So that was a no.
“Practice.”
She gave him a strange look. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“No.” He forced the word through tight lips, annoyed and…embarrassed? Was that what this was?
She put down the twenty-pound bag of granola and stood. “I’ll get ready.”
He blinked in surprise. No argument. Huh.
Twenty minutes later, exhausted and cold, they returned to the ancillary building to eat a quick meal before leaving.
She set to preparing it in silence while he hung their outerwear up to dry by the heater. Once they’d settled onto the only two chairs in the place, with the table between them, Coop took a scalding bite of couscous. The taste—spicy and fragrant—shocked him into speech. “’S good.”
“Yeah?” She met his eyes with a small smile. “Did what I could.”
He shoveled back a few more bites. “Good…job.”
“What?” She yawned the word.
“You did well out there.”
Was she choking? No, that was a laugh, apparently. “You kidding me? I was a mess.” Her smile faded when he didn’t reciprocate.
“Even after the day you had, your…” He waved at her nose. “Injuries and so on. You didn’t stop till you got it right.” Grudgingly, he went on. “Admirable.”
It was what he’d want in a teammate. Grit, not strength, was the decisive factor when it came to making it out alive. That and some elusive survival instinct that couldn’t be taught. After everything she’d gone through, and everything she’d done in the arch, he figured she just might have what it took.
He’d seen it over and over again. It wasn’t the big guys who made it out of tough situations. And it wasn’t the ones who’d planned and prepped and made it their life’s work to be in shape or perfectly trained. It was the ones whowantedit. The ones who acted without thinking, who paid attention to instinct and took cover before they even registered that they’d heard a detonation.
Brows up as if he’d shocked her with his compliment, she compressed her lips and nodded in acknowledgment. She gave him none of that effusiveness she always exhibited to the rest of the crew. Why was that? Why’d everyone else get her laughs, but never him? Why’d she keep her smiles tight and short when he walked into a room, but wrap her arms around Jameson like he was the second coming?
Didn’t matter. None of it mattered at this point. Not the way her hips undulated when she danced. Not the way her face hardened when she caught sight of him or the way her breasts looked in that one soft-looking, bright-red sweater she’d worn at Pam’s birthday celebration.
Coop looked up and, steeling himself, met her eyes. “One more thing before we go.”
“Yeah?” The word was swallowed by another yawn.
“Waste disposal.”
“Okay.” She glanced to the side, then back at him, as if to say,Yeah, what about it?
“You are aware, of course, that according to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, we are required to evacuate all waste. Um…” Damn it, his face was scorching hot. “Including human waste.”
“Ooohhh.” She blinked a couple times. “You want to discussourwaste.”
“I don’twantto.” He swallowed hard. “We will bring a bucket for initial disposal, as well as sealable bags for transport.”
“So we…do it in the bucket and then dump it in the bag.”
“Correct. Here.” He handed her a wide-mouthed water bottle. “This is for nighttime disposal. And there is the additional, uh, issue of…”
Her brows were almost up to her hairline now as she watched him, like a rubbernecker at an accident, waiting to see how bad it would get.
“Of your…menstruation.”
“Holy crap, this is painful.” She hid her smile behind her hand.
