On Thin Ice

by Debra Lee Brown

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. He’s a half-breed like me. Husky and shepherd. Name’s Amaguq.”

  “Wolf,” she said, stunning him with her knowledge of his native tongue. “Will I get to meet him when we get there?”

  When we get there. Christ. What the hell was he going to do with her when they did get there?

  “Sure,” he said. “He stays with my mother when I’m working, but he’ll be around.”

  “All-time worst date.”

  He shot her a surprised look. “That’s not a favorite thing.”

  “I know. But I’m curious.”

  So was he. “All right. It was with my ex-wife.”

  “You were married?”

  “Surprised?” He could see from her face that she was, but she quickly recovered herself.

  “No, not at all. I just…”

  “What?”

  “I guess I hadn’t considered that you might be.”

  “I’m not. It’s been a few years since the divorce. Five years to be exact.”

  “Oh. What was she—”

  “Favorite book,” he said abruptly, determined now to change the subject.

  She took the hint. “You’re going to laugh.”

  “Go on. Tell me.”

  “Okay, but don’t laugh. Swiss Family Robinson.”

  He did laugh. “You’re kidding?”

  “No. I love that book.” She shot him an exasperated look. “I told you, you would laugh.”

  “Why do you like it so much?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess because it’s about a family—a father and mother and kids. Together, on an adventure, just them against the world.”

  The more she talked about herself, the more amazed he was at how wrong he’d been about her. And how right she seemed to him now.

  “Favorite movie.” She edged closer to him on the seat.

  “Mine? Now you’re gonna laugh.”

  “Try me.”

  “Notorious. Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Nineteen forty-six.”

  It was her turn to be surprised. He could read it in her face. He read other things, too, and he got that funny feeling again.

  “I love that movie,” she said. “Hitchcock, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s a government agent, a regular guy. And she’s a wealthy socialite.”

  Ouch. He didn’t realize when he’d answered, that the movie’s characters hit so close to home.

  “Her boyfriend—later they get married, of course, and he’s her husband. Anyway, he’s selling government secrets to a foreign power, and Cary Grant, the government agent, needs to catch him. So he enlists her help.”

  Brilliant, Adams. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “It’s not really a spy story, though. It’s a romance,” she said.

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Their speed increased to a whopping six miles an hour.

  “All through the movie Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant love each other, but they never say it. They’re too—”

  Their gazes locked, and Seth swallowed hard. Absently, she twisted the frayed hem of her sweater in her hands. He stopped breathing, waiting for her to finish.

  “Afraid,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  They looked at each other for a moment longer, acutely aware of the fact that there was less than a foot of warm air separating them.

  “Yeah, well…” he said, shrugging it off. “It’s an old movie. Stuff like that doesn’t happen anymore.” The hole he was digging just got deeper.

  She recovered her composure, and swiveled back to face the front of the cab, her gaze fixed on the storm raging outside.

  Desperate to change the subject, he said the first thing that blasted across his mind. “You’re not anything like what the papers say about you.”

  Her expression darkened.

  “I read the society columns now and then. For fun.”

  “So…you must have known about Crocker, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Before you…before we…?”

  He nodded, realizing that he hadn’t changed the subject at all.

  “Crocker’s a very successful man,” she said in a cool voice. She sat up straight, her spine rigid against the vinyl seat-back.

  “Yeah, the guy’s got everything, doesn’t he? Money, power, connections, and a boatload of nice stuff, I suspect.”

  “You’re right. He does.”

  He felt himself sliding into dangerous territory, but couldn’t stop himself. “Is that what you want, too?”

  That’s what his ex had wanted, what his father had, and had wanted for him. But it wasn’t his thing. It never had been. He’d worked his butt off at the Bureau, hoping, somehow, that it would be enough. That Kitty, and his father, too, would respect him for a job well done. They had, marginally. And then he’d gotten the ax. The rest was history.

  Lauren stared out the window, brown eyes hard, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know, Seth. I don’t know. My father always said I could be whatever I wanted, and that whatever I did, I should strive to be the best.”

  “He sounds like a good man. A good father.”

  “He was. After he died, Mother pushed and pushed for me to succeed—but at the things she wanted for me, not what I wanted for myself. I rebelled when I got old enough. Finished my master’s in geology and—”

  “Went to work for Tiger.”

  “That was Mother’s doing. My stepfather had connections. I wanted to work for the state, like my dad had. But the next thing I knew Tiger had offered me a job. It seemed stupid to turn it down.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I met Crocker… He pushed me, too. Pushes me. But in a different sort of way. He’s all business. All success. He says he wants us to be successful together. That he wants…” She drew a breath and exhaled, as if she was sick of the whole topic. Suddenly she turned to him. “What about you, Seth? Money, power—that’s not the kind of thing you care about, is it?”

  He rubbed his burning eyes, stifling a yawn. “Right now all I care about is getting to where we’re going and getting some sleep.”

