Whiteout

by Adriana Anders

  “Okay?” he croaked and rubbed his throat unconsciously. Hurt like hell from the dry wind and constant exertion.

  She nodded, but he was pretty sure that was bullshit. He’d never seen the woman’s face so devoid of expression, like she couldn’t even lift her brows. As if her facial muscles wouldn’t activate after the day’s journey.

  “I’ll make dinner.”

  “I can—”

  “You’re not the chef here, Angel. You’re just…one of the team.” He set out the camp stove and got to work heating up chunks of ice.

  “Yeah?” Her face changed, something flickering in her eyes. “Team of two, huh?”

  He watched out of the corner of his eye as she reached up and under her clothes behind her back, fiddled with something, and then sank forward with a sigh. “Darned thing.”

  He opened his mouth to ask what darned thing she meant and then realized just in time: her bra. She’d undone her bra with as much relief as she’d pulled off those boots. The hell women went through just to be women.

  After a few seconds of watching him pour pale, desiccated poultry and sauce flakes into the cook pot, she collapsed onto her back, wide eyes fixed on the tent ceiling. “Not much of a team member, am I?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How far do you figure we went today?”

  He didn’t have to pull out the GPS to know they’d made it forty-eight miles in the plow and just about eight on their skis.

  “’bout fifty-six miles.” He worked hard to sound unconcerned.

  “Crap. We only skied eight miles?”

  He nodded.

  “You can ski twice that much. You’d still be at it if I weren’t here, wouldn’t you?” Looking grim, she refused to catch his eye. “Right?”

  With a half shrug, he stirred and thought about what he could say to make her feel better. Nothing. It was true. She was holding him back. At the same time… “Glad you’re here, though.”

  “Come on.” She looked at him finally, the sudden directness of her gaze almost aggressive. “Hauling me around’s not doing you any favors. Wouldn’t you rather survive this than die because of my dead weight?”

  He blinked at the rehydrated chicken dish sending its mouthwatering fog into the air. Crazy how good this stuff smelled. Finally, he set the spoon down and turned to her. “No.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Rather not do this alone.” That wasn’t strictly true, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Yeah, I’d rather be alone, but I couldn’t leave you back there to die didn’t have a good ring to it.

  “You go out on the ice alone every single day.”

  “That’s research.”

  “Ah. Research. A fine mistress.” She did some weird approximation of a foreign accent.

  He snorted and opened his mouth to say something, but she beat him to it.

  “Holy crap.”

  “What?”

  “Did you just laugh?” She sat up, humor brightening her eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “That huffy noise you made. That was a laugh, wasn’t it?”

  “Huffy?”

  “Yeah. Like a grunt.”

  “Wasn’t—”

  “It was. You laughed. Halle-frickin-lujah. The man laughs.”

  That made him frown. “Course I do.”

  “Not with me you don’t.”

  “What are you—”

  “Oh, come on, Professor Ice Man, you know as well as I do that I’m the last person you’d want to be stuck with out here on the ice. Am I right?” The look she gave him was knowing and brash and close to the way she acted back on base. Except for one little difference—an almost unnoticeable moment of hesitation. Like she assumed she was right, but she really didn’t want to be.

  He couldn’t answer right away. Partly because he didn’t want to have this conversation at all, but also because he wasn’t entirely sure of his own answer. Would he rather be here with someone other than her?

  Whatever. No point wasting time worrying about things like that. If what-ifs had been his thing, he’d have started young with questions like, What if Mom were alive? What would life be like then? Or What if I’d stayed in school instead of joining the army to piss off Dad?

  Those weren’t questions he’d ever bother asking himself.

  “No point.”

  “What?”

  “No point worrying about crap like that.” He grabbed a bowl and spoon and handed it over to her. “Eat.”

  Chapter 17

  She shouldn’t have said that dead weight thing. Because now that it was out, it hung between them like… Well, like a dead weight. A years-old salami, left too long to cure. Heavy, dry, hard as rock, obvious, and utterly pointless.

  Right. Pointless, he’d said. Or, actually, “No point worrying about crap like that.” Such a practical way of looking at life.

  She ate without tasting, which, frankly, was a good thing, given the slop they were shoveling in. Slop that felt pretty amazing going down, though. The heat and moisture revived her a bit, made her feel more human after the repetitive hiss of skiing had taken even that away.

  She hurt in ways she’d never imagined after one day on the ice. What would it be like after three weeks of this?

  “Thank you,” she finally managed, once she’d put away almost the entire bowl, barely taking the time to breathe.

  He did another of those grunts—apparently his catchall sound—and lifted his head. Those blue eyes, close and here after so many hours hidden behind protective eyewear, nearly blinded her. “What for?”

  “For dinner.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t thank you?” She blinked. “Why not?”

  He shrugged and his already sunburned face got redder. “It’s normal.”

  She thought of that final, awkward thank-you he’d offered up back at the station. Those were meant to be his last words to her ever.

  “Nothing like the food you used to make,” he added.

