Baby, It's Cold Outside (7 page)

She’d tried to tell them that she was fine. Because she was.

She was changed, that was all. Forever. No way around it.

She dropped the cell phone back in her pocket and rounded the corner—almost bumping into a tall, dark-haired man. She laughed, said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying a lick of attention….”

And then frowned. The man was wearing an old leather aviator jacket over old jeans. His dark hair glistened with rain, and he had strong, square features, eyes bluer than the sky.

The beard was gone. That was the thing. The scruffiness, the wild hair, the lost eyes had all disappeared.

Damn, but he was handsome. Who knew?

“Well, would you look at what the storm dragged in.” She tried to sound casually amazed—instead of stunned out of her tree.

“You were supposed to call,” he said.

“You didn’t ask me to call.” She was positive she’d have remembered if he had.

“Yeah, well that was because it took months to get all my life-stuff taken care of. The whole time, I was hoping you were pining for me.”

She parted her lips, but her heart had leaped so high in her throat that she had to swallow. And because she didn’t immediately respond, he jumped back in.

“So this is what you’re wearing when you’re dressed to impress, huh?” He motioned to her wrinkled scrubs, the booties, the messed-up hair and soap-clean face.

“Hey, if I’d known my best guy was going to show up, I’d have put on the hair cap, too. It really adds to a girl’s allure.”

“You don’t need anything to add to your allure, Doc.”

She couldn’t leave him hanging out alone there any
longer. “I’m getting the impression that maybe, just maybe, you pined for me as much as I pined for you.”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“So…do I get a hug or do we have to stand around in this hall talking nonsense forever?”

And finally, there it was. Those long, strong arms. The familiar thump of his heart, the warmth of his body, the strength of him. The vulnerability.

“It seems,” Rick mentioned, “that there’s a lot of infrastructure rebuilding going on in your city.”

“Lots of needs. But no funds, the last I knew.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. But I asked. Sent in my credentials. And it seems that as long as I work harder than two men, and do brilliant work, I’ve got a job.”

She reached up, to touch his cheek. “You actually moved for me?”

He shifted on his feet—even though he never moved even an inch of distance. “I moved…because you were exasperating enough to get on my case about the hermit business. And then because your Boston has a ton of seriously interesting infrastructure problems.”

She wasn’t fooled by those details. “You moved for me,” she repeated.

“I couldn’t have,” he assured her. “That would have been stupid. I had no idea whether you’d even be willing to see me again. Or if you’d forgotten all about me. What we shared…you know darn well we could have blamed it on the blizzard.”

“I never blamed it on the blizzard,” she whispered. “I blamed it on you. For forcing my eyes open. For forcing my heart open.”

“I blame you for doing the same darn thing to me, Doc,” he murmured right back.

And then she lifted up, making it easier to kiss him. Making it easy for him to kiss her right back.

Tucked around each other, they headed out into the warm spring night.

To my handsome, debonair hubby—
we’ve crisscrossed the world together,
each mile filled with the wonder of discovery.
Here’s to many more such journeys!

Dear Reader,

My husband and I were getting ready for a cruise to South America and Antarctica when I was offered a chance to write a novella set “somewhere cold.” Was that fate or what? I’d done so much research in preparation for our trip that I couldn’t wait to dive in to a tale set on the White Continent.

My research came nowhere
close
to the awesome reality of Antarctica, however! I’ve traveled to many places over the years but that vast, stupendously beautiful, constantly changing continent blew me away. I saw penguins of all shapes and sizes, whales, seals and ice. Lots of ice. Small, drifting floes. Big, fat bergs. Glaciers thousands of feet high. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience-one I hope you’ll get a taste of in “Deep Freeze.”

Check out pictures from our trip as well as information on other upcoming releases on my Web site at www.merlinelovelace.com.

Merline Lovelace

“I
T’LL BE FUN
, M
IA
. A real adventure, Mia.”

Shoulders hunched against a cold so vicious it bit into her bones, Mia Harrelson shot her sister an evil glare. Either Beth’s teeth were clattering too loudly to hear the snide comments or she chose to ignore them.

