SHE FELT LIGHTER now that she’d told him what was going on. It made her feel even better that Antonio didn’t push her fears aside or tell her that they’d be fine. She saw in him the truth of what he’d said earlier. That they were made up of their scars and experiences, and because of that they both knew there were no easy answers.
She squeezed his hand in hers.
“I feel better. Thank you for listening,” she said. “Another problem of mine is I hate to admit I’m not perfect.”
“I think most of us have that problem,” he said sardonically.
“Really? Even you?” she said with a wink.
He threw his head back and laughed. “Says the woman who insists on getting into the gym after me every damned day and beating my scores.”
“Just trying to keep you on your toes,” she said. Which was only partially her motivation for doing it. In reality, she hadn’t wanted to run into him in the gym and chance her own willpower weakening.
“What about you? Anything that’s keeping you back?” she asked. “Though you do seem pretty willing to keep coming after me.”
His smile wasn’t genuine. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, exactly, except that it didn’t reach his eyes and there was something stiff about the way he sat next to her. The air of relaxation and comfort he’d been projecting dissipated.
“Let’s save that for another time,” he said.
She didn’t want to push, but having just bared her soul she wished he felt safe enough to do the same. Though she wanted to keep things even between them, that wasn’t the way life worked and she knew it. However, it didn’t stop her from being slightly upset that he wasn’t going to tell her his secrets.
“Is this payback?” she asked. She didn’t know Antonio well enough to guess at his reasons here, but she wanted him to know he could talk to her about his own fears.
“For?”
“For me and the way I’ve been acting the last two weeks,” she said. “Is this your way of evening the scales?”
“No. What kind of man do you think I am?” he asked, dropping her hand and standing up. He turned his back to her and put his hands on his hips. His shoulders drooped and he put his head down.
“I don’t know,” she said. “To be fair, you don’t know the kind of woman I am. I might have been using you for sex.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression obscured by the shadow cast by the brim of his Stetson. “I had considered that.”
“That’s fair, though it does hurt a little. I was scared.”
“I know,” he said. “My issues...aren’t like yours. But they are just as dangerous.”
She realized that he wasn’t ready to trust her with whatever he had in his past. Yet. She hoped it would be yet and not never.
“Fair enough,” she said. “Let’s go back to the bunkhouse. I’m free for the rest of the evening. What’s your schedule like?”
“Free,” he said. “Why?”
“Put on something pretty and meet me in the quad at six,” she said.
“Something pretty?” he asked, turning to face her. “Do you know how condescending that sounds?”
“Yup,” she said, getting up, walking over and patting him on the ass. “Guys have been saying stuff like that to women for years.”
He caught her around the waist, pulling her off her feet and against his body. “Women like it, right?”
She mock punched him because she knew he was joking. “No, they don’t.”
“Well, what about surprises? Do women like surprises?” he asked. “Because I have one for you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “The fact that you want me isn’t a surprise.”
“How can you be sure?” he asked.
She rocked her pelvis against his and tipped her head to the side. “You’re giving yourself away, buddy.”
“Buddy? Do I look like a buddy to you?” he asked as he set her on her feet. He picked up his parcel off the bench and took her hand as they started walking back to the bunkhouses.
“Not really. But I’m not sure what to call you, babe?”
“Again with these words that women seem to find offensive,” he said.
“I don’t mind if you call me babe,” she said. “But I really enjoy it when you call me querida. Your voice deepens when you speak Spanish. It’s very sexy.”
He started speaking to her in Spanish immediately. She understood about a third of it, but it made her feel good. She hadn’t lost herself by being herself with him, and she’d found a way to coax him back from the edge of whatever was bothering him. She didn’t have a definite idea for the evening except that she’d seen a bar in Cole’s Hill when they’d driven through the other day, and Ace had told her when he was growing up they’d had a bunch of game machines and a mechanical bull inside. She thought it might be fun to take this cowboy on a date.
“Are you turned-on?” he asked.
“By you? Always,” she said. “That’s never been the issue, has it?”
“No, it hasn’t. So...what are we doing tonight?”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything, babe, I’ve got it all covered,” she said, giving him a hard kiss on the lips and walking into the bunkhouse ahead of him.
She could do this, she thought. She’d just keep it smooth and easy, and soon enough she’d figure out how to do this relationship thing. Though there was a niggling doubt when she remembered the darkness in Antonio earlier. She’d worry about that later. She had to sort herself out first before she figured him out.
