The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(14)

His chin rubbed the back of my head as he nodded. “I fell asleep at the table, so they took a break. I showered to wake up.”

Pulling back, I looked up at him. The shadows seemed deeper around his eyes. Those bastards. After everything he’d been through today, they kept him awake? “They didn’t just send you home?”

“They offered.” He squeezed my shoulders before releasing me. Unbuttoning his shirt, he meandered toward the bed. “I was afraid that, if I left, Colonel Parker would do something stupid. He still might.”

“He’s a schmuck.”

Nathaniel stopped undressing with his shirt halfway down his arms. “You mentioned knowing him.”

“He was a pilot in the war. Commanded a squadron, and haaaaaated having women fly his planes. Hated it. And he was grabby.”

In hindsight, I should not have mentioned that last bit to my husband. Not when he was exhausted. He straightened so fast, I thought he was going to rip his shirt. “What.”

Trying to soothe him, I held up my hands. “Not with me. And not with any of the women in my squad.” Well, not after I had a talk with Daddy. I shrugged. “Benefits of being a general’s daughter.”

He snorted and went back to sliding his shirt off. “That explains a lot.” Scrapes and bruises mottled his back. “I think I have him convinced that it wasn’t an A-bomb, but he’s certain that the Russians aimed the meteor.”

“They haven’t even gotten off the planet yet.”

“I pointed that out.” He sighed. “The good news is that the chain of command is not as broken as he would like us to believe. General Eisenhower is flying back from Europe. Should be here tomorrow morning, in fact.”

I took Nathaniel’s shirt from him and hung it on the back of a chair. “Here? As in Wright-Patterson, or as in America?”

“Here. It’s the closest intact base.”

The numbers sat quietly between us. We were more than five hundred miles from the impact site.

*

In the morning, I had my first glimpse of what we would be like as old people. Nathaniel could barely get out of bed on his own. During the earthquake, most of the debris had hit him. His back was a collection of hematomas and contusions that would have been better suited to one of Mama’s medical textbooks than a living man.

I was not much better. The only time I recalled feeling worse was the summer I’d had influenza. Still, I could get up, and I was fairly certain that once I was moving around, I’d be in better shape.

Nathaniel took two tries to push himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

“You should rest.”

He shook his head. “Can’t. Don’t want General Eisenhower to be swayed by Parker.”

My foolish husband held out a hand, and I pulled him to his feet. “General Eisenhower does not strike me as the sort of man to be swayed by an idiot.”

“Even geniuses can be stupid when they’re scared.” He grunted as he stood, which did not fill me with anything like confidence. But I know my husband, and he’s the sort of man who will work until his death. He reached for his shirt and winced.

I picked up the bathrobe he’d been loaned and held it out. “Do you want to shower first? Might loosen you up.”

He nodded and let me help him into the bathrobe, then shuffled down the hall. I went to the kitchen to find Mrs. Lindholm. The unmistakable aroma of bacon met me before I was through the door.

I braced myself to have that conversation with every meal. They were kind people, and we’d be sleeping in a field if not for them. Well … maybe that was a little melodramatic. We would have slept in the plane, but still. And then I heard what they were talking about, and the bacon became insignificant.

“… keep thinking about the girls I went to school with. Pearl was in Baltimore.” Mrs. Lindholm’s voice broke.

“There now…”

“Sorry—I’m being such a goose. You want raspberry or strawberry jam with your toast?”

I rounded the corner while the topic was innocuous. Mrs. Lindholm bustled at the counter, with her back to me. She wiped a hand under her eyes.

Major Lindholm sat at the kitchen table. Coffee steamed in a cup held loosely in his right hand. He had a newspaper in the left, but was frowning over it at his wife.

As I entered, he looked around and put a smile on like a mask. “Hope we didn’t wake you last night.”

“Nathaniel did, which was just as well, or I would have woken with the worst crick in my neck.” We went through the requisite pleasantries while he supplied me with a cup of coffee.

Do I have to explain the glories of a fresh cup of coffee? The deep redolent steam rising from the cup woke me before the first gloriously bitter drop even touched my lips. Not just bitter, but caressing waves of dark alertness. I sighed and relaxed into my chair. “Thank you.”

“What about breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Toast?” Mrs. Lindholm pulled a plate out of the cupboard. Her eyes were only a little red. “I have some grapefruit.”

How far inland had Florida’s citrus groves been? “Eggs and toast would be lovely, thank you.”

Major Lindholm folded his paper and pushed it away from him. “That’s right. Myrtle mentioned that you were Jews. Come over during the war?”