On Thin Ice

by Debra Lee Brown

  Her little escapade with Seth in the sat-comm shack and that incident in the kitchen had distracted her long enough from her responsibilities. It was time to get to work.

  If Salvio thought he could just—

  The door to the doghouse swung outward and Lauren lurched sideways, nearly tripping on the metal gridwork of the landing. Instinctively, she shot to the shadowed corner behind the door as it crashed wide, knocking her hard against a wall of greasy standpipes.

  She steadied herself, twisting awkwardly in the tight space until she was turned around and could peek around the edge of the door. The sound of swearing carried over the constant roar of machinery, and a moment later the disembodied voices came into view.

  Pinkie and Bulldog. They were carrying something heavy, a piece of equipment. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Three years was a long time to be out of the field. Technologies changed, drilling equipment came and went. Still, there was something about it that bothered her.

  Jack Salvio stepped out of the doghouse onto the landing, hands perched on his hips, shouting orders at the two roustabouts. Lauren didn’t breathe. She’d come in search of him, but now she wasn’t so sure she was ready for a confrontation.

  He stopped Bulldog and Pinkie at the top of the stairs, long enough to wrestle a dangling part back into place on the boxlike contraption weighing them down like pack mules.

  She stared hard at the equipment. What was it? An odd notion came over her that, whatever it was, it didn’t belong here. She pushed the door away from her body, leaning her head out to get a better look. Too late she realized her mistake.

  Salvio turned on her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Lauren’s heart stopped beating. She felt her eyes widen of their own accord and every muscle freeze as Salvio ripped the door from her shielded body and slammed it shut, exposing her snooping.

  “I—I was looking for you.” Her gaze darted to the equipment as Pinkie and Bulldog humped it down the stairs and out of sight.

  Salvio’s steely eyes followed, then fixed on hers, his face cold as stone. “So you found me. Now what?”

  Chapter 7

  “I just wanted to ask you…”

  What? What did she want to ask him?

  Why two roustabouts were carting around strange equipment at midnight? Where that crate of mystery samples had gone? Why a state-of-the-art satellite communications system stopped working the second she arrived? Why their drilling computers were down, and their toolpusher was dead?

  Salvio glared at her. “Out with it, Fotheringay. I ain’t got all day.”

  Lauren had always considered herself a scientist first. She was logical, relied on facts, data, rarely on hunches or intuition. That’s one of the reasons she’d done so well at Tiger, and was in line for the biggest promotion of her life.

  But now, staring into Jack Salvio’s cold eyes, all her left-brained training fled in the face of instinct. An overwhelming urge to shield her suspicions from him gripped her and wouldn’t let go.

  In the end, she gave him a shrug. “It’s…nothing. I know you’re busy. It can wait.”

  Salvio stared hard at her, as if he knew she was lying, and was trying to read her mind. “It’s late,” he said evenly. “And you shouldn’t be up here. Go back to your trailer, Lauren.”

  He only called her Lauren when he meant business.

  “I’m right behind you. I, uh, need some hand cleaner for my lab. There’s some in the doghouse. I’ll just get it and—”

  Salvio didn’t wait for her to finish the lie. He started down the stairs after Pinkie and Bulldog, and when he was out of sight Lauren breathed with relief.

  She realized she was shaking. Why had she let Salvio get to her? She drew in a steadying breath and reached for the door. There was always coffee in the doghouse. It was always bad, but she didn’t care. She needed something warm to hold on to, even if it was just a paper cup filled with tepid sludge brewed twelve hours earlier.

  Pulling herself together, she stepped inside. A beat-up metal coffeepot sat on the counter next to the safety-glass window overlooking the rig’s drilling floor. Drawn like a magnet, Lauren moved toward it.

  Halfway there she froze.

  Seth was out on the floor with the rest of the first shift crew, pulling pipe. He didn’t see her. None of them did. For a long moment she just stood there in plain view, both wishing and fearing he’d look up.

