Like a Fox on the Run, стр. 20

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she grinned, and then a realization quickly occurred to her. “Wait! You’re shaved … cleaned up … are you rockside?”

“I am. I landed this afternoon at VBS.” He gave his wet hair one last scrub-through with the towel and tossed it. On the other end, the beautiful Tallulah Carter was elated to see her old flame again. It was always too long between visits and never enough time during them.

As for Tiger, he looked into those gorgeous blue eyes and the old memories stirred again, as they always did. Fond memories. Great memories. Bittersweet memories. And as always, those torturous memories of regret and missed opportunity. No woman would ever stir emotions inside him the way Lulah Carter did.

Once upon a time, she’d been in Flight Control at the old Marshall Space Flight Center, back when Uncle Sam and NASA still controlled the heavens. A young dispatcher, they’d first met downstairs in the bar. One night, she joined a group of her fellow dispatchers who’d decided to come downrange, curious to check out those wild boys of spacing, Cap’n Reb’s Redstone Rednecks, who hung out down at the Cockpit.

He’d spotted her the moment her group walked in the door, as did every other drunken, horny pilot in the place. Visitors of the female persuasion never went unnoticed by men who sometimes spent six-month stints in space. They’d received a rousing welcome of whistles and catcalls from the rowdy, testosterone-soaked gaggle of hard-drinking pilots. Even a few of the women pilots joined in on the raucous greeting. But Tiger sat almost dumbstruck, stricken by the beauty of the young brunette with eyes so blue they seemed almost transparent. He’d never seen a uniform look as hot as that powder-blue NASA jacket and jumpsuit she was wearing. He knew instantly he’d taken one right up the tailpipe … and he was going down in flames.

Back in those days, there’d been live music at the bar, and the band that night played country-western. He’d asked her to dance and they’d two-stepped around the old dance floor, as he smiled at her like a goofy schoolboy on his first date. She’d hopelessly captivated him. She had high cheekbones and a disarming smile, with just the slightest overbite that gave her a girlish charm. He was not accustomed to such in his rough and tumble world of hard men, fast ships, and even faster women. It had been the heyday of the spacer groupies, young women who hung in the bars around the spaceport, anxious to interact with these wild and adventurous young men on leave, ripe from just being paid and libidos raging from having been in space for months on end.

After each dance, he’d invite her back to his table, but she would politely decline and return to her friends. By the end of the night he’d wrote it all off to simply an enjoyable evening and nothing more. Then, as last call came, and the band played their final dance tune, they met on the floor for a slow dance. He still remembered it, even now. The Boz Scaggs song from that old John Travolta cowboy movie from centuries ago. It had been a fitting song, for he held her hoping they’d never end that song. He could’ve danced with her forever. But it was not to be. Good things never last. When it was over, and she slowly disengaged from his embrace, she placed something in his hand. It was a napkin with her number scribbled on it. Giving him a soft kiss on his lips, she smiled reassuringly before slipping away. The rest would be, as they say, history.

They would date for the remainder of their twenties. It was to be the best years of his life, he just never realized it until later. And of course, it was never destined to last. His rambling ways would make sure of that. There was never a doubt that she was the one that got away. He’d been young and a spacer in the time of the Greatest Adventure, a pioneer and a trailblazer. He spent months driving rockets across Sol. Earth became less a home and, more and more, simply just a rest stop. She was a girl who would grow into a woman wanting more than a few days and nights of his time here and there. In time, she would need something more. Something substantial. Something secure.

Alas, she would eventually move on, marrying an egghead researcher from some aerospace firm. Tiger couldn’t blame her. It was the smart move. The next few years he spent in denial, refusing to admit he was mourning the loss of the only woman he’d ever love. Refusing to admit he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He grew bitter, hating a man simply for doing what he wouldn’t. Yet, in the end, he only grew to hate himself more.

“It’s been over a year,” she said, a wistful smile across her face. Still, the touch of sadness in her eyes didn’t go unnoticed. How empty and longing that last meeting had left her. It saddened her even more now that she realized just how much time had actually passed since their last little “date.” Jesus, how fast it was all flying by now! She wasn’t the young girl he’d once two-stepped with. The long, brown hair of her youth was now shorn into a shoulder-length style, more reflective of her new managerial position and her status now as a mother of two. Since he last saw her, she’d dyed it a lighter brown, highlighting it with orange and light-blue streaks, a fashion that had once been indicative of Andys and Andis. These days, these unnatural neon colors, once mandatory for androids, had now become the rage with humans. Tiger found it amusing. Humans wanting to look like A.I.’s. The very