Читать книгу The Best Of Blaze - Six Sexy Romances - Jo Leigh - Страница 23

13

THIS TIME WHEN the water got cold, Molly got out of the tub before Jason. He followed her a moment later, wrapping a towel around his lean hips. He gave her a kiss and left the room, but she stayed in there for a long time getting dressed and thinking about Houston.

Maybe she shouldn’t have volunteered to go with him, but she’d heard the loneliness in his voice. He was used to being alone, had told her that he liked it, but this was one instance when she knew he wouldn’t want to be.

She took her small Nike duffle bag from the back of her closet and tossed some clothes into it before going downstairs to find Rina.

She was sitting on the back porch drinking a glass of iced tea and talking on the phone. She hung up when she saw Molly.

“What’s up, sunshine?”

“I’m going to Houston with Jason,” she said. “Just for a few days.”

“Well...is there something else you want to tell me?”

She looked over at Rina. She was the closest thing that Molly had to an aunt and she knew all of Molly’s secrets. “We’ve slept together. I...I care for him.”

“Obviously. What’s up?”

“I’m not sure what I’m doing. He is going to do everything he can to go back to space. There is no woman alive who can compete with that.”

“Don’t compete,” Rina said. “Why do you have to? You wouldn’t leave the ranch to permanently go to Houston, would you?”

“No. I can handle a few days, but my home is here.”

Rina sat up, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. “I imagine it’s the same for him.”

“I don’t know how to do this. In my head...well, I always thought if I fell for a guy, he’d be the type to raise cattle and kids. Not leave the planet for more than a year at a time.”

Molly sat down next to Rina on the lounge chair and her friend hugged her. “The heart isn’t like that. You might think you want one thing, but you really want something else.”

“Why does it have to be that way?”

Rina shrugged. “Girl, you know I’m single and have the worst taste in men. You’ve seen me crying over a guy or trying to drink his memory away more than once.”

“I have,” Molly said. “But I always figured I was smarter than you.”

Rina lightly punched her arm. “Watch it.”

“I just hoped... Should I stay home?”

“Only you can decide. Why did he ask you to go to Houston?” Rina asked.

“Actually, I volunteered. He has to take a test earlier than he anticipated and if he doesn’t pass it he may not be chosen to lead the Cronus missions. If he does, I guess he won’t be around here too much longer.”

“Well, hell. You know how to pick the wrong time to fall for a guy,” Rina said.

“Tell me about it. What if I only fall for guys who can’t or don’t want to be with me? That would suck.”

“It would, but Jason does want to be with you.”

“You think?” she asked.

“I know. For the last six weeks, every time you entered a room he stopped what he was doing and watched you until you left.”

“I think that might have been lust. We were trying to keeping our hands off each other.” Pretending that they were fine with the status quo.

Rina slung her arm around Molly’s shoulders again. “I’ve seen attraction and it was more than that. He smiles when you laugh. Listens to your voice even when you aren’t speaking to him. He likes you.”

But did he like her enough? That was the question that kept spinning around her mind. And would Jason liking her even satisfy her? She wasn’t going to lie to herself. She was falling for Jason. Falling hard.

She worried that the time they’d spent together didn’t seem real to him. The ranch wasn’t his life. Being back here must feel like he was pretending. Was she just a diversion to help keep his mind off the outcome of his medical tests and his future?

She wanted him to be part of her future. To build something together that they could share. But she wasn’t too sure that was what Jason wanted.

Hell, she was almost positive it wasn’t. If he couldn’t go on any more missions and decided to stay on the ranch, would she always feel like his consolation prize?

* * *

JASON CALLED LYNN to find out if she’d heard anything from her sources. She had heard the same thing Dennis had, which she thought meant good news for their bid. But she said she’d been in the business long enough to know that anything could happen before the official announcement. Still, she felt confident enough to book a trip to Houston and the ranch in four days’ time to assess the property. She liked to meet the people she’d be working with in person.

