Читать книгу The Best Of Blaze - Six Sexy Romances - Jo Leigh - Страница 18

8

JASON TOLD HER about the night sky as he held her in his arms. In the distance there was nothing but endless inky darkness. They were too far from town to see the flickering streetlights and too far from the buildings on the ranch to see their lights, either. It was as if they were the only two people on the planet at this moment.

“Is that the appeal of traveling to Mars or another far-off planet?” she asked. “Being the only person there...well, apart from the rest of the crew, of course.”

“Some of it,” he said. “Part of it is that when I’m up there I don’t have the worries I do on Earth. I just have to do my job. And everything is mission critical. I can’t stop to worry about anything else.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting away from my worries here,” she said. “But I’d miss the ranch.”

He tightened his arms around her and smoothed her hair absently. He was mellow. Hell, she was, too. It was as if sex had reset something inside of her that she hadn’t realized was askew.

“What would you run away from?” he asked.

She thought about it for a moment. She could tell him anything. That was what it felt like tonight. He was warm and comforting as he held her.

“Just all the doubts that I have,” she said. “I get so tired of wondering if I’m doing what Dad wanted. I hate that he’s not here. I wish... I almost wish he’d been sick for a little while so I could have had some warning, been able to say good-bye, but that’s selfish. He would have hated being stuck in bed, unable to take care of things around the ranch. Still, it would have been easier for me.”

He rubbed her arm up and down.

“I wish I’d been here. As much as I like being up there...I wish I’d been here for you when Mick had his accident. I wish I’d told him at least once how grateful I am for what he did for me,” Jason said.

She squeezed his wrist. “He knew.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He was very proud of you. He told everyone who came to the ranch, didn’t matter if they were delivering feed or a new stud. Dad would tell them about his ‘son’ the astronaut.”

Jason squeezed her tight and she heard his breath catch. She turned to look at him, but he’d tipped his head up toward the sky and she gave him a moment. Gave him the time he needed to get his emotions under control.

That was the thing about grief, she thought—it wasn’t just over and done. It kept sweeping along and hitting her when she least expected it. But talking about Dad tonight felt right. Felt like they both needed to get some sort of closure in regard to the man who’d meant the world to both of them and had left them so unexpectedly.

She knew that if it hadn’t been for Mick’s death, she and Jason wouldn’t be here. They would both be living their ordinary lives.

“I miss him,” she said.

“I know. What do you think he’d say about us turning part of the ranch into a training facility?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s different. Is this your way of staying with NASA even if you don’t pass the medical?”

He shrugged. She noticed he did that a lot when he didn’t want to answer a question. She got it. It was easier for her to talk about him than to examine herself.

“Sort of,” he said. “Ever feel like you were born at the wrong time?”

“Not really. I’m pretty happy right where I am.”

“Yeah, I can see that. That’s probably why everything has hit you so hard with your dad,” he said. “I mean...”

She reached up and touched his face. “I get it. Why do you wish you were born in a different time?”

“Well, if I was born thirty years earlier, I could have been part of the moon landing and those missions. Twenty years later and I’d be the perfect age to land on Mars one day. Instead...”

“You are doing the work to enable others to go to Mars. To allow us to see if there is other life in the universe,” she said. “This facility—the missions you would be training astronauts for are key to the next step.”

He squeezed her tighter. “I sound like a punk, complaining like that.”

“I wouldn’t word it like that,” she said.

“No, you’re much too nice. But my buddies in the Cronus program...”

“Like who? Tell me about them. Are there any women?” she asked. “I’m friends with Jessie Odell, the adventurer, and she does some crazy-ass stuff—surviving in the wilderness, going places where very few men and even fewer women have been.”

“I’ve heard of her. Who hasn’t?” Jason said. “How do you know her?”

“We’re pen pals. After my smoking incident in the barn, Dad thought I needed a better use of my time. So he found her fan mail address—she was still doing that show with her parents—and I wrote to her. I told her about living on the ranch. She grew up on the ocean and...we connected. We both were isolated in our own ways.”

“That’s pretty cool. I felt that way when I got assigned to my first mission and started training with Dennis. He’d done a bunch of missions, but we connected. He’s like a big brother to me.”

“And now he’s the guy in charge of the Cronus program, right?”

“Yes. If I pass my medical tests, I’ll be competing for a place in his program, along with a bunch of other guys.”

“Do you know most of them?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m probably one of the senior astronauts.”

“You’re not that old,” she said.

“Geez, thanks,” he said. “I meant because of the mission-hours I’ve clocked.”