  If he saw her, would he experience that same, punchy, heart-in-the-throat thrill she did each time she ran into him? She realized she’d never felt that way with Crocker. Not even in the beginning, when they’d first started dating.

  In the end, her nerve dissolved. Lauren retreated to the corner near the coffeepot, sloughed off a glove and grabbed a cup. Slouching, half-hidden by the metal pot, she watched Seth work.

  He was good at what he did. He moved smoothly across the drilling floor, working in concert with the others, his steady gaze alternating between the ninety-foot stands of pipe coming out of the hole, the crewman working the controls, and two other roughnecks she recognized as old Altex hands.

  Insulated wind walls around the derrick and strategically placed heaters made the temperature on the drilling floor about eighty degrees warmer than it was outside. Like the others, Seth wore mud-spattered jeans, a thermal shirt that did nothing to hide the well-defined muscles working beneath it, hard hat and gloves. His dark hair was pushed haphazardly into a ponytail.

  Lauren’s gaze slid over his bronze, sweat-sheened skin, pausing at the vee in his shirt, before she allowed herself to fully appreciate the rest of his physique, and remember what he’d smelled like when he’d kissed her.

  Hot and exotic and one-hundred-percent male.

  Not the kind of man who showered three times a day, dousing himself in expensive cologne afterward. Not the kind of man whose muscles were hewn by machines in a gym, or whose idea of sports was a half hour of squash once a week at a private club or an afternoon of polo on a horse he owned but didn’t care for.

  Lauren tipped the cup, downing the bitter-tasting coffee like a shot of single malt. It shocked her to her senses—exactly the result she’d intended. Enough was enough. Salvio was right. She shouldn’t be up here. She shouldn’t be anywhere near Seth Adams. He was dangerous.

  No. She was dangerous when she was around him.

  She found herself wondering what would happen if she simply abandoned the painstakingly crafted plans in place for her marriage and her career. Plans her mother—and Crocker, too—had slaved over. Out of the blue, an odd thought struck her.

  Maybe she was the slave.

  Crushing the paper cup, she tossed it into the trash and grabbed her gloves. Her biggest mistake of the day was looking up one more time.

  Seth was staring straight at her. There it was again, that tingly feeling, as if her whole body had been asleep and was just now waking up.

  He wiped the sweat and mud from his face with a gloved hand, not taking his eyes from her. Then he smiled. Not the dangerous, seductive smile he’d given her yesterday. Just a simple smile. Warm, just like she felt.

  A second later she was out the door, struggling into her gloves, barreling down the metal staircase at the speed of light.

  The weather raged on. Lauren had spent most of the day in her trailer, avoiding Seth. Salvio, too. Both of them made her jumpy, but for completely different reasons.

  She’d been on Caribou Island four days now. Four days without any contact with the outside world. Four days that had all but turned her life upside down.

  Paddy O’Connor’s body would have reached Anchorage by now, along with whatever information Salvio had conveyed to the chopper pilot. Bill Walters, her boss, would be half-crazy wondering what had happened out here.

  Crocker would be a wreck, too—worried sick about her. She’d never gone this long without talking to him before. He always made sure that, wherever each of them happened to be in the world, he could always rea
ch her. He always checked in on her when they were apart. Always. At least once a day, sometimes more.

  She’d thought a lot about Crocker these past couple of days, but they weren’t the kinds of thoughts a soon-to-be bride should be having about her fiancé. Not that she wasn’t having those kinds of thoughts. She was. Only she was having them about someone else.

  Grabbing her jacket off the hook on the wall, she prepared to brave the storm and make the trek across the yard to camp. It was safe now, just after 7:00 p.m. Seth worked the first shift, noon to midnight. Their dinner break was over, and he’d be up on the rig now, working until the shift was over.

  Lauren would be back in her trailer long before then. But if she had to sit out here one more hour, she’d go stir-crazy. Her work for the day was finished, reports she had no way of sending, complete. She needed a mental break from all that had happened since she’d arrived, some mindless entertainment to relax her.

