Cosmic Rendezvous

She smelled so good. And her body felt so delicate in his arms.

Instead of crushing her lips and plundering her mouth as he wanted, he forced his lips to trail down her jaw to the safer territory of her smooth brown neck.

Only now he was immersed in her scent, and it clouded his already hazy mind. He couldn’t resist the urge to lick the indent at the base of her neck, and it immediately constricted with her gasp of pleasure.

Her hands dipped to the small of his back just above the waistband of his jeans. Taking that as encouragement, he let his hips rock against hers, knowing she’d feel the full extent of his excitement.

Leaning into him, Shelly raised her lips to his once again. Finally, she seemed to have let go of her inhibitions and was taking the lead.

MILLS & BOON

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ROBYN AMOS

worked a multitude of day jobs while pursuing a career in writing after graduating from college with a degree in psychology. Then she married her real-life romantic hero, a genuine rocket scientist and she was finally able to live her dream of writing full-time. Since her first book was published in 1997, Robyn has written tales of romantic comedy and suspense for several publishers, including Harlequin Books, Kensington Books and HarperCollins. A native of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Robyn currently resides in Odenton, Maryland.

Cosmic Rendezvous

Robyn Amos

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for Gretchen England. Thanks for letting

me steal pieces of your life for this book.

Remember me when you get into space one day!

Dear Reader,

My husband is an aerospace engineer, and therefore, so are many of our friends. I got the idea for Cosmic Rendezvous when one of those friends announced that she was moving to Houston to train astronauts on a new vehicle that will soon replace the space shuttle. A bunch of us were sitting around a table playing Texas Hold ’Em and joking that my friend would move to Texas and marry a cowboy. But not just any cowboy…a space cowboy. That’s when Lincoln “Lightning” Ripley was born—Mr. Right Stuff himself.

I had a great time researching this book because my husband took a real interest in helping me with the technical aspects. We visited Houston with the double mission of catching up with my friend and touring Johnson Space Center. We dined in a pub where astronauts go to hang out and viewed the underwater lab where they simulate a weightless environment. I also learned that the Houston humidity is hard on a woman’s hair. Hopefully I was able to bring all of those experiences to life in this book.

Shelly and Linc have a tough road to travel to find their happy ending. But in Cosmic Rendezvous, they eventually discover that no amount of stubbornness, stress or catastrophes can stand in the path of true love.

I love to hear from readers. E-mail me at robynamos@aol.com or visit me on the Web at www.robynamos.com.

Happy reading,

Robyn Amos

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Shelly London shifted her stare from the blinking error message on her monitor to the window and back again. She was tempted to hoist her computer through the glass and jump out after it.

Moving to Houston to train astronauts on an experimental spacecraft for NASA wasn’t nearly as cool as it had originally seemed.

She’d felt as though she’d been caught up in a tornado from the minute she’d stepped off the plane from Washington, D.C. Between setting up her new home and overseeing the final design and production of the spacecraft, she’d barely had a moment to herself.

And there certainly hadn’t been time to find a decent hairdresser, she thought, patting her gel-slicked topknot. Houston’s humidity had gotten the best of her, and it had been one bad-hair day after another.

She knew her life would never resemble a rerun of Sex and the City. Expensive clothes and shoes, fabulous parties with beautiful people and an endless string of handsome men weren’t her destiny.

But at least back in D.C., she’d been stylish and put together, making the most of her cute potential. She’d had a social life, with girlfriends and dates when she’d wanted them, and close family ties with her mother and sister. Shelly knew it would take some time to build a life here in Houston, but it was slower going than she’d expected.

Still living out of boxes, she was lucky to put together a shirt and pants that matched. This made it easy to fall into the collegelike culture of her fellow aerospace geeks. Rolling out of bed for shift work, she dressed in blue jeans and old T-shirts, and ate whatever fast food was available.

She was close with those on her engineering team—most of whom she’d brought with her from D.C.—and knew the affable group of guys couldn’t care less how she looked. But just once since she’d moved to Houston, she’d like to have a good-hair day.

Yesterday, out of a desperate need for a touch-up, she’d pulled off the highway and walked into a hair salon. She’d figured that with the name Lady of Color, she had a fighting chance of getting a stylist who could straighten her frizzled mess. She’d been right about one thing. The salon did specialize in African-American hair. Unfortunately, it didn’t specialize in doing it well.

Shelly’s hair had been bone straight when she left the salon yesterday, but that had lasted only until she walked through the thick, souplike humidity to her car this morning. By the time she’d driven to her office—with the windows down, because the air conditioner was broken—she’d looked like a wet poodle.

