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The Lia he knew would say the words. Slap him, maybe. Shake answers out of him. Something. But whoever she was now didn’t have that in her.
As the seconds stretched out his shock turned to something else, something harder, and she gave up the mental scramble for words to wait him out, watching anger flare in his eyes, bitterness turn the mouth she’d lived to kiss into a slash amid the facial hair she’d never before seen him wear.
But he didn’t say anything, either. No words from either of them. The only acknowledgment that she had any more meaning to him than a stranger came in the form of gritted teeth.
As if he had any right to be angry with her. She hadn’t left him practically at the altar.
She opened her mouth, but before she’d even mustered a word, he stepped past her and silently stormed down the hallway, rigid and straight. Angry. So angry, with her.
He was nearly to the bend, with his rigid posture and determination to yet again get away from her. She’d gone around the world to find him, but in that moment, she had no energy left to chase.
She closed her eyes and breathed slowly out.
In her memories, it seemed she was always walking toward him—down hallways, church aisles, even on staircases in the hospital where they’d meet for a quick kiss between patients or rounds. She didn’t have it in her to watch him walking away. That was the only kindness afforded her by the manner of his leaving—she hadn’t even seen it coming, let alone had to watch him going.
God, she was so stupid.
There were other Antarctic research stations she could’ve gone to. A whole world where no one knew her and she could sort herself out without pressure, get ready for the new life waiting for her outside of medicine. This wasn’t going to be productive enough to endure the pain that went with it.
Bending her head, she pinched her eyes harder shut, so the pressure swirled colors and shadow to light behind her eyelids, blocking out the mental replay of things she’d obviously never have again with him.
And none of this should surprise her. Of course he didn’t want to talk to her. She was the personification of the past, and West had always avoided talking about the past. Only the future. And she was no longer part of his future. Or she was only part of his immediate future, for the next ten days, until he could escape.
He would talk to her. She’d figure out what to say to him, what she really wanted to say, not just what her broken heart wanted to shout. They’d be working together, seeing each other every day. He’d talk, or he’d listen. After she’d gotten some sleep, she’d conjure the words.
That was the one good thing about becoming Lia again. She’d been Ophelia while at home in Portugal, and that had taken time to adjust to, too. She’d remember how to be Lia. Lia, who always had opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them. And maybe by the time she left Antarctica, she’d figure out who she really was, outside the judging eyes of people who had expectations of her.
Sleep would help. Being around her best friend again would help her remember Lia, the version of herself she preferred to the sober, sad child she’d been.
“Lia?”
She hadn’t heard anyone approach, but the sound of her name in her best friend’s voice pulled her eyes open again. Once again, she saw anger in the eyes of someone she loved, but this time, it wasn’t directed at her.
“What did he say?” Jordan demanded, grabbing her in a quick, hard hug that grounded her enough to banish church aisles and promises of forever from cluttering up her ability to speak.
What had he said?
“Nothing,” Lia muttered, making her arms contract, giving an underachieving hug in return. “He said nothing.”
When Jordan leaned back, her scowl had grown deeper, firmer. “What did you say to him? Did you tell him he’s the world’s smallest man and you hoped global warming would eventually thaw out his glacial heart? Would be the only good thing to come from it.”
Jordan with the better zingers than Lia, despite the months of practice and mental composing she’d done.
Lia just shook her head, no heart for it. “I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t expecting to see him yet.”
“I was going to tell you. I arranged it so he couldn’t get too far away if he wanted to sleep at all while he’s here.”
“That’s his cabin?”
Jordan nodded, but one glance over her shoulder to the door showed her hesitation. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Or maybe I shouldn’t have even told you he was here.”
The worry in Jordan’s voice and eyes helped her get some clarity.
“Nonsense. I want to be here. It’s cold, but I’ll get used to it. I just need to think of what to say before—”
“You have some time.”
Ten days. Something she’d reminded herself at least ten thousand times on the trip down. “I was just about to drop my bags off and go to the clinic, as directed.”
“And he was just standing there?” Jordan took the bags and the keys, and opened the door to lead Lia into what she would’ve called a closet under any other circumstances. A small closet. With a small bed.
“With the expression of someone who’d be packing as soon as possible and taking the first transport out.”
Something she could appreciate as she mentally inventoried the tiny room. Two windows wrapping around the corner, as the cabin sat at the end of the pod. Twin bed. Bedside table. And a built-in wardrobe that might have actually been a cupboard. Half a meter area to walk from door to window and everything else to the right against the wall.
Cozy.
That’s what she decided right then to call it. Yep. Cozy. A small space that would be easier to keep warm. There, some optimism.
