“As soon as I have a firm plan. It’s all in stage one,” he said. “So go to your tent and get some sleep. I promise nothing is going to happen that can’t be reversed after a few hours. I’m going to talk to Vogel about the drones and give Gilroy a few orders. You’re not going to miss anything of major importance. You can still try to take over and run things when you wake up.”

She hesitated. She could see he was determined to get rid of her, and she might let him do it. She was exhausted, and that discussion about Sasha had been a troubling mixture of warmth and sheer anxiety. “You’ll fill me in on what you did when I wake up?”

“Absolutely. Feel free to grill me.”

“I will.” She covered a yawn as she turned away. “But I’ll try to be polite about it…”

*  *  *

Korgan stood there watching until Alisa disappeared into her tent. It wouldn’t have surprised him if she’d changed her mind and turned around and come back. All it would have taken was a sudden question or idea that she decided she needed to share. He’d learned during these last days that she was always questioning, trying to find the answers. She had probably been doing that since childhood, he thought. Well, so had he, and that might be why his emotions toward her had tended toward being convoluted and extreme.

Hell, face it, he could tell himself it was bonding, but the extreme end was definitely sex. Which made everything else he felt for her all the more volatile and frustrating and very—

“I wasn’t sure that you’d manage to get rid of her. I was going to rescue you.” Vogel was walking toward him, his gaze on Alisa’s tent. “While you were questioning Baldwin, I was watching her expressions. At one point she lit up, and I could tell she was zeroing in.”

“No rescue needed,” Korgan said quietly. “You might be uneasy about her, but she’s no threat. No sinister plots to take me down. She just had her own agenda and felt she had to lie a bit to facilitate it.”