“I know it will be very hard for you if you’re grounded permanently,” she said. “Why would you want the facility here, outside Houston? Won’t that make it even worse?”

“I’ve spent my entire career working toward manned missions to Mars and making sure we will be prepared to form a colony there one day. I need to know what’s out there. But if I’m grounded, I at least want to be involved in some way. I’d never be able to leave NASA completely.”

In his voice she heard the same pain and longing she felt when she thought about losing the ranch. He would help her save the Bar T—she knew even if they didn’t win the bid, Jason wouldn’t leave until the ranch was secure. And now she wanted to do as much for him. She would help him get into shape, do whatever he needed to be ready for his medical. Not for herself, because she was just realizing how much she’d miss him, but for him.

* * *

WELL, GETTING DRESSED wasn’t awkward at all. Molly handed him his clothes and then he followed her back to the ranch. Rina wasn’t in the kitchen, but she’d left half a blueberry pie in the middle of the table with a Post-it note that said there was homemade ice cream in the fridge.

Molly raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you want pie?”

“Yeah, and maybe some decaf,” he said. “But I need a shower.”

She tipped her head to the side, watching him with a guarded look. “I think you are all right.”

She was probably right, but now that he was back in this house he felt the walls closing in on him. He needed to get away for a few minutes. Needed time to think.

Molly was great, but she made him want things that weren’t in his plans. She made the ranch feel like...well, hell, it felt like home. And he didn’t want that. The Bar T Ranch was his temporary stopover, nothing more.

“Yeah, but I’d still like a shower. Meet me back down here in thirty?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m going to skip dessert and head up. I have to be up early to do chores with the men. I’ve missed them two days in a row. Jeb will give me hell if I’m not there tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he said.

The distance between them was creeping back in. Though he’d thought he wanted that, he realized he didn’t want it this way. He didn’t want to feel like he’d done or said the wrong thing. But he was pretty sure he had.

When hadn’t he said the wrong thing? “I’m sorry. It’s just...tonight was...”

“Don’t say anything else. I’m tired. Like I said, I’ve got to be up early and tonight was nice. I wish it didn’t have to end, but it’s like those old stories about the man in the moon. When we look at it too long it falls apart. Let’s say good-night now before I make this awkward.”

But it was too late. He knew it and he read in her eyes that she did, too. He wanted to apologize again, but she must know he hadn’t meant for this to happen. Didn’t she? “Do you need me in the morning?”

“Nah. You might want to ride some of the fences tomorrow and get the lay of the land again. You can take out the Mule, the all-terrain vehicle. I’ll assign one of our hands to take you around.”

“Okay. I also want to see the acreage you spoke of using for the facility.”

“Jeb is working on clearing it. We haven’t used it for cattle in a while. We can talk it over at breakfast if you’re up that early or at lunch, which is at noon.”

“I’ll be at breakfast,” he said.

She nodded. “Night.”

She walked out of the room and he just watched her leave. He sat down hard at the table and looked around the big ranch kitchen. The hardwood table that had been built to serve the ranch hands. It was sturdy, well used. Like he felt tonight. Not on its last leg, but worn and scarred. He wanted to believe that he was managing life and all that it threw at him, but tonight he wasn’t.

He wanted... Hell, he had no idea. Sex was supposed to be a stress relief. Wasn’t that what Hemi always called it? But sex with Molly wasn’t just physical. It was more like finding another part of his soul—a part he’d never even knew existed—and feeling as if he was a little closer to being whole.

A person couldn’t be that for him. He didn’t trust the universe to keep the people he cared about alive and with him. He kept his relationships carefully limited. Mick, Dennis, maybe Hemi and a few of the other guys who were trying for the Cronus missions. That was it. He didn’t let many people get close to him and he had the uncomfortable feeling that Molly had slipped in when he hadn’t been paying attention.

Her long legs and curvy hips had distracted him. Made him think with his dick instead of his brain. And now he was dealing with the fallout.

He put his head in his hands, stared at the tabletop and saw a small crescent moon etched into the wood. Dropping his hands, he traced the old carving. He remembered how rebellious he’d felt when he’d worked on it over the course of his first summer at the ranch. He’d felt like he had a secret. Tonight he’d unconsciously sat in the same spot that had been his all those years ago. He glanced across the table, remembered that Molly had sat there.

It was funny that no matter how much had changed this still felt like his spot. He rubbed the moon again. He had always been so sure of what he wanted, where he wanted to go, where his real home was—up there in the stars—but as he looked around the kitchen and the memories of the past swelled around him, he realized he had more of a home here than he wanted to remember.