* * *
COLE’S HILL HAD been listed as one of the fastest growing small towns in the US a few years ago and Antonio could see why. It was a quaint mixture of historic, restored buildings on the main street and large mini-mansion subdivisions on the outskirts.
There was the Grand Hotel where they’d had the party earlier in the month, and then a larger facility near the town square. Izzy drove her Mustang through the streets a little bit fast but with complete control, which was to be expected.
Just past the town square and the Five Families area, she signaled left and turned down a road that was lined with more historic old buildings including one with a flashing neon sign that read The Bull Pit. She pulled into a parking lot full of SUVs and pickup trucks and parked the Mustang in the corner away from the other vehicles.
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” he said.
“Good. I don’t want to be predictable.”
He didn’t say anything as he followed her into the roadhouse. Antonio could tell from the vehicles in the parking lot that this wasn’t a dive bar, and when they got inside the atmosphere was one of rowdy fun. He followed her through the large bar area, partially watching where they were heading, but mostly observing the sway of her hips in the skintight jeans she wore. She had on a pink plaid Western shirt and a straw cowgirl hat. She wore Tony Lama boots, and she had a hand-tooled leather belt that had Bombshell burned into the back of it.
She stopped abruptly and he put his hands on her waist as he realized they’d reached their destination.
“Fancy a ride on this?” she asked.
He looked at the mechanical bull and then back down at Izzy. “Hell, yeah. In fact, I’ll wager I can stay on longer than you.”
“I hoped you’d say that. The loser pays for dinner,” she said.
“Deal.”
They put their names on the list to ride the bull and had to read and sign a waiver. They glanced at each other as they signed it, knowing that Ace wouldn’t approve if he knew what they were doing.
“Technically, no one said we couldn’t do it,” she said. “And tonight I want to be us. Not two candidates on a strict schedule. But if you think we shouldn’t do it, just say.”
He shook his head. Like Izzy, he wanted them to be just a guy and a girl. They needed this time to forget about the pressure of the program and the reality that if either of them was chosen, they would soon be locked into a program for the next ten years of their lives. Plus, the mechanical-bull operation didn’t seem that dangerous. There were pads on the floor and the operator could choose different setting levels.
He was pretty sure they would both walk away from their ride.
There was something a little smug about Izzy’s smile as she handed the clipboard back to the attendant.
“Have you done this before?” he asked.
“Possibly,” she said.
She was being minx-like. It was as if by telling him that she wasn’t going to be perfect at the whole relationship thing, she’d freed herself. He wished it could be as easy for him. He was enjoying this side of Izzy. He just hoped she was being true to herself...but then, she had said she didn’t know who she would be. She might be trying out a bunch of different things.
It struck him how lucky he was to be the first man Izzy felt this way about. The first man to experience her as she was letting go for the first time. She made him feel...well, special in a way that he never had before.
“Possibly? In the spirit of that answer, I may or may not have been the champion at my local bar back in Buenos Aires.”
“What? Are you kidding?”
“Nope. It was the one thing I really liked. Dad took us to a rodeo when it was on tour and my brothers and I were hooked. We weren’t allowed in the bar at night, but Dad was friends with the owner, so he’d bring us in during the afternoon if we’d done all of our chores and homework,” Antonio said.
“Dang, I think I should have asked for a story before I booked this. But I will let you go first so I know what time I have to beat,” she said.
“A story?” he asked, more intrigued by that than competing with her. They’d spent a lot of time in competition with each other, but stories were different.
“Yes. I was saving it for dinner, but I thought we could each exchange stories that have nothing to do with the space program. We know each other’s history there...well, most of it. I don’t know why you left NASA,” she said.
And hopefully she never would. That was one of the darkest and most shameful times in his life and he really wasn’t prepared to talk about it.
“You’re already into me for one story, so that will have to wait for now. Are you sure you don’t want to go first?”
“Yes. I want to see how good you are, maybe pick up a few tips from watching you,” she said.
He’d bet she was already pretty good and he knew that, as with anything with Izzy, he needed to be sharp and focused, not dwelling in the past and in regrets. He was proud of the man he was today. The baggage and the scars were just part of the package. He wasn’t going to let himself get sucked back into regrets.
The attendant gestured him to the bull and he felt Izzy’s hand on the small of his back. He looked over his shoulder at her and she went up on her tiptoes and hugged him. He wrapped his arm around her quickly before letting go.
