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.”
