Love & Rockets

by Maggie Wells

  “You can?” She scoffed at the thought, but his oh-so-understanding gaze remained steady. “I can’t,” she said before he could offer up any excuses for her. “You’ve never been anything but decent to me, and I was a jerk. I apologize. I’m not crazy.” She twisted her fingers together, trying to figure out a way to explain without coming off as if she were bug-nuts. “Other than teachers, most men don’t pay a lot of attention to Grace. I mean, take the time to talk to her just to talk to her.” A hot flush prickled her cheeks as she rambled on, but apparently there was no stopping the crazy train once it was on a roll. “I mean, people should talk to her because she’s an amazing kid, but usually guys only talk to her if they...” She trailed off, figuring there was no good way to finish the sentence.

  “Are potential pedophiles?” he prompted.

  “Are trying to talk to me,” she blurted.

  The correction was met by a startled huff of laughter and raised eyebrows. He pushed his glasses up with a knuckle and shifted in his seat. “Wow. Brian thinks I have a healthy ego, but you’re making me look downright insecure.”

  Frustrated, embarrassed, and not at all comfortable with the intensity of his gaze, she pushed to her feet again. Yanking the order pad from the pocket of her apron, she gave her pen a couple of clicks to let him know she was locked and loaded. “Half-slab and a sandwich, no slaw?” she asked, reciting his usual order.

  “Darla—”

  “Is today a pie day or are you watching your girlish figure? Better tell me now. The peanut butter is a memory and the chocolate pecan is going fast.” She made a point of glancing toward the kitchen. “I suggest pre-ordering or you might be stuck with coconut cream, and that wouldn’t be pretty, would it?”

  “I’m allergic—”

  “—to coconut. I know,” she finished for him. “A joke. Bad joke.”

  “I’m sorry if I upset you or Grace last night. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  A dull throb pulsed behind her eyes. Pressing her fingers to the center of her forehead, she offered up a quick prayer he’d stop being decent and let her get on with her day. She’d apologized as she promised her daughter she would.

  “She’s a bright girl. Good eye for detail,” he went on. “Her work on the centerpiece was really impressive.”

  “Jake, please.”

  But he was a man on a mission. “I’m sorry. I know it sounds stupid, but I hate those things. I have to go because I’m on the Board of Directors, but mostly they make me want to release the air locks, you know?”

  This time she was the one who laughed. A girl couldn’t live with a space travel-obsessed girl like Grace Kennet and not know exactly what he meant. “Yeah, I know.”

  His sober expression melted into a smile so bright she was fairly certain she shouldn’t look at him without a pinhole projector.

  “She was the first sign of intelligent life I’d come across all night,” he said, a mischievous gleam in those mesmerizing eyes. “Don’t tell my mom I said so.”

  “Weren’t your dad and Brian there, too?”

  “And Brooke,” he added. “But other than Dad, none of them would have thought to add pea gravel to Saturn’s rings.”

  “I bet Brian would have,” she challenged. “You forget, I was in class with him. The guy was completely compulsive.”

  Jake snorted. “Okay, fine, maybe he would have, but he doesn’t count.” He looked up at her. “I liked your daughter, Darla. Not in a creepy way,” he added, holding up a hand to stave off further accusations. “You’ve got a good kid.”

  All the nerves and tension fled. She knew she’d liked the guy before, but now he was on the brink of becoming one of her favorite people. Anyone who saw the magic in Gracie had to be all right. Top ten. With a bullet.

  “I do, don’t I?” He simply nodded and her proud smile faded. “I’m glad you think so because I want to ask a favor of you.”

  “A favor?”

  He blinked and Darla found it hard not to be a little jealous of the sweep of unfairly thick dark lashes. Also difficult not to notice how full his lower lip looked when he frowned. “Grace is planning to do a project for the Space Camp thingy,” she said in a rush. Asking for help was right there with apologizing on her list of least favorite things to do. “She’s worried I hurt her chances. I didn’t blow her shot at the scholarship or anything, did I?”

