A Question of Intent. Merline Lovelace

least,” the captain said with a nod to the blue-suiters in the audience, “the United States Air Force. Formerly the Army Air Corps, it was established as a separate service in 1947.”

      The AF senior rep was a tall, ramrod-straight pilot with salt-and-pepper hair and laugh lines around his eyes. Belying his status as a member of the “baby” service, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Thompson looked tough and experienced and well able to serve as deputy director of the Pegasus Project.

      Westfall let the assembled crowd enjoy the spirit of good-natured rivalry for a moment or two before continuing.

      “Each of the seven uniformed services has a history rich in tradition. Each has provided long years of honorable service to our country. I know you’re proud, as I am, to wear the distinctive insignia of your branch or corps. I would remind you, though, of the oath each of you took when you joined the military. To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath transcends your individual services. As of this moment, your first allegiance will be to each other…and to the project that has brought us here.”

      At a nod from the captain, his exec added an overlay to the shield. When the transparent overlay settled, a milky-white winged stallion reared on the field of red, white, and blue. Westfall let everyone in the room get a good look.

      “Welcome to Project Pegasus, ladies and gentlemen. We are now one team, with one mission. Before any of us leaves this corner of the desert, the new all-weather, all-terrain attack/transport vehicle known as Pegasus will be certified to run with the wind, swim the oceans and fly to the stars. Your country is depending on you to make it happen.”

      The terse pronouncement killed any tendencies toward levity among the assembled personnel.

      “You’ll receive more detailed briefings on the vehicle when it arrives tomorrow. Today you’ll get security and area threat briefings, be issued your site IDs and go through a medical screening.”

      The captain collapsed his pointer with a snap.

      “Major Bradshaw, I’ll turn the group over to you now.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Jill stood at attention with the others while Captain Westfall departed. When he’d cleared the building, she moved to the podium. As she looked out over the sea of faces, the realization that she was responsible for both their safety and their adherence to ultrastrict security measures hit her smack in the chest.

      One compromise of classified test information, and her neck would be on the block. One physical breach of the Pegasus site, and she could kiss her career goodbye.

      Her glance slid to Cody Richardson, lingered a moment, shifted back to the crowd at large.

      “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Major Jill Bradshaw. My security forces and I are going to be watching out for you—and watching over you—for the next few months.”

      Chapter 3

      Cody hooked his stethoscope around his neck and scribbled an entry in the form on the clipboard. Sixty-five patients in three and a half hours. Seventeen more to go.

      All that was really required today was an intake exam—temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, updated health history, etc. The small team of highly skilled corpsmen assigned to the Pegasus site could have handled those tasks easily. Cody had wanted to meet each of the test cadre members personally, however, and get their take on their physical, emotional and mental condition.

      If the first sixty-five were to be believed, he thought wryly, Captain Westfall had assembled the healthiest military team in the history of the universe. Only one had a condition that required watching. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Thompson, the Air Force rep, had mild atrial fibrillation, the most common form of heart arrhythmia. It was a lifelong condition that didn’t require medication or he wouldn’t have been cleared to fly. As a result, Cody didn’t anticipate having to spend a whole lot of time here in the clinic. Good thing, since providing medical care to the folks on-site was only the secondary reason for his presence out here in the middle of the desert.

      Thinking of the twists and turns his life had taken to bring him to this place and this time, he tipped his chair against the wall. Slowly, inevitably, the familiar poison of guilt and regret seeped through his veins.

      How the hell had things gone so wrong? Why hadn’t he seen the train barreling along the tracks before it ran right over him? How had he managed to lose himself long before he lost Alicia?

      Knowing he’d find no answers to the questions that had plagued him more than three years now, he shoved his chair back and rejoined his team in the clinic area.

      “Who’s next?”

      “Major Jill Bradshaw,” a white-suited corpsman replied, handing him another clipboard. “She’s in cubicle two.”

      A ripple of completely unprofessional anticipation feathered along Cody’s nerves. He’d been waiting for this particular patient.

      “Is Petty Officer Ingalls with her?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Hospital Corpsman Second Class Beverly Ingalls was one of only two women on Cody’s medical staff. She’d assisted him in the exam of other females assigned to the Pegasus cadre. She’d assist him in this one, as well.

      As he walked toward the curtained cubicle, Cody skimmed Jill Bradshaw’s chart. Her vitals looked good. Better than good. So did her physical stats. Age, thirty-one. Height, five-seven. Weight, 121. Nonsmoker. Occasional social drinker. No history of serious or debilitating diseases.

      Lifting the curtain, he nodded to the woman seated on the exam table, swinging a boot impatiently. “Hello again, Major.”

      “Sir.”

      She ran a quick glance down the white coat he wore over his uniform and cocked her head. “No glasses?”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “The photo in your background file shows you in a lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses. I sort of assumed the two went together.”

      “Not anymore. It got to be a pain sliding my glasses up on my forehead whenever I bent to look in a microscope so I had Lasik surgery earlier this year.” He flipped through the forms on the clipboard. “I skimmed through your medical history. On paper you look pretty healthy.”

      In Cody’s considered opinion, she looked pretty darned good in the flesh, too. Her skin glowed with a rosy tint that owed more to exercise and a sensible diet than cosmetics, and her corn-silk hair had a smooth, glossy sheen that dared a man to run his hands through it. Resisting the impulse, he handed Petty Officer Ingalls the chart and dragged his stethoscope from around his neck.

      “Unbutton your shirt, please.”

      While the major slipped the buttons on her BDU shirt, Cody wrapped himself in a cloak of professional detachment. Or tried to. For reasons he didn’t stop and analyze at the moment, he had trouble viewing Major Jill Bradshaw with his usual impassive objectivity.

      If any of the patients he screened in the past ninety minutes was going to rouse the male in him, Cody would have bet money on the flame-haired knockout. Lieutenant Commander Hargrave filled out a uniform like no one he’d ever examined before. Yet he’d experienced no more than a fleeting appreciation at her perfect symmetry of face and form. In contrast, he felt his breath hitch as Jill Bradshaw’s hair parted to give him a glimpse of soft, white nape.

      Suddenly Cody stiffened. Beneath that spun-gold silk lay one of the most vicious scars he’d seen since his E.R. rotation at Raleigh’s busy Memorial Hospital. The puckered seam of flesh tracked a path from just behind her left ear to her collar before disappearing under the crewneck of her regulation brown T-shirt.

      “Someone left you quite a souvenir,” Cody commented, reaching up to finger the ridged flesh.

      She jerked away as if stung. A quick rake of her fingers through her hair settled the sleek cap