Baby, It's Cold Outside (11 page)

“Oh, man!” she exclaimed, checking her shots in the
viewfinder. “We just watched an iceberg being born. Is that cool, or what?”

Actually, it was pretty darn awesome! Mia had never witnessed a display of such raw, elemental power before. Moved in a way she didn’t quite understand, she fell back into line for the rest of the trek.

Standing on top of the glacier turned out to be another incredible experience. Palmer’s handful of blue metal buildings were the only man-made structures anywhere in a seeming endless vista of sea, sky and ice. When Mia made a half turn, the station disappeared from her line of sight. She could have been alone on the ice. Alone in the universe. The stillness was profound, the view so incredibly humbling and uplifting.

Brent stood back while Mia took in the primal essence of Antarctica. Her expression mirrored the same stunned amazement he’d seen on the faces of so many other first-timers. But he’d never felt the same jolt while observing those fingees as he did while watching her. Or the same raw hunger. It was there, deep in his belly, when he moved to her side.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?”

“And then some. I understand now what pulls you back here.”

“You should think about spending more time here. The National Science Foundation funds programs for artists and writers, you know.”

She swiveled to face him. “Really?”

“Really. We had a professional photographer on station last summer. He got a NSF grant to do a black-and-white photo study of the various ice forms.”

Her emerald eyes filled with speculation. Just as quickly, it faded away. “I doubt NSF would give me a grant. I’m not an established author.”

“True, but you’re an established editor. Seems like a logical jump for me.”

Was he pushing too hard? Sounding too eager? Probably, but Brent didn’t care. All he knew was that he didn’t want this woman to drift into his life for such a short time, then drift right out again.

“Stop by my office when we get back to the station. I’ll show you the links so you can apply online.”

“You really think I should?”

Smiling, he gave the same answer he’d returned last night. “Oh, yeah.”

Then, of course, he had to follow up with another kiss. Something to cap her glacier walk. Something for him to think about after she’d gone.

“Got it.”

The amused comment brought both their heads around. Tiki had her camera aimed at them and clicked off another couple shots.

“I’ll e-mail the pictures to you, Mia. And to you, Brent,” she added with a wink.

T
HE DESCENT TOOK MUCH LESS
time than the climb. Beth hadn’t yet returned from her excursion to the penguin rookery, so Mia detoured to the kitchen for some hot chocolate and fresh-baked cookies.

Several of her fellow cruise passengers were in the galley. She shared a table with them and echoed their excitement over the projected departure for home in the
morning. All the while she was mentally marshaling pros and cons regarding a much longer stay at Palmer.

Three or four months here at the station wouldn’t be so bad. If she got a grant, she could take a leave of absence from her job. Or even edit textbooks online while down here at the station. Either way, she would have plenty of time to work on her own book.

Uh-huh. Sure. Like that was the driving factor behind her sudden desire to check out this grant business.

She was still listing arguments for and against the idea when she headed for the administrative wing. Was she making a mistake? Jumping in feetfirst again? She’d known Brent Walker for what? All of three days? Less time than she’d known Don Juan before she let him make a complete fool of her. Yet here she was, thinking about rearranging her entire life so she could spend a few months down here at the bottom of the world with the man.

This time was different, though. Her instincts had been flawed regarding Don Juan, but everything in her said she could trust Brent. She believed that with all of her heart…until she was a few steps from his office and caught the exchange inside.

“This is her?” an unfamiliar voice asked. “Number 112?”

“That’s her,” Brent confirmed.

Mia’s insides cramped. Oh, no! Not again. Not
him
, too.

Her feet dragging, she took another step. A third. Saw Brent and another man hunched in front of his computer. While she writhed inside, the younger one let out a long, low whistle.

“Wow. That’s some sweet dimple on her…”

“Skip the editorial, Monroe. Just mark the Web site.”

Mia didn’t wait to hear more. Slowly, she backed down the hall and retreated to the dining room again.

Mercifully, the others had left. The place was empty except for the cooks at work in the kitchen. Mia nodded to them as she went to stand at the window but didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Raw emotion had her throat in a vise.

He’d marked the Web site. Tagged the salacious picture of her. That shouldn’t have hurt so much. But it did, dammit! It did.