  Jake’s head jerked back. He looked like he’d taken a punch to the gut. “What? No. I mean, I don’t think so.” He scowled and stared down at the glass of tea in front of him as if he could find the answer by reading beads of condensation. “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, your family does the whole Young Scientists thing, and I was thinking you might have some say.”

  She winced, hating how uncertain she sounded. For the past twelve years, she’d been the one making all the decisions where Grace was concerned. But for once, she couldn’t give her kid what she wanted most. Most days, Darla avoided making direct eye contact with her wallet. She needed to grocery shop. The electric bill was due the following week and car insurance a few days later. Back to school time was always a shock to the system. The supply list grew longer every year. Gone were the days of Crayolas and watercolor sets. This year, she’d had to shell out for a scientific calculator, a geometry set, a slew of additional fees for an advanced placement course, and a surprise fifty-dollar technology fee to cover the insurance on school-provided tablets.

  Then there was the school clothes shopping. For seven blessed autumns she’d had the pleasure of outfitting a bookish girl who couldn’t care less about her wardrobe. She’d outfitted them both at the MassiveMart. This year, her sweet-tempered daughter had apparently found her inner Kardashian. Suddenly, only a trip to the mall would do. Tops had to come from one store, and jeans from another. Darla draped a hand over her tired eyes as she relived the minor stroke she’d suffered when Grace presented her with her sneakers of choice.

  She’d have to knuckle down for the next few weeks to be able to get back to building up her meager savings account. Though she’d negotiated a great payment plan, the down payment on Grace’s orthodontia had eaten a chunk of her reserves. Combined with back-to-school shopping, her nest egg had been cracked open and devoured soft-boiled. She needed to get her funds back up over what she considered safety net level and quick. She never knew what expenses lay lurking around the corner, but she knew damn well there would be something. Car trouble. Medical bills. She laughed whenever her friend Harley asked how she was fixed for a down payment on a house, and bristled whenever he offered to secure a loan for her. Harley and his mother had already done so much for her and Grace. Too much. And though Harley could easily afford to help, Darla’d had to learn to draw some lines.

  Space Camp was nowhere in the budget, but she wanted Grace to have a shot. Drawing a deep breath, she pulled one of the squeeze bottles of sauce from her apron and slid the peace offering across the table.

  Jake eyed the bottle as if she’d offered him a bundled stack of fifties. “I’m not on the selection committee.”

  “You aren’t?” Her shoulders dropped as she expelled the breath she’d been holding.

  He picked up the bottle and offered it back to her. “Sorry, no.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Keep it. Saves me a trip later.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. The effect was so stunning Darla had to admit Zelda Jo wasn’t far off in her assessment. He might have that whole serious science guy thing going on, but when his eyes crinkled at the corners and grooves bracketed his mouth, he was definitely a contender for any sexiest guy title. And though she wasn’t sixteen anymore, it was damn hard not to crush on a guy who had everything—brains, looks, good manners, and an undeniable streak of nerdiness that made him seem a little lost.

  “I don’t judge because I have more fun mentoring a couple of kids each year.”

  Darla stared at him, so drawn in by those crinkles and
brackets and the warmth of those hot fudge eyes she almost missed the gist of what he was saying. At last, she latched onto the word ringing in her ears. “Mentor?”

  “Help them with their thesis, teach them proper methodology, the importance of data integrity.” He rolled his hand, urging her to catch on. “Advise on how best to present their findings.”

  Her heart surged in her chest. “Mentor Grace.” She dropped into the seat across from him again and almost reached for his hands, but checked herself in time. Folding her own hands atop the tacky table top, she looked him dead in the eye. “Please.”

  “This is quite the turnaround from last night,” he commented mildly, but his eyes still held the light of his smile.

  “Darla! Get off your backside. You’ve got orders up and I think table seven is sufferin’ de-hy-dration,” Zelda Jo ordered as she sidled past with a loaded tray. Tossing a knowing smile over her shoulder, she blew an exaggerated kiss at Jake and cooed, “Stop looking at her like that, John-John. Short-circuits a girl’s wiring.”