“He looks at me like that every day,” Jordan confirmed, placing the suitcases by the bed and gesturing Lia back out. “Well, not exactly like that, but we’ll talk more about what a louse he is later. I’m not just the welcome wagon, I’m supposed to show you to your physical.”
A physical she didn’t need but understood the reason for. As they walked back the way she’d come, Jordan filled up the empty space where Lia still had no words, chattering on about the station and the job. And Zeke. Jordan’s trip to the southernmost continent had led her to meet and fall in love with someone she may have never met otherwise. Lia would just be happy to meet the true Lia, not some version she’d learned to present, depending upon her audience.
“You won’t go into the schedule until tomorrow,” Jordan continued, walking Lia back the way she’d come. “I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight, but as tired as you look, I’m thinking you might just want to sleep.”
That wasn’t all she wanted, but it would probably facilitate her being able to think well enough to do the other thing: grab West by the beard and shake some answers out of him. Not that she had the energy for that, either.
“Play it by ear?”
“You got it. After I introduce you to Zeke…”
Every muscle in West’s body ached by the time he made it to the clinic. How he’d gotten there, he couldn’t say. One second, he was watching his second biggest regret catch up with him, the next he stood in the lobby of the medical center with his head buzzing and no idea why he’d even come.
What the hell was she doing there? He should’ve turned around and left Fletcher the moment he’d arrived and found Jordan Flynn stationed there. With her, it assured Lia would learn of his location. If he’d had any idea she’d come all that way, he wouldn’t have stayed. When it came to Lia Monterrosa, he was weak. The only way he could see to giving her a better life, not ruining it as he’d ruined Charlie’s, was to leave. Leaving had been the only way for them to both survive; he couldn’t go through that kind of loss again.
Without him there, she could move on and find someone more deserving than a man who couldn’t even hear her name without remembering the day, months earlier, when he’d had to claim the body of his little brother. Someone who would still be alive if it weren’t for West’s ultimatum. Not that it took hearing her name, or thinking of her, to be sucked right back there. It could barely be called a memory; it remained so present in his head it was like one long, unending day since.
He’d assumed once Jordan delivered the news, they’d both curse him and do whatever women did when thousands of miles separated them but there was an ugly breakup to contend with.
She hadn’t been going to his cabin. She’d carried luggage, and worn the standard-issue red snowsuit given to every crew member.
She’d been moving into the empty cabin beside his. And he’d just stood outside his door because…
He rubbed between his brows, trying to will some clarity to his thoughts.
It wasn’t morning. He’d…gone to the shop for supplies, then the post office to collect books he’d ordered a month ago, and…that was why he’d even been there. Dropping off his packages. After lunch. Which meant he was in the clinic because he had physicals to perform for the six new arrivals who the department head had put on the schedule a week ago: four scientists, a computer programmer and the doctor hired to overwinter.
Lia was there for the winter. The woman who lived for sunshine had signed up for six months of Antarctic night?
Whatever.
He wasn’t staying on. He just had to hold on for the next ten days without groveling and begging her to forgive him. Even through the horror darkening the edges of his vision, his whole body sparked, and he breathed too fast. He needed to slow that down before someone came in.
Regardless of the constant state of chill in the station’s open facilities, he felt sweat running down his spine, and did the only thing he could—ripped his jacket off and hung it on the wall hooks.
Damn it. The clinic was the last place he should be. Walking away from her just now had only hit the pause button on whatever she’d come to say. He just needed a minute to think.
Focus.
He walked to the counter at the wall where hard backups of patients’ files were kept, and braced his hands on the counter for stability, then closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath.
Get it together. With his current state of mental function, almost nothing permeated the towering brick wall cutting across his brain. He’d be useless like this if there was an emergency.
He never let himself picture what it would be like to see her again, but if he had, it wouldn’t have been gut-churning. Leaving wiped the slate, let him have a start fresh. Always. And once he’d gotten past that big first hump, the pain of loss dulled. Sometimes slower than others.
The thought of her projected her sorrow-filled expression on that towering wall in his head. Sad. Heartbroken, even. But not angry. She’d obviously come to see him, but hadn’t come out swinging. Something wasn’t right.
“West.” His name spoken jerked his attention back to earth and he turned to see the medical director, Dr. Tony Bradshaw, approaching, folders in hand. “The new arrivals—”
“I know,” West cut in, shaking his head, “you told us days ago.”
The man was getting so forgetful, West should be so lucky. And too thin, but he didn’t comment on that. They’d had that conversation twice before, and there was only so much West could do to make the man accommodate the increased metabolic needs Antarctica triggered.
He took another slow breath, fighting his own body, depriving himself of the increased demands for oxygen through sheer force of will.
