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