  That warmed her a little. Lit a hungry little flame inside her. “You liked my food?”

  “Course.”

  “I didn’t realize that.”

  He grunted again and went back to his bowl, while Angel hid a smile and did the same.

  They chewed slowly, not speaking for so long that she’d thought the conversation was over.

  His voice was quiet when he spoke again, as if he didn’t really want to speak, but felt compelled. “Your meals were worlds beyond the last cook’s.”

  “I’m not fishing for—”

  “Even last night. Dried-out couscous, a sprinkle of this, dab of that, hot water. Brought me back to the Middle East.”

  Something about the way he said that tweaked her. “You travel a lot?”

  His eyes twitched toward her and away. After a few seconds of silence, she thought he’d shut down again, but he surprised her.

  “Couple tours in Iraq. Also traveled to Lebanon and North Africa, where couscous is queen.” His face was softer when he met her eyes. “You ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “You’d like it. Morocco, I think.”

  She nodded. “Bet I would.”

  “Full of…” He lifted his hands and gesticulated, as if hunting for words that wouldn’t come. After a second, he tried again. “Smells. Bright, saturated colors.”

  “So, the opposite of this place.”

  Her comment lifted his lips and she froze, blindsided.

  The man’s smile was as mesmerizing as the sparkle of sun on ice—a million blinding diamonds there and gone so fast she wasn’t convinced it was real.

  Do that again, she wanted to beg, willing his face to lose that hard, wolfish focus. To relax and brighten.

  “Pretty much. It’s big and bright and ra
ucous. Color, sound, smells.”

  What was he talking about?

  Oh, Morocco. Right. That was why he thought she’d like it. Unsubtle, obvious, in-your-face Angel Smith.

  She must have cringed, because he stopped talking and gave her a quizzical look. “No?”

  Was this the way he looked into a microscope? Did he even look into microscopes? It occurred to her that despite seeing him trudge off every morning, she had no idea how he spent his days.

  She blinked, shook herself internally, and tried to recover. “Oh. Yeah. I mean, I’d love to go one day. I’ve never traveled. Aside from coming here.” She set her bowl down and took a long drink of water, doing her best not to think about Jerkhead Hugh and the research trips he’d taken without her. Someone had to take care of the restaurant and he was the culinary genius, after all. She was just the workhorse. The idiot who’d eaten up every one of his lies, who’d given up her dreams for his.

  And here she was, thinking about him…again. No. No way. On a hard exhale, she looked at Ford, trying to picture him in a uniform. “What brought you from there to here, then?”

  Stiffly, he lifted his shoulders and dropped them. “Science.” The single word was dull and uninformative, as if designed to deflect all interest pointed his way.

  “Science,” she repeated quietly, watching him with a slow nod.

  Suddenly, with absolute clarity, she knew that he was lying.

  Ford Cooper was one hundred percent full of crap. He hadn’t come to Antarctica for science any more than she’d come here for the food. He’d come to get away. For some reason she couldn’t explain, it softened her to him, made her want to understand him, or at least know him better. Because nobody knew this man. Not really. People at the station liked him. Some, like Jameson, even spent time with him, but he didn’t let anybody beneath that thick, opaque surface. And like the surface they sat on, the man was more complicated than he appeared. Powerful and driven, but also good and kind.

  Good enough to take her with him on a journey that she might not be equipped to survive. Kind enough to slow his pace to match hers when she suspected that he could go much, much faster.

  “Would you still be out there if it weren’t for me?”

  He frowned. “What are you—”

  As if to remind her of the danger of this place, a wall of wind attacked the tent, rattling it and sending a hailstorm of snow to pelt the thin fabric, startling her and cutting him off abruptly.

  She set down her bowl and scooted closer to him.

  “Promise me something.”

  He narrowed his eyes, but didn’t say a word, and rather than look at that sharp blue gaze, she stared at the orange tent material above. “When the moment comes—and it will—when you have to decide between hauling my ass to safety and saving your own life, make the smart choice.” She plowed on. “Promise me, Ford, that you’ll leave me if it saves your life. I don’t want us both to die. I don’t want to be responsible for killing you.” With the last of her energy, she turned onto her side and reached for one of his callused hands. She grabbed it before he could pull away and held on tight. “Promise.”

  It took a long time for his wolf eyes to make their slow circuit of her face, to their joined hands, and back. By the time their gazes locked, something deeply frightening had happened inside her, something she wasn’t ready to think about.

  When he opened his mouth, she had no doubt what he’d say.

  Confusion morphed to tight-jawed anger. “No.”

  Tingling from the top of her buzzing head to the tips of her half-frozen toes, she opened her mouth to protest. He halted her with another annoyed look.

  “And don’t suggest it again or I’ll…”

  She blinked, eyes ensnared by his, and breathlessly awaited his next words.

  “Don’t know what I’ll do,” he said. “But you won’t like it.”

  Maybe I will, a little voice said before she snuffed it out.

  It seemed wrong, as they discussed their fates, to picture his hand wrapped in her hair and his strong-looking mouth against hers. Especially when he clearly meant what he said. He’d sacrifice himself if it gave her a chance at life.

