Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists (5 page)

house guest for the winter and then head back to the base to see if he could find out some more about Edwina’s attackers.

Thinking about Edwina sent all of his blood running south. It

often became difficult to retain higher brain functions in this form.

His alter ego was more elemental, more instinctive. It acted and

reacted rather than considering things from a human point of view.

Kieran ground his teeth together, attempting advanced calculus in his head to try and stave off the prehistoric feelings. He’d always prided himself on being able to control his alter ego, but he’d feel much

better when he got back to his clothes and returned to his human

form.

Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists

33

Chapter Three

“Do you need to use the bathroom?”

Edwina shook her head effusively. At least at the base they had

actual toilets even if they had different methods of disposal than the usual flushable ones, but out here they had to use a drum or a bag to collect the waste and then take it with them. She was all for saving the environment, but she’d much rather hold her bladder than have to

carry the contents in a plastic bag.

Jake laughed quietly and pulled her closer for a quick, tight hug.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said as he climbed out of the bivvy

bag. She shivered as soon as he took the warmth with him but

managed to burrow under the jacket she’d discarded. She found her

gloves and pulled them back on, absently wondering what the time

was. At this end of the world it was daylight from about January to

March and the rest of the time was technically night. Without the

rising or setting of the sun, her internal body clock had been

completely messed up. Yet another good reason to head home where

things were normal and days began at dawn.

True to his word, Jake returned in what felt like a minute, but he

didn’t climb back in. “Stay where you are while we pack up,” he said

with a smile. “Kieran’s back, and we have a pretty good idea where

we are and where we need to go.”

She smiled, about a million and a half questions running through

her brain, but fortunately not a one of them making it past her lips.

Jake gave her one more of his charming smiles and then moved away.

Edwina wasn’t looking forward to walking no matter where they

were, but lying here getting colder seemed counterproductive. She

34

Rachel Clark

scrambled out of the bivvy bag. Kieran rolled his eyes when he caught sight of her, but Jake gave her another of his handsome grins and

continued to pack his bivvy bag back into its tiny container.

Considering how well the tent style sleeping bag had protected them

from the storm, it seemed almost impossible that it could’ve come

from something so small.

The sky looked clear, and the wind had dropped to almost nil, so

she stood watching them and shivering only occasionally. “Here,”

Kieran said in a gruff voice as he draped his thick snow coat over her.

She started to shake her head in protest—if her rescuers froze to

death, she was totally screwed—but the look on his face stilled the

automatic movement.

He reached into his pack and pulled out a jacket made from some

lightweight material. He dragged it on, zipped it closed, and then

turned back to her. “Happy now?” he asked, sounding completely and

totally exasperated. She felt her mouth drop open but quickly

slammed it shut. She’d heard stories about people freezing the roof of their mouth, and she had no wish to experience the sensation

firsthand.

“Fine,” she said, feeling more upset than his words probably

warranted. “Forgive me for worrying that you might freeze to death.”

But of course she ruined her noble words by blurting the truth. “If you die, how the hell am I going to get back to civilization?” His cynical smile made her wish she’d hurry up and learn how to shut her mouth.

“Don’t worry, princess,” he said in a condescending tone. “We’ll

get you back to your precious civilization. You’ll be home with your

planet polluting buddies in no time.”

He turned and walked off, seemingly uncaring if she followed him

or not.

“Give him time,” Jake said as he wrapped an arm around her

shoulders. “He’s not the horse’s ass he seems at the moment. In fact, he’s usually quite even tempered.”

Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists

35

Edwina cringed internally. Fabulous, she was the reason for

Kieran’s foul temper. Okay, well she hadn’t been nice when her

chopper went down, but that had been the fear talking. She’d
tried
to control her tongue ever since.

“What about you? Do you like me?” she asked Jake as the sudden

irrational fear that they might tire of her and leave her to die zipped through her brain.

He laughed, and together they started to follow Kieran. “I can

already see through the façade. You, my dear Edwina, are a very

special woman, and all of my brothers are going to love you.”

“All?” she asked for the sake of conversation. She didn’t really

want to meet his brothers. She just wanted to go home.

“Yup, all seven of us.” She looked at him, surprised. Seven was a

rather large number for families these days. “You know me and

Kieran, obviously.” Jake gave her another of those devastating smiles.

“And you would’ve met Calvin—he’s stationed at Mawson at the

moment.” She nodded but didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t really

met Calvin. She remembered a man with short cropped white blonde

hair, but until she’d met these two, she wouldn’t have called his hair white. “And then there’s Brian, Simon, Evan, and Gary.”

“Any sisters?” she asked, just a little bit curious now.

He shook his head. “Could you imagine a girl growing up with

seven brothers? She would never have gotten a date.”

“True,” she said. She didn’t have any siblings—and considering

her stepbrother’s amorous behavior, he certainly didn’t count—but it

would’ve been nice to have a brother or two looking out for her.

Seven might’ve been a bit much though.

“Who’s the oldest?” Jake tilted his head to indicate the man in

front of them.

“Big surprise,” she said before she could consider her words. Jake

just grinned and shook his head.

“What about you?” he asked. “Brothers? Sisters?”

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Rachel Clark

“Nope, just me,” she said, not sure how much she wanted to share.

