Houston, Texas
December 31, 1965
Mitch would say this for the American Space Department: they might not get to the moon, but they were going to enjoy some swinging times along the way. The New Year’s Eve bash he and Margie were hosting was only the latest example.
He’d strung lights between the branches of the big magnolia, and they cast a twinkling glow over the assembled astronauts and their wives and children. Here and there were even some conservative black sport coats and skinny ties: dead giveaways Margie had relented and invited some engineers.
Rain had threatened this morning, but the early evening was clear and surprisingly balmy. Margie was in powder blue, and she stood out like she was electrified against the crowd. She patted someone’s shoulder and complimented a dress and handed out a napkin and laughed at a joke, ever the perfect hostess.
The past month had been good; the best they’d had in ages. If there was still some distance, well, he’d earned that. But Margie had looked at him and she’d talked to him and she’d laughed with him, and those were everything.
It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t like Muroc or Nellis, but it probably couldn't be. They were older, and as she’d said, the world had changed.
Hell, Muroc wasn’t even Muroc anymore—it was Edwards now—and no doubt the little house they’d been assigned to had been demolished. Even if they wanted to, there was no going back.
Tom changed the record, and relentlessly upbeat drumming came hammering out of the stereo. A small cry went up from some of the kids, and Tom grabbed an engineer’s pretty daughter and they began dancing. Christ, Mitch hoped he’d covered the birds and the bees thoroughly enough.
“What the hell is this?” Carruthers took a long pull from his beer. He might have healed from the explosion at the Cape that spring, but he was leaner, sharper. He’d been honed into a blade, and he was always two minutes from slicing you.
Jensen had given Mitch and Carruthers fancy new titles: Co-Directors of Flight Operations, which meant they were in charge of training and crew assignments. Even now in Mitch’s office stood a stack of protocol manuals he had to review and outlines for a new geology class they were going to foist on the Antares astronauts.
Carruthers chafed at the job and kept insisting he’d be back to full status soon, but Mitch was content. He’d found he had a knack for managing the astronaut corps. Even Reynolds, the golden boy of the program, didn’t have the authority and responsibilities Mitch now enjoyed.
Closing the door on the pilot/astronaut part of his life had helped. He no longer felt bitter or resentful when he went to ASD. He’d had his chance, and he’d gone to space, and this was his mission now.
Mitch also had a secret weapon in his wife, who knew everything about what went on outside of ASD. Like whose wife wasn’t speaking to him or whose kid was running with a bad crowd… ASD liked to pretend what happened in their private lives never affected an astronaut’s performance, but Mitch was getting a much more complete picture of how untrue that was thanks to Margie. They were partners—groping their way through this new reality, yes, but finally working together.
“It’s one of those British bands who don’t cut their hair,” Mitch answered. For his part, he couldn't care less about the music, but it was another detail Margie liked to get just so and it appeared Tom had nailed it.
On the other side of Carruthers, Henkins snorted. “It’s the Dave Clark Five. ‘Over and Over.’”
“How do you know that?”
“I read.”
“Go back to your wife.”
Carruthers might be perpetually pissed these days, but he had a point: Henkins had scarcely let go of Betty all night.
Henkins wasn’t perturbed by Carruthers’s tone, though. The man loved New Year’s Eve. “I think you’d recognize the hit records with all the coeds you take home.”
“That’s Garland’s department.”
Jokes about Garland’s child bride never got old, but Dean wasn’t here to rib. He and his wife were home with their new baby, and Margie had been fielding how-to calls from them approximately every two hours.
Across the patio Margie and Betty were distributing bottles of bubbles to the smaller kids, and soon glycerin orbs filled the air.
Carruthers waved one away as if it might bite him. “Gah, I’m getting too old for this.”
But not too old to fly? Mitch didn’t say it though.
Suzanne Dumfries, Frances’s younger sister, took up one of the wands and blew a long stream straight at Carruthers. One bubble flitted around Carruthers’s scowl before landing right on his nose.
Suzanne laughed. It had the tart edge of mockery to it.
Carruthers twitched his nose, and the bubble popped into oblivion. He never lost his scowl.
Mitch stopped himself from shaking his head. Normally, Carruthers would have jumped at the chance to seduce a woman as pretty as Suzanne, even if she was Reynolds’s sister-in-law. He was still damn rattled from his accident.
But Mitch wasn’t going to let Carruthers’s mood sour his evening. He took the more enjoyable path: watching his wife. She was demonstrating how the bubbles worked to the youngest Rutherford child. She took an exaggerated breath and then blew. Her lips were pursed and lovely, and Mitch felt peace. Peace like he wouldn’t have believed he could experience before Thanksgiving. Peace like he thought had gone out of the world.
He was no longer failing at work nor at home. Work was fixed, and here, he’d been prying tasks away from Margie. Driving the twins to music lessons, to start with. Then helping with costumes for the Christmas pageant—which she was never going to let him do again, but at least she’d been laughing when she’d said it. He was part of the family again.
Willie Rutherford squealed and began chasing the bubbles around the patio, and Margie stood with an accomplished smile on her face. She caught Mitch staring, and her cheeks flushed deeply.
Now, Mitch felt too hot to be peaceful.
He’d kissed her goodnight every night. Each one was longer, hotter than the night before. He’d made her body all sorts of promises, promises he was frankly nervous he couldn’t keep. Every night, he’d pulled back. He hadn’t said, Tell me. He hadn’t pushed. He’d waited.
He’d helped with homework and done the dishes and tried to sort the laundry the way she liked, and he’d waited. He’d wait until the end of time if that’s what it took. He was content enough with the crumbs she’d given him.
He wanted to shout from the rooftops how wonderful she was, and this was his party. There was nothing stopping him.
