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my partner than his military title. I want to know something about the man." Her eyes narrowed briefly. "What makes you run, Jim Woodward?"
    Jim pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. "You have a damn needling habit of being nosy, Ms. Sinclair."
    "And you have a damn needling habit of questioning my credentials when what we really should be doing is planning how to save Laura Trayhern ."
    The set of her jaw, with her chin jutting out, challenged him, as did her incensed gaze. So she was angry, after all—but for the right reasons, Jim realized. "Believe me," he said, trying to hide his emotion in a gruff tone of voice, "no one wants to save Laura more than I do."
    "I understand from Wolf that Laura is a personal friend of yours." Pepper watched his cheeks flame red and saw sudden shyness in that imperious gaze he was trying to control her with. Maybe Woodward wasn't such a jerk, after all. For a moment, she'd glimpsed a real man behind that egotistical marine facade he was employing to try to scare her into quitting.
    "Laura and I go back a long way," Jim muttered offensively, as he turned and walked to the window. In the distance he could see the Capitol and the Washington Monument outlined against the dawning colors of the horizon. "We met when I had my first tour at the Pentagon. Laura was—still is—a military-defense author. It's rare for a woman to find success in the field, and she's considered authoritative on a broad range of military subjects." His voice dropped. "She's an incredible woman…all that intelligence, that ability to comprehend…"
    Pepper watched Jim Woodward's face soften tremendously—as if he'd forgotten she was in the room. The incredible tension around him dissolved as he spoke of Laura. "And she married Morgan Trayhern ?" Pepper asked quietly.
    He shrugged. "Morgan Trayhern crashed into our lives, and she ended up with him."
    The sudden flatness of his tone belied his pain, his confusion over that issue, Pepper realized. No longer was he the tough marine officer; for a moment he was a human being struggling with unresolved emotions regarding a woman he loved.
    "Are you presently in a relationship?"
    Jim shook his head. "No, not a serious one."
    "Any family?"
    "Just my parents, until recently. They died in an auto accident a year ago." Jim turned. He felt oddly sad and didn't try to cover it up. Pepper's gaze was assessing, the warmth still there, continually surrounding him like sunlight. The genuine care and sincerity radiating from her was very real. Vaguely, he acknowledged that good leaders had that kind of charisma. Despite her almost-brutal honesty, Jim admired those qualities. He could understand now why men would work under her command without having male-female issues. Yes, she was personable and easy to talk to—too easy.
    "I'm sorry to hear it," she murmured. No one deserved to have their parents ripped from them like that. Trying to establish a less-traumatic line of conversation, she asked, "Are you an only child?"
    "Yes. And I was spoiled rotten."
    "I have an older brother, Cam . He's married to a wonderful woman named Molly. They have three children now, and I like playing Auntie Pepper to all of them." She smiled fondly as she thought of her brother's family.
    Jim tried to resist her husky voice, but it was like a soothing balm to the sadness he still held in his heart over the unexpected loss of his parents. It uplifted him, and he noticed the luminous quality that came to her eyes when she spoke about her brother. "He's the naval aviator?" he asked, remembering Harding's comments about a Top Gun brother.
    "Yes. Molly used to be in the navy, too. They met at test-pilot school a number of years ago. She's such a homebody, a real hausfrau who enjoys being a mother and parent. Cam lost his first family in a freak airplane accident, so I'm really happy to see them together. I'm glad she decided to resign her commission and become a civilian."
    "Surprising words from a