in space. He felt that uncertainty more than ever now, with three months’ leave stretching in front of him. His commander wanted him to take a break before his follow-up medical exam and he was due for some time off, anyway. He was on a strict exercise regimen to regain bone density. Being outside the Earth’s gravitational field had an adverse effect on the human body and the doctors were monitoring Ace’s recovery closely to ensure astronauts sent on long-term missions wouldn’t suffer lasting damage.
“Jason?” she asked.
It felt strange to hear her say his name. He didn’t know who Jason was anymore. That mixed-up delinquent from the time before he’d joined the military and NASA? The boy whose mother had left him to fend for himself? “Call me Ace.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll try, but you’ve always been Jason to me,” she said. “I don’t remember you being this slow, though.”
“Maybe you don’t know everything about me.”
“Oh, that’s one thing I’m sure of.”
“You pissed at me for something?” he asked as he followed her down the hall and into the brightly lit kitchen.
“What would I have to be pissed about?” she asked. “We haven’t seen each other since I was sixteen.”
“Maybe that’s it exactly.”
She didn’t say a word, just stretched to open the cabinet over the sink. The hem of her blouse hitched up revealing the small of her back and her raspberry birthmark. She cursed and braced her hand on the countertop as she reached for the bottle of Maker’s Mark that was just out of reach.
Ace came up behind her, putting his hand on the small of her back. Unable to resist, he rubbed his finger over the birthmark as he reached over her head and snagged the bottle.
She made a startled noise and turned.
He stared down into those big chocolate-brown eyes and knew that all the years and all the distance he’d put between them didn’t matter. He still wanted her just as fiercely as he always had. He put the bottle on the counter behind her.
Her eyelids dropped halfway and a strand of hair fell across her face. He gently brushed it back behind her ear. With one hand on the small of her back and the other on her face, he leaned down and felt the exhalation of her minty breath against his lips.
Their lips touched for the barest of seconds, and then her eyes flew open.
“Well, howdy! I thought you weren’t ever coming back this way, Ace.”
He stepped back, keeping one hand on Molly, and turned to greet Rina Holmes, the housekeeper of the Bar T Ranch.
“Sorry for interrupting. I didn’t realize you’d already started the homecoming,” Rina said.
“There is no homecoming going on here, Rina. Jas—Ace helped me reach Dad’s whiskey. We are going to have a toast to him. You’re just in time to join us,” Molly said, tugging down the hem of her blouse as she moved away from him.
“Looked like a helluva lot more than that to me,” Rina said.
The housekeeper was in her fifties but looked more like forty. She wore her reddish-blond hair hanging around her shoulders. She had an easy smile and a curvy figure, and she’d been on the ranch since before Molly was born. She pulled Jason into a big bear hug.
“We’ve missed you, Ace.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” he said. He watched Molly over Rina’s shoulder and noticed her hands tremble the tiniest bit as she poured three glasses of whiskey.
“Mick and me knew you were NASA’s shining star. Boy, you sure surprised us,” Rina said. “Never expected the punky juvenile to turn into an American hero.”
“Dad did,” Molly said. “Dad always believed Ace was going to do big things.”
“He did,” Rina agreed, turning and picking up one of the glasses.
“To Mick,” Rina said, raising her glass.
“To Mick,” Ace added.
“To Dad,” Molly said and she took a deep swallow of the whiskey. He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. He wanted to finish the kiss they’d barely started. Wanted that and a lot more. And he’d always gone after what he wanted.
He noticed that Molly still watched him with an intense stare whenever Rina wasn’t looking, but as they drank more whiskey and shared stories about Mick, the tension eased a little. And for a moment he had a glimpse of a different future. One that wasn’t written in the stars but was tied to the land. And that made him uncomfortable. Because it seemed more real than it ever had before.
* * *
MOLLY COULDN’T SLEEP. She knew where the blame lay. Just down the hall in the bedroom he’d occupied as a teen. During dinner with the ranch foreman, Jeb, and the hands, Jason had looked uncomfortable. He’d sat there answering their questions about what it was like to be an astronaut, but when everyone had headed to the bunkhouse he’d seemed lost.
Jason “Ace” McCoy.
It would have been nice if he’d gotten soft in the years since she’d last seen him. Maybe lost some of his thick dark hair or developed a potbelly. But she knew that was a foolish wish. NASA didn’t choose men who let themselves go to be part of exclusive missions. She had kept tabs on him, even if she hadn’t read every article about the hotshot Jason had become, the way her father always had.
She wondered sometimes if her dad had known about her crush on Jason. Probably. She hadn’t exactly been subtle that last summer he’d been at the Bar T.
She’d been too young to really understand the raw sexuality that was so much a part of his nature when she’d been sixteen, but at twenty-nine—now she understood it so much better. The only thing standing between them long ago had been his fear that her father wouldn’t approve. And she’d been too unsure of herself to be clear with Jason about what she wanted.
She slipped out of bed and pulled on her dad’s flannel robe. It still smelled of his aftershave and it was the closest thing she had to getting a hug from him. She wrapped her arms around herself for a long minute before she tied the sash as she opened the door.
The old hinges creaked as she did so. The ranch needed an infusion of cash. Everything was old and tired.
Including her?
Damn.
She really hoped not, but tonight, with Jason being back and Dad being gone, she was feeling...too much. A little down, a little wild, a little angry.
The night was warm and the full moon lit her path. The upstairs bedrooms ran along a corridor that was lined with floor-to-ceiling glass panes affording a view of the acres and acres of pasture that her ancestors had claimed and kept as their own. Each generation added their own stamp to their home, which had started as a big farm house, but had evolved into something unique with modern touches. She stood there for a moment, just looking at the land. She loved Texas. And this land was in her blood. She knew she’d do whatever she had to to keep the ranch, even if