Arms wrapped around her waist, Mia stared at the expanse of snowcapped coast. Her thoughts churned so wildly it took a moment for her to register the two small black specs in the distance throwing up rooster tails of snow. Beth and Allen, returning from the penguin rookery. Mia watched their progress blindly while she writhed inside. How stupid could one woman be? How gullible and naive and
stupid?

She could think of only one reason for Brent to bookmark that disgusting Web site. So he could return to it over and over again after she departed Palmer. Maybe…Maybe even boast to Allen and the others how he had almost bagged the good-time girl. Display the picture Tiki had snapped up on the glacier as proof.

Disgust ate at her insides like acid. Not with him. With herself for actually thinking he was different. For believing he’d seen beyond that disgusting photo.

Hot tears stung her eyes. Fiercely, she blinked them away. She wouldn’t cry. She
wouldn’t!
Instead, she fixed her gaze on the two snowmobiles.

Thank God for Beth. Mia could talk to her. Work through this hurt and…

Her thoughts stuttered to a stop while her mind tried to make sense of the sudden disappearance of one of those snowy rooster tails.

She pressed her palms to the frigid windowpane and leaned closer. Her first, horrified thought was that the snowmobile had fallen into a crevasse. She almost sobbed with relief when she spotted the machine lying on its side. Relief morphed swiftly into anxiety when the rider didn’t crawl out from under the overturned vehicle.

Her heart thumped as the other snowmobile fishtailed around and halted. The rider climbed off, too far away and too bundled up to tell if it was Beth or Allen, and ran toward the other vehicle.

Mia didn’t wait for more. Shoving away from the window, she raced out of the dining room and tore down the hall to the administrative wing. She was only a few feet from Brent’s office when she heard the staticky cackle of a radio.

“Mayday! Mayday! Palmer Station, this is Allen Barclay. Come in please!”

T
HE FRANTIC CALL FROZE
M
IA
just outside Brent’s office. Her heart in her throat, she watched while he whipped the radio off his belt and keyed the mike.

“This is Brent. What’s the nature of your emergency, Allen?”

“Beth Harrelson’s Jet Ski hit an ice spur. It rolled over on her. She’s writhing in pain and can’t get up.”

Oh, God! Terror sliced through Mia’s veins. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Just stood there with her heart pounding while Brent barked out a swift reply.

“Don’t try to move her. I’m activating the crash team. We’ll get a GPS fix on your location and respond immediately.”

“You can see them!” Mia gasped. “From the dining room window!”

He jerked his chin in acknowledgment and flipped a switch on the console above his desk. His voice blared through the intercom a second later, sounding calm and in control despite his grim expression.

“Attention all personnel. The crash team should report to GWR immediately. I repeat, all members of the crash team should report immediately.”

He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and pushed past Mia.

“We’ll bring her to the clinic in the GWR. You can wait there.”

“I want to go with you!”

“This is no time for amateurs on the ice,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Wait at the clinic.”

M
IA HIT THE DINING ROOM FIRST
.

Her face plastered to the window, she gnawed on her lower lip until a large tracked vehicle with
Glacier Search and Rescue
stamped on its side roared out of the GWR building. Two smaller vehicles burst out behind it.

Fear pumped acid from her roiling stomach into her throat as the three rescue vehicles raced toward the snowmobiles. Allen was down on his knees in the snow, his back to Mia. She couldn’t see Beth.

When the crash team reached the scene, five people rushed over to surround Allen. Mia kept her clenched fists against the cold glass and didn’t draw a full breath until she saw her sister eased onto a backboard, strapped down and lifted into the tracked vehicle. Only then did she fling away from the window. Rushing down the stairs, she hit the exit door and ran along the wooden walkway to the GWR building.

Jill Anderson’s husband, Doug, was already in the GWR when Mia rushed in. As the senior scientist at Palmer, he’d maintained an open comm link with the crash team while ensuring everything was ready to receive the accident victim back at the station.

“The doc’s got everything he needs here to treat most
emergencies,” he assured Mia. “X-ray equipment, a lab, a full pharmacy, two trained EMTs to assist him. They’ll take good care of your sister.”

