IZZY KNEW SHE’D run away from Antonio in the locker room, but he was getting too close. She wasn’t ready to deal with her feelings directly, so she’d done the cowardly thing and snuck out while he’d been changing.
She was anxious to get out of this meeting and realized she had been feeling claustrophobic since the ascent in the gravity pool. She was more rattled than she wanted to admit. But when she closed her eyes, instead of Velosi pinned to the bottom of the pool she saw Antonio. She wasn’t ready to admit how much that scared her.
Living with him was something she was just getting used to, and she didn’t want to think about what it would be like to live without him.
Meredith was seated next to her, along with Vicki and Dean. Meredith was still shaken and freaked out a little bit by the fact that her oxygen tank had gotten so low. It wasn’t equipment failure but rushing into an emergency without checking their equipment that had caused her failure.
Ace walked into the room to the podium and Izzy felt everyone come to attention. “Hello, Cronus candidates. I want to start by letting you know that Velosi is doing well and he will be back at the facility in a few days’ time.”
Everyone clapped and Izzy felt a sense of relief that her friend was okay. Ace waited for them to settle down and then looked at his notes before turning his attention back at them. He made eye contact with each of them and she wasn’t sure what he was going to say next.
“The accident in the pool wasn’t set up as a test, but, honestly, we couldn’t have designed a better one. Though if it had been a test we would have had safety personnel on hand before we started. That being said, every single one of you preformed above average. Not one person thought of themselves first, and everyone focused on the job they were given and the overall mission at hand.” Ace looked up from his notes and smiled at them. “Thank you for proving we chose the best.”
Everyone smiled nervously. They knew this building up was leading to something. She suspected that it was the naming of crew members for the first mission.
“We have structural engineers from the company who built the platform on their way here to examine the structure, and they are going over the video that we took of today’s events. Everyone has agreed that you all did nothing to cause the collapse and that the assembly process, while different from the original plan, doesn’t seem to be the problem,” Ace said. “I liked the way you brainstormed solutions with myself and Hemi this morning, and it was reassuring to me as the team leader to know that each person had something to contribute.
“We are going to be announcing the first mission crew tomorrow. I want you all to go home for the night, take some time off,” Ace said. “The Bar T has invited everyone to dinner at the main house tonight. Are there any questions?”
“I have one.”
Izzy turned to look at Antonio, who stood in the back leaning against the wall. He looked every inch the badass she knew he could be. This wasn’t her lover she was seeing but a man who would stop at nothing to be named to the first Cronus mission.
“Go ahead,” Ace said.
“I know there has been some discussion around the inclusion of couples on the missions. Has there been a decision about that?”
Everyone turned back to Ace, who shuffled the papers in front of him and rubbed the back of his neck before shaking his head. “We are assessing every candidate on their own. If we end up with two candidates who are also in a romantic relationship then we are going to have a discussion among ourselves and a separate one with the couple. This isn’t something to be talked about in this forum.”
Izzy didn’t look back at Antonio, but she feared what Ace hadn’t said. They weren’t married. They were two people that had hooked up here in Cole’s Hill. Would that be enough to convince the powers that be that the two of them were a solid couple and that if something did happen during the long, confined months they were on a mission, it wouldn’t affect the entire crew.
“Are there any other questions?”
“Will we continue to train here or move to Houston?”
“The training will continue here once the teams are named. Everyone will have the option to live in Cole’s Hill, and there are two new subdivisions being built to handle our staff. Temporarily, the bunkhouses will be used. But eventually we want the bunkhouses to just be for the new recruits, and anyone in a named mission will be able to have a normal home life in Cole’s Hill.”
“Anything else?”
“Are all of us going to be assigned to a mission?” Izzy asked.
Ace nodded. “Yes. We are going to name the first crew along with the crew for the second mission and back up crews for both. We are going to use the crew for the second mission as backup for the first and so on. You will be given your schedule and we are hopeful a launch date will be confirmed, as well. Any other questions?”
There was a round of applause and an air of excitement in the room.