After two months and two containers of hair gel, Shelly had been looking forward to sporting something other than a bun or an unruly ponytail. No such luck. Thanks to the emergency gel she’d retrieved from the trunk of her car and the wide rubber band from her desk drawer, she was back to her perpetual bad-hair-day look.

In fact, it was looking as if it was going to be a bad day all the way around. In the dark monitor of her computer, which she was rebooting for the third time, she saw the reflection of a thunderstorm headed her way. Actually, it was Lightning. Lightning Ripley.

But she refused to use Lincoln Ripley’s self-indulgent nickname out loud. Shelly didn’t care how many engineers on her team suffered from hero worship. Or how often she heard women in the ladies’ room drooling over his chiseled features and rock-hard muscles. Shelly was convinced Ripley’s reputation was all hype.

By her estimation, he was a cocky, overconfident hotshot, channeling Will Smith in Independence Day. Ripley thought he was a hero destined to become a legend, and Shelly didn’t want any part of it.

Guardian Rescue Mission, or GRM, was her baby. Draco, the spacecraft, was her design. And she wasn’t going to let some ego-driven astronaut ruin the very thing her entire career and reputation were riding on.

Spinning around in her chair to face him, Shelly braced herself. She knew exactly what was coming. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Lincoln Ripley felt anger radiating from his body like invisible waves of heat. He stalked up to Shelly London, fully intending to spin her chair to face him, but she stole his thunder when she turned to him on her own.

She stopped him short with the look of challenge in her dark eyes. He knew right then that she was going to be trouble. He wished for some way to wipe that smug expression off her face.

“Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t have the authority to get me pulled off this mission.” At the sound of his voice echoing through the quiet room, three heads popped up in alarm. The rest of the team was watching the scene with rapt attention, but Linc didn’t care.

Shelly stared up at him without blinking. Her cold gaze sent a shiver down his spine. “You haven’t been pulled from the mission. So, what’s the problem?”

Linc blinked. Was she kidding? That morning she’d issued a request to the mission director for his reassignment. “The problem is that you tried to get me kicked off.”

“Relax, Ripley. This isn’t Survivor. You can’t be voted off, as you well know. I simply inquired as to whether you were the best choice for lead astronaut on this mission.”

Her indifference ramped up his anger another notch. “You question whether or not I’m the best choice? Don’t you know who I am?”

His stomach muscles were clenched. Linc was used to maintaining his composure, especially with women. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d reacted this strongly to one.

More infuriating was that her cool smile never changed. “Sure. You’re a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force.”

Linc ground his teeth together. She was being deliberately obtuse. “And…”

She gave an unladylike snort. “Oh, you want to know if I saw you on the covers of Time, Newsweek and People. Yes, I’m well aware of your reputation,” she said irreverently. “But piloting a space shuttle has nothing to do with flying Draco. And I’m only interested in training astronauts who are focused on this mission rather than their own achievements.”

Linc suppressed a curse. His achievements had won him an Airman’s Medal. His body had now grown so hot, it was only a matter of time before steam poured from his ears.

“I can’t believe your nerve—”

“There seems to be plenty of nerve to go around, because you had the nerve to miss my briefing yesterday.”

Linc pounded the desk with his fist. “Is that what this is about? Missing one lousy meeting?”

Her back straightened, and for the first time, Linc spotted a crack in her composure. “No, this isn’t about one lousy meeting. I didn’t see you in the Mojave Desert when Draco was unveiled four months ago, and you didn’t show up for the first round of flight testing, either.”

His gut clenched. He’d missed those dates because he’d been flying a covert rescue mission out of Iraq. But he couldn’t discuss that with a civilian. He had no choice but to take the hit to his reputation. “It was my understanding that those exercises were optional.”

“Now we’re down to the wire, and training is about to begin. Yesterday’s briefing was not optional, and you weren’t there. Draco is my design. I don’t want anyone on the team who doesn’t take the spacecraft just as seriously as I do.”

He’d had enough of her attitude. “Your design. Important to you. Lady, this mission isn’t about you. GRM is a top-secret military operation. Missing one little meeting doesn’t warrant you trying to get me bumped from the mission.”

“The briefing wasn’t one little meeting. It was the meeting. And because you weren’t at the meeting, you don’t know anything about this spacecraft. It’s a new design that you’ve never seen before. This mission is on a rushed deadline. We don’t have time to waste catching you up whenever you decide your Porsche needs detailing.”

“It’s a 1969 Cobra, and it needed a carburetor.” He’d nearly killed himself in that car trying to get to the meeting on time, but his pride wouldn’t let him tell her that.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. In any case, you’re still on the project. It’s no secret that I’m not thrilled about that fact, but we have to work together, nonetheless. So, if you’re through disrupting the room, those of us who actually work here have to get back to it.” She spun her chair back around to face her computer.