Mia clung to that promise until the crash team carried Beth in on the backboard. A white-faced Allen Barclay had one handle of the board, Brent another. Beth was conscious, thank God, and responded to her sister’s welcome cry with what started as a smile but ended in a rictus of pain.

“I’m…okay.”

“Right. Uh-huh. You look just dandy.”

Mia tried to follow the stretcher into the clinic but Doug restrained her.

“There’s not enough room inside. You need to wait here until the doc checks her out.”

She watched anxiously from the doorway while the crash team laid Beth on the exam table, still strapped to the backboard. Three members of the team then exited the small clinic. The two trained EMTs remained inside to assist the physician. Brent was one of them. He gave Mia an encouraging nod before he shut the door in her face.

Allen paced the hall with Mia. Behind his bushy beard, his faced was twisted with worry and self-recrimination.

“I made sure I went ahead of her the whole way. Checked every foot of the track. But that damned ice spur was a few inches below the surface and I went right over it.”

They swung back and forth, with Mia trying to reassure Allen and him doing the same for her. Finally, the door to the clinic opened and Brent emerged.

“She’s okay,” he told the anxious group. “Pretty bruised and shaken up, but no broken bones or internal injuries that the doc can detect.”

“Can I see her now?” she asked, gulping back a big, fat sob of relief.

“You can. She’s a little woozy,” he warned. “The doc gave her some Demerol for the pain.”

Woozy understated the case considerably. Beth was almost out of it but managed to greet her sister with a real smile this time.

“Some vacation, huh?”

“No kidding! How’re you feeling?”

“Like I just got run over by a snowmobile.”

“She was lucky,” the station’s doc confirmed. “Nothing worse than some nasty contusions on her stomach. We’ll keep an eye on her for a while, though, just to be sure.”

He rolled a stainless steel stool over for Mia, then retreated to the back of the clinic to write up his report. Mia plopped onto the stool and threaded her hand through her sister’s. Beth dozed off for a while and woke with a little start.

“Sis?”

“I’m here.”

Beth’s lids drifted down and she dozed off again. She was still asleep when Brent returned to the clinic some hours later.

“I’ll take the next watch,” he said with a nod that included both Mia and the doc. “You two go get some supper.”

Now that her terror for her sister had subsided, Mia
had had time to think about what Brent had been doing right before the accident. His swift action to aid Beth mitigated some of Mia’s hurt and disappointment. Enough remained, however, for her to be very glad she was departing Palmer Station the next morning.

Which is exactly what she conveyed to Brent when she and the doc returned after supper. She kept it light. Breezy. No sense embarrassing herself by admitting how close she’d come to making another stupid mistake.

“Thanks for what you did for my sister this afternoon,” she told him while the doc checked Beth’s vitals. “Antarctica’s turned out to be quite an adventure, but we’ll sure be glad to get home.”

He cocked his head and studied her with those penetrating blue eyes. “I hope this accident hasn’t turned you off the idea of applying for an NSF grant.”

She’d been turned off all right, but not by the accident.

“That book thing was a crazy idea. I’m an editor, not a writer.”

“Maybe I can convince you otherwise. How about a cup of coffee later, after Beth settles in for the night?”

“I’m going to hang here with her. But thanks. Again.”

Before he could reply, she turned away.

Frowning, Brent hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. He’d been given the brush-off before. Most notably by his fiancée just weeks before their wedding. Ironically, this one hit a helluva lot harder.

Mia Harrelson had gotten to him in their short days together. Her frankness in facing up to the mistake she’d made with that Don Juan had won Brent’s respect. So had her willingness to pitch in and help here at the station.

Mixed in with that respect was a growing attraction laced heavily with desire. In the few short days they’d been together this woman had turned him and his controlled, orderly world upside down. The idea that she would leave in the morning ate at his insides.

Then again, he had to consider the very real scare the sisters had had this afternoon. If Beth had sustained serious injuries beyond the scope of their limited medical facilities, getting her to a hospital in time could have meant the difference between life and death. No surprise that Mia’s budding wonder and appreciation of Antarctica’s awesome beauty had fizzled and died on the spot.

Along with her interest in him, apparently.

