Pushing The Limits. Katherine Garbera

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       4

      JESSIE WOKE UP before dawn on her first day of teaching. Her internal clock always got her out of bed at 5 a.m. local time. She made herself a cup of herbal tea and took it out on the deck of her cabin.

      She’d trained high-endurance athletes and adventurers who wanted to pit themselves against nature, but this job felt different.

      She took a sip of her tea as she settled onto the wooden chair her father had built for her when she turned sixteen. He’d painted it a bright blue, and though time had faded the paint, it was still her favorite chair. She shipped it with her possessions wherever she was currently calling home.

      Propping her feet up on the railing, she looked out over the ranch lands. From her vantage point she saw a trail and the tall cedar trees with their twisting roots that were prominent on this section of the land. The trail led to the facility where she would meet her new trainees.

      Well, officially.

      She’d met most of them at the party last night.

      Including Hemi.

      His face had haunted her sleep and his questions still drifted through her mind. She wasn’t used to being aggressively pursued by a man. It had been a long time since she’d left her rarified life of risk and adventure, and been back here in the so-called real world. Except it had never felt real to her. She’d always floated along, as she had in the water last night, observing. And running away when things got too real.

      But after this morning...she wanted to change. She wanted to feel something, though a part of her was very much afraid that she couldn’t.

      She’d seen breathtaking wonders in the world and done most of the things people put on their extreme bucket lists. And a part of her had lost the wonder that had been her constant companion as a child.

      She wanted it back.

      But she had no idea how to reclaim it.

      For a moment last night, when she’d been in the lake with Hemi beside her, she’d had a glimpse of what could be.

      She took another sip of her tea, tipped her chair back on its rear legs and looked up at the roof of her wooden porch. Spiderwebs and some scratch marks. She put the chair down on all four legs and stood on the seat, reaching up to touch the scratches. Initials.

      WBT.

      No doubt one of the co-owners’ relations. The Tanners’ forebears had been granted this land by the Spanish king back before Texas was a state. She wondered what those people must have felt, looking out at this land, trying to figure out how to claim it.

      She heard the rhythmic sound of footsteps approaching on the trail and climbed down off the chair as a group of six Cronus candidates came jogging around the bend.

      Hemi was in the lead, followed closely by two women, and then a man and two more women.

      They waved at her as they continued running by. She watched them go and realized that she’d never been a part of a team. Her family had been a group of individuals and most of the adventures she went on pitted her against nature. There were other people on the same quest but she’d always been aware that she was the leader, and the responsibility she had for their safety had been heavy.

      The Cronus candidates were a team. She heard them urging one another on. There were twenty-four candidates out here competing for places on the missions. And everyone wanted to be part of the first one.

      She’d read the files of each of the candidates and understood that each of them was elite in some way. They also had a fire to be up there among the stars. She finished her tea and went back inside, doing a series of tai chi exercises that helped bring her peace. Then she showered, tossed her hair into a ponytail and put on khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt.

      The exercises she had designed for her students were tough. But her mandate from Dennis Lock had been to get these people ready for anything. To hone their instincts so that they would be able to survive anything that nature or failing technology put in their way. He had said that ensuring no one died in space was mission critical. She understood that.

      So today she’d teach them things that she’d learned from the time she was old enough to walk. Ways of moving into a new area and assessing the potential threats, and then she’d test them. She had a mock ship interior that she’d be using along with the technical crew. Her part of the training involved using the mock ship interior and working with the crew candidates. She knew that they were going to assess the dynamics between the contenders to ensure that the first mission was a success.

      She had spent a lot of time in their space suits and in the mock module herself, trying to make sure she understood what was going on. She had to teach them how to survive if their climate control was damaged and the icy cold of space permeated their ship. Though their astronaut training had already covered this, she was here to shore up their understanding of how to survive when everything went wrong.

      She knew that all she could do was give them the tools they’d need to survive and she was determined they would.

      Last night had been fun, she thought, as she applied sunscreen and lip balm. A sort of sweet dream. An anomaly. Today it was back to her world—teaching people to survive. Hemi, with his brash attitude, flashed into her mind and she felt a flicker of excitement. That was different—the first time in a long time that a person and not a challenge had inspired it.

      Interesting. And scary. She was going to have to step away from Hemi but she had more than a few regrets at the thought.

      * * *

      HEMI HAD DONE his best to play it cool when he’d jogged past Jessie’s cabin that morning. But he wasn’t cool. Granted, a big part of his attraction to her was down to the fact that she was hard to get, although he knew she wasn’t playing. That wasn’t her way.

      She was honest and tall and so damned beautiful he’d spent more than half the night in a semi-aroused dream state, wishing last night in the lake had ended with them together in his bed.