Linc just stood there for a moment, staring incredulously. There were a million things he could have said, and would have said, if he weren’t so confused.

She’d just dismissed him. No woman had ever dismissed Lincoln Ripley.

Once Shelly heard Linc finally leave the room, she released the breath she’d been holding. That man infuriated her.

She was so mad, she was nearly shaking, but she hadn’t wanted him to see that. Shelly couldn’t focus on her computer screen. Sucking in a deep breath, she pulled her glasses off. She missed her contacts, but she still hadn’t found the time to find an optometrist to update her prescription.

Lately, there wasn’t time for anything the least bit personal. There certainly wasn’t time for a social life of any kind. And to make matters worse, because her mission was top-secret, she couldn’t talk to her family about what she was doing. That made for some strained conversations, because work had become her life.

But it would be worth it. All her life, Shelly had wanted to be an astronaut. Even now as an aerospace engineer, she’d applied to the astronaut program three times. And she’d been rejected. Three times.

After her last rejection, she’d begun to doubt herself. But her boss had given her another shot when he recommended her to work on Draco. He’d told her that this could be her ticket to the stars. And with that goal in mind, Shelly had worked hard on the project. Her ideas for the vehicle had been innovative enough that she’d eventually become the lead designer.

Unfortunately, when that phase had been completed, and she’d angled for a slot on the spacecraft as an expert on the design and maintenance, Shelly had been shot down again. It was at that point that they’d been informed that this new spacecraft was for a military operation that would be manned solely by military personnel.

This wasn’t unusual. Many of NASA’s astronauts were pulled directly from the military, particularly the Air Force, since jet flight experience was valued so highly. But, Shelly knew her background in aerospace engineering should have made her sufficiently qualified under normal circumstances.

Every move Shelly had made in her career was to prepare her to become an astronaut. NASA relied heavily on its private contractors, and Shelly had gone to work for Welloney Incorporated straight from graduate school because they held contracts for some of NASA’s most high-profile projects.

When she learned GRM wasn’t going to get her into space, Shelly had almost thrown in the towel then and there, but there had been a silver lining. For her hard work on the project, she’d been promoted and sent to Houston to train the astronauts on Draco. It was hardly the next best thing to riding a rocket into space, but the money was good, and Shelly needed a change.

She’d be damned if she’d sit back and watch some hotshot pilot take Draco for granted. If she couldn’t man the craft herself, she at least wanted astronauts that saw the mission as more than another notch in their belts.

Shelly shook her head over the argument she’d just had. He’d been trying to intimidate her. Lincoln Ripley was clearly the kind of man who was used to having his way.

Why else would he have leaned over her like that? He’d probably expected that she would get a lungful of that designer cologne he wore and swoon. Or maybe he’d thought she’d be mesmerized by his chocolate-brown eyes and offer him whatever he asked for.

This was the first time Shelly had seen Linc up close, and she couldn’t deny, he was every bit as handsome as the rumor mill suggested. The women in the administration office called him Mr. Right Stuff. But that little fact only annoyed her more.

She hated men like him. The kind that never had to work hard at anything. Panties dropped at their feet with a glance, they made touchdowns without breaking a sweat, and their egos…Shelly was surprised Linc could keep a plane in the air with the weight of his ego on board.

No, this wasn’t the kind of astronaut she wanted on her mission, but they were stuck with each other. Yet, if Lincoln Ripley thought he was going to bat his thick eyelashes and get what he wanted from her, he was sorely mistaken.

She was in charge, and she wasn’t going to let him forget it.

Two days later, Linc was still trying to figure out what he was going to do about Shelly London. It seemed she’d set her mind on riding him hard.

He smiled at the double entendre. If she were any other woman, he might try making the other meaning of that statement a reality. But Linc couldn’t get past her hard edge long enough to see her that way. Prim updo. Glasses. She was clearly wound too tight. And Linc liked his women soft and loose.

At first, he hadn’t known why she was dead set against him, but he’d been certain it was an opinion she’d formed long before they’d ever met.

Sure, from the outside looking in, it might seem to her that flying her spacecraft wasn’t a priority to him—an assumption that couldn’t be further from the truth. But his gut told him that was just a surface excuse for her to continue despising him.

Linc had to admit, having a woman hate him on sight was a new sensation, and it had thrown him off his game for a minute. But he’d never been one to run from a challenge.

So what if she didn’t want him piloting Draco? Colonel Murphy, the mission director, had made it clear that losing him wasn’t an option.

