IZZY CALLED DOWN to the front desk and arranged for a rental car while Antonio was in the shower. She also asked them to send up some clothes from the gift store in their sizes and gave them her credit card number to pay for everything.
She knocked on the bathroom door and poked her head inside. “How does room service sound for breakfast?”
“Perfect,” Antonio said.
“I’m running downstairs to get the keys to the car I rented. I’ll be right back.”
She let herself out of the room and went downstairs, noticing that Velosi and his wife were having breakfast in the restaurant just off the lobby.
They didn’t need to hide anything. They didn’t need to worry their romance would keep Velosi from space. Margaret had flown in from Florida for the weekend and the two of them were sitting side by side in a booth, their heads close together as they talked.
She sighed as she watched them. Velosi had been dating Margaret when Izzy had first met him, and they were one of those couples that seemed absolutely perfect together. She knew a lot of that was due to the fact that they had different roles in the relationship. Margaret was the daughter of a Marine Corps general and was used to having the male in the household gone for long stints of time.
How could she and Antonio make this work? They were both the one who was always leaving. Neither of them would be home for any length of time. Even if they bought a house in Cole’s Hill after the selection phase—which a number of the candidates were thinking of doing if they were chosen for a future mission—they’d both always be focused on the mission. She didn’t want to give going to space up and knew it would be unfair to ask him.
But a house, a life, maybe even kids one day—whoa. She’d never seen herself as a mom. Was she thinking that seriously? They’d slept together a few times and had just decided to give dating a try. This was why she’d dated only men who liked to keep things casual. She picked up the keys and hurried back upstairs.
She was still thinking of Velosi and his wife while she and Antonio ate.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I think we should head back to the facility as soon as we can,” she said. Now that it was daylight, she felt exposed. She was still trying to figure out how to be a couple in private, and she wasn’t too sure she was ready to be part of one in public.
“Okay. I think Carly will be missing me, as well. I know Ace will feed and walk her, but she likes to play,” Antonio said.
“You’re very sweet with that dog,” Izzy said.
“I read an article that said a pet’s bond with their owner was so deep because of the unconditional love the pet gives. There’s no tension with a pet. It’s just happy to see you whenever you walk into a room.”
She wondered if he was trying to say that there was drama with her. And there was, she had to admit it. But she decided to leave some of that old baggage behind for now. She wasn’t going to worry anymore about how her mom had never been able to make a relationship last. She’d been afraid for too long. “Cats can be kind of aloof,” she said, not giving voice to her decision.
“Good point.” As he finished, he said, “I’ll be right back,” and went into the other room to gather his things. She pushed the rest of her egg-white omelet around on her plate. She hadn’t been hungry this morning. She was tired and emotional. A part of her wondered if she might be starting her period, but she knew it wasn’t that time of the month. That would be a nice reason for her to be so...just so moody.
When they had packed up their few belongings, they headed downstairs. She was ready to get back to work.
She had been told by Hemi that the two teams would be brought back together after the next rotation through the simulator and the ranch duties. They’d compete one-on-one. They’d planned a steer-roping competition for all the candidates on the Memorial Day weekend.
Just as everyone else had, she’d been practicing with some help from one of the ranch hands. He was a champion roper and a great teacher. His skills were pretty good. Izzy saw a lot of similarities between roping and trying to hit a target in space. The variables were different, but the hand-eye coordination was similar, as was reading the terrain to ensure hitting the target the first time.
“Are you ready to go, querida?”
Antonio smiled and her breath caught, reminding her why she was here with him. It didn’t matter if she felt awkward in public. She liked being with him and talking to him. Dating would make her feel odd because she had a hard time trusting men—and herself.
Damn. She’d always pretended that her upbringing hadn’t really affected her, though she knew that it had. She didn’t trust easily, and too many men had disappointed her more times than she wanted to acknowledge.
She knew that this was different. Antonio wasn’t the same as the guys her mom dated, but at the same time she felt scared at how happy his being happy had made her. She wanted to be cautious, but it seemed that when it came to love, caution wasn’t as easy as she had always assumed.
Still, she wasn’t one to let fear stop her, and she had made a commitment to Antonio to see this through.
* * *
ANTONIO AND IZZY parted ways at the bunkhouse and he went up to the main ranch house to retrieve Carly. He changed into a pair of faded Levi’s and put on his boots before grabbing his cowboy hat and heading out the door.