“Be safe.”
* * *
SHE COULDN’T BEAT him on the mechanical bull, but that didn’t matter at all since she was enjoying the evening a lot. They found a table toward the back of the bar. He ordered barbecue beef brisket with fried okra and she opted for mac and cheese, something she loved but only let herself eat on special occasions since she had an hourglass figure, which meant everything showed on her hips.
Antonio had gotten stewed apples and greens as his sides, and they had decided to have one glass of sweet iced tea before switching back to water. She was enjoying seeing Antonio this way, and, even more, she was enjoying herself.
In the past, instead of enjoying dinner she would have insisted they play pool or darts or any of the video games at the front of the bar until she’d beaten him so she could show him they were equals. But that no longer seemed paramount. She was enjoying this new part of herself and her time with him.
He was funny and at times quiet, and since she was being so open, she started to notice that there were some subjects that made Antonio go quiet. Her mind, which was always analyzing, had been narrowing down the topics, and she figured that something must have happened with Antonio when she’d been on her mission with the ISS. He had been scheduled on a later mission than hers, and when she’d returned for one of the long-term training sessions, he had been in Hawaii. She hadn’t been around when he’d left NASA.
He avoided talking about that time, though he would talk about their early training-class days and the later stuff with Space Now, which he was doing now.
“Malcolm Pennington is one of those men who doesn’t really care about the cost, only the end result, so you’d think he’d be all buttoned up and business all the time, but he’s not. He’s maybe five years older than we are. And crazy as all get-out,” Antonio said.
“Give me an example of his crazy,” she said.
“He wanted to see if we could launch from the atmosphere—the idea came from one of the finalists in his ‘get us to space, win a million dollars’ competition. So the guy who had this theory suggested we use rockets to launch the space station up into orbit, and then use solar balloons to get the astronauts up there. Then we’d have to meet up with the orbiting station and board it.”
Izzy didn’t like the sound of that. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous? There are a lot of variables that would have to be accounted for.”
“Exactly, so Mal said we can’t have one of you guys trying it, you’re too valuable. Instead, he arranged to try to ‘board’ one of his own satellites. He wouldn’t actually board it, just rendezvous with it by solar balloon and see if it was possible to connect.”
“Did it work?” she asked.
“No. But he tried it. And he’s crazy, so once he did, on his way back down, he free-fell from the lower atmosphere to break a world record. When I went to work for him I knew it would be different,” Antonio said.
“Why didn’t you come back to NASA?” she asked.
“I didn’t feel that door was open to me,” he said. “I’m glad they considered me for Cronus.”
He fiddled with his cell phone, not looking at her.
“Why? Talk to me, babe. Tell me what’s really going on,” she said. “Because you are really good at what you do. Why would they even think of not bringing you on?”
“It was more me than them. I had... I guess it’s more accurate to say I have a drinking problem. You missed it because you were on the ISS and then wherever you went after, but I crashed and burned pretty hard after training. And they—NASA—gave me a leave of absence to get my shit together. I did, but I was too embarrassed to come back, and I wasn’t sure they’d have me if I tried. I didn’t want a replay of what had happened before. I wasn’t sure... I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle the pressure.”
“But now you are?” she asked. This news was unexpected and didn’t fit at all with the Antonio she knew. But a lot of demons were private. Hadn’t they discussed that?
“I am,” Antonio said. “Actually, I’m in a lot better place now. I was in a destructive relationship the last time, which had driven a wedge between myself and my family. We brought out the worst in each other... Anyway, enough of that. I didn’t mean to tell you,” he said. “Especially not here.”
“I think you needed to,” she said. “I get you a little better now. Want to take off? I have a few more things planned for this evening.”
He gave her a long, hard look, then nodded and stood up. She took his hand and thought about the future, and how sure she had to be of her actions. She would never have wanted to hurt Antonio before this, but now that she understood how vulnerable he was, she had better be careful around him. But now she saw she might have hurt him by doing that.
Some of the doubt she’d had about their relationship crept back in, and though she tried to regain her happy attitude, she knew it was gone. Like everything, her attitude had been changed by facts and experience. She drove them out of Cole’s Hill and when they reached the Bar T, she drove down a rutted dirt road that led to a hill that gave them a nice view of the night sky without any light pollution from town or the ranch and the Mick Tanner facility.
She parked the car and then turned to Antonio. “Want to lay on a blanket with me and count stars?”