  Twenty minutes later, her jacket and boots stowed in the camp’s mudroom, Lauren sank into the worn-out seat cushion of a dilapidated sofa in the camp’s TV room, cradling a bowl of buttered popcorn in her lap.

  On her way there, she’d noticed Salvio’s office light was out, which meant he was either up on the rig or asleep. Thank God she didn’t have to deal with him tonight.

  With no satellite, there was no TV, but the camp did have a collection of videos. Most of the second-shift crew were still asleep, but a few early risers, guys she recognized but didn’t really know, sat—with cups of what for them was morning coffee—across the room from her, facing the TV. Lauren nodded politely when one of them looked her way.

  “This okay with you,” he said, holding out the video Death Wish II.

  “Fine,” she said, relieved it wasn’t an X-rated title. Oil field camps were notorious for their collections of bad porn films. Charles Bronson she could take.

  A minute later the movie started, and one of the men flipped off the overhead lights. The room was warm and dark except for the television screen, and Lauren began to relax.

  After nine dead bodies and God knows how many rounds of ammunition, she caught herself dozing. Good, she thought. She needed the rest. She’d tossed and turned all night last night, unable to get her mind off—

  The door to the hallway opened and light spilled in. Lauren squinted at the tall figure silhouetted in the door frame. There was no mistaking who it was. She’d know those broad shoulders anywhere.

  Seth.

  He closed the door behind him, and Lauren held her breath as he moved slowly in the dark toward the sofa, easing down right beside her.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She was so stunned that for a moment she couldn’t speak.

  “Are you sharing that, or keeping it all to yourself?” He nodded at her popcorn, which was cold now.

  “What are you doing here?” She risked a longer look at him, and caught the light from the television dancing in his eyes.

  “Looking for you.”

  She had that fluttery feeling again, and knew she had to put a stop to it before she did something stupid… A vision of them making love on the narrow bed in her trailer flashed across her mind. Heat rushed to her face, and she thanked God the room was dark so he couldn’t see it.

  “You’re supposed to be on shift.” The words came out a hiss under her breath.

  “Not anymore. Salvio changed the roster. I’m on nights now—well, midnight to noon. It’s all night this time of year.”

  One of the men sitting on the other sofa glanced in their direction, then whispered something to an older crewman slouched next to him. He looked over, too, then they both chuckled.

  “Why did you sit here? Next to me, I mean?”

  “I told you.” He leaned down to whisper in her ear, and her heartbeat quickened when she felt his warm breath on her skin. “I wanted to see you.”

  “No. You can’t see me. I mean we—” The crewmen were still looking at them, grinning now. The sounds of gunfire and a car chase screamed from the television, but her mind wasn’t on the movie anymore. “We can’t be seen together.”

  “Why not?” Seth turned toward her on the sofa.

  “We just…can’t. It wouldn’t—it doesn’t look right.” She risked another look at him and in the light from the television screen she could tell that his eyes had cooled and that his teeth ground together behind his lips. Lips she’d kissed. Teeth, smooth as glass, that she’d felt with the tip of her tongue.

  “Why not? Because I’m a roughneck and you’re a—” He started to say something that she didn’t think was geologist, then stopped himself.

  Lauren bristled. Women professionals in the field never fraternized with the crew. It just wasn’t done. If he was any kind of roughneck, he’d know that.

  Still, she said, “No. That’s not why.”

  “Because I’m half-Inuit, then, and these good old boys—” he nodded toward the sofa where they were sitting, engrossed again in the movie “—wouldn’t take kindly to me messing with a white woman. Is that it?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Maybe it’s you, then. Maybe you don’t think I’m good enough for you.”

  She grabbed his hand in the dark, and heard his breath catch in his throat. The hard muscles of his thigh tensed against hers.

  “No. I just…can’t.” She met his gaze, and he waited for her to say more. His hand was so warm. His fingers closed around hers and she felt her heart beat faster. “I just don’t want anyone to think we’re involved.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, and what she read in his eyes scared her. “Are we? Involved?”