Jason hung up and went to look for Molly. He couldn’t find her in the house and Rina was deep in conversation with Jeb and Andy in the kitchen, so Jason skipped going in there. He really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Just needed to find Molly.

He didn’t like that he felt that way and almost turned around and went back up to his room. He needed Molly now. He knew that this afternoon in the office and the tub had strengthened the tenuous bonds between them, but it was more than that. He’d needed her for a while. He depended on being able to talk to her and get her opinion.

He was using her to help him through this time when nothing was certain. He knew that wasn’t fair, but that didn’t change the truth.

Giving up on his search of the house, he strode outside. The Mule was still parked where he’d left it so he drove it over to the barn to park it properly and then sat there listening to the sound of the wind blowing over the fields. The cattle were all out to pasture, but the horses in the barn made some soft sounds.

He closed his eyes and stored this moment in his head. He was determined to go back into space, where it was cold and he wouldn’t hear the wind or smell the fields. Where he would be isolated again, from everything but his crewmates.

He craved that isolation. As much as he knew he’d miss this, too.

If he passed the medical.

And if he didn’t? Would it be enough to stay on the ranch, to run the training facility? Would he still feel whole?

He got off the Mule and walked over to the barn. He glanced inside, but Molly wasn’t there. Where had she gone?

He wondered if she’d changed her mind about going with him to Houston.

He’d be disappointed if she had. He shouldn’t let this continue, he knew. Shouldn’t let himself care for her. He needed to be the Ace he’d always been. And he’d always been on his own. Was he hedging his bets with Molly, keeping her close as a backup plan?

He’d wondered about that before and now it seemed more important that he try to answer the question.

He left the barn and walked back toward the house on the meandering path that took him past the bunkhouses. Only one was being used right now by the hands. They’d set up a basketball hoop to the left of the bunkhouse and three of the guys were playing a game of keep-away.

He remembered growing up here. Remembered playing basketball with the other guys who had found themselves living on the ranch. One of them had called it the ass end of nowhere. It had certainly felt that way to Jason. Mick had been the person who’d made it tolerable for him. Had given him books to read and nurtured his love of the cosmos. It was Mick who’d put the idea of being an astronaut in his head.

That was what he’d thought would happen this time—returning to the ranch would give him clarity, help him figure out what was next. But it didn’t. He wasn’t resetting. He felt too old to start over and he didn’t want to.

He knew what he wanted.

Space.

Exploring the universe, seeing comets, stars, asteroids and planets no other human had been close to.

But he also wanted Molly.

This afternoon had made him realize that he wasn’t on a solo mission anymore. Sometime in the last six weeks that had changed. And it wasn’t because of anything she’d been doing. It was because of his own actions—working on the ranch and making plans for a life that included NASA but wasn’t devoted solely to it. He’d never had this before and he felt like he had on his first space walk.

Scared.

Maybe a little bit excited, but unsure, feeling his way. A part of him was ready to hear that he was permanently grounded.

He was trying to convince himself it would be okay. Whatever Dr. Tomlin said he’d accept it. He had no choice.

He neared the house and noticed Molly standing on the porch, staring down at him. How long had she been watching him?

What did she see when she looked at him?

A man who was here for the long haul or someone who was using the Bar T the way he had as a kid? That would be a fair assessment since he’d been clear that that was what he was doing. But he wanted her to see something better in him.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. Hell, he didn’t even know what he wanted from himself.

“Whatcha doing?” he called out when he was close enough for her to hear. Trying to be cool and casual. Not like a man who needed her more than he wanted to admit to himself.

“Watching the sky. I think we might get some storms tonight.”

He felt like the storm was already here. Raining and thundering through his soul and leaving him huddled and unsure. She watched him and it did nothing to help him. He knew he had to figure out what he wanted from his life and he needed to do it now before he fell any harder for her. Because once he fell in love his options would change. They had to. And he wasn’t ready for that to happen.