His next move had been to turn the tables on her. If she didn’t want to work with him, why couldn’t she go back to Washington and turn the work over to the remaining team members? After all, Draco was nearly built. What did they need her for now?

He needed to know exactly what kind of enemy he was up against in Shelly. That meant finding out whatever he could about her.

Getting information out of her engineering team had been easy. They were a bit starstruck in his presence and were eager to answer his questions. From them, he’d learned that she was as hard to ditch from this mission as he was.

He hadn’t placed much weight on her words when she’d bragged about designing Draco. Spacecrafts were designed by teams, and being the project manager didn’t exactly make her a genius.

Except in this case. Apparently, she had been a junior member of the design team and had graduated to PM based on her development of a system that could increase propulsion while reducing fuel usage. It was technology that had never been seen before, making Shelly the absolute authority.

Using that fact as leverage, Shelly had lobbied to be included on the flight team as an engineer. Of course, she hadn’t had a chance in hell of that happening. Draco would only be boarded by military personnel. That was a mandate that had come from the vice president himself.

Linc had spent the better part of his morning grilling engineers, but at least now he’d figured out why Shelly had it out for him. She wanted to be an astronaut. And she probably resented him because he epitomized everything she wanted but couldn’t have.

Now that he understood her a bit better, he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy for her. With that in mind, he decided to take the first step toward forming a truce.

Just before lunch, Linc headed toward her workstation to find her. He hadn’t gotten any farther than the hallway outside the GRM offices when he saw Shelly coming at him.

Her brown eyes were like flashing warning signs, but he still took his chances. “Hey, I was just going to look for you—”

She stopped in front of him, arms crossed. “So you finally decided to go to the source?”

He frowned at her bitter tone. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been checking up on me, haven’t you?” Her eyes narrowed, becoming thin slits, and he resisted the survival instinct to back up.

“Well, I just—”

“What exactly was your plan? Did you think turn-about was fair play? Were you looking for some way to get me ousted from GRM so I’d be out of your hair?”

Caught off guard, he didn’t have time to mask his guilt.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. If you were really the hotshot astronaut everyone thinks you are, you would have put this much energy into brushing up on Draco instead of prying into my background.”

Linc had been silent out of pure incredulity, but now his temper snapped. “Give me a break. I didn’t hire a private investigator to follow you around and dig up dirt. I asked a few of the engineers about you. I wanted to know why you have such a giant chip on your shoulder.”

“My chips and my shoulders are none of your concern. The only things you need to concern yourself with are the specifications for the spacecraft. We start training next week, and I don’t want to fall behind schedule because you don’t know what’s going on.”

Linc saw red. “I know everything I need to know about Draco.”

She smirked. “Really? How many days can Draco stay in orbit?”

“Two hundred and ten,” he answered effortlessly.

“That was an easy one. What are Draco’s altitude control specs?”

“Nitrogen jets plus the differential firing of the main thrusters.”

Linc and Shelly were so caught up in their altercation, they barely noticed that they’d drawn a small crowd. What he did finally see was the crowd quickly dispersing and Shelly staring in horror over his shoulder.

Holding his breath, Linc spun on his heel. “Colonel Murphy. Good afternoon, sir.”

“I want the two of you in my office now,” replied the colonel.

The long walk down the hallway to the colonel’s office made Linc acutely aware of how childishly he and Shelly had been behaving. He felt like he’d just been called to the principal’s office. Something about her brought out the worst in him.

Colonel Murphy followed them into the office but didn’t sit at his desk. Instead, he walked to the window and ran a hand through his thick white hair.

Finally, he turned to face them, reining in his anger with noticeable effort. “Do you two know how much this mission is worth? Do you understand what’s at stake here?”

“Yes, sir,” they both answered in unison.

“Then why do I have two of my most valuable team members arguing loudly enough to draw a crowd when there’s work to be done?”

Linc couldn’t find any words to excuse his behavior, and Shelly remained silent beside him.

“Frankly, I’m stunned that the two of you can’t get along,” the colonel continued. “You’re both well-liked by the other members of the team. You’re both leaders. So if you don’t have trouble getting along with anyone else, why the hell can’t you get along with each other?”

Shelly leaned forward. “Actually, Colonel—”

“You know what? I don’t care,” Colonel Murphy said, cutting her off. “You don’t have to braid each other’s hair and have tea parties together. All you have to do is get the job done. You’re stuck with each other. So find a way to behave civilly. If you don’t work it out on your own, I’ll have the two of you shoved so far down each other’s throats, you’ll speak with one voice. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

“Good. Now, I don’t want to hear any more commotion from the two of you, because if I have to intervene again, I guarantee you’ll wish I hadn’t.” With that, he spun on his heel and walked out of his office.