The Texas sun was hot in mid-May and he was glad for the Stetson, which kept most of it off his face. The ranch house had a large front porch with rocking chairs that invited visitors to sit down. It reminded him of his mom’s front porch, the same way the kitchen garden reminded him of home. Though the growing season and plants were different here there was something familiar about it.
And after his night with Izzy and spending too much time thinking instead of sleeping, he needed something that felt comforting...like home.
He rang the doorbell and heard Carly’s bark and someone’s footsteps. The door opened and a rush of cool air surrounded him. He smiled at the housekeeper, Rina, whom he’d met when he’d first come to the facility.
“Hello, Antonio. I guess you’re here for this little cutie,” she said.
“I am.”
He stooped to pet the little dorgi, whose entire body was wagging. She licked his face and Antonio let the happiness of being greeted by the dog wash over him.
“Can I interest you in some iced tea?” Rina asked.
“Nah, I’ve got some studying to do before tomorrow morning. Thank you for watching this little one for me.”
“It was my pleasure. Anytime you need a dog sitter, just give me a ring,” she said.
Antonio patted the side of his leg and Carly came to heel next to him. He tipped his hat and said goodbye to Rina, taking the path that led to the lake and not back to the bunkhouses. He wasn’t quite ready to be back in his room alone with his thoughts. The ranch was empty this afternoon, probably due to the heat, and as he approached the lake Antonio heard the sounds of rock music cranked up and lots of splashing.
Carly looked up at him, tail wagging like she wanted to join in on the swimming. He used a hand motion to tell her no and kept walking toward the dock. He noticed the group was made up of ranch hands and they waved when they saw him.
“Hey, Playboy, you sure you’re an astronaut?” one of them called out.
He realized he looked more like a hand than an astronaut this afternoon. “No, I’m with the Cronus program.”
“Damn. You look like the real thing. You’re still welcome to join us.”
It was something he and his brothers had done many times on a hot summer day. “Don’t mind if I do. Is the dog okay in the water?”
“Won’t bother us,” one of them said.
He motioned for Carly to go in, and she barked excitedly before running down the dock and throwing herself into the lake.
He stripped down to his boxers and jumped in, too. The men had a lot of questions about the program, and Antonio was happy to answer them.
“So Jason is the guy in charge of everything?”
It took him a moment to remember that Jason was Ace’s real name. “He’s the commander of the first mission and he serves a dual role as a head trainer,” Antonio said as he floated on his back and looked up at the bright blue Texas sky. There wasn’t a cloud to mar it.
“Have you spent any time with Jessie Odell?” one of them asked. “She’s so badass. Every time we have one of those group get-togethers I try to get her alone, but her fiancé is always right there.”
Antonio had to laugh. “Yeah, Hemi is a mite protective of her. I’ve really only had classes with her, and her training is invaluable. I’ve learned a lot.”
“How is that going to help you in space?” another guy asked.
“We don’t know what we will encounter or if one of the systems will fail. We will be a long way from Earth, so we need to know how to survive in extreme temperatures or when things break. She is teaching us how to react to things we aren’t expecting,” Antonio said.
“Playboy!”
Antonio stopped floating on his back and turned to face the shore. When he saw Ace and Dr. Tomlin standing onshore, he immediately swam toward them.
“What’s up?” he asked as he approached them.
“Doc Tomlin had an appointment open up for bone-density testing and you haven’t had a scan in the last ten days, so we hunted you down,” Ace said.
“Sorry, Ace, did I miss something? I thought I had nothing on my schedule.” He whistled for Carly, and then got out of the water and gathered his things.
“Not a big deal. She came up to the house to tell me and Rina had mentioned you had just been there. Seemed like it might be convenient to have you take the slot.”
“I’d love to,” Antonio said. “Let’s go.”
Dr. Tomlin smiled at him. She was in her mid-thirties with curly brown hair and a very easy smile. She teased, “I think we have enough time for you to put your clothes back on.”
In the summer-Texas heat he was almost dry. He pulled on his jeans easily but left the buttons on his shirt undone as he sat down to put on his boots. Carly sat patiently next to him.
“Which test is this?” he asked as they headed back to the facility. Ace had returned to the ranch house already. They all had routine tests that were run on them every week.
“It’s a baseline so we can establish your levels. I will be measuring your reactions against another candidate. Really, that’s why we needed you now. The test works best when I have two subjects to examine.”
“Who is the other candidate?”
“Izzy Wolsten,” Dr. Tomlin said. “Stephen Miller had to bow out for now.”
Of course it was. He wanted some time away to think and put everything in perspective, so of course the universe was forcing them together.
