fresher near-death experience? He hadn’t really followed her career since he’d joined the Air Force to pursue the space program. “Want to tell me about it?”
She shook her head and then took a sip of her drink. “Definitely not.”
“Dance?”
“I’m not very good,” she said, but put her glass on the table.
“I am,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
“Really?”
“I always tell the truth.”
“Always? Really?”
“Yes. Even when I shouldn’t,” he said. “One of the things my dad drilled into me and my brothers when we were little. My mom is the one who insisted we learn to dance. She said women like to dance and men who won’t are missing out.”
She smiled. “Sound like good lessons.”
“They were,” he said.
The band started to play Blake Shelton’s “Sangria” and he took her hand, leading her to the dance floor. He pulled her into his arms, leaving a small gap between them. With one hand on her waist and the other holding one of hers, he started to guide her around the dance floor set up in the barn. He soon realized she knew how to dance. Her legs brushed against his and she watched him with the intensity she’d had when they’d been talking.
“Your mom did good,” she said.
“She did her best with four rowdy boys.”
“Four boys? That must have been some household. Where did you fall in the siblings?”
“Guess,” he said. Most people thought he was the firstborn because he had a strong type A personality, but all the Barrett boys did. There wasn’t one of them who didn’t think he could accomplish whatever he wanted.
“You’re confident, but I’m guessing from what you said about your parents that all the brothers are. You’re spoiled, too...so youngest.”
“Spoiled? What makes you think that?” he asked.
“You expect to get everything you go after,” she said.
“Well...that’s just because I’m good. Has nothing to do with being spoiled.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Was I right?”
“You were,” he said. “Most peg me for the oldest.”
“I can see that, but you don’t have that mantle of responsibility. I think if you were the oldest you’d never go to space and leave your family behind.”
“Wow. That cuts a little close.”
“I always tell the truth, too. Plus, I already know you’re a man with his future up in the stars.”
“I am. Did you want something else?”
“Like you said, that’s a little intense for a first date.”
“So this is a first date?” he asked with a wink.
“It might be.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. If there’s a first date, that means there’ll be more.”
“Let’s see how this one ends before we go making assumptions,” she said.
He liked her.
More than he’d expected from someone he had a fanboy crush on. He’d just seen her in the corner, standing alone, and he’d almost let her stay that way. But there had been something about the quietness of her that had drawn him across the room. Her long, gorgeous legs had helped him make the decision but he hadn’t imagined she’d be so real, so genuine, and when she looked up at him with those wide blue eyes, her pretty pink lips parted, she made him think of tangled sheets and long nights spent in each other’s arms.
“But I don’t think another date is a good idea.”
“Why not?”
As the music ended, she said, “Because I’m your instructor, so I think we should keep our relationship strictly professional. Thanks for the dance.”
He didn’t agree with that. Not at all. There was no reason they couldn’t be more than student and teacher. She stepped back as someone called his name. He turned to see who it was, and when he turned back she was gone.
JESSIE LET OUT a breath as she entered the gym that had been set up for martial arts training. She was happy that she’d escaped the party and the lights and music. She took her shoes off and let the feel of the mats under her feet ground her.
It was September, and this was just like starting school. When she’d been a kid she’d always wanted to go to real classes, but her parents homeschooled her from their yacht. She was excited about the prospect now.
She’d have preferred to go outside, but she wasn’t familiar enough with the terrain at the Bar T. She’d gone on a few hikes to plan survival training exercises for the candidates, but she wasn’t ready for a shoeless midnight run.
She left her high heels by the door and crossed to the locker room, where she changed into her white gi and fastened her well-worn black belt around her waist. Already she felt like she was breathing more deeply.
She could socialize, but it tired her out. Drained her.
Hemi. Thor. She loved how these astronauts all had call signs. Probably because so many of them had military training. Although Jessie knew that some of this batch of candidates weren’t military—weren’t even NASA qualified. The missions were a joint effort between NASA and a civilian organization called Final Frontier.
She left the changing room and set her internal timer. She had learned to be very good at monitoring time over the years. She jogged around the perimeter of the gym, keeping her breathing steady and letting her mind drift.
For once her thoughts didn’t go to Everest and Alexi. Instead, she pictured Hemi. His face as it was tonight. The smooth confidence of a man who had trained and achieved as much as he had, but also the passion in his eyes. He loved his job. That had been clear.
But she wasn’t analyzing him as a trainee right now. She saw, instead, the birthmark under his eye. Thought about the meaning and how Maori folklore suggested he’d been touched by the gods.
She stopped running after fifteen minutes and started going through the different tae kwon do forms that she had learned as a child on her parents’ boat, kicking and punching her way through routines that had Korean names like taegeuk sam jang and taegeuk il jang.
“So this is where you got to.”