There weren’t any more questions and Ace left. Izzy stood and looked for Antonio, but he was already gone. She got stopped by and chatted with a few of her friends until she was finally able to head back to the bunkhouse. But when she got there she noticed that Antonio’s pickup truck wasn’t in the parking lot.
* * *
ANTONIO FED AND walked Carly and then, instead of going back to his room to spend the night waiting with the other candidates, he put his dog in the cab of his truck and headed for town. He needed to get away from everyone, especially Izzy.
His demons followed him, but they always did, and he found himself back at The Bull Pit. He parked in the lot and left the car running with the air-conditioning on. Just sat there thinking about Izzy. Carly came over and curled up next to him. He reached down and petted the dog, but his mind was on Izzy.
He wasn’t a man who could hide anything about his life. He’d been up-front and honest from the beginning with her about that. His one secret really wasn’t a secret if anyone dug hard to find it. But Izzy was all smoke and mirrors. She kept the real woman hidden, and he was beginning to think he was going to pay for having uncovered her.
Izzy wasn’t the kind of woman to just let herself fall in love and be happy. She had to keep her walls in place. He wondered if she was still competing. Maybe trying to make him fall in love with her so she could win again.
He shook his head. He was just being a dick because he was angry. That wasn’t the way Izzy was. He wished she were...almost. But he knew if she had been like that, he wouldn’t have fallen for her. He heard the roar of a powerful engine and glanced to his left to see Izzy and her Mustang pulling to a stop next to his truck. She hopped out as soon as she turned the vehicle off.
She’d come after him...that had to mean something.
She walked around to the passenger side of his truck and Carly was on her feet running over to the door as Izzy opened it. Carly licked Izzy’s face and Izzy petted the dorgi before climbing up into the cab and closing the door behind her.
“I guess we’re even now.”
“How do you figure?” he asked, not sure where she was going with this.
“I left you in the locker room, you left me at the facility. We are going to have to stop doing this,” she said. “Aren’t we?”
“Are we?” he asked. He was tired of always being the one to put himself on the line first. He knew that wasn’t the way a real gentleman would behave. His own father would kick his butt for being so vague, but then, his dad hadn’t been in love with a woman like Isabelle Wolsten. Izzy wasn’t the kind of woman that a man should let see his weaknesses, which was the opposite of everything he believed about falling in love.
“Fair enough,” she said. “I get scared sometimes, Antonio.”
She turned so her back was against the door and she was facing him across the bench seat. She had one leg curled underneath her and her arms crossed under breasts. She hadn’t taken the time to change out of her khakis and mission shirt.
He didn’t want to talk to her now because he was very much afraid that if he did, he’d make some excuse just to keep her...
“We all do.”
“I know that. But the stuff that scares me isn’t the stuff that freaks out of most people. I get scared when I start to care too much about someone. And you know what? I’ve been really careful about not letting anyone mean that much to me,” she admitted.
As always, her honesty cut him to the quick. She might be competitive, but he knew she’d never cheat to win. “I get that.”
“I know you do. That’s why when I retreat and hurt you... I hate myself for it. Today scared me. I think it scared everyone, but honestly it wasn’t the situation—I knew we could handle that. It was afterward when I kept picturing you in Velosi’s spot and wondering what I would have done if you had been trapped. Would I have been so calm?”
He suspected she would. Izzy was nothing if not calm in the eye of the storm. She always did what needed to be done. Afterward, she might have shaking hands, but during the event she was cool and calm.
“I felt the same way. But I think we both know that we aren’t the type to ever put all that training aside.”
“Really?” she asked. “Why are you here, then? What’s worrying you?”
“I just wanted to come to the place where you and I were the most honest with each other. I wanted to be in the spot where...where I realized that there was so much more to you than dares and trying to one-up me,” he admitted.
Carly had moved back and forth between them, finally settling on Antonio’s lap, and he stroked the dog, trying to read Izzy. “Did you think I was here to drink?”
