Space in His Heart Read Free

the shuttle Columbia during the last launch could occur again on Endeavour . This time, the crew might not be so lucky.
    He shook his head and walked away. Damn, it
could be right in front of him. Literally under his fingertips. The
last thing he wanted to do was listen to a bunch of PR blowhards
from some big agency tell them to have another press conference in
space.
    Deke scanned the vast shuttle bay of the
Orbiter Processing Facility for the aging figure of Skip Bowker,
the man ultimately responsible for the safety of every mission. He
figured he’d find him leaning against the glass wall of one of the
offices, his signature coffee cup in his hand, looking a little too
damn calm considering the next launch was a mere three and a half
months away.
    But Bowker was missing and Deke knew he
didn’t have much time to make the ten-minute walk across Kennedy
Space Center to the NASA Headquarters building. He knew better than
to be late for a Colonel-Price-issued invitation, no matter how
foolish the topic might seem. It was odd for the Colonel to insist
any of the astronauts and flight crew attend the meeting, but it
wasn’t worth questioning the order. He liked to rack up points with
the Colonel for when he really needed a favor.
    Using a side door, he entered the auditorium
and bounded up two steps at a time, bypassing the seven or eight
rows of stacked seating to lean against the wall in the back. He
nodded to a few colleagues but avoided being pulled into a
conversation. He wasn’t staying long. He’d catch the essence of the
meeting, be sure Colonel Price’s secretary saw him, and then he
could slip back to the Processing Facility for another few
hours.
    Deke was mentally reviewing the wiring when
Stuart Rosen, the head of Public Affairs at Kennedy, started to
address the group. With his mind on some vague dates on the
engineering log he’d seen that morning, Deke had to force himself
to listen to Stuart. Public Affairs was so damn far removed from
the real business of flying space shuttles and operating the space
station.
    Still, he knew that image was everything to
Americans and, last time he checked, that’s who covered his
paycheck. Plus, he liked Stu. He just hated the BS that had nothing
to do with what really mattered in the program.
    Stuart droned on about a woman vice president
from the Boston office of some supersized marketing firm called
Ross & Clayton. She’d come to Cape Canaveral to invigorate
NASA’s image. Deke almost snorted, visualizing the engine he’d just
been examining. If Endeavour blew up over the Atlantic
Ocean, they’d need to invigorate a helluva lot more than their
image.
    Stuart stepped off the stage and led a light
applause for the Madame Vice President named Jessica Marlowe from Bahston . Oh, brother. It was bad enough NASA had to pay outsiders to do their PR; did they have to clap for it,
too? Deke braced against the wall and checked the path to the
nearest exit. He’d give her five minutes, seven tops.
    From the front row, a young woman rose, set a
laptop on a nearby table and then replaced Stuart at center stage.
As she turned to the crowd, she flashed a mega-watt smile to get
their attention.
    She certainly got his. Holy hell, after
staring at frayed wires and the inside of a shuttle exhaust all
day, this girl was a vacation for the eyes. And he took it.
    He drank in every inch from her deep brown
hair twisted neatly in something his sister would call an up-do,
all the way down to a pair of high heels that might be hell to wear
but were pure heaven to watch. In between were a whole lot of nice
curves and long legs.
    She stood straight and confident, as close to
attention as a civilian could manage, clearing her throat before
she smiled again. This time, it hit him right in the gut. He
couldn’t help it. He smiled back even though he knew she probably
hadn’t noticed him among her rapt audience of nearly thirty
people.
    He watched her take a deep breath and smooth
a stray