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  Oddly, that sight added a little more to Rachel’s inner pain. “They made it,” she whispered.

  Kell’s arms slid around her waist, and he pulled her back against him. “He isn’t in it now, remember? He was retired before they ever met.”

  Rachel wanted to ask why he couldn’t retire, as well, but kept herself from voicing the question. What had been right for Grant Sullivan wasn’t right for Kell Sabin; Kell was one of a kind. Instead she asked, “When do you leave?” She should have been proud that her voice was so steady, but pride didn’t mean anything to her at this stage. She would have begged him on her knees if she thought it would work, but his dedication was more than lip service.

  He was silent for a moment, and she knew she wouldn’t like the answer, even though she was expecting it. “Tomorrow morning.”

  So she had one more night, unless he and Sullivan planned to spend most of it working out the details of their objective.

  “We’re turning in early,” he said, touching her hair, and she twisted in his arms to meet his midnight eyes. His face was remote, but he wanted her; she could tell it by his touch, by something fleeting in his expression. Oh, God, how could she ever stand to watch him leave and know that she’d never see him again?

  Jane and Grant came inside, and Jane’s face was radiant. Her eyes widened with delight when she saw Rachel in Kell’s arms, but something in their expressions kept her from saying anything. Jane was nothing if not intuitive. “Grant won’t tell me what’s going on,” she announced, and crossed her arms stubbornly. “I’m going to follow you until I find out.”

  Kell’s black brows lifted. “And if I do tell you?”

  Jane considered that, looking from Kell to Grant, then back to Kell. “You want to negotiate, don’t you? You want me to go back home.”

  “You are going back home,” Grant said quietly, steel in his voice. “If Sabin wants to fill you in, that’s up to him, but this new baby gives me twice the reason to make sure you’re safe on the farm, instead of risking your neck chasing after me.”

  There was a glint in Jane’s eyes that made Rachel think Sullivan would have a fight on his hands, but Kell forestalled that by saying, “All right, I think you deserve to know what’s happened, since Grant’s involved in it now. Let’s sit down, and I’ll fill you in.”

  “On a ‘need to know’ basis,” Jane guessed accurately, and Kell gave her his humorless smile.

  “Yes. You know there are always details that can’t be discussed, but I can tell you most of it.”

  They sat around the table, and Kell sketched in the main points of what had happened, the implications and why he needed Grant. When he had finished Jane looked at both the men for a long time, then slowly nodded. “You have to do it.” Then she leaned forward, planted both hands on the table and bent an uncompromising look on Sabin, who met it squarely. “But let me tell you, Kell Sabin, that if anything happens to Grant, I’ll come after you. I didn’t go through all that trouble to get him for anything to happen to him now.”

  Kell didn’t respond, but Rachel knew what he was thinking. If anything happened it wasn’t likely that he would survive, either. She didn’t know how she knew what was in his mind, but she did. Her senses were locked on Kell, and his slightest gesture or change of tone registered on her nerves with the force of an earthquake on the most sensitive seismograph.

  Grant stood up, drawing Jane up to stand beside him. “It’s time we got some sleep, since we’re leaving so early in the morning. And you’re going home,” he said to his wife. “Give me your word.”

  Now that she knew what was involved, Jane didn’t argue. “All right. I’ll go home after I pick up the twins. What I want to know is when I can expect you back.”

  Grant glanced at Kell. “Three days?”

  Kell nodded.

  Rachel got to her feet. In three days it would be over, one way or the other, but for her it would end in the morning. In the meantime she had to make sleeping arrangements for the Sullivans, and she was almost grateful to have something that would occupy her time, if not her mind.

  She apologized to Jane for the lack of an extra bed, but it didn’t seem to bother Jane at all. “Don’t worry about us,” Jane soothed. “I’ve slept with Grant in tents, caves and sheds, so a nice living room floor isn’t any hardship to us.”

  With Jane’s help Rachel gathered quilts and extra pillows for a pallet, taking them from the top of her closet and stacking them on Jane’s arms. Jane eyed her shrewdly. “You’re in love with Kell, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” Rachel said the one word steadily, not even thinking of denying it. It was a fact, as much a part of her as her gray eyes.

  “He’s a hard, unusual man, but top-quality steel has to be hard to be top quality. It won’t be easy. I know. Look at the man I chose.”

  They looked at each other, two women with a world of knowledge in their eyes. For good or ill, the men they loved were different from other men, and they would never have the security most women could expect.

  “When he leaves tomorrow, it’s over,” Rachel said, her throat tight. “He won’t be back.”

  “He wants it to be over,” Jane clarified, her brown eyes unusually somber. “But don’t say that he won’t be back. Grant didn’t want to marry me. He said it wouldn’t work, that our lives were too different and I’d never fit into his world. Sound familiar?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her eyes and voice were bleak.

  “I had to let him go, but in the end he came after me.”

  “Grant was already retired. Kell won’t retire, and the job is the problem.”

  “It’s a big problem, but not insurmountable. Loving someone is hard for men like Grant and Kell to accept. They’ve always been alone.”

  Yes, Kell had always been alone, and he was determined to keep it that way. Knowing and understanding his reasons didn’t make living with them any easier. She left Jane and Grant to bed down in the living room, and Kell followed her into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. She stood in the middle of the room with her hands tightly clenched, her eyes shadowed as she watched him.

  “We should have left tonight,” he said quietly. “But I wanted one more night with you.”

  She wouldn’t let herself cry, not tonight. No matter what happened she would wait until tomorrow, until he was gone. He turned out the light and came to her in the darkened room, his rough hands closing on her shoulders and pulling her against him. His mouth was hard, hungry, almost hurting her as he kissed her with savage need. His tongue probed at hers, demanding a response that was slow in coming, because the pain was so great inside her. He kept on kissing her, sliding his hands over her back and hips, cradling her against the warmth of his body, until finally she began to relax and yield to him.

  “Rachel,” he whispered, unbuttoning her shirt to find her naked breasts and cup them in his warm palms. Slowly he circled her nipples with his thumbs and enticed them to hardness; the warmth, the tightening sense of excitement and anticipation began to intensify inside her. Her body knew him and responded, growing heavy and moist, readying her for him because she knew he wouldn’t leave her unsatisfied. He slid the shirt off her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides with the fabric while he lifted her, arching her over his arm and thrusting her breasts up to him. Deliberately he put his mouth over her nipple and sucked at her, the strong motion drawing hot tingles from her sensitive flesh. She made a faint, gasping sound of pleasure as the sensations swept from her breasts into her lower abdomen, where desire was pulling at her.

  Her head swam, and she had the sudden sensation of falling, which made her clutch at his waist. It wasn’t until she felt the coolness of the bed beneath her that she realized he had been lowering her to its surface. Her shirt was caught beneath her, with the sleeves trapped and twisted midway between her elbows and wrists, effectively pinning her arms while her upper tors