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  Andrea glared at him. “Did he tell you that?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did, and you’re looking pretty peaked to me.” Nickerson gave her his most inscrutable expression.

  “Don’t coddle me, Nick.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am. I’d as soon coddle a two-headed rattler. I’m going over to the chow hall to pick up something hot for lunch. Anything sound good to you?”

  Andrea forced herself to consider the question. “Soup sounds good. And maybe a sandwich or two.”

  Nick nodded. He was accustomed to Andrea’s appetite. “How about dessert?”

  She shrugged. “If you see anything that looks decent.”

  “Okay. Back in a jiff.”

  He was coddling her, and she knew it, but much as it annoyed her, it touched her, too.

  Her shoulder throbbed steadily, and her stitches itched maddeningly, but the wound was still too tender to scratch satisfactorily. The worst part of being shot, she decided, was being unable to get comfortable no matter what she did. That and the troubling dreams that plagued her. Getting shot at made a person aware she wasn’t immortal.

  And Dare MacLendon, damn his blue eyes, had made her just as aware that there was more to life than a career. Never had she dreamed that it could feel so good to be held, or that it could be so wonderful to lean against someone else’s strength. Not only had he awakened desires she didn’t want, he’d awakened a need to be held. For those few brief moments he’d made her feel safe, secure and cherished.

  She hated to admit it, but more than anything in the world she wanted to dive into those strong arms and let them shelter and protect her. Female foolishness, she told herself irritably. It had no place in her life or plans. She’d be damned if she’d let a man interfere with her future. No, henceforward she wouldn’t let Alisdair MacLendon within arm’s reach.

  Her mind made up, she forced herself to sit forward and reach for the paperwork on her desk. Andrea Burke had more important things to do with her time than moon over a man.

  For the next ten days she was quite successful in keeping her resolution, nor did Dare test her resolve. She told herself she was glad he appeared as eager to avoid her as she was to avoid him, but in a small corner of her mind there was a sad, nagging ache of disappointment.

  And then, just a week before Christmas, she answered her telephone to hear a familiar voice.

  “Good afternoon, Burke,” said Colonel Alisdair MacLendon.

  Andrea told herself that her heart was not doing a silly little tap dance at the sound of that voice. No, it was just a muscle twitching, a delayed effect of the wound in her left shoulder.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she managed to reply coolly.

  “I need a favor, Burke,” he said. “I want you to take me out tonight or tomorrow and show me how security is handled at the missile sites.”

  It was the last thing on earth she felt like doing. Did he lie awake nights thinking up ways to annoy people? “Why?” she demanded bluntly, and never mind protocol. “Why this sudden interest?”

  “Because I’m responsible for those sites just as I’m responsible for everything on this base. It behooves me to know how it’s handled.” His tone lay somewhere between sarcasm and exaggerated patience. “Well?”

  Well, if she couldn’t get out of it, she didn’t want to postpone it. In fact, the thought of spending some time alone with him caused her traitorous heart to leap and her blood to rush. “This evening,” she said when she felt she could trust her voice. Weak, Burke, she scolded herself. You’re really weak. “Say seven?”

  “Good. Pick me up at my house. I’ll be looking for you.” He disconnected with a click.

  Leaning back in her chair, she eased her arm from the sling and began the limbering exercises the doctor had given her. What the devil was going on? She winced as her healing muscles pulled. Well, if he really wanted to go all the way out to Romeo, the nearest missile site, he could damn well do the driving.

  Dare was watching for her, and as soon as the blue truck pulled up in front of his house, he trotted down the walk and came around to the driver’s side.

  “I’ll drive,” he said. “Scoot over.”

  Andrea was glad to. It had been a long day—too long, really—and her shoulder was aching just about as bad as it ever had.

  “Are we really going out to the Romeo site?” she asked. The more the afternoon had waned, the more difficulty she’d had in believing he was really interested in security at the missile sites. It was possible, of course, given his predilection for sticking his nose into everything. Still, something felt odd about the request.

  “No. We’ll drive up the road a dozen miles or so and have coffee someplace.”

  All her good resolutions faltered as something inside her went liquid and weak. Had he gone to all this trouble just to steal some time alone with her?

  “How’s your shoulder doing, Andrea?”

  “You want the real poop or the polite answer, sir?”

  “That bad?”

  “That bad, sir.”

  He was genuinely sorry to hear it. “I thought by now it would be considerably better.”

  “It’s better than it was.” She wanted to change the subject. “I heard we’re getting a storm tonight.”

  “Four inches of snow and a twenty-degree temperature drop,” he agreed. “We’ll be back before it gets bad.”

  She nodded. The storm wasn’t supposed to hit until between eleven and midnight. She wondered, though, why he was heading away from town along a less traveled stretch of road. Did he think someone might follow them?

  “Ah, Colonel?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Is there a point to all this James Bond stuff?”

  MacLendon chuckled quietly. “Actually, yes. We’ll talk about it over coffee.”

  Resigned, Andrea settled back and tried to find a comfortable angle for her shoulder. If there was one, she hadn’t yet discovered it.

  Dare pulled over at a truck stop about fifteen miles west of the base. The place was pretty well deserted, boasting only one interstate rig and a couple of pickups out front. Inside there were a counter and numerous booths with ragged plastic-covered seats. Dare chose a booth at the far end of the diner, away from the other patrons.

  An elderly waitress with a Swedish accent hurried over to take their orders. Dare wanted coffee and apple pie. Andrea settled for coffee and tried not to think about how badly she wanted to be standing beneath a hot shower, letting the warmth steal the stiffness from her muscles.

  Only when they’d been served did Dare speak.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “it wasn’t a goose that put the hole in that bomber. It was plastique.”

  Andrea’s head jerked up. Shock overrode her fugitive disappointment at learning he’d brought her here to talk business. For a moment she was simply speechless. “My God. But why? What could anyone possibly hope to accomplish?”

  Dare shrugged. “Who knows? Simple terror? Something more complex? We won’t know unless we find the culprit, which brings me to the point of all these James Bond tactics you asked about. Andrea, the OSI investigators say the perpetrator had inside help. Or that someone on the inside used someone on the outside as a diversion. Either way, we have big trouble.”

  For a long moment Andrea made no response. Dare saw the shock in her eyes, then saw her control it rapidly.

  “Why,” she asked finally, “do they think it’s an inside job?”

  “You’re the security expert. You tell me what it would take for a terrorist to get into the nose of that B-52 to plant plastique. Hell, that’s the easy part, I guess. The hard part is getting into the controlled area so he had access to the planes. OSI is very impressed with you and your squadron. You’re doing a marvelous job, one of the best they’ve ever seen. And that’s why they’re convinced that the culprit had inside help. They believe that’s the only way he could get past your security.”

  “A uniform. A badge. It’