Full Throttle. Merline Lovelace

too well.

      So she wasn’t surprised when the pickup cleared the checkpoint, roared into gear and kicked up dust for another quarter mile or so. Scant yards from Kate, it fishtailed to a halt once more.

      Dust swirled. The truck’s engine idled with a low, throaty growl. The driver’s-side window whirred down. A well-muscled forearm appeared, followed by a rugged profile. With his creased straw cowboy hat and sun-weathered features, Scott might have been one of the locals who’d adapted so well to life here in the high desert. The hat shaded the upper portion of his face. The lower portion consisted of the tip of a nose, a mouth bracketed by laugh lines and a blunt, square chin. The rolled sleeve of his white cotton shirt showed a sprinkling of hair bleached to gold by the sun. Mirrored aviator sunglasses shielded his eyes, but the grin he flashed Kate was pure sex.

      “Well, well.” The drawl was deep and rich and carried clearly on the morning air. “This assignment is looking better by the moment.”

      Kate had heard variations of the same line a hundred or more times in her career. Her ready smile, flaming auburn hair and generous curves had attracted the attention of every male she’d ever worked with. She’d long ago learned to separate the merely goggling from the seriously annoying and handle both with breezy competence. Edging to the side of the dirt road, she jogged toward the idling vehicle. Her voice held only dry amusement as she offered a word of advice.

      “Pull in your tongue and hit the gas pedal, flyboy. Captain Westfall’s expecting you.”

      His chin dipped. Eyes a clear, startling blue peered over the rim of the sunglasses and locked with hers.

      “The captain can wait,” he replied. “You, on the other hand…”

      He didn’t finish. Or if he did, Kate didn’t hear him.

      She’d kept her gaze engaged with his a half second too long and run right off the edge of the road.

      Her well-worn Nikes came down not on hard-packed dirt, but empty air. With a smothered oath, she plunged into the shallow ditch beside the road. Her right leg hit with a jar that rattled every bone in her body before going out from under her. A moment later she landed smack on her rear atop a fat, prickly tumbleweed.

      So much for breezy competence!

      Scott was out of the pickup almost before Kate and the tumbleweed connected. His low-heeled boots scattered rock and dirt as he scrambled into the shallow depression. When he hunkered down beside her, she expected at least a minimal expression of concern. What she got was a swift, assessing glance followed by a waggle of his sun-streaked eyebrows.

      “And here I woke up this morning thinking the next few weeks were going to be all work and no play.”

      Kate cocked an eyebrow. Best to set him straight right here, right now. “You thought right, Captain.”

      “I don’t know about that.” Dipping his chin, he gave her another once-over. “Things are lookin’ good from where I’m squatting. Very good.”

      Kate sucked in a swift breath. Behind their screen of sun-bleached lashes, his eyes were electric blue. The little white lines at their corners disappeared when he smiled, which he did with devastating effect.

      Thank heavens she’d been inoculated against Scott’s brand of lazy charm and cocky self-assurance. The inoculation had been painful, sure, but once administered was supposed to last a lifetime.

      Unfortunately, she hadn’t been inoculated against the effects of sharp, stinging barbs to the backside. The prickly weed had penetrated right through her spandex running tights. Now that Kate had recovered from the initial shock of her fall, she felt its sharp, stinging bite.

      “How about unsquatting,” she suggested dryly, “and helping me up?”

      “My pleasure.”

      Rising with the careless grace of an athlete, he reached for her hand. His palm felt tough and callused against her skin, his skin warm to the touch.

      Of course Kate’s blasted ankle had to give out the moment she gained her feet. With a grunt, she fell right into his conveniently waiting arms. This time he had the decency to show some concern. At least that was the excuse he gave for swooping her up.

      “You must have come down hard on that ankle.”

      Hefting her not-inconsiderable weight, he cradled her against his chest. His very solid, very muscled chest, Kate couldn’t help noticing.

      “I’d better get you to the base.”

      He was already out of the ditch and striding around the back of the pickup before she could tell him she had a more pressing problem to worry about than her ankle. She tried to think of a subtle way to inform him of her dilemma. None came immediately to mind. Sighing, she stopped him just as he opened the passenger door and prepared to deposit her inside.

      “Before you plop me down on that seat, I think you should know I’m sporting a collection of needle-sharp stickers. I landed on a tumbleweed,” she added when he flashed her a startled look. “I need to remove a few unwanted thistles from my posterior.”

      “Damn!” His mouth took a wicked curve. “And I was just thinking my day couldn’t get any better.”

      His leer was so exaggerated, she didn’t even try to hold back her sputter of laughter. “Let’s not make this any more embarrassing than it already is. Just put me down and I’ll, er, perform an emergency extraction.”

      He set her on her feet and gave her a hopeful look. “I’ll be glad to assist in the operation.”

      “I can manage.”

      Making no effort to hide his disappointment, he watched with unabashed interest while Kate grabbed the door handle to steady herself and twisted around. It took some contorting to reach all the thorny stickers. One by one, she flicked them off into the ditch.

      “You missed one,” Scott advised as she dusted the back of her thigh. “A little lower.”

      Removing the last twig, she leaned her weight on her ankle to test it. The pain was already subsiding, thank goodness. Pasting a smile on her face, she turned to her would-be rescuer.

      “I’m Lieutenant Commander Kate Hargrave, by the way. I’m with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency.”

      As a lieutenant commander in NOAA’s commissioned-officer corps, Kate outranked an air force captain. The fact that Scott had just watched a senior officer pluck thorns out of her bottom appeared to afford him no end of amusement. His eyes glinting between those ridiculously thick gold-tipped lashes, he introduced himself.

      “Dave Scott. Airplane driver.”

      To her profound disgust, Kate discovered her inoculation against handsome devils like this one wasn’t quite as effective as she’d thought. Or as permanent. Shivers danced along her skin as she gazed up at him. He was so close she could see the beginnings of a bristly gold beard. The way his cheeks creased when he smiled. The reflection of her sweat-sheened face in his mirrored glasses.

      She got an up close whiff of him, too. Unlike Kate, he still carried a morning-shower scent, clean and shampooy, coated with only a faint tang of dust. No woodsy aftershave for Captain Dave Scott, she noted, then wondered why the heck she’d bothered to take such a detailed inventory.

      This wasn’t smart, Kate thought as her heart thumped painfully against her ribs. Not smart at all. She’d learned the hard way not to trust too-handsome charmers like this one. If nothing else, her brief, disastrous marriage had taught her to go with her head and not her hormones where men were concerned.

      Added to that was the fact that she and Scott would be working together for the next few weeks. In extremely close proximity. Despite her flamboyant looks and sensual figure, Kate was a professional to her toes. A woman didn’t acquire a long string of initials after her name and the title of senior weather research scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency without playing