“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