Earth Bound (34 page)

Parsons kept his expression neutral as they approached. “Dr. Eason. Jack.”

“Mr. Parsons,” she said equally coolly. But as they passed, in the moment right before he would have missed it, she winked.

Parsons held onto his secret smile all the way to his office.

“So, well, I think we’re engaged.”

Dot was shoveling sugar into her coffee, as usual. “No, you’re engaged to be engaged. He hasn’t actually given you a ring yet, has he?”

Charlie doubted he would. Parsons wasn’t the jewelry type. “No, but I think we have an…understanding.”

Beverly smiled at her over the rim of her cup. “Best wishes.”

Charlie set her hand on her stomach. She hadn’t caught up on her sleep yet. Or maybe she hadn’t been eating enough. Perhaps it was the mission. She felt jittery. And joyful. And tingly.

She wasn’t a woman who felt tingly. Or at least she hadn’t been historically. He was changing her.

Charlie gestured airily with her coffee mug. “We’ll probably need it. What am I going to do the next time he takes a project away from me?”

“Over-starch his shirts?” Dot suggested.

“Oh, I send out all my laundry,” Charlie said.

Beverly wrinkled her nose. “Burn his pot roast?”

“I don’t really cook.” Except she was going to have to start. Or he was. They were going to need a system, or else they would both starve—scientists could not subsist on doughnuts and coffee alone.

Beverly was smiling. “You could convince him to change his mind.”

“He’s pretty willful.”

“Only one avenue is open then,” Dot said, with a firm, sage nod of her head.

Charlie leaned against the counter. “Pray tell?”

“Force Stan out. Have Parsons made ASD chief, and you can have his job.”

Charlie threw her head back and laughed. “Well, one thing at a time.”

For the moment, she’d take marrying the man she loved. The stars and all the rest could wait.

October 1963

Charlie tossed some sand with her toes. It was hot as sin, even under the beach umbrella. They’d waited until ASD was between launches to marry, though she’d been convinced they should do it right away. At least an autumn wedding meant they could steal away for a weekend.

She rubbed her cheek against the corner of her towel, and without opening her eyes, said, “Gene?”

“Hmm?”

“Can you be troubled to put some more oil on my back?”

She cracked an eye to watch him. Her husband was stretched out next to her, ostensibly reading
The Shoes of the Fisherman
, but dying, she knew, to dig into the memos in his briefcase. She could have forbidden him to bring along any work, but then he might have done the same to her, and she couldn’t have that.

He set down his book and propped himself up on one elbow, and she contemplated his chest inches from her nose. She’d managed to pack the weight he’d lost back on him, though he was still pale under his hair. Well, she supposed there was enough heat in his eyes up to make up for it. And a few more days in the sun would have him going from sallow to swarthy.

“You
are
getting pink.”

“You’ll have to save me from sunburn. You’re my only hope.”

“That’s true.” He reached over and untied the bandeau top of her bikini. “You can never be too careful. I better get it under here too.”

She giggled. It was a scandalous item of clothing. When she’d picked it up in the hotel gift shop the day before, the man had warned her she might be cited for wearing such an item on a beach in the States.

“Thank goodness we’re in Mexico, then,” she’d replied to the hotelier.

She truly couldn’t resist: It was cherry red, and she knew it would get her husband’s attention. And on your honeymoon, was it possible to have him ogle you enough?

Her husband’s reaction when she’d walked out of the bathroom in it had been worth it. In fact, the bikini nearly hadn’t survived their frenzy to get into bed afterward.

“Sunburn would be a state worse than death.” He dug the suntan oil out of the bag and drizzled a healthy measure down her spine.

“Oh, that’s cold,” she gasped.

But it felt good, or maybe that was just his hands, which felt as right on her skin as they had the very first day she’d met him. The hard ridge of his wedding ring was a gentle contrast to the pressure of his fingers as he smoothed oil down her skin.

 
He’d surprised her by being a jewelry man in the end, handing her a simply lovely engagement band with the words, “Ma would kill me if I didn’t get you a ring.”

Charlie had refrained from telling him that he wasn’t fooling her by blaming it on his adorable mother. And yes, his mother was adorable—a visit to Oklahoma had proved that.