“Right,” Tony said slowly, as if he truly didn’t remember, and handed over the folders. “Jordan is coming in to help you. She went to round some of them up.”
Went to round up Lia.
She’d just stopped outside his door, with eye contact that pulled at him like gravity, and dragged memories into the front of his mind. The way she smelled fresh from the shower. Or better, first thing in the morning when she had his scent all over her, and it all mingled together. His cabin didn’t smell like home still.
The sudden heat returned, and he noticed the inconsistency of it—the whole front of him on fire, and his spine like an ice core down his back, a frozen ice dagger digging into the base of his skull. Twisting. Tangling the nerves there, spaghetti-style.
“I’ve got a meeting, so you and Jordan sort them out,” Tony called from the door as West bent to gather up the paper he’d dropped.
“Right.”
He sighed hard enough to waft paper off the top of the pile.
Just get through the next couple of hours. That was the only thing to do.
Then she could go back home now and management would have time to get another doctor in there, someone suited to the winter, and he wouldn’t have to spend the next eight months thinking about her and wondering if the woman who lived in the sunshine was all right with the unending dark of Antarctic night. He needed a fresh start. Another fresh start.
“You all right?” Tony’s voice came from behind him, still there. Not gone.
And still no answer to give. At least, that he wanted to give. Far from all right. He hadn’t been all right for months, why should today be better?
“Not sleeping great,” he said. It was the only thing he could think of that wasn’t a lie.
“Are you taking the sleep aids?”
“Aye.” He stood. If they were going to talk about his health, he’d say something again about Tony’s. The man was going to overwinter to head some project for NASA, and his weight loss would become more of an issue soon. “You still tryin’ to increase calories? You’re too thin.”
Tony dropping inches was more of an issue than West’s sleep troubles.
Tony redirected, ignoring his question. “Get Jordan to do a thyroid check on you when you’re done with the newbies.”
“Checked last week, man.” West reminded him about that, too, refusing the redirect. “You do the same. Forgetfulness is a T3 symptom.”
“Fine, fine.”
Which meant no.
“Threw me straight out of the bunk.” Jordan’s voice came from the door providing the interruption Tony needed to slip out. He heard Lia’s voice in reply and had to force himself not to look at her until his thundering heart slowed.
That was one thing he had going for him with this—no matter how riled up, Lia was a quiet talker. If she insisted on having it out with him, he could get her into a treatment bay, close the door, and whatever she had to say to him wouldn’t carry through the walls. So long as he kept his voice down. The walls between the cabins were paper-thin, but not in the medical center.
But that would entail giving Lia a physical… The thought shouldn’t make that heat burrowing into his chest grow, dip lower, grow hotter. The very last thing he should do was touch her in any capacity. It would snowball. It always snowballed. He had no restraint around her. Even wanting to avoid the conversation he knew was coming, he still wanted to look at her. He still wanted to touch her.
He picked up the stack of folders and turned to find both Jordan and Lia watching him. Waiting for him to say something. Too bad.
A quick sort of the folders, and he handed three to the other doctor, making sure Lia’s was on top.
“Tony wants everyone done ASAP.”
Jordan shared a look with Lia, but took the folders.
“If you’re planning to ignore me the rest of your time at the station, get ready to be annoyed.” Lia finally spoke, soft voice, pointed words.
It was still the three of them, waiting on the arrival of the rest of the new crew. He could risk saying something short. He just didn’t know what to say, other than a direct response or ignoring her.
“I’m already annoyed.”
He finally let himself look at her again, holding her gaze for a second before the curious presence of pink on her head had him looking up, and then down over her, cataloging differences between the woman before him and the one he’d known in London.
Tired. Tanned. Pink hat. She hated pink. Wispy brunette curls poked out from beneath the folded brim, longer than the short, edgy pixie she was known for. The effect was the same, drawing all focus to her soft, feminine features.
“Welcome to my life,” she said, words still softly spoken in her usual custom, but with steel he’d never been able to resist. Strength he’d long admired. Strength he’d once upon a time pictured in her as the mother to his children. The kind of mother like he’d never experienced, and which might not even exist. A mother who would fight and die to protect her children.
Another life. Another future he’d failed to build.
“You seriously want to do this here?”
She didn’t answer him. A couple of seconds passed, and she just turned to Jordan. “Can you do mine first? I’m the only one here, and I’m really tired from the trip. It’s amazing I’m upright.”
Shutting him out was fine. Shutting him out was perfect.
Showdown at least momentarily averted, he headed off to the side of the room where he could spread the files on the countertop for review. It gave him something to do. He’d take anything that dulled the knife at his neck, and helped him ignore the pull she exuded. It was all he could do.