  “I…don’t know,” she heard herself breathe.

  Before he could react, she shoved the popcorn bowl into his hands and bolted.

  By the time she heard his footfalls behind her in the mudroom, she was suited up and out the door of the camp. The wind caught her and she almost tripped down the metal stairs into the yard. It was bitter cold, and shards of dry snow and ice cut her face as she pulled herself back along the guideline toward her trailer.

  Seth was right behind her.

  Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? She didn’t ask for his attention. She didn’t want it. Couldn’t want it.

  “Lauren!”

  She ignored him and kept moving. Her hood blew off, but she didn’t stop. By the time she reached the trailer, her face felt like a block of ice.

  She fumbled with the keys, dropped a glove and didn’t bother picking it up. Slamming the door behind her, she pushed in the button of the lock just as she heard Seth’s fist beat against the door.

  “Come on, Lauren. We need to talk.”

  Her heart pounded, and her breathing was short and choppy from fighting the elements as she’d practically jogged the fifty yards across the yard. Not easy to do in a blizzard in survival gear and heavy boots. She kicked them off and dropped her jacket where she stood.

  And waited.

  A few seconds later the pounding stopped. Still, she didn’t move. A long minute after that, the trailer door flew open and, in a maelstrom of blowing snow, Seth stepped into the lab.

  Chapter 8

  T his was either going to be the most brilliant move of his soon-to-be-resurrected FBI career, or the biggest mistake of his life.

  Blindly, Seth closed the door behind him and punched the lock. Lauren stood rigid, her hands fisted at her sides, her brown eyes wide and riveted to his. He shucked his jacket and gloves, tossed his hard hat aside, and was ready for her.

  Soft light spilled from the bedroom into the darkened lab where they stood. With purpose he moved toward her. Halfway there she read his intent and gave a little gasp. He didn’t let it deter him.

  A second later his hands closed over her narrow shoulders and he pulled her to him, not roughly, but with enough determination to let her know what was coming next. Her head angled back in response, and everything he read in her eyes—excitement, fear, desire—spurred him on.


  He kissed her, and she let him.

  Not only that, she was kissing him back. Her mouth opened under his, and their tongues mated in a wild frenzy. He pulled her closer, feeling her breasts hot against his chest, her hips rolling into him as his hands slid down her back to cup her behind.

  She moaned into his mouth—a needy little sound that drove him over the edge. Lifting her off her feet, he backed her to the steel countertop as her legs wrapped around his hips.

  He was as hard as a teenage boy scoping his first girlie magazine, and had been from the second her thigh had connected with his on the sofa back at camp. He deepened their kiss and thrust against her, leaving no doubt in her mind as to what he was feeling.

  What was he feeling?

  Stirred up somewhere between lust and excitement there should have been victory. He’d conquered her at last. He’d won. After they had sex, she’d tell him everything he wanted to know about her. He’d make sure of it. And then he’d know one way or another if she was the one he was after.

  The only problem was, he didn’t feel anything close to victory. In fact, he knew in his gut that he was the one who was conquered, not her.

  “Seth,” she breathed, and pushed gently against his chest, her legs untwining themselves from his body.

  He kept on kissing her, touching her, working to kill what he was feeling, trying to focus on the physical—but she was insistent. “Seth, stop.”

  Stop.

  The four-letter word every man dreads hearing.

  He obeyed, not just because she’d asked him, but because somewhere inside he knew he had to—for himself. He’d gotten carried away again, had lost his head for the second time in as many days. When he’d followed her to her trailer, he told himself he was doing this for the job, for his own gain, to cement her trust in him, to get her to talk.

  Christ.

  As for universal lies, this one was right up there with “the check is in the mail.”

  He was doing this because he wanted her. And for more than just sex. He liked her. He admired her courage and tenacity, even as he felt an almost visceral need to protect her when the slightest hint of fear or vulnerability shone in her eyes.