As for his father… Well, Charlie didn’t see the resemblance Parsons so feared.

She gave a little groan as his clever, strong fingers found a particularly tight spot in her back. He was very,
very
thorough, and soon she felt as if she might melt into a puddle right there on the beach.

“Where are we going to go, do you think? After the moon?” she asked, her voice sounding slow and sleepy. He’d moved from her back to her legs—the obliging man.

“There are plenty of planets up there. I don’t think we’re going to run out anytime soon. The stars go on and on, the spirit of adventure is endless.”

“No, I meant you and me.”

“Well, same answer.”

It was convenient it was such a good one.

Thank You!

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Earth Bound
—we hope you enjoyed it!

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For a sneak peek at what’s coming next in the Fly Me to the Moon series, turn the page!

E
XCERPT
FROM
S
TAR
C
ROSSED
(F
LY
M
E
TO
THE
M
OON
, B
OOK
F
OUR
)

Why was it so difficult to find the ladies’ room?

Geraldine Brixton knew the answer: The astronaut facilities were set apart from the technicians’ facilities, and since up until now the astronauts had only been male, there were no ladies’ facilities for the lady astronauts. But pondering the question gave her something to focus on as she searched the halls of ASD.

She poked her head down one hall, scanning the row of doors. None of them looked likely. She could use the men’s room reserved for the Perseid Six, but she did not want to come across one of them in the process. They were already hostile enough—there was no need to invade more of their territory.

The male astronauts weren’t the only ones who couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of female astronauts. The other day, one of the engineers asked her to fetch him some coffee. She’d been on the cover of
Life
last week, and he still assumed she was a secretary.

The mistake had angered Mr. Parsons, who’d informed the engineer that she was not—in his words—“a goddamned secretary.” While Geri appreciated his motives, she wished Mr. Parsons had never said anything. Sometimes—most of the time—it was best to let things go. But he had a hair-trigger temper, so she’d kept quiet about all of it.

She turned down yet another hall, praying this one would be it. The doors to her left said “Computing Department.” Geri stopped short. There was that female computer she’d met the day they’d taken all those pictures—Dr. Eason. She ought to know where the ladies’ room was.

Geri pushed open the door slowly, scanning the room. There were plenty of men working, but no women—

Only, there was. A lone woman, her back to the door, dressed in a brick red sheath, her dark, kinetic curls pulled into a bun tucked at the base of her neck. The woman’s skin was a rich brown and shimmered like satin even under the fluorescent lights.

Geri’s gaze ran over the woman, her skin tingling as her heart began to pound.

Oh no.
This couldn’t be happening. Not here.

Over the years, Geri had become proficient at suppressing her body’s instinctive reactions. The rush of blood to her cheeks and other places, the dryness of her mouth, the race of her pulse—those could all be ignored. She’d trained herself to do it.

And it helped when she was flying, to have such tight control over her physiology. It had certainly helped in the sensory deprivation tank.

Suppressing her instinctive reactions had turned these little crushes of hers into simple annoyances in her other life, but to have one happen
here
of all places would be fatal to her ambitions.

Geri wanted to be an astronaut—a proper astronaut—more than she’d wanted anything in her life. So she backed out of the doorway, intending to disappear before this inconvenient response of hers could grow any worse.

But then the woman turned, her beautifully full mouth opening in a moment of surprise. One corner of her mouth tipped up into something that wasn’t quite a smile. More like a tickle at the edge of her lips.

“May I help you?” she asked.

As that not-quite-a-smile hit her square in the chest, Geri cursed the unfairness of the world. It gave a woman inclinations and skills, and then it told her not to use them. It put a creature as pretty as the woman in red on the planet, and then it told Geri not to notice.

It, all of it, was a damn shame.

A
UTHORS
’ N
OTE

When we began to write
Earth Bound
, we didn’t anticipate how much
research it would require. The email exchange in which we hashed out the intellectual history of orbital mechanics was particularly delightful. However, we found NASA’s own online history repository to be helpful, including documents related to the Gemini project, individual interviews collected in their oral histories archives, and numerous photographs. It bears repeating that our American Space Department is fictional; none of our characters are cognates for any person living or dead.
Earth Bound
is entirely a work of fiction.