THE DOOR OPENED. Ace McCoy couldn’t see the figure standing on the porch due to distance and the shadow cast by the setting sun, but his gut told him it was her. And if he was a betting man, he’d wager she was more beautiful than she’d been at sixteen when he’d walked away without a backward glance.
He walked slowly toward the house; her dad had once said that the only way to move forward was past fear. And, though he wasn’t truly afraid of Molly Tanner, she was the one woman who had haunted him all of his life. Seeing her again after thirteen years made his gut clench.
“Jason—I mean ‘Ace’—McCoy,” she said, as if his call sign left a bad taste in her mouth. “Thought you’d never set foot on this ranch again.”
He was right. She’d matured into her features. The mouth that had once seemed too big was now full and sensuous. Her eyes were still as rich as dark chocolate and her brows were thick and serious. Her nose was pert and some would say cute. But he’d been on the receiving end of her temper, so cute wasn’t a word he’d use to describe her.
Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, her waist smaller, more nipped in. And her hips—ah, hell—those hips were curvy, beckoning a man to squeeze them and pull her closer. He still remembered the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her mouth, even though they’d only shared one forbidden kiss.
“I’m back because of your dad,” he said, taking off his cowboy hat as he stepped up onto the wooden porch that extended across the front of the house. There were two large clay pots on either side of the stairs and four wooden rocking chairs beckoned. But he knew better than to drop his guard. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
In Houston he felt like a man in control, a man in charge of his destiny and his life. But a problem with the recovery of his bone density, revealed in his last post-flight medical exam, had him grounded indefinitely. And his mentor—the closest thing he had to a father—had left him half of this ranch. Returning to Cole’s Hill, Texas, made him feel as if he was stepping into the past, a past he preferred to leave behind.
The boy he’d been. The trouble that had dogged him. The stolen kiss that had cost him this, the only home he’d ever really had.
“He’s dead.”
“I know. I...”
“Don’t make excuses,” she said. “He always hoped you’d come back, and I guess he found the one way to get you here.”
“Dying is extreme even for him.”
“Yeah, it was,” she said, tears sparkling in her eyes as she turned away and dropped her chin to her chest. “It was so unexpected.”
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, needing to offer comfort and maybe find some himself. Mick had been a young sixty-five, and Ace was still shocked that an all-terrain-vehicle accident had claimed his mentor’s life.
Molly wiped her eyes with her hand and then stepped back from him. Her voice broke as she started to speak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “He named you in his will.”
“I was surprised. He and I made our peace,” he said. “But the terms of his will caught me off guard.”
“Me, too,” she said. “I’m still processing the fact that he’s gone.”
“I would have come back for the funeral, but I was on the space station.” He was a commander with NASA who had dreams of being one of the first astronauts to set out on the long-term missions necessary to prepare for space travel to Mars. Upon returning from space this time, he’d undergone intensive rehabilitation in Houston to regain the strength and muscle astronauts lose from spending so much time in microgravity. For a while, he’d had trouble walking and couldn’t drive, so his trip to the ranch had been postponed until now.
“I know,” she said. “Dad was proud of you...of what you accomplished. Come on in.”
“You sure about that?” he asked.
At the moment he’d rather be pulling Gs during a launch, fighting the urge to throw up, than standing here. He’d always been more comfortable observing Earth than being on it. Nothing new there.
“Yes. It’s your place, too,” she said. She turned on her heel, disappearing into the house, leaving a trail of strawberry-scented air in her wake and more than a little regret. To be fair, the regret could be coming from him.
He stood there for a long minute, looking at the wooden frame, remembering the boy he’d been at fourteen when he’d first arrived at the ranch. He’d been surly, stand-offish, with a black eye and a busted lip. Molly had greeted him that day, too. She’d stood there with her long chestnut braids, watching him. He’d made some smart-ass comment and she’d put him in his place and walked away.
From that moment on he’d been following her. Even leaving the ranch, going into the military and becoming an astronaut had been about following her. The only man who could catch Molly was one who was aiming for the stars. He wanted to prove that he was more than the juvenile delinquent she’d met all those years ago. The boy-man who wasn’t good enough to kiss her or touch her.
“You coming or not, space cowboy?”
He shook off the mantle of the past, opening the screen door to follow her. It snapped shut behind him and his boots echoed as he walked down the hall to the kitchen. He paused when he noticed a framed photo on the wall. He put his hand next to it, staring at the image of himself in uniform with Mick standing so proudly next to him.
Yeah, the regret was all his.
He should have come back sooner, years ago when Mick had asked. But he’d been afraid of running into Molly. Afraid he’d ask more from her than a kiss. He’d known once he went down that road with her there’d be no coming back. And even as a teen he’d realized there was no real future for him on the ranch.
NASA hadn’t just given him a career; they’d given him a life he was proud of, a life he loved, and he didn’t want to risk being tied to the ground by emotions or expectations.
Ace wasn’t too sure who he was if he wasn’t 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