  “Oh, my God, I didn’t think about that. I’ve been so selfish.” She grabbed his arm and half rose from the bench seat. “Here, switch places.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll drive for a while. You can get some sleep.”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “No way. You don’t know how to drive this thing.”

  “Come on, switch places. I’ve been watching you—it’s easy. Just put your foot on the gas and steer.”

  God, what he wouldn’t give for even an hour of shut-eye.

  “It’s not as if we’re barreling across the tundra at break-neck speed. Besides, I’ve trusted you this far, haven’t I?”

  “You have.”

  “Well, then? Isn’t it about time you trusted me?”

  He couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t want to argue. “Okay, but—”

  She started to climb over him. He twisted sideways, trying not to touch her, but his foot slipped off the gas and the Rolligon lurched to a halt.

  “Oh!” Lauren lost her balance.

  Instinctively he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her toward him. She ended up straddling him, her arms on his shoulders, her mouth a dangerous inch from his. Their gazes met and he slid his hands downward to her hips. She was hot between her legs where his groin pressed up against her.

  “I, uh…” Before he could kiss her, she scrambled off him and perched awkwardly on the seat. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled and slid sideways so she could position herself in the driver’s seat.

  God, he was exhausted. He balled up his jacket to use as a pillow, watching her take over the controls of the slow-moving, but enormous vehicle. “See the navigational readout?” He pointed to the directional heading displayed on one of the small screens on the i
nstrument panel. “Just keep it pointed east-southeast, and we’ll be fine.”

  “Got it.” She played with the seat adjustment until her legs comfortably reached the pedals.

  “Wake me if you see anything at all out there.” He glanced one more time at the storm outside and the flat, white plain of the tundra beneath them. “Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  He tried to stretch out on the bench seat without touching her, but he was too tall, and couldn’t get comfortable.

  “Here,” she said, and patted her jean-clad thigh. “Put your head here. It’ll be more comfortable.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” She gave him a small smile, and he sucked in a breath.

  He lay on his back, his knees pulled up, his head practically in her lap, and watched her until his tired eyes couldn’t stay open a second longer. “Wake me if anything happens.”

  “Like if we run out of gas?”

  He’d hoped she wouldn’t notice the fuel gauge, which was almost on empty. It was hard to tell in this kind of vehicle how much diesel was really left. “Yeah, like if we run out of gas,” he said, and proceeded to let his mind drift.

  “Sweet dreams,” he thought he heard her say after a while, but maybe he was dreaming. Her fingers stroked his hair and the day-old stubble on his cheek. That was probably a dream, too, but he didn’t want to open his eyes and find out for sure. He felt too damned good.

  Lauren stared ahead into the storm, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting lightly on Seth’s shoulder. She thought it ironic that she and Seth had slept together, but they hadn’t had sex. With Crocker it was usually just the opposite. They had sex, but rarely slept together.

  Crocker liked to sleep alone in a separate bed, preferably in a separate room. He needed absolute quiet, he said. And space. No one hanging on to him in the night, disturbing his rest. During the week he got up early to check the markets when they opened in New York. He always said he couldn’t afford to oversleep. Everything was always about money.

  Lauren put her driving on autopilot, and for the next couple of hours thought hard about what her marriage to Crocker would be like. More than once she caught herself wondering what it would be like to be married to a roughneck, to live a million miles from nowhere and raise a bunch of kids.

  Just like the Swiss Family Robinson.

  She smiled, and for the next little bit allowed the fantasy to run wild in her mind. Just as she got to the part where she arrived home to find Seth bouncing their baby daughter on his knee, the Rolligon ran out of gas.

  Chapter 14

  “L auren?” Seth flew off the seat, scrambling for his gun on the dash. “What is it? What happened?”

  “It’s all right.” She placed a steadying hand on his shoulder, and watched him as he came fully awake, quickly scanning their surroundings and realizing they were in no imminent danger. “No,” she said. “I take that back. It’s not all right.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “We’re out of gas. At least I think we are.” She pointed to the fuel gauge. The red needle glowed well below empty. “The engine just…stopped.”

  She could tell by the tight look on his face that her fears were justified. He checked their position on the navigational screen, then his watch, then the mileage reading on the instrument panel. She knew he was doing the same calculations in his head that she’d already done.

  “How close are we?” she asked.

  “Not close enough.”

  Peering into the darkness and the blizzard outside, she watched him as he considered their predicament.

  “We’re not going to be the next Donner Party, are we?” She laughed at her own joke, but knew it wasn’t funny.

  “No. We’re gonna be fine.” He searched behind the bench seat in the cab, and then under it, until he found what he was looking for. “Put your jacket on, and your gloves, too.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it.” He ripped open the plastic bag marked Emergency Supplies and did a quick tour of its contents. “Here, put this on, too.” He handed her a wool hat, and she did as he asked.

  “This cab’s going to be freezing inside of an hour, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  She switched off the Rolligon’s headlights to save battery power.

  “Good idea,” he said, and grabbed the handset of the CB radio.

