Her smile wavered. The way she felt now couldn't compare to the afterglow of sex, but compared to the past few days, it was wonderful. "That was brilliant, Hawk."
"Jibril will have raised some flags when he had his people download my research and when he acquired the computer equipment. Whether Weltzer was traced to him or not, he must already be a suspect in my disappearance. This should help to pinpoint my location, as long as someone knows enough to follow the trail."
"They will," she said. "You'd be surprised what my colleagues in Intelligence can do when they want to track someone down. Even if Redinger believed I had taken the full five-day leave he'd offered, six have gone by now since I spoke with him, so someone would definitely be looking for us."
"What leave?"
"It's not important." Sarah got to her knees on the mattress and clasped his shoulders. She grinned and gave him a shake. "This won't only show the team where we are, it will give them the grounds they need to raid this ship. Hawk, you're a genius."
He smiled. "Technically, yes, I am."
It was his smile that did it. One of his dimples folded right through the fading bruise on his cheek. Laugh lines crinkled into the weariness around his eyes. Sarah leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on his mouth. "Okay, since there's a chance the team is on its way, we'd better get busy," she said. "Our first priority is finding a way to signal our exact location within the vessel. It has to be simple. We could put a lamp in front of a porthole—"
Hawk clamped one hand over the back of her neck.
"Do you have a better idea?" she asked.
He held her in place and returned the kiss. It wasn't quick like the one she had given him. It was slow and thorough, wrapping around her senses like a lazy sunrise, as if they had all the time in the world.
Sarah shuddered. But they didn't have time. She shouldn't do this. They had to make a plan. They had to find a way to aid in their escape and—
He tilted his head, his nose rubbing hers as he ran his tongue over the seam of her lips. He coaxed her gently and slipped inside.
Sarah's hands clenched on his shoulders, then slid downward over his arms. She fitted her palms over his biceps, feeling the throb of his pulse in his veins and the slick heat of his skin. Her knees nudged his thigh. She opened her mouth to him, drawing in his taste. For long, stolen minutes she took the sweet pleasure he gave her.
It was just a kiss, only a kiss. She didn't invite more, and Hawk didn't push. He didn't move his hand from her nape; he didn't press her down on the bed. Beneath her fingers she could feel the muscles of his arms tremble with his effort at control, yet the moment she started to ease away, he lifted his head.
He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip and carried the moisture to his mouth. He closed his eyes, his chest heaving. "I'll set up the lamp."
Sarah swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat. He was picking up the conversation where they had left off. She knew how much he wanted her, but he was doing what she'd asked.
She would rather forget her duty and kiss him again.
Oh, it would be so easy to fall in love with a man like Hawk…
She rolled off the bed. Hazel. Jackson's eyes were hazel. His smile was…boyish. Yes, that was it. He had dimples beside his mouth.
No, it was Hawk who had dimples.
She blinked hard. Jackson was the perfect soldier, everything a man should be. He was honorable, loyal and courageous and it had taken four men to haul him down….
No, that had been Hawk, too.
Jackson understood her. He respected her opinions and listened to more than her words, so he knew when to hold her and when to let her go….
Damn, even that was Hawk.
Why was she fighting this so hard? She worked in Intelligence. She wasn't an idiot. She was skilled at gathering information and putting together the pieces of a puzzle.
Of course, what she felt for Hawk was more than lust or a crush or an infatuation. That was obvious by now.
So why was she so desperate to deny the feelings that were growing in her heart? Why was she trying to convince herself that Hawk wasn't the right man?
The answer was simple. Because when she was with him, she turned into the wrong woman.
Chapter 13
It took one more day for Jibril to take the bait, but the special program Hawk had requested was on the computer by the morning of the sixth day. Hawk didn't try to hide his relief when he discovered it—the reaction would be expected. He set to work immediately, doing nothing to tip off the guards to his strategy.
It was Sarah's own reaction that worried her. She was having a hard time maintaining her game face. Although for the remainder of the day she sat in her designated chair across the table from Hawk, just as she had for the past five days, she kept catching herself leaning toward him.
In a way, the hope was more painful than the waiting. It was tempting her to look beyond the next minute, the next hour, the first deadline. What if they really did escape? What then?
As Hawk had once said, even soldiers went home eventually.
The apartment Sarah rented in Fayetteville near the base was a lovely place. It took up the entire second floor of a stately Victorian three-story. It came complete with a rounded turret room and a beautiful view of her landlady's rose garden. Sarah hadn't spent much effort decorating the apartment, since she wasn't often there, and she had no house plants or pets for the same reason. Still, it was comfortable.
She and Jackson would have had a house of their own once they were married. She didn't know whether they would have had a garden or pets, though. They'd never discussed it. With the demands of their separate careers, they wouldn't have been there often, either. Was that why she'd never pictured going home to him?
She had awakened to the sight of Hawk every day for more than a week now. She was so accustomed to him she could feel his presence. His scent flavored the air she breathed. His voice strummed her senses. She could picture him in the turret room at night with the starlight streaking his hair silver. She could imagine him among her landlady's roses in the morning, his long fingers stroking the dewdrops from the petals. She could even imagine the glint in his eyes as he pilfered a flower to lay on her pillow.