She shrugged, and that tiny gesture hurt more than he had expected it to. She had never seen him in his addiction days so she couldn’t know that it wasn’t the crutch it once had been. And he also knew that she couldn’t be the salvation he’d been thinking she was. Izzy still didn’t trust him. Or maybe it was herself she didn’t trust, but there was no future where there wasn’t trust. Before, he’d been thinking he’d do anything to woo her, but without trust, he was going to have to end this.
He steeled himself to continue. “So... I guess we should probably talk about our relationship and maybe figure out if this is where it ends.”
* * *
THAT WAS NOT what she’d been expecting to hear. Antonio had always been so solid and, to be honest—fair or not—she’d thought he’d be there as she battled her own fears and tried to figure out how to make this relationship work.
But maybe he was right. Yet, if this was the right choice, then why did her heart hurt at the thought of saying goodbye to him?
“I don’t... I mean, if that’s what you want,” she said. She remembered the few times her mom had tried to keep a relationship going after one of her stepdads had wanted to end it. It never had worked out. Watching it had hurt; she couldn’t imagine what living through it had been like for her mom.
Izzy had a moment of clarity about her mother and how hard it must have been to try so many times to find love, only to have it end. Once was hard enough. She couldn’t imagine how her mom had done it time and again. And maybe that was exactly why she had decided to spend the rest of her life by herself.
“What do you want?” he asked. “I’m tired of guessing. I tried to be the man you could count on.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t want to get all cozy and intimate in the locker room,” she said, also knowing she wasn’t exactly hitting above the belt with that. She’d been the one who had needed to hold him and kiss him. And she realized, as her hands shook a little bit where she had them on her lap, that she was still afraid. Still worried about Antonio. She’d followed him because she loved him and she had no idea what to do about that.
He shook his head. “That isn’t what I’m talking about. I know that my kiss...well, our kiss, was too much while we were at work, but afterward just walking away like that. What am I supposed to think?”
“That maybe I’m not you, Antonio. I’m not used to people looking at me and talking about my personal life. You know your call sign is Playboy. I don’t want everyone to say that you’re the one who thawed the Ice Queen.”
Antonio shook his head and looked away from her and out of the truck window. “Is that what this is? You’re afraid of gossip. That’s not the Bombshell I know. Gossip doesn’t affect us if we are sure of our feelings. To be fair I haven’t been a playboy for a long time and, Izzy, you aren’t the Ice Queen. Not like you were when we were new to the space program. Everyone knows that.
“Are you afraid they might see us falling in love?”
“Love?” she asked.
“Dammit.”
Love. Did he love her? What did that mean if he did? Would that change things between them?
“I love you, too,” she said. It had slipped out without her meaning to really say it, but there it was. “How’s that for truth? I do love you. Today, when I surfaced and saw you I was flooded with that love. I can’t deny it anymore.”
He turned to her and scooted across the bench seat. Carly scrambled off his lap as he reached toward her. “Do you mean that?”
“I do. But I don’t know that it makes any difference in the end,” she said. “I’m still going to be me. I’m still not sure how to act around others and I did figure out one thing earlier—I don’t want to be the reason you don’t go on that first mission.”
He dropped his arm and gave her the kind of hard look that would have made a lesser person shiver. “Is that why you followed me here?”
“Yes and no. You confuse me, but I can’t just let you go. I don’t know if we can really be in a relationship because I’m not good at them and it’s only been a short time that we have been together. But walking away from you, watching you not get your dream, that’s not something I want to do, either.”
She had never been more honest with a man. She had no idea what to expect from Antonio here. But she’d never been the kind of woman to not give something her all, and that had to include love.
If she’d learned anything from being with Antonio, it was that he wasn’t going to go back easily into the role of friendly rival. Too much had changed between them and she wasn’t going to run from it.
She was afraid that she’d be tempted to give up that first mission for him. Which would probably get her in a lot of trouble. Love had changed her, but she realized that going first wasn’t the most important thing. If she could figure out a way to be with Antonio for the rest of her life, then she’d figure out how to make the space program work for them, too. And she knew she didn’t have to see marriage and kids in her future, but she did see Antonio and she would continue to for the rest of her life. Neither of them was going to walk away from Cronus. Could they say the same about each other?
“Say something,” she said at last.