* * *
DR. TOMLIN’S OFFICE always reminded Izzy of some sort of futuristic laboratory. Not that Doc Tomlin was ever anything other than nice. But before she was even permitted to get on the machines, she had to put on a special suit and have pads that were similar to the ones used in EKGs placed on her skin. It took a good thirty minutes to get ready to just go into the lab.
Her normal testing partner was sick this morning, and she’d been sitting in the antechamber of the lab for a while when the door opened and Antonio walked in.
“Hello.”
“Hiya. So how’d you get dragged into this?” she asked. “I thought this was a red-team thing.”
“I was available so Ace moved me into the vacant spot,” he said. “You make these weird frog suits look good.”
She shook her head. “Flattery? I’ve seen myself in the mirror. No one looks good in these things.”
Right now they were covered from neck to ankle in a suit similar in looks to a wet suit. Once they got inside they’d be strapped into the AlterG machine to run first without oxygen and then with it. The results were compared to their own baseline results and to others in the group.
Because atmospheric variables could influence the results, Dr. Tomlin tested them in pairs to see if the results were both in the same range.
“Are you trying to say this isn’t my best look?” he asked.
“Well, you looked a lot better last night,” she said.
“As did you.”
Doc Tomlin joined them before she could take the conversation down another dangerous path. But her mind was filled of images of Antonio as he’d looked sitting on the chair last night with his shirt off...
“Izzy, I’ll take you in first and get you set up in the machine. Antonio, my assistant Patrick will be here in a minute to get you,” Doc Tomlin said.
She led Izzy into the room and over to the AlterG machine, a specially designed treadmill that had a section in the middle that simulated zero gravity. It helped them to work out in the way they would on the machines that were installed on their vehicle for the Cronus missions. Because of the lack of gravity, the bones in the body would become weakened after long months in space, which would have a major impact when they returned to earth. So testing was a paramount part of this facility. They were also researching solutions that might work long-term. As mission commander, Ace had logged over a year on the ISS before coming here and was himself part of the experiment.
The machine on the space station was a bit easier to get into, and normally they didn’t wear the extra sensors that Dr. Tomlin had them use here.
“When did you take the calcium shake?” Doc Tomlin asked, her clipboard in hand.
“Thirty minutes before I arrived for the test,” Izzy answered.
She continued to answer the doctor’s questions as she was helped onto the machine and the sensors were connected so that up-to-the-second readings could be taken. She tried to focus on the questions and on her job. But she knew the moment that Antonio was taken to his machine and was a little bit distracted by the warm rumble of his voice.
She had that warm feeling in her stomach that she got whenever she thought about him or when he was close by. She let herself enjoy the feeling but not be distracted by it, and somehow found it easy to focus on the doctor and her questions. She knew she and Antonio were both here to do their jobs, and there was something that felt right about that deep in her soul.
She looked over at Antonio only once and noticed that he was watching her. He winked at her and she shook her head.
“Okay. It’s not really a competition,” Dr. Tomlin said, “but we are keeping total track of your miles and, of course, your speed. This will help me with your body’s reactions. We do have a leaderboard, and right now Hennessey is at the top of it. Not really surprising since he runs marathons and is used to endurance running.
“I am going to count down from five. The lights on your machine will flash three times and then stay lit, at which point the treadmill will begin to move and you will start running,” Doc Tomlin said. “Any questions?”
“What is the target?” Antonio asked.
“Just do your best,” she said, instead of giving a real number.
“Doc, you said Hennessey was top,” Izzy added. “How did he do?”
“You will be able to see him simulated on the screen in front of you. Just move along and keep up with him as best you can,” Doc Tomlin said before walking out of the room into her observation office with her staff.
“Keep up?” Izzy said. “I’m going to blow him away.”
“Only if you are keeping up with me,” Antonio said.
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure. Loser has to do one thing that winner chooses?” he suggested.
“Agreed. I hope you don’t mind taking over my early-morning ranching chores, because I could use a day to sleep in.”
“Me, too,” he said. “But I have something more intimate in mind.”
“Like what?” she asked, paying closer attention to Antonio than she was the machine.
“Washing Carly,” he said, as the lights started flashing and the screen in front of them flickered to life. A blue silhouette representing Hennessey appeared, with his time in blue.
“Deal.”
She turned away from Antonio and to something that she could always rely on. A challenge. Pitting herself against someone and winning. That was one thing she’d always been good at and she needed this, she thought. After the self-doubt she’d been wrestling with, she needed a win.
She hoped that Antonio was as strong as she thought he was, because she wasn’t backing down.