What would have happened if she'd admitted to Jackson that she really did like flowers? Would he have brought her some, even though they weren't practical?
Had the general given her mother flowers? She couldn't remember seeing any in the house, so he probably hadn't. He and Jackson were a lot alike. That's why they had gotten along so well—Jackson had been like the son he'd always wanted. The general had been bursting with pride when she and Jackson had announced their engagement. He'd kissed her on the cheek and had said, "Well done, soldier."
The memory used to make her smile. It didn't now. It was almost as if she'd said yes to Jackson just to please her father. There had to have been more to it than that. She'd loved Jackson deeply. He'd been a good man. He'd made her happy.
But had he ever challenged her? Had he pushed her to be honest? Had he seen beyond the surface to the woman who was trying so hard to be someone he could love?
Maybe Jackson had never really known her. That wasn't his fault. She had kept him at a distance. She'd shown him only the woman everyone expected her to be. When had that started? On their first date? When they had met? She suspected the pattern of her life had begun long before that.
What if she'd told her father that sometimes she'd wanted to cry instead of saluting? The idea had never entered her head—after her mother's death, Sarah had been so terrified of losing another parent, she had thought only of molding herself into someone her father could love. He was an officer, a prominent general, so his attention was always focused on the soldiers under his command. The only time she earned his attention or his praise was when she acted just like his men. Tough. Strong. In charge.
Still, she thrived on her career in Delta Force and couldn't imagine doing anything else. It wasn't an act�
�she was tough, strong and in charge when she had to be. She enjoyed the excitement of each new mission and the satisfaction of stretching her mental and physical abilities to the limit. What had begun as a way to win approval had become the best part of her life. She had no regrets about that.
Yet while Hawk respected her dedication to her career, he had always seen that there was more to her than what she could do. He'd seen her. With Hawk, she didn't need to prove anything.
It made her wonder. If she'd given her father a chance, if she hadn't tried so hard, if she hadn't allowed the emotional distance between them to grow, would he have loved her anyway?
And what about Jackson? Why couldn't she think of him as Kyle? How different would their relationship have been if she had insisted that he look her in the eye when he said goodbye?
"Son of a…"
At Hawk's low murmur, Sarah brought her thoughts back to the present. He wasn't looking at her; he was staring at the computer monitor. She didn't think it was a ploy the way it had been before. His face was drained of color, as if he'd just been punched. He moved his head from side to side, his gaze never leaving the screen.
The guards behind him took a step closer. At the sound of their footsteps, Hawk pressed his lips together and hunched over the keyboard. He typed rapidly for a few minutes, his fingers a blur on the keys. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked at Sarah.
He had regained control of his expression, but he couldn't hide the hardness in his gaze.
She felt her blood begin to pound. What was it? Had he seen something? A message in the new program? It was possible Redinger and the team had been one step ahead of them. Could they have slipped a coded signal into the software that Jibril had had downloaded?
Whatever Hawk had seen, it didn't appear to be good.
She glanced at the guards behind Hawk. They didn't seem any more or any less attentive than usual. If they had noticed anything on the screen, they hadn't understood it.
As always, she and Hawk didn't speak until they had checked their quarters at the end of the day. But this time, Hawk wasn't satisfied with one sweep. He went over the rooms twice. He was so meticulous Sarah wanted to scream with impatience. When he started on the third sweep, she grabbed his hand, led him to the bathroom and opened the faucets on the bathtub.
She sat on the edge of the marble tub and gestured behind her. "Even if we missed something, the sound of the running water will mask our conversation."
He nodded. "All right. Thanks."
"What happened? What did you find?"
He dragged one of the armchairs next to the tub. He sat on the arm and put his head close to hers. "I found a mistake."
"In the new program?"
"No. The fault isn't in the program I requested, it's in the data. I had been staring at it all week but hadn't realized what I was seeing. It's the reason why the numbers weren't making sense."
"I don't understand. I thought you got a message."
"Message? How?"
"In the software. I thought—" She waved her hand. "Never mind. What are you talking about?"
"I had assumed all the matrix elements of the short-range pairing interactions were equal. I used that approximation so I could integrate the equations—"
"Hawk, nuclear physics isn't one of the languages I'm fluent in."
"Sorry. I'm still trying to grasp it myself. I'll never know why I didn't see it before. Maybe the stress of this situation is forcing me to look at everything from a different viewpoint." He sat back and raked his fingers through his hair, then rested his clasped hands between his knees. Water continued to rush from the faucet, sending wisps of steam into the air. "It was an intuitive leap. I had a change in perspective."
"And?"
"What it boils down to is there's an error in one of the premises of my work."
"Okay. There's a problem in your research data, is that what you're saying?"
"Not exactly. It's a flaw in my reasoning. An incorrect assumption. Everything that followed it led to a dead end."
It was the strain in his voice more than his words that she understood. She laid her palm over his clasped hands. "Go on."
