.

“Go. Go.” The admiral waved his hand at the door.

She whirled and managed not to sprint from the room. The admiral’s executive officer showed her through the maze of passageways to the infirmary.

A sailor gestured her to a seat in the outer office. Again.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“They’re still working on him, ma’am” was the impassive reply.

Each minute that passed was agony for her. He had to be all right. He just had to be.

They’d been through so much together. They’d made it out, just as he promised they would. It seemed unreal to be sitting in a sterile, quiet doctor’s office as if nothing had ever happened. As if they’d never been shot at, as if they’d never had to fight tooth and nail for their very lives.

It all started to feel like a dream, insubstantial and fleeting. Had her relationship with Tom been part of that unreal time? Was there anything left for them, now that the mission was over and they were out of Gavarone?

An officer stepped through the inner door and walked over to her, a sober expression on his face. Dread clogged her throat. She wasn’t very familiar with Navy uniform insignia, but she thought she recognized a medical corps badge.

“You must be Annie,” the doctor said.

“I am.”

“My patient’s been demanding to see someone by that name, whom I gather is a rather independent-minded pilot of the female persuasion.”

Tom was alive.

Annie smiled widely, relieved to the point of tears. “Can I see him?”

“Please do. Maybe he’ll stay in bed if you’re here. He’s been threatening to get up and search the ship to find you.”

Annie stepped through the door. Tom lay in a bed, eyes closed. His chest was bare, and a white sheet was pulled up to his waist. His left shoulder was swathed in a white bandage. She hesitated in the doorway, unsure of what to say to him. He looked different, somehow. More authoritative, more an officer. Less her lover and companion of the last weeks. “Hi.”

His eyes opened. “Hi.” His voice was gruff.

“I hear there’s a soldier in here who needs to be convinced to stay in bed,” she said lightly.

He gave her a long, inscrutable look. His eyes were that stormy shade of gray blue they turned when he was angry. “We need to talk, Annie.”

“About what?”

“About your suicidal tendencies.”

She blinked. “My what?”

“You heard me.”

He wasn’t joking. She stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind her.

He continued, “I didn’t put it all together until a few minutes ago. You’ve been running around trying to be Superwoman the last few months because you felt guilty about dragging me through the jungle.”

She frowned. “And your point?”

He stared intently at her, his direct gaze cutting straight into her soul. “You were right about Simon Pettigrew. I have been running around trying to be a hero to make amends for getting him killed.”

Annie started. She hadn’t expected ever to hear such an admission out of him.

He continued, “But you’re doing the very same thing.” His voice took on a sense of urgency. “You’ve got to stop it. You made a reasonable decision under the circumstances out in that jungle.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “I didn’t die. You didn’t screw up.“

“But—”

He raised a hand, silencing her protest. She stepped forward involuntarily when he winced at the movement.

“No buts. You’ve got to let go of your guilt.”

“What about my not telling you?”

“I forgive you.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, for real. Who am I to argue with you for making a judgment call. If you thought the time wasn’t right to tell me who you were, I can accept that. I may not like it, but I can accept it and move on.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said seriously. “For your own good, you need to let it go, too.”

She stared at him in silence. As hard as it was to hear his words, he was right. She had started doing the same thing that she’d watched him do to himself. He’d all but destroyed himself from the inside out. Was that really the path she wanted to go down?

She looked at Tom, lying in a hospital bed yet again. It was a miracle he’d survived as long as he had with a death wish ticking away inside him like a time bomb. She stepped close, staring down at him intently. “Tell you what. I’ll let go of my guilt if you’ll let go of your fear.”

He frowned up at her. “Explain.”

“Tom, you’re afraid of love.”

He reeled back, staring at her, a stunned expression in his eyes.

She plowed on. He’d given it to her straight; she owed him nothing less in return. “You fell in love once. With a woman who betrayed you and your men. Have you ever loved another woman since then?”