She usually avoided personal topics, but this wasn’t really a usual

conversation. Lost in Antarctica seemed to reset a few of her personal rules. “My mom died before I was old enough to remember her, so it

was just me and Dad for a long time. He got married when I was

about ten, but it didn’t last long. I think he was trying to give me a mother more than find himself a wife, so in the end it wasn’t really a surprise.”

“What about you?” Jake asked with concern in his voice. Crap.

This was why she usually didn’t talk about personal stuff. She

shrugged, hoping that he’d take the hint. He didn’t. “She would’ve

been the only mother you knew. It must’ve been painful to lose her.”

“Not really,” she said, knowing that she was going to sound like a

complete and total bitch. “I didn’t want a mother, so we clashed a lot of the time.” She shrugged again, trying to hide the guilt that gripped her whenever she thought of Elaine. She’d been a good wife and had

tried to be a good mother to Edwina. She hadn’t been to blame for the inevitable outcome. Edwina turned her face forward again to avoid

looking at Jake as they walked. “Dad took my side in everything, so

the marriage was always going to fail. It wasn’t until I was much

older that I realized how lonely his life was.”

“You were only ten,” Jake said as if that explained everything.

“Where’s your Dad now?”

“He owns a cattle ranch in South Dakota. He got married recently,

so I thought I’d give his new wife some space.” She crossed her

fingers as best she could with the thick gloves and tried not to think of the real reason. Yuck. Just memories of her stepbrother were enough

to make her want to gag. Desperately searching for a change of

subject, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Do we

really know where we’re going?” Oh crap. If only she could think

before engaging her mouth.

Kieran turned and frowned at her a moment before resuming his

trek. Hell, she hadn’t said it
that
loud. Jake, in what seemed to be his
Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists

37

usual fashion, laughed off his brother’s grumpy mood. “Yes, Edwina,

we know where we’re going. We should get there before nightfall.”

She felt quite happy by that news until she realized that nightfall

in the Antarctica didn’t happen for several more weeks at least. Stupid South Pole.

Jake laughed and pulled her closer. “There’s an emergency shelter

about four hours walk from here. We’ll stop there for some sleep and

supplies and continue on to our original destination after that.”

“Okay,” she grumbled, already imagining how much she was

going to hurt after four hours of trudging through snow.

* * * *

Calvin ran into three of his brothers about halfway back to the

research shack. He didn’t really want to change back to human form,

so he managed to grunt and howl a few rudimentary instructions and

turned his brothers back the way they had come.

It should’ve taken less than two hours to get back to the shack at a

solid run, but they had to camouflage in the snow twice in the first ten minutes as helicopters passed over them. He couldn’t be certain, but he suspected that Edwina’s absence had finally been noticed. That

likely meant they were looking for his brothers too. If whoever

sabotaged Edwina’s helicopter was the one to find them, things could

get even more dangerous.

As the sounds of the helicopter blades faded, Calvin changed back

into his human form and indicated for his brothers to do the same.

Freezing his human ass off, he got straight to the point. “I think we need to shadow their trip back. Kieran and Jake can’t change while

they have Edwina with them, and if the wrong people find them…”

He left the rest unsaid. They all knew what was going on and had a

pretty good idea what might happen.

His brothers nodded even as they changed forms and quickly

headed back the way they’d come.

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Rachel Clark

* * * *

Kieran was beyond irritated and heading for completely pissed

off. He’d glanced over his shoulder and frowned at her question about knowing where they were going long before he realized that a normal

human should not have been able to hear her softly spoken words

from that distance. And of course, his own uncharacteristic behavior

was pissing him off even more.

Nothing Edwina told Jake gave them any clue as to why anyone

would want her dead. That of course led to him wondering if he and

Jake had truly been the targets as Edwina had so loudly suggested.

It didn’t seem likely, but then he’d lived long enough to know that

anything was possible. He felt fairly certain that their unique abilities hadn’t been discovered. Even if someone had accidently spotted them

in shifted form, it was unlikely that they’d relate that back to the respected scientists they were in human form.

Considering it was Edwina’s helicopter and Edwina’s gear that

had been sabotaged it seemed more likely that Edwina was their

target. Frustration was starting to grind a permanent dint into the back of his teeth when a thought occurred to him. Not really caring if he

gave away how much he’d heard of the conversation, Kieran turned to

the couple behind him and asked his question. “Is there any oil on

your Dad’s cattle ranch?”

She looked at him like he was an offensive bug that required

immediate squishing.

“Why?” she asked disdainfully. “Going to hold me for ransom, or

are you just looking for a big reward?”

Oh god, how much did he want to spank her ass for that attitude?

His cock roared to life even as he tried to rationalize her response. He could feel his alter ego howling for release, demanding he make his mate submit to his authority. Mate?

Edwina and the Seven Snowed-in Scientists

39

With determined effort Kieran tried to rein in his temper, and his

alter ego, before speaking again. “I am asking,” he said, still grinding his back teeth, “if your father has money, so I can determine why

somebody would want you dead.”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little lost. It would seem that the idea

that she was the target had simply not occurred to her. Of course the cantankerous woman managed to turn his words about and started

yelling at him once more.

“How do I know you didn’t set this whole thing up? Dump me in

the middle of nowhere, make me completely dependent on you both,

and then claim a big reward when you
rescue
me.” Fucking hell, the woman couldn’t be more annoying if she tried. With herculean effort

Kieran managed to pull back the urge to haul her over his knee.

“So that’s a yes, then,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Your father