Why had he thought that he could sleep with Molly and it wouldn’t be anything other than physical?

She’d always been the one woman he’d never been able to forget.

* * *

JASON DIDN’T SAY much the next morning as he drove his late-model sports car through the Houston traffic. They’d left the ranch early but still hit traffic on US 59 as they’d approached the city.

“The last time I was here was for college,” Molly said, trying to engage him in conversation to take his mind off the tests.

“You never did say why you left.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, looking out the window at the other commuters creeping along the highway. What could she say? “It was a relationship. That was the real reason. Annabelle’s messiness wasn’t actually that hard to live with.”

“What happened?”

She rubbed the back of her neck. She didn’t like to talk about it. Who did? Breakups were messy, painful and embarrassing. “I fell hard for this guy. He seemed to fall for me, and then...life happened. He got called back home because his mom was sick and while he was there he fell out of love with me. End of story.”

“That doesn’t sound like that’s all there is to it.”

She sighed. “He’d been gone from school for two weeks and we had been texting...and he was sort of being distant. I thought his mom had taken a turn for the worse.”

She remembered everything about that time.

“What happened?” Jason asked as he signaled to exit the highway.

“Well, I was worried so I went there to see him. He’d hooked back up with his high school girlfriend. He was going to tell me when he got back to Houston. Didn’t want to break up over the phone, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to die. Not so much because of the emotions, though they hurt, but because I’d been so foolish. I misjudged him.”

“His mistake,” Jason said. “He missed out on something special.”

She had thought so at the time, but now, feeling what she did for Jason, she knew that the college boyfriend had never been right for her. He’d been someone new and different but not the love of her life. “It took a while for me to realize that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to trust myself and my judgment with a guy again.”

“Who changed that for you?” he asked.

“Do you really want my romantic history?”

“I guess not. I was just... I wondered how you got over it.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and thought about it. “Going home was the best tonic for that heartbreak. Made me realize what was really important. Dad and Rina both let me have some time to figure things out and that was all I needed. I started to realize it was mainly humiliation I was feeling, not really a broken heart. That helped the most. What about you? Ever had a broken heart?”

He glanced away from the road for a moment to look at her. Then he turned his attention back to the traffic. “I don’t think so. I’ve been pretty casual in all my relationships. Didn’t want anything to interfere with my commitment to NASA.”

“What about now?” she asked. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished them back. She stared straight ahead and tried to pretend she hadn’t just asked him how he felt about her.

“I’m not sure. You’re different, Molly.”

He pulled up to the security gate at the space center and lowered his window to talk to the guard. Then he started driving again. She had more questions, but now wasn’t the time. She was disappointed, she admitted to herself as he parked the car in front of the program manager’s office, but she tried to shake it off. She tried to compare what she felt now to what she’d experienced back in college and it was impossible. There was no way to equate a crush and her first sexual experience with what she felt for Jason.

He looked over at her and she sensed he knew she was thinking about what hadn’t been said in the car.

“Want to meet my boss?” he asked.

Not really. But this was what she was competing against for his affections. She should learn as much about the program and the people involved as possible. If he was cleared to return to space, they were the only part of him that would be left here in Texas. And she would be working with them on the training facility.

“Sure.”

She slung her purse over her shoulder and walked up the steps, aware that she looked like a country mouse who’d come to the city. But it didn’t bother her. She was who she was. Jason put his hand on the small of her back as they entered the air-conditioned building and walked down the long hallway past crew photos and pictures of different missions. She tried not to look at them, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to see “Ace” in his element because then it would make it real that he belonged at NASA and not on the ranch with her. When she saw a large photo of Jason by himself in his space suit, holding his helmet, she stopped and stared.

She saw the intensity in his eyes and she knew then that she was being silly about a man again. There was no way a woman could compete with something that made him feel that way. It wasn’t just his career. It was his calling. Being an astronaut was who he was. He belonged in the space station or exploring a distant planet, not repairing fences on the ranch.