  Jake shook his head and frowned as Darla scrambled to her feet. “I’ve told her a million times my name is Jake, but she insists on calling me John.” He looked up at her, utterly bewildered. “Do you think she has memory problems?”

  Darla snorted. “Zelda Jo has fifty-seven problems on any given day, but faulty memory isn’t one of them.”

  “So she calls me John to bug me?”

  “More of a flirting thing.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought of Zelda Jo putting serious moves on a guy like Jake Dalton. “Listen, why don’t you come to dinner one night?” The suggestion was out there before she’d given any thought to the state of her freezer. She grimaced as she realized what slim pickings she had to offer, but the invitation was out there now and there was no taking it back. Straightening her shoulders, she forced a tight smile. “You can talk to Grace and see if you might want to work with her, and I’ll have the chance to make things up to you.”

  “You don’t have to make anything up to me.”

  His chivalrous dismissal of her rude behavior was a relief, but she had a live one on the line now, and she wasn’t going to give up until she landed him and served him up on a plate for her little girl. Even if she’d have to pull an Internet search on how to make ramen noodles into something not quite so ramen-y. Now that she thought about it, there might be an open package of pasta up behind the quinoa she kept meaning to cook. She could spring for a jar of sauce and maybe a loaf of bread. Gracie liked all forms of Italian food. Though they’d hugged and made up for the most part, Darla was aware she hadn’t been entirely forgiven. She would have to make things right as far as Grace’s chances at winning the Space Camp scholarship.

  Serving up the esteemed Dr. Dalton as a side dish would go a long way to getting her back in her daughter’s good graces. Anything to avoid spending the weekend attempting to coax a pre-teen out of the awkward silent treatment thing she’d picked up recently.

  Wrinkling her nose in an attempt to look sheepish, she leaned in close and pitched her voice low. “I have to make up to Grace. She was a little put out with me for chasing you off.”

  Jake leaned back and looked her in the eye. “Was she?”

  “Nothing fancy. I’ll make dinner and you two can form your own save the midget planets society.”

  “Dwarf planets,” he corrected, as she knew he would. “And they’re not endangered.”

  “I know. They don’t get the respect they deserve,” she replied gravely. “Think about it. I’ll put your order in.”

  She turned on her heel and headed back toward the kitchen. For good measure, she added a little extra sway to her step. Because sometimes a mother had to do what a mother had to do.

  Chapter 3

  Jake liked to tell people he did his best work at night. A lame joke. The astrophysicist equivalent of ‘a priest, a rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar’, but in many ways it was true. His day-to-day work as an engineer focused on the practicalities of space exploration. At night, he had the stars. Tipping his head back, he checked his course the way sailors did in the days before GPS made it impossible to get truly lost. The North Star shone bright in the clear night sky. Temperatures had finally started to drop after sundown, which meant nighttime readings hovered around seventy instead of eighty or more, as they did through the summer. Still, he’d managed to work up a decent sweat sometime between miles two and three.

  In the summer, his late night runs were a matter of practicality. Southern heat was nothing to trifle with, no matter how cool the breeze off the bay. He’d run every night starting back in his senior year of college. Barring illness, injury, or tropical storm warnings. In fact, he hadn’t skipped a run until his brother moved back to town. Not that Brian was a bad influence. Jake wasn’t even sure Brian knew he still ran. But until his brother had bought his half-finished house on Dauphin Island, Jake hadn’t found a better method of clearing the cares of the day from his mind.

  Pound the pavement or swing a hammer—those were his two surefire ways to jettison a payload of stress. Helping Brian finish his house had been a revelation. Running kept him physically fit. Working on construction projects added to that and kept him on an even keel mentally. Having Darla Kennet’s address and an invitation to dinner made him twitchy.

  Turning the corner, Jake exhaled as he caught sight of the moon shining bright in the sky. One of the true constants in his life, the moon never let him down. Jake felt a sharp pang of sympathy when he thought about all those poor fools who never took the time to marvel at the wonders beyond their world. The moon had been his friend since he’d received his first telescope for his sixth birthday. A couple years later, their dad had given Brian one, too, but the little freak traded for a microscope. Why anyone would prefer to spend their days staring at squiggly little worms trapped on glass slides when they could have billions of stars was beyond the limits of Jake’s comprehension.