"The files I uploaded to the Internet last week contain this flaw. Unless someone knows where to look and recognizes it, the information will lead nowhere."
Her grip on his hands tightened. "Oh, no. Are you sure?"
"I spent the whole day running modeling sequences to verify my new hypothesis. I'm sure."
"I'm sorry, Hawk. I understand how important your work is. This must be a horrible blow."
"It's not the research that concerns me, it's our lives."
She drew in her breath as the import of his words finally registered. "If the research you made public is flawed, then this race to be the first to achieve fusion power—"
"The race is a figment of Jibril's paranoid imagination. No one who downloaded my work is any closer to a breakthrough than they were a week ago because my research will send them in the wrong direction."
"Oh, God." She glanced around the room. "Now I understand why you wanted to be certain we weren't overheard. If Jibril learns about this, then he'll have no more reason to keep either of us alive. He'll know that fusion power is impossible."
"It's not impossible, Sarah."
"What? But you said your research was no good."
"I said I found the flaw." He paused. "I also found the solution."
"The solution?"
"It's what was stopping my progress. Once I saw where the problem was, I modified the incorrect assumption, and the rest of the reasoning cascaded into place. My work wasn't worthless, it just needed to be approached from a different direction."
"Are you saying…" She had to shake her head. "I must have misunderstood. It sounds as if you made a breakthrough."
"You could call it that. I would still need to run tests on a particle accelerator to prove my theory would work in practice, but it all fits. I can feel it. It's the key I've been looking for for years."
"Oh, Hawk! That's incredible. That's—" She stopped. The water that splashed into the tub behind her began to gurgle in the drain, echoing the sudden emptiness she felt.
Hawk should have been celebrating. This was the moment he'd worked toward his entire career. His dream of fusion power could become a reality.
Instead, it was only deepening the nightmare.
This was why he'd looked so bleak this afternoon. It wasn't because he'd found a mistake, it was because he'd found the solution.
He knew as well as she did what this meant.
She clamped her hands over the edge of the bathtub. Despite the steam that warmed the air, the marble was like ice beneath her fingers. It wasn't fair. Why now? "Did you erase your work?"
"Not yet. I encrypted it."
"Hawk, you have to destroy it completely."
He didn't respond.
She brought her face to his and lowered her voice. "You can't let Jibril get possession of it. Giving him the discovery will only advance our execution."
"He won't kill us until I can prove the theory works. Giving it to him now could buy you more time."
She pushed her fingertips under her thighs. Time. Yes. There was only one day left before Jibril began to carry out her sentence. For a cowardly instant she wanted to give in…"No," she said. "We had agreed on this. You were only supposed to stall."
"I wasn't deliberately looking for the answer. It just happened. I can use it to bargain."
"Do you really believe a man like Jibril would keep his word?"
He rubbed his face, then stood and walked across the room. He paced restlessly between the sinks and the doorway, his strides stiff, his body rigid.
"You can't let the bastard have this power," Sarah said. "You heard how he plans to use it."
He stopped in front of her. "I would gladly give my life if I thought it would save yours."
She felt a shiver of foreboding at the calm certainty in his tone. "Don't say t
hat."
"You were willing to do the same for me."
"That was different. It was a controlled risk. It was my job."
"And it was my work that put you at risk. I was a fool. I once thought achieving my ambition was all that mattered, but when I saw those equations fall into place on the screen today, I wasn't thinking about the benefits fusion energy could bring to the world. I was sorry I'd ever started it."
"You'll be able to duplicate it when we get out of here, won't you?"
"I don't know. The equations are complex, so there's no guarantee I'll remember every factor."
"Hawk, I'm sorry."
"It doesn't matter to me anymore. You do." He pried loose her grip from the tub and pulled her to her feet. He brought her hands to his lips. He kissed her fingers, lingering over each one in turn. He kissed her palms and the heels of her hands. "Jibril's men won't hurt you. I swear." He pressed her hands to his chest. "Not one precious part of you."
She spread her fingers, focusing on the sight of Hawk's large hands enclosing hers. The horror she felt at the prospect of being maimed was always there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting to snare her. One more day. There might be less time than that if Jibril decided he'd be better off executing them immediately.
A tremor shook her arm.
"Sarah, you have to think positive."
"Right. We'll be rescued."
He moved her hands over his heart. "Yes."
"Even though the Faith is a floating fortress," she said. "And Ahmed and his men aren't going to roll over."
"Your team must have faced worse odds than that."
"Right. They have. And Eagle Squadron always takes care of its own." She inhaled shakily. "But this is the last time I believe the Major when he calls a mission easy."
"Sarah, I don't have the words to express how sorry I am for involving you in this. If I could have foreseen at the start where it would all lead…" His mouth moved into the ghost of a smile. "No, I can't honestly say I would have sent you away. There has never seemed to be anything logical about my feelings for you."
Or mine for you, she thought.
If this had been last week, Sarah would have found an excuse to pull away by now. He was getting too close. She was feeling too exposed.
Aim for the Heart Page 17