  In that moment she knew, with utter certainty and complete devastation, that whatever happened in the next few days, however they got through this—or didn’t—she’d met the best man she’d ever known.

  Too bad they’d probably die together.

  * * *

  One of the things Coop loved about Antarctica was how it boiled everything down to the basics. Wind, ice, work, silence. Not exactly quiet, of course, since there were times when the wind howled as constantly and inevitably as waves breaking on land, but here there was space for thinking or not thinking as much as you wanted. What kept him coming back year after year, season after season, was the quiet in his head. The vacuum. No nightmares, no voices, no dreams at all. Just…space to exist.

  He’d slept quickly and easily, as he always did on the ice. So, when screams tore through the night, sending him up and out of his protective cocoon into the freezing air, he could do nothing but gasp and blink into the early winter sunlight trying to remember where he was.

  He stared at the orange canvas walls. No explosions, no pained groans, no adrenaline-laced dreams. Just the rattling wind, ball-tightening cold, and a terrorized woman. With his body shaking in an effort to heat itself, he slid partway out of his bag and bent over her.

  He set a careful hand on her shoulder, not to shake her but to steady her rocking, not to quiet the moans but to soak them up.

  “I’m here,” he whispered. “You’re okay, Angel. I got you.”

  Over and over, he gave her the words. He felt useless, but it was the best he had to offer.

  She eventually calmed, her eyes still closed, as if she’d never fully awakened. He lifted his hands, worked his way back into his bag, and had just closed his eyes again when another sound leaked through the tent. Only this time instead of a heart-stopping scream, she paralyzed him by whispering his name.

  “Yeah?” he managed to push out after a few shallow breaths.

  “Can you… Would you put your… Never mind.”

  “What?” It seemed urgent, somehow, that she tell him what she needed.

  “You probably can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  She sniffled from deep within her bag and turned onto her side, away from him.

  “Can’t leave your bag. Without freezing.” Another sniff and then a low, very hesitant, “Right?”

  He could, if he put more clothes on. With the sun beating on their tent all night, it wasn’t terribly cold in here. He sat up and reached for his coat.

  “It’s just that I’m…” She shuddered, her shape curling in on itself. Cold, he was sure she’d say. “Afraid.”

  He didn’t ask what she was afraid of.

  “Come here,” he said, unzipping his bag as fast as he could and reaching immediately for hers. He’d noted that these two could be mated. The sound was harsh, like tearing tent canvas. Worse than the noise was the cold, instantly, completely wrapping itself around him.

  Quickly, with surprising efficiency considering how hard it was to move, he scooted his pad, bag, and body toward hers, found the place where their zippers intersected, and shoved one into the other, pulled, got stuck, and shook for a good five seconds before he managed to yank it up again. All the while she waited, trembling. Another zip and they were in a single larger bag. He reached for one of the extras he’d grabbed and spread it out over them. Finally, a yank brought the tops up and over their heads and an awkward drawstring pull gave them a dark, welcome shelter.

  Together, face-to-face.

  Bad idea. How could he not regret it when it brought everything into pure sensorial focus?

  Her shaking continued, punctuated by little gasps.
/>   I should touch her.

  Uh. No.

  Except they were touching already, pressed together by proximity, from where her sock-clad toes dug into his calves to where her face nestled in the hollow under his chin.

  He drew a deep, cinnamon-laced inhale and lifted his arm, which skated audibly against the nylon.

  Outside their dark, tight, intimate shelter, the tent shook, battered by winds. But in here, everything was slippery, slow movements, hesitation.

  She sighed, the sound as full of pleasure as a slide into hot water, and rather than fight it, he let himself wrap around her. Just his arm, but it felt like so much more. Particularly when she stopped shaking, stopped making those noises, and melted into him.

  Each of her exhales puffed hot and intimate against his neck.

  It felt good to hold her. As good as it had yesterday in the ancillary building, when he’d taken off his shirt to give her his body heat. Two bright spots in an otherwise hellish twenty-four hours.

  Angel let out another deep, satisfied-sounding breath and twisted so that instead of being face-to-face, he spooned her, the position so natural, so warm, that he couldn’t help but tighten his hold.

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, he gave himself a break.

  Why shouldn’t he share a bit of warmth? Why shouldn’t he get some comfort in the process? There was no harm, was there, in closing his eyes and soaking in this connection for just a few seconds?

  Who would it hurt if he let himself like it?

  No one was the answer.

  Within the snug circle of his arm, her chest rose and fell with comforting regularity, until it stuttered for a second and he could have sworn she whispered something—probably not his name—before settling in deeper and finally falling asleep.

  He breathed in, filled his lungs and brain with her, soaked in her warmth and steeped in her spicy scent, and it was so good after the harsh kiss of the wind, so perfectly right that, suddenly, he knew it for exactly what it was: a lie.

  There was a reason he’d avoided Angel Smith. Already, she’d started seeping under his skin, making him feel things he preferred not to think about.