  He was scheduled to have dinner with Darla Kennet and her kid. The mind boggled.

  He trotted another three blocks with his eyes locked on the glowing orb in the sky. The address she scribbled on the back of an order ticket wasn’t too terribly far from where he was now. A left then a right. Another mile, or maybe two. He could make the distance easily. The night was bright, the streets deserted. He could show up at her door and...what? Say he was there to show Grace the moon?

  There were things he could tell her about Earth’s only satellite. Things she probably hadn’t read in her science books. In the years since he’d first stared up at the Man on the Moon’s glowing face through a spindly little telescope, he’d become intimately acquainted with his old friend. He knew all about the stretches of plains the ancient astronomer mistook for seas. He’d learned all he could about the crevices and craters marking the desolate surface, inspected samples of moon rock and lunar soil, and studied the intricacies of each mission, manned and unmanned, in detail.

  Phases of the Moon. He’d presented his first scientific study to Mrs. Norton in the fifth grade. Jake smiled as he jogged past the old Rexall drug store where he’d nearly driven his mother over the edge with his insistence on a gray report cover. To him, was the only option that made sense. The moon wasn’t red or blue and certainly not the bright green his mother had snagged from the supply rack. But they didn’t make gray report covers. Or if they did, they didn’t stock them in the school supply aisle of their local pharmacy. After a heated battle, he’d settled for black, the color of space beyond the moon, but neither of them left the store happy. Still, there’d been chocolate-oatmeal cookies waiting on waxed paper the day after he’d brought the report home, a bright red ‘A’ scrawled across the title page.

  Slowing to a top at an intersection, he shuffled in place as a tricked-out Monte Carlo cruised past. By the time he’d reached graduate school, he’d moved far beyond the moon in his explorations, but moving on never stopped him from looking up and saying a silent hello when he step
ped outside for a run.

  His shirt clung to his chest. Sweat ran in a rivulet down his spine. The sight of a neighborhood grocery store closed up tight for the night combined with the memory of Darla’s stammering invitation. Wasn’t often a guy got to see The Pit’s sassiest waitress flustered.

  Was her nervousness simply because she’d had to swallow her monstrous pride and ask for help, or was there more? She certainly hadn’t shown any particular interest in him up until today, but sometimes things changed. Or not. Sometimes wishful thinking got a guy in trouble.

  Hooking a right, he headed away from the address she’d given him and toward the waterfront. She’d asked him over to help her kid. Supposedly. He knew next to nothing about kids, but he did know some things about women. He usually knew when one was attracted to him. If he was reading her right, Darla Kennet was…but she didn’t want to be.

  Then again, he wasn’t quite as adept at reading people as he was with the sky.

  Swiping at the sweat on his forehead with his forearm, he shook off the nagging tickle of insecurity. Acknowledging what he’d seen clear as day in her eyes wasn’t his ego talking. There’d been empirical, scientifically established evidence to back up his assertion. Her obvious nervousness. The extra effort it took her to meet and hold his gaze. She’d pressed a hand to her throat, but rather than hiding the rapid beat of her pulse, the move only drew his attention to the spot. He’d plowed halfway through his lunch before he realized he hadn’t tasted a bit of Bubba’s savory sauce, but in his mind he’d sampled that tiny patch of skin in a dozen different ways. Dilated pupils. Flaring nostrils. The way she kept wetting her lips.

  Darla Kennet was interested in him. Well, what do you know?

  Oh, yes. He’d thought about her. A guy would have to be dead not to notice her obvious assets. The woman was a pint-sized powder keg. He’d never actually had reason to stand next to her, but he was pretty sure if he did, she’d barely come up to his chest. Tiny and curvy. She wore her Pit-issued T-shirts snug and tucked into shorts or jeans millimeters shy of painted on.