“Folks, can I propose a toast?” Mitch called.
Tom turned down the music, and everyone looked toward Mitch.
He held up his beer. “To 1965, which was a rat bas—um, just a rat.”
Margie raised a brow at the obscenity he’d been about to utter, and the crowd chuckled. These were their roles, after all: he the fumbling husband and she the indulgent, long-suffering wife.
He hoped they were more than that now. They had to be more than that.
He went on. “But it doesn’t matter, 1965, because you’re leaving us, and 1966, we hope you’re a pip.”
“Hear, hear!” someone called.
“On a personal note,” Mitch said, “I want to recognize our hostess, my beautiful wife.”
Louder cheers and applause followed his dedication. No one ever had trouble seeing how terrific she was.
She raised a brow: What are you up to?
Saying what I should have years ago. “Margie, you’re the best part of me. I’m nothing without you, and I love you.”
Mitch knew he was a bit of a buffoon. Maybe you had to be to take the kind of risks he had for most of his career. But somewhere along the way, he’d become his act. In winning Margie back, or trying to, he’d found his way back to himself.
Now he’d told her that. He’d told everyone.
It was the most true and naked thing he’d ever said in public, and as she stood there blinking at him, he hoped it hadn’t been too much.
Everyone shouted, “To Margie!” and drank from their cups, but he didn’t tear his gaze from her face.
A beat passed. She smiled, but it was a mask for their guests; her eyes were misty. He had no idea what she was going to do. But after a long, long pause, she crossed the patio and gave him a quick kiss. There and gone, and her lips shook.
Before he could process it, figure out whether he’d fucked up utterly, she was gone, back through the slider into the house.
Shit. Mitch signaled to Betty. “Can you play hostess for a second? I'm going to check on Margie.”
“Of course, but if you hurt her, I’ll make your life hell.” Betty delivered the line with her trademark southern sweetness, but Mitch didn’t doubt she’d follow through.
The only problem was he had absolutely no intention of hurting Margie ever again. He gave Betty a sharp nod, and he trailed his wife inside.
“Margie?” he called. No answer. “Honey?”
He made a circuit of the first floor, and when he didn’t find her, he jogged up the stairs. He reached their bedroom—and froze. Margie was putting sheets on a bed. One bed. Their bed.
“How did you get this in here?” he asked.
“It wasn’t hard.” Her voice wavered, and she didn’t look at him.
He couldn't get his feet to work. Was she inviting him back into her bed? Their bed? It was…wait, what was she offering?
Helpfully, she kept talking. “The bed frames come all the way apart, and I just pushed the mattresses down the hall. Don’t be so surprised. I’ve handled several moves all on my own, and those were with a pack of kids. I moved it in here this afternoon when you were finishing with the lights. I just didn’t get a chance to get it made.”
“Oh.” That was all he could say because now he was trembling. He’d flown in combat, in space, and she had him overcome.
Trying to keep his voice level, he asked, “Was that too much downstairs? In front of everyone?”
“No.”
“Because I meant every word.”
“I know.” She didn’t sound mad. Just soft.
“So what are you doing?”
She turned slightly then, giving him a sliver of her profile. She had on a coy expression, but her mouth was too tight and her eyes too vulnerable for it to be convincing. “I was cold last night, and I…no, that won’t work will it? I’m not good at being the flirt. We’re past that anyway. Long past it. The truth is I felt far apart from you, and now I don’t.”
That was nothing and it was everything, and it gave him the confidence to walk into the room and set his hands on her hips. And, because he didn’t feel like playing entirely fairly, he started kissing her neck. “Margie?”
“Mm.”
That hum made his cock stand at attention, and he didn’t stop himself from flexing against her. That was what she did to him. That was some tiny part of how he felt about her, and how she felt about him. But he wanted to hear her say it.
“Why did you move the beds?” he asked.
“It was time.”
“For?”
“I’m not saying everything has righted itself. It’s only been a month. But—”
This was the good kind of objection, he could tell from the way she moved her head, gave him better access to her neck, from how her pulse was throbbing and her breathing going shallow and breathy.
“—I want my husband back.”
That was what he’d wanted. Margie was his, the commander of his heart, now and always.
“I’ll never leave again,” he vowed. “I love you.”
He’d said it to her on Thanksgiving and again today in front of the world, but this, private, just them, he knew she’d believe this.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “So much.”
There was no strain there. She meant it absolutely, and he knew she’d tell him if he messed up again. They were both in all the way, and he hoped they’d never let anything between them again.
Though at the moment, there was too much cloth between them. He started to ruck up her skirt, to find the soft skin at the tops of her thighs he adored—
A roar of laughter went up in the backyard.
“Damnit. Who’s that?”
She twisted in his arms and gave him a fond—but sadly chaste—kiss. “Our guests. Remember?”
Why couldn't they go back to Thanksgiving, when it had just been the two of them? But of course, the crowd was probably rioting in the backyard without Margie there to manage them. He didn’t have time for even one of the scenarios in his head.
She pushed against his chest, propelling him toward the door and away from her. “I’ll finish making this and you go back down there. But, Mitch? Will you meet me in the linen closet in about seventy minutes? I think I’m going to need help with something.”
Then, his sweet, sexy, naughty wife winked.
There were good years and bad years in marriage, someone had said to him once. He’d been young, and it had sounded perverse. Entire years that were bad? No, not for him and Margie. That wasn’t going to happen to them.
Now he hoped they’d gotten all the bad out of the way at once, and that the rest of their lives would be sunny. They’d certainly earned it.
Knowing his grin was every bit as wide as hers, he saluted. “Yes, ma’am.” He adjusted his clothing, took a moment in the hall to compose himself, and went back down to their guests, their friends.
He might not deserve this second chance or her, but that wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying the hell out of it.