That didn’t stop Mia. Now that they were safely inside the covered lifeboat and dry land was—hopefully!—only moments away, the nerve-grinding tension of the past six hours was slowly loosening its grip.

“It’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere,” she said sarcastically, pressing closer to her shivering sister. “Much warmer than Rhode Island in January. All we’ll need to pack are bikinis for Rio. Shorts for Montevideo. A light jacket for Antarctica. Ha!”

“Gimme a break.” Her nostrils pinched with cold, Beth dug her chin into the collar of her inflatable life vest. “You can’t hold me responsible for a freak storm.”

The heck Mia couldn’t! Someone had to take the blame for this disaster, and her sister was the closet target—right after the idiot captain who’d run their cruise ship aground.

In a more generous frame of mind, Mia might have
accepted a little of the responsibility for their present predicament herself. Okay, most of it.

After all,
she
was the dope who’d gone all gooey-eyed over a drop-dead gorgeous lawyer with a come-hither smile.
She
was the fool who’d tumbled into bed with him on their second date.
She
was the naive twit who’d never imagined someone so charming and urbane was into hidden cameras and kinky Web sites.

And
she
was now out there for the whole world to see, wearing nothing but a red lace thong and star-shaped cutouts over her nipples.

A groan worked its way through her numb lips. Among her friends and coworkers she was now and would probably forever be known as Number 112. The latest in a string of conquests by the man who labeled himself Don Juan. The same international Don Juan, Mia had discovered to her utter mortification, whose Web site got something like three thousand hits a day from those wanting to check the progress of his one-man campaign to seduce every gullible female who came into his orbit.

Mia’s dismay had quickly morphed to anger, then to a furious determination to force the bastard to remove her picture from his rogue’s gallery. She should have known a lawyer would cover his ass. Not only did she
not
get the photo off his Web site, she was threatened with a lawsuit if she revealed Don Juan’s real identity. As he’d so callously explained, he hadn’t posted her name or any other identifying personal data. There were lots of women out there with coal-black hair, green eyes and a dimple in one rear cheek.

Yeah, right! That stupid dimple had made her the re
cipient of so many sly winks and waggling brows at work that Mia had jumped at Beth’s travel suggestion. Why not take advantage of midwinter cruise sales to get out of town for a few weeks and let the sniggering die down?

She’d driven in from snowy Newport, Rhode Island, and met Beth at the airport in Boston. Together they’d flown down to Rio to soak up the sun for three glorious days. Then, to Mia’s profound regret, they’d boarded the ultra-luxurious
Adventurer II
for a twelve-day cruise that included stops in Argentina, Uruguay, the Falkland Islands and Chile. And several days cruising the Antarctic Peninsula.

Looking back, Mia was forced to admit their first day in Antarctica hadn’t been so bad. Daytime temperatures had hovered around fifty degrees. She and Beth had dressed in light layers—cotton turtlenecks, wool sweaters, waterproof windbreakers—and hung over the rails with the other passengers to ooh and ahh at spouting whales and penguins cavorting on the ice floes that drifted by.

This morning had started off sunny, too. Then a gray cloud rolled over the top of the glacier-skirted mountains off the port side of the ship. With it came plummeting temperatures and knifing winds. The next thing the more than three hundred passengers knew, visibility had dropped to near zero, the wind was screeching along the decks and the
Adventurer
was wallowing like a drunken sailor.

Some extremely nauseous hours later, the ship hit a submerged ice shelf. Everyone was looking extremely scared and replaying
Titanic
’s last moments in their heads
when an announcement came over the intercom instructing all personnel to dress in their warmest clothes and report to their muster stations.

Now here they were, plowing through vicious seas while the storm still raged outside their covered lifeboat. Ice pellets pinged against the roof and windows. The wind howled like a mortally wounded dragon. Waves smashed against the hull. All that kept Mia from giving in to a healthy bout of hysteria was the fact that they were about to dock at a U.S. research station. Or so the white-lipped ship’s officer commanding the lifeboat had assured his moaning, miserable passengers just moments ago.