Maybe it was for the best, Brent concluded as he left the clinic. He’d tried a long-distance romance. It didn’t work. No reason to think this one would, either. Mia would depart tomorrow. Brent would remain on station until his between-tour leave in early March. And that was that.

M
IA ECHOED EXACTLY THE SAME
sentiments early the next morning as she and her sister gathered their few possessions and prepared to depart Palmer Station.

They were dressed in the jeans and turtlenecks they’d arrived in. Mia had topped her turtleneck with a U.S. Research Station Palmer sweatshirt purchased at the station’s small store. Beth’s sweatshirt came compliments of Allen Barclay and the National Science Foundation’s Electromagnetic Ionospheric Research Project.

Beth was moving
very
gingerly this morning. She sported a vicious-looking bruise on her stomach from
its close encounter with the skimobile’s handlebar. The accident hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm for Antarctica, though.

“I can’t believe you’re giving up the idea of a book about this place.”

“This place, as you term it, is just a little bit too overwhelming. I’d rather put everything that happened here behind me.”

“Including Brent?”

“Including Brent.”

“Why? What’s up with that? I thought you two had struck a few sparks.”

Shrugging, Mia stuffed her toiletries into a ditty bag.

“Sparks can burn, especially when you jump into the fire too fast. I’ve learned my lesson.”

She hadn’t told her sister about almost walking in on Brent while he was marking Don Juan’s site for future reference. What was the point?

“Come on, let’s get you downstairs. The last intercom announcement said to be ready to board in twenty minutes.”

D
ESPITE HER EAGERNESS TO PUT
Palmer behind her, Mia found it harder than she’d anticipated to say goodbye to the station manager.

Brent was on the dock, directing operations. He wore an orange float parka for visibility and safety, teamed with snug jeans and a black knit watch cap covering most of his blond hair.

Behind him loomed the gray-painted hull of the icebreaker. In true Palmer tradition, Brent had invited the
ship’s captain and crew ashore for a tour of the facilities. The captain had reciprocated by inviting the Palmer folks aboard for a traditional Argentinean breakfast of sweet, sticky
medialunas
accompanied by black coffee and glasses of steamed milk flavored with bittersweet chocolate.

Mia got a taste of the chocolate when Brent drew her aside at the gangplank.

“I have something for you. A little souvenir of your visit to the bottom of the world.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a flat box. Inside was a multifaceted, lead glass medallion in the shape of Antarctica.

“One of our guys in the machine shop makes these. If you hang it in a window, it’ll refract the sun in a rainbow of colors.”

“Thank you. I didn’t expect a gift. You…everyone here at Palmer…have been so generous already.”

“We aim to please.”

Oh, crap! He had to do it. Smile down at her like that.

Wondering what the heck it was about those weathered laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that turned her insides to mush, Mia slid the box into her pocket.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have a goodbye gift for you.”

“I’ll settle for a kiss.”

She could hardly refuse without explaining why. And explanations aside, a traitorous part of her wanted one last touch, one final brush of his mouth on hers. If nothing else, it would serve as a reminder of how close she’d come to making another mistake.

Going up on tiptoe, she let her lips settle against his. He tasted of chocolate and warm, seductive male. When
she ended the kiss, genuine regret for what might have been tinged her voice.

“Bye, Brent.”

“Bye, Mia.”

Once aboard the icebreaker, most of the rescued cruise ship passengers went below but the two sisters stayed out on deck while the ship got underway. The engine rumbled to life beneath their feet. Brent and the others on the dock loosed the mooring lines. The icebreaker’s crew winched them in. Slowly, the ship gathered speed and nosed through ice that had melted into slush with the warmer temperatures.

Suddenly Beth gave a shocked gasp. “What on earth are they doing?”

She hung on the rail, her disbelieving gaze locked on Brent and Allen while they stripped off jackets, shirts, boots and hats.

“It’s a Palmer ritual.” Mia had to bite her lip to hold back a strangled laugh. “Brent said they do it when their resupply ship leaves. I guess…I guess they’re taking a special plunge in our honor.”

And plunge they did, straight off the dock. Her last sight of Brent was as he waved to her from the ice-flecked water.