A seagull landed on a metal railing and eyed them before squawking. Another responded.
“I know where she is.” Eric smiled.
Hope sprang up inside him, big enough to stretch the patchwork of stitches on his body. Oxygen, after suffocating for so long.
“I know that look. Hold on.” Eric used his big brother voice. “You can’t go after a woman like that without a plan.”
“You got a plan?”
“Bro, you’re the one with the huge brain. Why don’t you use it to…brainstorm something.” Eric compressed his lips, as if holding in a smile, then sniffed. “So, we on or what?”
Ford blinked. “What?”
Eric rolled his eyes. “This. Polaris. You with us? You part of the team?” He lifted his chin, squinting at Ford, looking…insecure maybe? The expression was so unfamiliar on his brother’s face that he turned away to cover his surprise, looked at the rig, the ocean, the island, the big, cloud-dotted sky expanding as far as his eye could see, but nowhere near as big as he was used to.
“Better ask Angel what she wants first.”
Eric released a humor-laced sigh. “Good answer.”
“Yeah?”
“I believe in you.” Eric smirked and thumped him on the arm before leading him to the helicopter pad.
Now if he could just convince Angel to believe in him, too.
Chapter 53
Antrim Soup Kitchen, San Diego, California—10 Days Later
“Hey, Abs!” Betty’s gravelly smoker’s voice called from the dining room. “Got a visitor.”
Angel’s hand stilled midscrub. They’ve found me shot through her head and body and soul before she shook it off, realizing how unlikely it was.
No one would look for her here. Some fancy restaurant maybe, or the farm-to-table type of place she’d thought she wanted. Not this rundown soup kitchen catering to the poorest of the poor.
And if they had truly found her, they sure wouldn’t announce their presence.
“Coming!” She shut off the water, wiped her hands on her apron, and turned, grabbing her knives out of habit. They were all new. The old ones were still in the rubble of Volkov.
And then, inevitably, she thought of the fate of her favorite boning knife. If only she could rid her body of that feeling, the sense memory of steel piercing protective layers of fabric to slide deep into human flesh. She stopped halfway to the kitchen door, swallowed back the familiar rush of bile, closed her eyes, and breathed.
Only rather than running recipes through her mind or picturing a perfectly rising dough, she saw white. Eternal white, marred only by a single red dot, solid and sure and more real than anything she’d ever touched in her life.
How long would it take to stop missing that place?
Right. Like it’s the place I miss.
With an internal eye-roll, she strode on, craving cool weather like a thirst she couldn’t quench. She pushed open the door, stepped through, and froze, barely missing getting hit as it swung closed.
Ford.
He was bigger in this enclosed place than he’d been in the open. His face was pale, as if he’d spent the past couple weeks indoors. Which was likely, given his injuries. And his eyes—they held her captive: crushed ice, melting, dragging her into their depths.
She didn’t move, just watched his face, took in that expression, so different from how he’d looked before. Not the harsh, set lines of the person she’d first met, nor the hungry and slightly shell-shocked look he’d worn in their hut, not even the deep, flattering concentration of a man making love. Right now, he looked…totally unsure of himself.
Which softened her up a little, made her protective.
She pasted on a smile, ignoring the curious looks of the other volunteers, and went forward to greet him.
“Hi,” he said, looking uncertain. “Heard you were helping out here.” He glanced to the side and smiled at Betty, who turned quickly away, wide-eyed, and started scrubbing down a table.
Angel wanted to answer, but she wasn’t sure she could. Not if he was here out of some desire to be friendly or out of obligation or some crap. Not with him watching her like that. Not with her rib cage hanging open, exposing her freshly torn, angrily pumping heart. She’d just decided she could cobble herself back together again, but with him here…
“How are you?” His voice was as raw as ever, the scar on his neck exposed, shiny and new-looking. It suddenly occurred to her that he’d have more scars to show for their journey. It also occurred to her that there might be other old ones she’d never seen. Making love in a hut in the Antarctic hadn’t lent itself to slow, meandering explorations of each other’s skin.
The tragedy of that struck her hard and the stiff smile morphed into a grimace. She turned away and grabbed a saltshaker from a table. It needed filling. Where’d they keep the salt? Crap. She’d seen it earlier, it just—
“Hey.” His hand on her shoulder. “Hey, sweetheart.”
Oh no. Don’t call me that. Don’t do this. Don’t rip me open where people can see me. See you.
She shut her eyes, held her breath.
“Ang—Shit.” He cleared his throat and glanced around, his face red as an antarctic sunburn. “Abby.”
Jesus. Betty and Father Stuart and the three daytime volunteers were right there, listening in on this unfolding minidrama. But not mini for her—major as an earthquake. A freaking tsunami tearing at her innards. She didn’t want to lose it in front of these people.
She needed to keep it together. For now. Later, in the privacy of her own place, she could blow apart into a billion jagged little chunks.