  “I thought you said we shouldn’t use it.”

  “I know. But we’re far enough away from the rig, and the weather’s so lousy, I don’t think Salvio could pick up our transmission if he wanted to.”

  “And we’re close enough to Kachelik that…”

  “Exactly.”

  He tried for thirty minutes, without success, to raise someone, anyone, on the radio. Lauren’s hopes faded.

  They sat there in silence, their breath frosting the air, staring into the darkness outside. Wind howled past them at God knows how many knots. The temperature gauge inside the cab read fourteen degrees and dropping. As for outside…she didn’t want to know.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Seth said, and grabbed his gun.

  Her heart did a flip-flop inside her chest. “What? You’re going to put us out of our misery?”

  He shot her a wry look. “No such luck.” Then he reached across her and switched on the vehicle’s headlights.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What I should have done in the first place.” He grabbed his gun off the dash, stuffed it into his jacket pocket, and swiveled toward her on the seat.

  “You’re not going out there?”

  “Yeah, I am. I need to find out where we are.”

  “But what if—?”

  “If I’m not back in ten minutes…”

  “What?”

  He didn’t answer. For a moment, they both just looked at each other in the dark. “Hell, I don’t know. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

  Fifteen minutes later she was in a panic.

  Okay, Lauren, get a grip. You’ve been in worse situations. Actually, she hadn’t. She’d been on dozens of field surveys in the Arctic—in the summer. She’d never been in a situation quite like this.

  A dozen horrible thoughts crossed her mind. What if he got turned around and couldn’t find his way back? What if a polar bear got him? What if—

  A figure appeared in the weakened beam of the Rolligon’s headlights, and she knew right away it was Seth. “Thank God.” She didn’t wait for him to reach the vehicle. The wind hit her like a brick wall when she jumped from the cab and fought her way toward him on uneven ground.

  “Wait here,” he yelled into her ear when he reached her. He jogged to the Rolligon, pulled his duffel bag from the cab, switched off the vehicle’s headlights, and rejoined her on the tundra. “Come on! It’s just ahead.”

  What was just ahead?

  He took her hand and she followed him, blindly. Ice shards beat against her jacket, winnowing inside her hood, stinging her face. She wasn’t wearing down pants over her jeans, and in less than a couple of minutes her legs burned cold like nothing she’d ever felt before. Where on earth were they going? And how could he possibly see? Between the blowing snow and the darkness…

  “Here it is!”

  Shielding her eyes with a gloved hand, she peered ahead into the storm and saw the outline of a building. At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but they weren’t. A few minutes later they were inside.

  “Thank God,” she breathed, and slumped into the first chair she stumbled past in the dark.

  Seth lit a couple of emergency candles he found in a drawer, and the room was bathed in soft light.

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s a lodge,” he said, and walked the perimeter of the oblong space, taking inventory. “For hunting and fishing. It’s owned by the village. Families use it in the summer.”

  It was little more than a Quanset hut, and nothing like the last “lodge” she’d w
eekended in. Crocker had commandeered one of Tiger’s corporate jets and had flown them to an exclusive Canadian resort. The kind of place whose guest list included businessmen like Bill Gates and celebrities like Madonna.

  Lauren unzipped her jacket and surveyed their spartan surroundings. Kitchen counters were bare. Metal-framed twin beds stood upright, stacked in a corner, their mattresses wrapped in plastic and rolled tight. The walls were decorated with last year’s calendar, opened to the month of July, and photographs of smiling children holding up strings of fresh-caught fish.

  She nodded at one of the pictures. “Arctic char?”

  “Yeah.” Seth stopped what he was doing and held a candle up to the photo. “How’d you know?”

  She smiled at him, just so damned happy they were safe, out of the weather, and alive. “I know a lot of things. You’d be surprised.”

  He smiled back at her, remembering, she knew, his similar comment of a few days ago. “See if you can find us something to eat. I’m going outside to start the generator.”

  She shivered, and noticed their warm breath frosted the air no less than it had outside. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Back in five.”

  A few minutes of rummaging around in cupboards was rewarded with a half-dozen bags of English breakfast tea, some cling peaches and two cans of what was described as “man-pleasing” beef stew. Perfect.

  Seth blew in with the wind, locked the door behind him and tossed his gloves onto the small kitchen table. “There’s no fuel. Besides, it’s too cold. Generator won’t start.”

  “So…?” She didn’t want to state the obvious. If there was no power, and it was nearly as cold inside as out…

  “So we’ll have to make do with the candles. At least we’ll be warm.” He shrugged out of his jacket and knelt beside what looked to her like a big metal box. She frowned at the fat pipe connecting it to the roof, then realized what it was.

  “A propane heater!” she said.

  “It’ll be eighty in here in no time.”

  And it was.

  A half hour later Seth carried their empty stew dishes to the sink. “That was great.”

  “Wait till breakfast,” she said, moving to one of the twin beds they’d positioned next to the heater. “I fry up a mean can of Spam.”