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  Tempting fate, she leaned in close, softly kissed his cheek.

  I’ll never forget you.

  For a moment she stood by the bed, yearning and longing for something she couldn’t put a name to. But even if she could, it was no use.

  She was simply no good at matters of the heart. Dressing quickly and quietly, she hesitated one last time at the door.

  Then, picking up her bag, she finally left, knowing she had no choice. No choice at all.

  4

  AS ALWAYS, Mike slept like the dead and awoke by degrees. It was a great fault of his, being so slow to shake sleep. Over the years he’d gotten both ribbed about it and in real trouble, not the least of which was the time he’d slept through his first “SIM”—space shuttle simulation pilot test. He’d been in Russia, and had just battled a week-long flu, which he’d kept silent about so as not to have to give up the chance. The test had been agonizingly long, and his “landing” required a pre-dawn wakeup. Thanks to his cold medications, he hadn’t made it, and as a result, the autopilot had kicked in for the simulated event, “demolishing” the entire landing strip and center, “killing” over one hundred people.

  That particular mishap had caused him years of jokes at his expense, not to mention requiring some serious kissing up. He’d practically had to beg to be kept in the program.

  And now, when he finally managed to crack his eyes open, and saw the bright sunlight pouring in through the hotel window, he knew before reaching out that he was alone.

  Still he stretched, touching her side of the pillow they’d shared when they hadn’t been rolling, tangled and heated and breathless, across the sheets.

  It was cold.

  She’d been gone for a while then, and he had no one to blame but himself for the odd mixture of real regret and not so real relief.

  As he rose and showered, Mike reminded himself that he had no time in his life for any serious entanglements. Having to fill in for this mission as pilot, when the mission had been in the planning stages for so long, meant he had months of catching up to do. He knew better than to think it would be a piece of cake. It was going to take every single second of every single day until launch to pull this off.

  First, he had to get through the initial process of inserting himself into an already established team. They were in Huntsville to immerse themselves in this critical project. In a week, they’d move on to Houston, where they would stay until launch time, with occasional trips back and forth to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

  He was looking at a whirlwind of activity.

  Which meant this was not the time to be considering a personal attachment. That was actually a good thing, as he’d never wanted a personal attachment.

  But last night, what he’d shared with that woman…now that could have been the first time he might have actually paused and considered anything close to a relationship.

  But she was gone, and he had to work, so it was over.

  Which didn’t explain why after his shower he stood staring down at the rumpled bed, yearning and burning for something just out of his reach.

  He dressed and ate as if it was just any other morning, and everything was normal. Same old, same old.

  But it wasn’t. He wasn’t.

  He knew he had last night to thank for that. He’d known from the moment she’d set foot in that bar, soaking wet, head high and eyes bright, that she was going to shake things up.

  She’d done that and more; she’d shaken him to the core. He tried not to think about that, and also about what he could have felt for her, under different circumstances.

  How could that happen, he wondered, after only a little conversation and some good sex?

  Okay, great sex.

  Regardless, it wasn’t like him to be mooning on the morning after. He’d always been the one running. But she’d left him, without a word or note, and he would have sworn that’s exactly what he wanted.

  So why was he entertaining other thoughts, about things like relationships and family and white picket fences? He had missions to fly and hopefully someday command. A wife and kids sounded nice, but for far, far, far down the road. Not now.

  At 0900 hours on the dot, he entered the Marshall Flight Center. He expected to leap right into work, expected to be whisked into the whole rush of it immediately.

  He didn’t expect a conference room filled with smiling people and good food—usually an oxy-moron when it came to government-provided meals.

  Though he’d spent very little time in the United States since his Air Force days, many of the people milling around were familiar to him. The space industry was like that—very incestuous. Even during the Cold War, when politicians from one country wouldn’t speak to, or even recognize, politicians from another, science had managed to remain universal. As countries, Russia and the United States might have ignored each other for years, but their scientists hadn’t. They’d been sharing the designing and planning of expeditions and experiments since the very beginning, and nothing had changed since.

  Few people on the outside realized how closely Russia, Japan, the United States and many other countries were working together to build the International Space Station, and even now, just thinking about it made Mike’s chest swell with pride at being a part of it.

  “Welcome, Mike!”

  He found his hand being energetically pumped by Tom Banks, an old astronaut training buddy who now worked in ground control. Mike was surprised to see Tom had lost some hair and gained some weight since those training days.

  “I heard the good news!” Tom was grinning. “You’re back in the States, filling in for Patrick.” His smile faded. “Poor guy. Can’t believe he biffed it so badly parachuting. Sporting three pins in his leg, did you hear?”

  “Ouch.” Mike wondered exactly how selfish it was of him to be grateful for the miracle of that mishap, and also the fact that the backup pilot had contracted hepatitis.

  Probably pretty damn selfish.

  But he’d been training for exactly this opportunity for years. He’d been in space twice before and couldn’t wait to get back up there. So far, all he knew was that the mission would carry and install the third of eight sets of solar arrays that, at the completion of construction in 2006, would comprise the space station’s electrical power system, converting sunlight to usable energy. It was a project he was intimately familiar with, as he’d been working on it in Russia for years. “How is it all going?”

  “It’s going,” Tom said, nodding. “They’re thrilled to have you, as your reputation precedes you.”

  That, Mike knew, could be good or bad.

  “Hey, heard about last year,” Tom said. “How you limped back after the payload fire mid-flight.”

  Limped. Kind word for nearly losing it, as in crashing back to earth, becoming fish food, biting the big one. Thanks to some quick thinking on Mike’s part—and he was convinced anyone on that team could have done the same, he’d just gotten there first—he’d managed to contain the fire and put it out before it destroyed them beyond repair. “I don’t care to repeat that experience,” he said in grand understatement.

  “You were a lucky bastard, that’s for certain. All of you.”

  “Have you met your team?” Tom turned to the two men who’d just come up to them. “Mike Wright, meet Jimmy Westmoreland, Mission Specialist-One. And Frank Smothers, Mission Specialist-Two.”

  As it turned out, Mike had met both men before. They’d come to Russia several years back to study some of the communications equipment for the space station in its planning stages, so it was more of a reunion than anything else. A few moments later he was introduced to Stephen Philips, the fifth member of the team and their payload specialist.

  “You’ve met everyone now,” Tom said. “Not bad for your first ten minutes here.”

  “I haven’t met the commander.” Oddly enough, Mike felt his first flash of…not apprehension; that was far too strong a word for a man who felt so utterly comfortable in his