“Hey,” she said with another forced smile. She didn’t actually know what to call him. They’d given him a new name, right? Or had he chosen to keep his identity at the risk of losing his life? “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” He didn’t look okay. He looked weak and exhausted, breathing hard, with one arm in a sling.
“Good. So…great.” She looked around for something to do, put the salt down, picked it up again. “Look, what are y—”
“Can I help?”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“Can I pitch in? With whatever you’re doing?” He motioned toward the kitchen door. “I can do di—”
“You’re in no shape to—”
“Sure!” Betty stepped in, all four foot ten of her, bustling around to a cupboard she pulled an apron from. “You can help Abby back there with dishes.” She turned. “I need these guys with me in dry storage. Let’s go.” She threw the apron at Ford and led the volunteers down the hall.
Father Stuart looked a question at Angel, who nodded. He then shuffled off to his office.
Angel watched Ford struggle for a few seconds before helping him tie the thing around his waist.
Which was a mistake, since it put her close, right against his back, her head halfway up.
He smelled good. Of course he did. Different from out on the ice, a more civilized version of the man she’d been with there, but recognizable nonetheless.
He smelled like…hers. And it broke her heart that she couldn’t have him.
Chapter 54
Ford forced himself back so he wouldn’t make an ass of himself. One step and then a second.
Then again, he’d come here to make a fool of himself, hadn’t he? He needed her to understand that this was it for him. She was it.
He was willing to put himself through anything for her. He had before and he’d do it again. He just needed to gather up the courage to spit out all the words that had been building inside him.
With an exhale, he unbuttoned his too-tight shirt at the collar. “Lead the way.”
She shook her head once, more dazed than in denial, and headed back in the door she’d burst through minutes ago, blowing him wide open all over again.
Damn, she was beautiful. Thinner, but gorgeous. Her cheeks sharper, her dark eyes sunk a little deeper in her skull. Was she sleeping? She looked exhausted. Haunted. It was hard to tell with the apron she wore, but he thought her frame might be slighter. Which he didn’t like at all.
He wanted to wrap himself around her, to keep her safe.
“Here.” She threw him a towel, which he caught one-handed. “I wash, you dry.”
He nodded and rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s go.”
She was good at her job. He knew that. He’d known it the second she’d shown up in that South Pole kitchen, clearly overqualified. They’d never eaten so well as when she’d been in charge. She’d spoiled them with the tastes and smells and sight of her. How had he thought for a second that he could live without any of it? Like an addiction, he needed her to survive. His oxygen.
But seeing her here, doing grunt work in this most unpretentious of kitchens, was like looking deep into her soul. She didn’t mind working hard. But then he knew that already.
For the next hour, he wore himself out, wiping and scrubbing dishes and stoves, fryers and floors, until everything sparkled. Every time he tried to talk to her, she gave him another job to do. And then, when they’d done everything they possibly could and he was beyond ready to tell her how he felt, she took the oven apart and had him scour the inside.
When she finally handed him a glass of water, he was out of breath, exhausted, pouring sweat, while Angel was flushed and alive-looking. Every bit of him ached from the movements. Possibly also from the proximity to her and the too-large space between them. Except that space had shrunk at times when she’d passed behind him, putting a hand to his back to let him know she was there. Or when she’d pointed out a hard-to-get-to spot behind the sink.
Everything about her was so perfectly competent, her body a testament to who she was, covered in years of burn scars, the nails neat and short. For a few lost seconds, he’d pictured those fingers wrapped around him, the hand tight on his hip or scratching furrows down his back.
In the last hour, he’d learned how to clean an industrial kitchen from top to bottom. He’d also learned that working alongside this woman made him feel more alive than anything in the world.
There were so many things he should have been saying to her from the beginning. He’d never been particularly eloquent, but maybe a part of him had been building them up, piece by piece, thought by thought, just for her. And he needed to get the words out—he needed to tell her.
“Ange—” He gave an annoyed sigh. “Abby.”
She turned the water on full blast.
“Hey.” He went over and turned it off. “Will you listen to me? For just a minute?”
She huffed out a breath and met his gaze, hers so full of hurt that it almost felled him.
He inhaled and finally forced the words out. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. In my life. Hands down.”
Her eyes grew big and round, and her head was shaking side to side, like she knew what he was about to do and she needed him to stop.
He went on. “As far as I’m concerned, you outshine everyone. Everything. In the kitchen and out.” He ignored the tight, flat line of her lips and carried on. “And, you know…you were right.”
Her exaggerated eye-roll made him smile. Shit, he’d take that from her any day. She was listening at least. It was a start.
“I was a jerk. I was frozen through. Until I met you.” He moved toward her, close enough to touch, but he’d let her take that last step. If she chose to. “And now we’re about to start new lives, after everything, and…well, you’ve ruined me, melted me down and made a new man of me. Except I’m useless without you. Useless.” The words were spilling out of him now, faster and faster. “You’re magnificent, Angel. You’re bigger than Antarctica, stronger than the ice, more magnetic than the poles. I’d do anything to be with you. Be anyone. Go anywhere.”