* * *

HE LEFT BEFORE dawn broke over the horizon the next day. Making love to Molly...well, that hadn’t been his smartest idea, but he didn’t regret it.

As much as ranching wasn’t in his plans, he owed it to Mick to make sure that the place survived.

Despite his desire to ride the fences and see the acreage they’d discussed the night before, he didn’t want to wait another moment before putting their plan into action. That was why he’d left. It wasn’t cowardice driving him from her arms; it was determination. Or at least that was his story and he was sticking to it. He fiddled with the radio and had a flashback to this first ride out to the Bar T Ranch sitting in the front seat with Mick.

The older man had been larger than life and his voice the kind of quiet rumble that rolled through a room the way thunder did across the wide-open plains. He’d hit the different buttons on the radio and looked over at Jason—he’d definitely only been Jason back then—and said, “You like this kind of music?”

Jason hadn’t said anything. Still mad that he’d gotten busted for living alone and scared that legally he had to live with this guy.

Finally, after exhausting all of the choices, Mick turned to him, stared with those wise eyes of his and said, “You don’t like much, do you?”

Jason had shrugged. He’d been living alone for six months after his mom died. For most of that time there had been no electricity, no music. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough,” Mick said. “Now that you’re living with us, you can figure it out.”

Mick had turned on a country music station. Not one of the modern ones. One that played classic country like George Jones, Hank Williams, Jr. and Conway Twitty. And Jason had been hooked. Mick knew it and kept him supplied with CDs and a new CD player in his room. It was the first thing he’d liked about his new life. That, and the fact that he didn’t have to worry about finding his next meal or keeping warm at night.

Now, he stopped on that old classic country station. “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?” by George Jones began to play, and tears burned the back of Ace’s eyes. He wondered if there’d ever be a man who could fill Mick’s shoes. Ace was determined to do right by Molly and the ranch. It was the least he could do for the man who’d saved his life and made this future possible.

And there was Molly. He wanted her to always have the land she loved. To always be able to get on her horse and take that midnight ride across the pasture. He didn’t want them to have to sell or lease a single acre.

He had texted Dennis as soon as he had a decent signal and told him he was coming to the base today. He got a response thirty minutes later confirming the appointment.

He thought he should probably contact Molly, but what would he say?

Last night, much like the day he’d first come to the Bar T Ranch, had shown him a glimpse of another life. He was tempted by it, by her, but his heart belonged to NASA, to exploring new worlds, discovering new places.

But he was tempted. For the first time since...well, since he’d first kissed her all those years ago.

As he drove on base at Johnson Space Center he still had that feeling of excitement he’d had the first time he’d set foot on the property. Being an astronaut had never become old hat to him—there was nothing routine about his life or about what he did for a living.

He was early for his appointment so he headed over to astronaut quarters. His apartment was in the Mercury building. He walked up the drive just as Hemi “Thor” Barrett was exiting.

“Ace, man, glad to see you. That was a short medical leave.” Hemi gave Ace a bro hug and stepped back. Hemi had been his right-hand man on many missions. Since the station was international they were often up there with astronauts from other countries and it was always nice to talk to someone from home. Hemi had on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses and his standard NASA-issued sweats.

“It’s not over, unfortunately, and I’m not here for long. But the situation is complicated and I don’t want to keep you,” Ace replied.

“You aren’t keeping me from anything except a five-mile run and I can do that any time before eight when I have a hot date. Is it coffee-or beer-complicated?”

“Beer, but it’s too early for that. Plus I’ve got a meeting with Dennis in thirty.”

“Walk and talk?” Hemi asked.

“Yeah...”

“So, besides exercising, what are you doing with your time?”

“Well, remember that ranch I grew up on?”

“Yeah, anyone who’s had to listen to your Conway Twitty CDs remembers it.”

Ace punched Hemi in the arm. “Watch it.”

“What’s up with the ranch?”

“I inherited half of it and I’m going to be there for a while straightening things out. Do you know much about the new Cronus training facility they’re talking about building?”

“Nah, just that they are looking to outsource it. Dennis isn’t happy about some of the bidders. He told us a few days ago that he didn’t like working with civilians. Why?”

Ace bit back a smile. That sounded just like Dennis. He liked everything military so no one questioned his orders. They’d reached the base headquarters and he and Hemi stopped in front of the program manager’s office.

“Drinks later? I want to hear what you’re up to. Or are you heading out after your appointment?” Hemi asked.

“I can do lunch,” Ace said.

“See you then.”