LITMIR.BIZ

      LINDSAY MCKENNA

      is a practicing homeopath and emergency medical technician on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. She comes from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family and is a member of the Wolf Clan. Dividing her energies between alternative medicine and writing, she feels books on and about love are the greatest positive healing force in the world. She lives with her husband, David, at La Casa de Madre Tierra, near Sedona.

      To Emile and Patricia Daher,

       who serve the best food in Sedona at Shugrue’s.

      It’s a joy to come and relax, laugh and share

       pleasantries and friendship.

      Contents

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

      One

      “You could die on this mission, Maggie. This one is no walk in the park.” Dr. Casey Morrow-Hunter drilled Dr. Maggie Harper with a hard look hoping to convince her of the danger she’d be facing. The world-renowned virologist sat on the other side of Casey’s huge oak desk at the Office of Infectious Diseases.

      Maggie raised her eyebrows slightly at her boss’s huskily spoken warning. Sighing, she lifted her long, artistic looking hands. “I risk my life every day in the hot zone. So what’s new?” With a shrug of her shoulders, she gave her a challenging grin. “Tell me what in our business isn’t dangerous, Casey.”

      “Touché,” Casey muttered. She tapped her pencil on the top-secret file that was open on her desk as she studied the woman before her. Maggie’s red hair, which was almost always captured in a chignon at the nape of her long neck when she went into the lab to work with deadly viruses and bacteria, flowed across her proud, thin shoulders. Casey had caught Maggie and pulled her into her office for this discussion before the doctor had a chance to suit up for hot zone work scheduled later that morning.

      Maggie pulled the tea bag out of her flowery cup and placed it on the white china saucer balanced on her crossed legs. “So,” she murmured, giving Casey a knowing look, “what little special assignment have you cooked up for me this time? You know how bored I get. It must be a field assignment? To Africa?”

      Casey smiled at her assistant. Maggie was only five foot three inches tall, but she was a firm one hundred and twenty pounds and an all-around athlete. Despite how small she was, Maggie had a seventeen-hand-high Thoroughbred that she raced in cross country events whenever OID issues didn’t take her weekends away from her. Twelve miles and twenty or so challenging jumps at top speed didn’t faze Casey’s friend of many years. Maggie could break her neck at any time. More than once, Casey has seen her limp into the OID after a brutal weekend of competition. And now, at the thought of a new assignment, Maggie’s hazel eyes inevitably were sparkling with life. She liked living on the edge.

      As if that wasn’t enough, Maggie was not only on the OID sharpshooters’ team, she was leader of it, being more than a little handy with pistols and rifles. Which was why Casey had pulled her for this dangerous mission. Maggie thrived on competition and adventure. When in danger, she was coolheaded, and didn’t allow her emotions to interfere with the steps a doctor on a mission for OID often had to take to save her life. More than once, Casey and Maggie had had a good chuckle over Maggie’s trauma-junkie attitude toward life. It served her well in their dangerous field missions to epidemic outbreaks around the world.

      Tapping the file, Casey said, “I’d take this one myself, but as you know, I tested positive for pregnancy a week ago.”

      Glowing with genuine joy, Maggie sipped her tea. “I know. I’m thrilled for you and Reid. Is he still walking on air?”

      Chuckling, Casey nodded. “Yes, and he’s having hissy fits over me working with all these microbes, saying I’ve got to be extra careful now.”

      “Yeah, like in our business, we’re sloppy.” Maggie burst into laughter.

      The room rang with their black humor that only those in the medical field could truly appreciate. Behind Casey through the slats of the venetian blinds, the sun sent blinding light into her pale pink office, drawing her eye momentarily to the peaceful landscape paintings on three of the four walls. “Oh, he’s like any expectant father. A worrywart,” she murmured softly.

      “That’s why you took yourself off the hot zone list.” Maggie nodded and squeezed a tad of lemon juice into her tea. Delicately, she placed the lemon wedge on the side of the saucer. “Wise move. Have you had morning sickness yet?”

      Rolling her eyes, Casey said, “I’m only six weeks along. And no, no morning sickness—yet.”

      Sitting back in the expensive leather wing

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