And if he let himself love her the way he wanted to love her, Cam would delve into every crevice, every secret in his life. And some of the secrets were horrific and classified. And some things he tried to pretend never happened, except the damned corpses kept popping up in his dreams. Cameran Young, who guarded life so steadfastly, would not tolerate the acts he’d committed in the name of Queen and Country. She’d loathe him, the way he loathed himself. And he could not bear to see that censure in her eyes. It would drag him down to that dark desolate place where he examined his soul and saw nothing worth saving.
His breath shuddered through his lungs. Sweat coated his body in a thin layer of shame. He had to finish it with Cam, but he didn’t want to hurt her. He did not want her to think she was just another easy lay.
Staggering to his feet, he ignored the frailty of his muscles and the way the room spun and his head split in two with pain. He was going to end this before either of them got irrevocably damaged.
Cam wandered into breakfast knowing she looked like crap and not caring. Vikki walked ahead of her, glowing with the achievement of not jumping anyone for a couple of weeks. Shame filled Cam at her ungracious thoughts. Vikki wasn’t the problem—she’d warned her about Daniel from the start.
Cam froze in the entrance of the galley because there was Daniel leaning across the table chatting to an attractive woman with short dark hair who she’d never seen before. Katie came in behind her and jostled Cam’s arm.
“Sorry.” The girl smiled.
Cam forced herself to move forward, to mechanically pick up a tray, but her hands shook so much she spilled the milk. “Damn.”
Sharpie the cook threw a cloth at her. He teased her about her clumsiness but for once she didn’t respond to his gentle ribbing. Exhaustion ate through her body the way boiling water cut through ice. It wasn’t just the late nights with Daniel, it was the emotional upheaval that had turned her inside out and back again over the last few weeks. But she was hanging in there. And the job, the single most important aspect of her trip to Labrador, was almost up and running.
Don’t think about him, or the fact he’s chatting up the next pretty female to come on board. She caught Vikki looking at her, brows drawn together in pity. Cam ignored her too. She lifted her tray, raised her chin and found a chair beside Tommy. Turned out the kid was the son of one of the mine owners and hadn’t exactly volunteered for duty. Once he’d settled down and got over having his strings pulled by his powerful father, he’d become a pretty solid worker. It took her a moment to register that George was sitting there with a full plate of breakfast.
“How’s the ankle?” she asked.
He stuck out a stork-like leg and flexed his foot. “Better.”
“That was quick. When’d you get in?”
“This morning.”
“From St. John’s? That’s an early start.”
“Nah, I have a cottage outside Nain with satellite communications. I spent most of my time writing up reports from there.” He stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth and chewed.
“So are you back for good or just passing through?” She didn’t want him hanging over her shoulder analyzing every move, but this project was a delicate balance between research and industry and she wouldn’t rock the boat.
“I’m worried the fish in the pool beneath the falls are dead.”
His words slapped her competence.
“The mortality rate has been low,” she argued. They’d lost one fish to the surgical procedure, two to a river otter who’d dragged the bodies and transmitters into the woods, and ten to poachers.
“That you know of.” George’s tone hardened.
“There’s no way of knowing for sure—”
“I arranged to have a diver come up.” His eyes lit up. “If the fish are dead he can retrieve the transmitters and you can implant them in other fish.”
She didn’t want to think about a diver being in that pool where she would have drowned without Daniel’s help. It reminded her she’d taken grateful to a whole new level.
George stared at her like he was gearing up for an argument. He was the mine company’s man, and they were more concerned with getting the dam built than completing a long-term fish migration study. If they discredited her methods now, they could steamroller her results later.
She sighed. She hated politics. She especially hated politics in science. “Send two divers and make sure one videos their findings.”
George nodded eagerly.
“I’ve been taking daily water-quality samples,” she told him. Something about that gleam in his eye worried her that he might try and fix a way to kill the fish. But maybe she was wrong because he just brushed the information off with disinterest and started lecturing Katie on the value of work experience. She and Tommy exchanged raised brows.
Daniel looked over and frowned at her, but turned back to talk to the other woman.
She pressed a hand to her temple. Her stomach clenched into a grisly knot when he touched the woman’s hand and then stood to leave. Cam fixed her stare on her breakfast though she felt his eyes on her and knew that everyone was watching with interest. Hot color flooded her cheeks but she ignored it and shoveled cold cereal into her mouth, chewing mechanically. It tasted like sawdust and congealed in her stomach. Daniel left without a word.
“Are you all right?” Vikki asked her quietly.
Cam didn’t answer. She chewed and swallowed. Chewed and swallowed. Going through the motions. Working through the humiliation of Daniel moving on. And the pain piercing her chest was punishment for being dumb enough to fall for him and allowing herself to believe she was different. For believing she was special. Just because their one-night stand had lasted longer than most.
***
Cam stood in her tiny cabin, packing some gear for Vikki to take with her when she left the next day. They were having their first down day because fog was forecast this afternoon and the choppers couldn’t fly with the low ceiling. She wished she was out there working. She couldn’t concentrate. All she could think about was Daniel and the awful stomach-twisting knowledge that he’d finished with her and was already moving on to the next victim. But he’d warned her right off the bat that their relationship was just sex, and she’d thought she’d be fine with that.