When a sudden thump set the boat shuddering, terror speared through Mia’s heart. She reached over to clutch her sister’s hands but the elderly woman on Beth’s other side preempted her.

“We hit a floe!” the woman cried, ashen-faced. “We’re going to drown!”

Beth, bless her sensible, substitute-teacher’s heart, had plenty of experience dealing with incipient panic.

“No, we’re not. Didn’t you feel the engine slowing? We must be at the research station.”

Mia clutched that straw with the same desperate eagerness as the other woman. Still, her heart stayed in the middle of her throat while the crewman at the helm reversed thrust and backed off, then nudged the throttle forward again.

“Prepare to disembark,” the officer in charge shouted over the shrieking wind.

The passengers waited anxiously until another crew member put his shoulder to the hatch. Wind and sleet in
stantly poured in. Eyes watered. Smiles froze in place. Yet nothing could dampen their ecstatic relief as they inched toward the steps.

“Careful,” the ship’s officer cautioned. “Wait for the next swell!”

Ski-masked and goggled faces loomed above the open hatch. Gloved hands reached down. One by one, rescuers grabbed the passengers’ upraised arms and hauled them bodily from the wildly heaving lifeboat.

Beth and Mia helped the other passengers to the hatch. They were younger than most of their fellow travelers by several decades. When they’d booked the cruise, they hadn’t known they’d chosen a line that catered mostly to retirees. In retrospect they should have realized most people their own age would have to beg or cajole or threaten to quit to get two weeks’ vacation time so soon after the Christmas holidays.

Not that Mia had minded the age disparity on board the
Adventurer
. She’d sworn off men anywhere near her own age for the foreseeable future.

Refusing to think about the jerk who’d propelled her into this insane outing, she and Beth helped the others up the steps to the hatch until—finally!—it was their turn. A pair of gloved hands reached down for Beth. Her legs flailed, scissoring in the frigid air. When she swooped upward and disappeared into the gray sleet, the harried ship’s officer beckoned Mia forward.

“Your turn.”

Braced by two of the
Adventurer
’s crew, blinded by the stinging sleet, she groped for another pair of outstretched arms. An iron grip banded her wrists.

“I’ve got you.”

He’d better have her!

Mia had time for that one, wild thought before she was hauled up and onto an icy dock. Staggering, she would have fallen back through the hatch if not for the brutal grip on her wrists.

“Hold on.”

Her rescuer yanked her forward and anchored her with an arm around her waist. Gulping, she breathed in needle-sharp ice crystals and the rubbery tang of his orange parka.

“That’s the last of them,” the ship’s officer shouted behind her. “We’ll secure the boat.”

“Roger that! I’ll take this one to the station.”

Head down, her body angled against the waterproofed parka, Mia stumbled along the slippery pier with her rescuer. A gasp of relief rose in her throat when she touched solid rock, only to spiral into a yelp when her sneakers almost went out from under her.

“Careful,” a deep voice growled in her ear. The arm around her waist tightened, cutting off what little breath she had left. “The lichen’s slippery.”

“What was your first clue, Sherlock?”

Oh, crap! The wind
had
to die for a second or two at that precise moment. She tipped her head, hoping her rescuer hadn’t picked up her sarcasm.

No such luck. She was almost certain she caught a smile in a pair of seriously blue eyes shielded behind ice-encrusted goggles.

“Actually,” he replied, bending close to her ear, “the name’s Walker. Brent Walker.”

“Nice to…meet…you,” she got out through teeth that clattered like marbles in a tin can.

Walker-Brent-Walker yanked at the zipper on his parka, whipped open one flap and tucked Mia under his arm. Warmth flooded her. The sensation was instant and so welcome she decided to ignore his distinctly uncomplimentary editorial about tourists who traipse down to the end of the world in tennis shoes and lightweight windbreakers.

Nested against him like a penguin chick tucked under its parent’s wing, she scrabbled over the slippery rocks to a set of wooden stairs. At the top of the stairs he steered her toward a narrow walkway.

“Welcome to Palmer Station.”