“Ford, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. I want to show you how much you’re worth. Everything. Absolutely everything I am, everything I have is for you. Tell me where, tell me when, tell me how, and I’m there.”
“No.”
No? Christ. He put his hand to his chest.
“I won’t take you away from the ice.”
“You wouldn’t be taking me away.” He leaned in and whispered. “I was hiding there. You heal me more than the ice ever did. You’re my home. And I want to be yours. Will you let me be that? Can I be the place you come home to?”
* * *
Her skin burned, her eyes watered, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
It wasn’t fair of him to catch her off-guard like this, after a long shift volunteering at the soup kitchen.
But he’d done it and she knew this was hard for him.
What had he asked? If he could be her home? Of course he could. He was. He had been since their first night in the tent. Since they’d parted ways, she hadn’t slept more than an hour or two at a time.
He was her missing half.
Her love.
“Come here,” she whispered.
The look on his face when he bent toward her and put his forehead to hers filled something that had been empty for a very long time. The way his fingers caught in her hair, the solid feel of his body against hers.
He was right—this was coming home.
“Love you,” he whispered, as if he hadn’t already flayed himself alive for her. “More than anything.”
She nodded, ate him up with her eyes, and whispered, “Me, too,” then lifted her lips for a kiss.
Someone applauded and she almost died. A glance to the side showed Betty and Father James and one of the women who helped out at the shelter. A live audience, for goodness’ sake. Ford shocked her by kissing her deeper, holding her tighter, and hamming it up just the slightest bit. Who was this man?
Good Lord, he’s mine. My man.
“Now what?” she asked when he finally pulled away, leaving her hot and breathless.
“You tell me.” He stepped back. Took a look around and threw his arms out, as if to say the world was her oyster. “Or better yet, let’s figure it out. Together.”
Chapter 55
Chronos Corporation Headquarters—Later That Day
“Alaska?” Katherine hauled herself up from her father’s armchair. “That’s all you know?”
“Yes, ma’am. He booked himself a flight to Anchorage, then headed out into the bush with a local pilot. I talked to someone from the airline and apparently the flight went off the radar. Disappeared. They didn’t have an emergency number for him, and without a flight plan or any record of it…well, took us a while to track him down.”
“I appreciate the information. Please let me know if anything changes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She ended the call and turned to Brenda. “We need to put together another team.”
“A new drilling site?” Brenda’s brow lifted, but only slightly.
Katherine appreciated the woman’s restraint. It served no purpose to show excessive surprise or emotion. Pointless, when they had so much work to do. “No. No, we’ll concentrate on getting the new South Pole station up and running again.”
“There’s been promising data coming out of Colorado.”
Interesting. Her father had always pushed for more drilling in the Rockies. The old mines had shown themselves to be promising. “Don’t we have a team in Alaska? Permafrost drilling, right?”
“Yes, Director.”
“Well, we need to send more resources to the region.” Alaska! She couldn’t wait to tell Fiona the news.
“Yes, Director.” Brenda wrote a note on her electronic doodad. “Is this a small team or—”
Katherine laughed—a grizzly, desiccated sound. “You’ll need an army for this one. A dozen
men, at least. And find me someone more capable than the senator’s people. Sampson was big, but his brain wasn’t worth a damn.”
“Right. I’ll inform HR and security that we’ll be hiring.”
“Actually, let’s go through a subcontractor for this one.”
More tapped notes and Katherine could feel the wireless waves in her brain. If she were in charge, there would be no more tablets, no more of those absurd smartphones that led, quite frankly, to the opposite of intelligence. Dumbphones. They’d be back to basics: women and men living simply in a clean world. Evil eradicated.
The children would inherit.
It was her mission. No more shootings, no more innocents dying. Only the good would survive her cataclysm. Only the good.
She sank back into Daddy’s chair and stared at the flames. “And I want to see him.”
“I’m sorry?” Brenda, intelligent though she was, didn’t always follow.
“The man. I want to see him once they’ve found him. Right here, face-to-face. I want him to know.”
“I’ll make sure our team is briefed.” A pause, during which Katherine felt Brenda’s eyes hard on her. Curious, perhaps. Worried? Resentful? “Anything else?”
“No. No, I believe that is all. For now.” She smiled. “Thank you, Brenda. You’re a godsend.”
Chapter 56
Two Days Later—Polaris Platform
Leontyne Eddowes muttered something into her headset that Angel couldn’t understand as they settled onto the helipad in the middle of the ocean. Airplanes, helicopters—apparently the woman flew everything.
Angel glanced at Ford and found him watching her with a half smile.
Would she ever get used to seeing that expression on his face? The softness in his eyes? Hopefully not. Because the jolt of surprise it sent through her every time was pure pleasure.
Man, she loved him. So much it hurt.
He grabbed her hand and squeezed briefly before helping her out of the helicopter. Nobody called them choppers, according to Leo. This is a helicopter or an aircraft. Helo if you’re in a rush, she’d said. Only people in the movies use chopper.
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