Apparently not.
There was a knock on the door and Daniel stepped inside. He looked gorgeous even dressed down in an olive drab T-shirt and old cargo pants.
“I was hoping to catch you alone,” he said.
Of course he was. Hard to break up with someone in public, even for someone as hardnosed as Daniel. She ran her fingers over the gooseflesh that pebbled her arms.
“What do you want?” She sounded surly. She made herself turn away, pick up some eppendorfs and shove them into a Ziploc so Vikki could take them home. In reality she had no clue what she was doing.
He touched her shoulder but she jerked out of his grasp, and when she turned to look at him, he hung his head and squeezed his eyes tight shut.
“This is really hard for me…” he began.
Cam laughed and crossed her arms over her chest, painfully aware how desperately she wanted to wrap them around him instead. Just yesterday he’d made her feel like the only woman on the planet—now she realized she’d just been available.
God, how humiliating.
He forged on, the words coming out of his mouth like well rehearsed lies. “I need to tell you how much you mean to me—”
“But we’re through, right?”
His indigo eyes were red-rimmed when they met hers. But for all she knew that could be shampoo. His chin jerked down just once, and her spirit took a direct punch. And then he reached out but she stumbled back, horrified that he’d try to touch her when she was so raw.
“Look, Cam, we’re both adults. You can’t have been under any illusions as to where this thing was going…” His words sounded accusatory. Pissed. Like it was her fault.
She’d complicate
d his life and he didn’t like it. She didn’t like it either, but this thing had grown into something vast and all-encompassing in Cam’s heart.
Pathetic.
He paced to her bed and back. “You said we were friends who were sleeping together. Now we’re just going to be friends who won’t sleep together anymore.”
“What?” Her voice cracked. Could he really be so dense? “You want to be friends again?” The words were building to a screech, but Cam couldn’t help it because her heart was breaking. “You think we can spend that much time together naked and just go back to being buddies when you grow bored and move on?” She threw the bag down on the desk and eppendorfs scattered. “You have the attention span of a fruit fly.”
He bristled. He was angry but he still wasn’t saying anything that made sense. Typical freakin’ man.
“I don’t know how you expect me to act,” she admitted and ran her hands over her face. “As soon as someone gets close to you, you slam the door in their face. As soon as someone new comes along, you’re all over them.”
Her stomach heaved. How could she have been such a fool? Falling for a guy who was a compulsive womanizer? He didn’t do relationships and had never pretended he did. Dammit. She would not admit to caring for him or let him see how much he’d hurt her. But she was damned if she was gonna roll over and make his life easy.
The light slanted over his features, making him look stark and vulnerable. “I don’t want to hurt you, Cam.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I want us to remain friends.” He tried to smile. “Turns out I need all the friends I can get.”
“No.” She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be reasonable and civilized when he was ripping her to shreds. And even though she struggled for control, she couldn’t stop the tears that flooded her eyes and washed down her cheeks.
“I’m not going to be your friend, Daniel. You don’t trust me—you proved that this morning—so what’s our friendship worth? It’s just helping you out with a guilty conscience because you think I’m too fragile to survive the fact you’re dumping me. Well, fuck you, Daniel Fox—except, oh, I already did that, didn’t I?”
She angled around him and out the door. Then she ran and she didn’t stop until she was on the top deck, at the prow of the ship. She huddled beside a giant yellow crane, hidden from the world in an isolated corner.
The salt breeze washed over her and gulls squawked, but Cam sat there for a full hour without interruption and, finally, when she went back to her cabin, Daniel was gone.
Vikki rushed in. “Cam, Cam, Cam! They can get me on the next flight to Nain, but if I miss this one I might be stuck here for days as Joe says we have a cold front moving in, bringing bad weather.”
“Joe?” Cam crinkled her brow. She’d pushed her feelings for Daniel into a dark corner of her mind, determined to ignore the overwhelming sense of heartbreak.
“Joe. Joseph. Captain Crane.” Vikki flapped her hands at her. “It isn’t important. I’ve got my suitcase packed. You have two minutes to give me anything you want me to take back before I’m gone.” Vikki had somehow gotten a cabin on her own, which had suited Cam perfectly until now. Now she was going to miss her.
Despite their differences, Cam felt a gulf of loneliness rise up inside her. It wasn’t as if she’d be alone. She had Tommy, Katie and Tooly to work with, and Vikki had collected all the samples she needed. Cam would collect more later in the season and ship them south. But after breaking up with Daniel, she’d kind of hoped to have someone to lean on.
“Snap out of it, Cam!” Vikki clicked her fingers in front of her face, an impatient frown forming.
“Right.” Cam handed her an armful of consumables she didn’t need. “Let’s see what you can fit in.” She followed the other girl out.
When they got to Vikki’s room everything was neatly packed, not like Vikki’s usual post-apocalyptic living space. She noticed Cam’s surprise.
“Joe said I needed to relearn some basic discipline. Tidy home, tidy life, tidy mind.” Vikki gripped the lid of her case. “He said if I got into a program back home, he’d mentor me online.” She shrugged and her bellybutton stone blinked cerise. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
She looked sheepish admitting she had problems.