She peeked out from under the flap of his parka, eager for a glimpse of shelter. She’d done some reading on Antarctica prior to boarding the
Adventurer
. Not much, admittedly. Like Beth, she’d been far more interested in the portion of the cruise itinerary that included Rio’s fabulous beaches and Buenos Aires’ sultry tango bars.

Still, she’d read enough to know at least ten or fifteen countries maintained permanent research stations on the White Continent. One of those stations housed over a thousand people during the polar summer.

This obviously wasn’t it!

Her stomach plunging, Mia saw only a handful of blue metal buildings huddled together on the rocky shoreline. Two were midsize structures, the rest hardly more than sheds or shacks.

“How…? How many…people live here?” she stuttered through numb lips.

“Forty-two this summer. About ten of us will winter over.”

Forty-two plus three hundred stranded tourists plus another hundred or so crew members? Mia lurched along the wooden pathway with Walker-Brent-Walker, wondering how in the world they’d pack everyone inside.

Very
closely, she discovered when he steered her into the closest of the two large buildings. She found herself in a foyer facing a solid rack of orange. Waterproof parkas and pants like the one Walker wore jammed the rack and dripped onto the linoleum. While her rescuer shrugged out of his goggles, gloves and parka, Mia scanned the jam-packed hallway beyond the foyer.

Still-shaken tourists huddled in the corridor and in the labs and offices leading off it. Officers and crew members from the
Adventurer
roamed among them. Clipboards in hand, they checked names against passenger lists. People Mia assumed were station regulars also circulated, passing out mugs of steaming coffee and chocolate.

The scent of hot, foamy chocolate almost made her weep. But another glance around the hall drove everything except Beth from her mind.

“My sister,” she said worriedly. “She came off the lifeboat right before I did, but I don’t see her here.”

“She may be in one of the labs,” Walker replied, dragging off the black knit watch cap he’d worn under his parka hood. “Or upstairs, in the dining room or berthing area.”

Mia nodded, taking her first good look at the man. Her initial thought was that no male should be allowed such a dangerous combination of tawny hair, electric-blue eyes and strong, square chin. Her second, that she’d been
taken in once by a man who ranked several notches higher on the stud scale than this one. Smarmy, smut-sucking Don Juan had totally immunized her against world-class hotties like Brent Walker.

Which didn’t explain the frisson that raced over her thawing skin when he took her elbow and steered her into the hall.

“We’ll find your sister. But first…” He raised his free hand and caught the attention of a fellow station member toting a tray of steaming mugs. “Hey, Jill! We could use a couple of those.”

“You got ’em.”

The woman passed over two mugs of hot chocolate. She looked to be in her late thirties with an easy smile and a headful of curly red hair. Walker introduced her as Dr. Jill Anderson, a marine biologist who’d racked up more than two hundred dives during her three Antarctic summers and one winter.

“That’s how we categorize folks here on the ice,” the biologist said as Mia gulped down a swallow of the life-restoring chocolate. “You’ve got your fingees. Loosely translated those are, ah, friggin’ new guys. Then those with one summer under their belt. Then multiple summers. First winter-over. Multiple winter-overs. First trip to the pole. And…Well, you get the picture.”

“I think so.”

With a friendly nod, the biologist moved to supply another stranded tourist, and Walker steered Mia down the crowded corridor.

“So which category do you fall into?” she asked, peering into each office and lab they passed in search of Beth.

“This is my second summer. Also my second winter. Normally we rotate off the ice after each season, but I’m staying over this time.”

One taste of Antarctica—winter
or
summer—was more than enough for Mia. She couldn’t imagine volunteering to stay through a long, perpetually dark winter on this isolated outcropping of rock and ice.

“What do you do here?” she asked as they approached a flight of stairs.

Before he could answer, the radio clipped to his belt crackled.

“This is Janie, Brent.”

Walker unclipped the radio and keyed the mike. “Go ahead, Janie.”

“We just completed a head count. We’ve got one hundred two pax, seventeen crew over here in GWR.”

“Roger that. I’ll get a count here at the BioLab and get back to you.”