Doc Tomlin had been as upset as Ace was by the unusually slow rate of improvement. He’d taken a leave to see if being away from Johnson Space Center and a different, off-site exercise regimen would help.
Osteopenia had the power to end the part of his career he loved most—actually being up in space. Something he wasn’t ready for. He was determined to beat this any way he could.
He mounted Carl, and Molly touched her heels to her horse’s sides and made a clicking sound, leading the way out of the barn.
The night was cool, not cold, and the sky was clear. Early May in south Texas wasn’t really hot yet, at least at night. For a minute he forgot about riding and just stared at the sky. His heart took a punch and he felt a sense of fear and loss. He had to be cleared for more missions.
“You okay?” she asked.
He thought seeing the stars would remind him of who he was, but it just emphasized what was at stake.
“Yeah,” he lied.
She loped along the fields past the grazing land where the cattle were kept, and he stopped thinking and just followed her.
Her ponytail flew out behind her head as she rode and it took all of his skill to keep up with her. Eventually he realized that Molly wasn’t riding with him. She was racing away from something.
Her dad.
He stopped trying to keep up and let her ride as hard and fast as she could. Even though he knew there was no running away from the ghosts that were carried in one’s soul.
Molly pulled up a few hundred feet in front of him and tipped her head back to the sky. He couldn’t help noticing again how long and slender her neck was. Everything about her body was sleek and elegant.
When he pulled up next to her, he noticed that her eyes were wide and wet.
“I forgot how much I love to ride at night,” she said.
“Me, too. It’s exhilarating.”
“It is. Thank you for this. I know you came here to figure out what to do with the ranch, not to deal with Mick’s hot mess of a daughter.”
“You’re not a hot mess,” he said. “I came back for you, too. We both have to decide what to do about this complicated legacy Mick left us.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “But not tonight.”
“Definitely not,” he agreed. “Where to now?”
She tipped her head back toward the stars again and he did the same. His breath caught as his eyes skimmed the sky finding what he was looking for. The International Space Station. Knowing where to look made it easy for him to spot it. He watched it moving slowly in orbit and thought of all the time he’d spent up there. He’d clocked more time than most of the other guys on his team.
“What are you looking at?”
“The space station,” he said.
“Where is it?”
He lifted his arm and pointed. “It’s in a slow moving orbit.”
“What’s it like up there?”
He shrugged. “Better men than me could probably put it into words. I just know up there...I’m free.”
“Like me when I’m riding,” she said, quietly.
He didn’t respond, just looked up at the sky, realizing he was going to do whatever he had to in order to get mission-ready again. He wasn’t done with that life. Not yet.
* * *
THEY GOT OFF their horses and left them to graze as they continued, walking. This was a side to Jason she didn’t know. In fact, there was a lot to the man she had no idea about. He’d been a boy when he left to go into the military and started on his path to becoming an astronaut. And though they’d lived in the same house for a few years, they’d never had deep conversations.
Tonight she thought she finally had a glimpse of the real man.
“What’s going on with you and your career?” she asked. “You said there was a medical issue.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Which means you don’t think I will understand it or you don’t want to talk about it.”
“You’re one of the smartest women I’ve ever known,” he said.
She smiled. “That’s because I whipped your butt at AP calculus back in the day.”
“I’m a little better at it now,” he admitted.
“And I never have to use it. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Life is complicated,” he said. “Way more so than we ever could have guessed in high school.”
“True. So you don’t want to talk about your health and I can respect that, but I need to know if you are in danger. We’re a good forty-five minutes from the nearest hospital.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “It’s not anything that’s going to kill me while I’m here.”
Health concerns.
He’d said it like that because he didn’t want to talk about it and make it seem more real. Giving it a name would mean he was fighting something serious. Instead of, say, a cold or a muscle strain. Those were things anyone could beat. This? He wasn’t sure. But being purposely vague would just make it seem more mysterious to her and he doubted she’d leave it alone.
“I have some symptoms of spaceflight osteopenia.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Molly said. “But it sounds like osteoporosis. Does it have something to do with your bones?”
“Yes. In microgravity, astronauts don’t put weight on our back or leg muscles, and the longer we’re up there the more they start to weaken and get smaller.”
“Have you lost height?” she asked.
He shrugged. “When I first returned to Earth I was a bit taller, but now I’m back to normal. They are more concerned with my raised calcium levels and loss of bone density.”
“What can you do?” she asked.
“I’m doing it—or I will be, at least. Working on the ranch, lifting, putting my body to good use, all of these things are going to help,” he said with more than a bit of hope and bravado. “I’m supposed to be tested again in three months. I did an advanced regimen during my time on the ISS and if Doctor Tomlin’s theories are correct I should improve more quickly than others have in the past. Part of my mission on the ISS was for her to test the effects of prolonged exposure to space. She has me trying different exercises and a special diet to decrease my recovery time.”
Molly nodded. He’d shared his medical information but hadn’t really told her what that meant to him.
“How