“Are you going to break it off with the boss?”
Vikki grinned. “I decided to wait until I got home and do it in person.” She looked apologetic. “That way he won’t have any cause to blame you.” Which he was inclined to do whenever his life went pear-shaped.
“I appreciate it.” And then they hugged each other, Vikki lifting her off her feet.
“And keep away from that crazy-assed sonofabitch once I’m gone,” Vikki said.
“We aren’t seeing each other anymore,” Cam admitted.
“I already figured that out or you wouldn’t look so miserable.” Vikki grabbed her suitcase and wheeled it out. “But tell him to go screw himself if he comes knocking on your door again, got it?”
“Got it.” That was never gonna happen, and the knot in Cam’s heart torqued into something hard and impenetrable as she followed Vikki to the helipad.
Daniel sat in the front of the chopper in his least favorite spot. The passenger seat. Anger still moved his blood along his veins at double pace. Bobby Riley, a competent pilot, was doing a rotation aboard the Imaviaq while Daniel took his leave. He hadn’t intended to go. At breakfast that morning he’d told June, the HR manager and first mate’s wife, that he’d work through his leave because he didn’t want Cam alone after he broke up with her. He’d wanted to show her that he meant what he said about being friends. He’d intended to be mature about the whole thing, which was ironic because Cam had rejected that idea without missing a beat.
He’d known from the start he shouldn’t get involved with her. Known from the bloody start.
“Who we waiting for?” He wanted to get off this boat as quickly as possible.
Bobby Riley turned his head as Vikki came onto the heli-deck wearing skintight everything. “Sex on legs.” Bobby whistled and looked at Daniel. “No wonder you’re taking leave.”
Daniel grunted, but his gaze moved beyond Vikki to Cam, who stood next to the first mate, waving off her friend. She couldn’t see him from where she stood. She tried to hold down those rampant curls but the downdraft was too fierce. And though she smiled and laughed, even at a distance he could tell she was sad. His fault. He’d messed up because he hadn’t followed his own rules.
“Although her friend’s pretty hot, too,” Bobby continued, his eyes moving over Cam like she was his for the taking.
Anger blistered through Daniel’s body, every muscle clenched and primed. But he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. It was up to Cam who she played with from now on.
Vikki climbed in and, though she glared at Daniel, said nothing. As they took off, he watched Cam from the cockpit. The ship, bright red, yellow and white, glowed against the aquamarine of the shallow bay, getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared behind a headland. And inside him, the great yawning gap that had hollowed him out two years ago was growing again. And this time he didn’t know how to make it stop.
***
The man used a stick to walk the familiar trail toward the half-fallen tree, the burning ache in his joints exacerbated by the oppressive atmosphere. The air was thick and dense, the iron-colored clouds gathering moisture and spitting rain. He didn’t like getting wet. He was too old to enjoy being soaked to the skin when the skies opened. His leather boots leaked as he sloshed through the mud, leaving a trail a blind man could follow. He didn’t care anymore.
He leaned heavily on the stick, his breath steaming the air, the atmosphere pressing down on him like God’s anger. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and just pretend he saw a dead wolverine hanging in the tree and turn around and let it rot. But he couldn’t.
His ribs rattled with the beat of his heart and he braced himself for disappointment as he looked up. His eyes widened, hardly able to beli
eve what he saw. Joy, excitement, exhilaration fizzed through his body. Exhaustion disappeared. He threw down the stick and started dancing in the mud. He forgot his bad knee and ignored the rain that poured into his eyes and saluted the sky. Forgot the worry and sore muscles from climbing that damn tree over and over the last few weeks. He’d done it! He’d done it.
The critter was impaled on his blade, eyes dull and glazed, mouth opened, flies buzzing around the bulky corpse as it swung in the tree. Dirty patches of rust stained the pelt and dripped over the branches.
Hallelujah.
Feeling young and invincible, he jogged over to the tree and hauled himself up the trunk, happy again for the first time in weeks. The gods were with him and he’d never have to face another winter alone.
***
Grit flew as the helicopter whipped up mini-tornadoes in this out-of-the-way corner of Nain’s airport. Commercial planes landed on a short strip of manicured beach that looked like a Band-Aid from the sky. Choppers parked up at the far end of the runway on a series of cleared landing sites. It was small but well maintained. Dogs yapped from the other side of the chain-link fence, fireweed turning a swathe of hillside bright pink.
An ATV battered toward them. Daniel grabbed his kitbag out of the outer compartment, hauled it onto his back. He waited for Vikki to exit, a sneer twisting her face as she passed him. Then he dug under the backseat for his survival kit and shotgun, already in its case. He lifted Vikki’s pink suitcase out and rested it at her feet. Then he closed the door and moved away as Bobby prepared to head back to the ship.
“I need to thank you,” Vikki said. The helicopter was close so she had to shout. He shrugged and turned away. Whatever she had to say he didn’t want to hear. Bobby Riley was taking off, flying away to do Daniel’s job and very likely make a pass at Cam.
Edge of Survival Page 21
