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should have pulled away and crowed about her victory. She was more than halfway there. But while she did pull back, she didn’t say a word. Instead she stared into his dark eyes, at the fire there, the fire that matched the one raging inside her.
    Then she did the only thing that couldn’t possibly make sense. She turned and ran.

Five
    I f there wasn’t twenty million for charity on the line, not to mention the house itself, Jack would have been on the road back to Texas the next morning. But he was stuck for the month. All the other guys had survived their time at Hunter’s Landing, so he would, too. But he would bet a lot of money that their weeks had been a whole lot less hellish than his.
    He didn’t want to think about his most recent kiss with Meri, but he couldn’t seem to think about anything else. It had been different. He’d felt the power of his need for her all the way down to his bones. He’d ached for her in a way that was more than unsettling.
    Trouble. Meri was nothing but trouble. She’d been a whole lot easier to handle when she’d been a teenager.
    He walked into the kitchen, intent on coffee, only to find one of her team members pouring a cup. Jack frowned slightly, trying to put a name with the face.
    “Morning,” the guy said and held out the pot for Jack.
    “Morning…Colin,” he added, remembering the smaller man from his arrival.
    “Right.” Colin pushed up his glasses and smiled. “Great house.”
    “I agree.”
    “It belongs to your friend, right? Meri’s brother? The one who died.”
    Casual, easy words. The one who died. They cut through him like a razor and left wounds only he could see. “Yes. Hunter had this house built.”
    “Meri said this house was being turned over to the town or something. That it’s going to be a place where sick people can recover and regroup. That’s cool.”
    It was pure Hunter. Wanting to make a difference even after he was gone.
    “How’s the work coming?” Jack asked, not wanting to talk about his friend anymore. “Making progress?”
    “Not yet. Theoretically there is a way to increase thrust within the confines of a safe formulation, but the nature of our planet seems to be that going faster and longer always means creating something toxic. Meri is determined to change that. When we consider the finite nature of our resources and the vastness of space, there are going to have to be some spectacular breakthroughs before we’ll ever have a chance to explore our solar system, let alone the galaxy.”
    Colin took a quick gulp of his coffee. “The truth is, the next few generations are going to be like the early Vikings. Going off on the rocket equivalent of rafts into a great unknown. If you consider their total lack of technology, the analogy is even more interesting. Because we consider ourselves cutting-edge, but compare what we have now to the first Russian launches. It’s like they used paper clips and rubber bands to hold the whole thing together. But if they hadn’t launched first, would Kennedy have pushed space flight? If you knew the number of modern innovations that came out of the space program…” He trailed off and looked slightly confused. “What were we talking about?”
    “How your work was going.”
    “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I get carried away.” Colin shifted slightly. “I like your car.”
    “Thanks.” The sleek sports car wasn’t practical, but it was fun to drive.
    “Get good mileage with that?”
    Jack grinned. “No.”
    “I didn’t think so. I’d like a car like that.”
    “So buy one,” Jack told him. Someone with Colin’s brain had to make enough money.
    “I’d like to, but it’s not a good idea. I’m not a great driver.” Colin shrugged. “I get easily distracted. You know, I’ll be going along just fine and then I think about something with work and—zap—I’m just not paying attention. I’ve had a couple of accidents. I drive a Volvo. It’s safer for me and the rest of the