“I’ve been too busy,” he protested.

She replied gently, “You’d have made time for love if you wanted it.”

His gaze slid away, and he went very still. He’d gone to a place inside himself where she couldn’t follow.

It was killing her to tear open his old wounds like this. It might very well cost her the man she loved. But he had to hear it. He had to face his demons once and for all.

She waited for several minutes, but he didn’t speak. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “You’ve punished yourself worse than any one man deserves to be punished, by denying yourself love all these years.”

His gaze finally turned back to her. “You know, ever since I woke up in the hospital three months ago I’ve been afraid of what was happening to me. I didn’t know what it was. It felt like I was losing control of myself, and no matter what I did, part of me just kept slipping through my fingers.”

She tilted her head quizzically.

He continued slowly, searching for words. “The funny thing is, I spent all that time convinced I was losing the most important part of myself, when in fact I was finding it again.”

She managed to force out, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you taught me how to feel again. You showed me that my well-being counted to somebody. That it mattered if I lived or died.” His voice trailed off to a near whisper. “You taught me how to love again, angel.”

A smile started deep down in her soul and burst forth throughout her entire being.

He held out his arms to her. “Come here.”

She perched on the bed beside him.

“So where were you for the past half-hour while I was asking for you?” he asked lightly.

Annie grimaced. “Getting my butt royally chewed by the admiral.”

“And a richly deserved butt-chewing it was,” he growled. “If you ever pull a foolish stunt like that again, I’ll help your boss kick whatever’s left of your butt into next year. Is that understood?”

She glared back at him. “No, it’s not. I’d make the same decision again any day of the week and twice on Sunday. There was no way I was leaving you to die. I nearly killed you once, and I won’t have that on my conscience a second time. I love you, damn it.”

“Is that a fact?”

She matched his belligerent tone. “Yeah. As a matter of fact it is.”

He smiled at her. “Glad to hear it. I was worried that when we got out of Gavarone and you were safe again, you’d realize you’d been clinging to me because you were scared and not because you truly cared for me.”

“And here I was, worrying that I was just a convenient female and that you didn’t really care for me.”

He snorted. “Trust me. You were not convenient by any stretch of the imagination.”

She glared at him, but it was hard not to break into a smile.

“Are you sure you can stand being around a beat-up old remnant like me, angel?”

She considered him thoughtfully. “I think I might just be able to stand having a fossil like you hanging around.”

A smile lit up his face and went all the way to the back of his eyes. “Have you got any bright ideas on how to bribe me to stay in bed while I recuperate?”

“Well, I could kiss you. That is, if you promise to stay in bed the rest of the day.”

He considered her in turn. “Hmm. I’d need a sample before I accepted such a deal.”

“I think we could arrange that.” Annie leaned down toward him but then stopped. She looked deeply into his midnight-blue eyes. “I thought I’d lost you today.”

“I thought I’d lost you, too, angel. Don’t you ever do anything so heroic—or dangerous—again. You hear me?”

Annie laughed. “Only if you’ll agree to the same.”

He looked at her seriously. “The doctor says my femur’s shattered. I’m going to need surgery and some heavy-duty physical therapy to repair it. Today was it for me. My days as a field commander are over.”

She put her hand over his. “Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry.”

“You know, a few months ago, that would’ve torn me up pretty bad.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m hoping maybe you’ll agree to take a nice, quiet staff position at a boring, out-of-the way Air Force base while I run Blackjack Ops.”

Annie’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you saying?”

He gave her a withering look. “What do you think I’m saying? I’m asking you to marry me.”

She started to fling herself at him and then remembered how badly he was injured. She stopped short of touching him.

“You’d better kiss me fast, angel, or I’m going to get out of bed and start doing calisthenics.”

Gazing lovingly into his smoky-blue eyes, she drew close to him. Just before her lips touched his, she paused long enough to whisper, “Welcome back from hell, Tom.”