Losing login status switching between wordpress and non-wordpress pages

I have wordpress and non-wordpress sections in my site and I lose my login status when switching pages. I login to wordpress and go to the blog home page where I naturally find the “log out” link appearing. But if I visit a non-wordpress page in my site, I return to wordpress to find that the blog’s “login” link now appears as if I’m not logged in anymore.

One strange thing, though: This occurs in Firefox and Opera, but IE works correctly showing the “logout” link. Sounds like some cookie issue?

Fyi: I cannot include/require wp-blog-header or wp-load files in the header of these non-wp pages as it would conflict with the other apps.

Thanks for the help.