Melt (10 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here for Christmas Day.”

Grandma Bea was sitting in the ancient recliner looking very happy. “I know you are, dear, but you really needn’t worry. I had a fine day. Ashe brought me down a dinner that his mother made.”

“Really?” Emma laughed to cover the stupid stab of jealousy she felt. Grandma Bea really hadn’t minded her not being here? “You watched the queen’s message?”

“Of course. Now tell me everything.”

Emma had already shown her all the pictures, told her about the base… What was left? But there was no avoiding her foster mother when she did her impression of the Spanish Inquisition.

“There’s really not that much to tell.” At least, not much that Emma wanted to share.

Since she’d gotten back, Emma had done a search on the Internet like a love-struck stalker. The guy was hugely successful in his field—she’d suspected that. It seemed he often spoke at symposiums on recovery building. He moved from project to project, as he’d said, spending six to eighteen months in a place before moving on. He’d led all kinds of developments in needy areas. He was practically a saint. And he loved that lifestyle—more than he’d ever love one woman.

“He lives on the other side of the world,” Emma told Bea.

“So? There are airplanes, aren’t there?”

“No, he’s a wanderer. He never stays in one place for long.”

“That’s okay. You’ve always had itchy feet, too. You should travel with him.”

Emma laughed hopelessly. “It would never work.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t leave you.”

“Don’t you dare use me as your excuse.” Grandma Bea sat up straighter than she had in the last fifteen years. “Don’t hide your cowardice behind any supposed obligation to me. You don’t give this a chance, then I don’t want to see you here anymore anyway.”

“Bea—you don’t mean that.” Emma’s heart felt skinned. Not even her aging foster mum needed her?

“Damn right I do.” Bea tried to heft herself out of her chair.

“Don’t.” Emma stood. “You’ll fall and hurt your hip again.”

“Emma, you know I love you and I always will,” Bea snapped gruffly. “But you think about what it is that’s really holding you back from giving it a shot with this guy. Don’t hide behind me.”

“I asked him, Bea,” Emma confessed. “I asked him, and he said no.”

Bea slumped back in her chair. Emma suffered under her narrow gaze, her sharp, all-seeing eyes.

“What did you ask him?”

“I asked him to come and visit me.”

“And what did he say?”

“That I deserved more than what he could give me. A total line.”

“He sounds as chicken as you are.”

“I gave him a chance. I asked.” And he’d refused.

“So that’s it? You try once and then you quit?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s not the Emma I raised. There’s no such thing as fairy tales, you know. You have to fight for what you want.” Bea looked at her. “What did you want him to do? Quit the project he had on down there? Leave all those other people in the lurch? You’d have thought less of him if he’d done that.”

But the reason he’d said no wasn’t because of the project or all those other people. It was because he’d said he wasn’t right for her. That they couldn’t ever work as a couple. Their lives were too different.

So they’d only had that week and damn the man, he’d ruined Christmas for her forever. But no matter what Grandma Bea said, Emma was never, ever chasing him.

…

Hunter felt bad. He felt really, really bad. His chest hurt so much he wondered if he was having a heart attack or something.
Or something
was it. He suspected the cause—his heart was defrosting—and it
hurt
.

You can put your body into dangerous places but not your heart
.

Her accusation haunted him. And he couldn’t bear to work in the same building as her beautiful mural. So many times a day he had to walk past it with the shades of green so much like her eyes—the detailed curled fern fronds, the wisps of feathers, the symbols of her native country.

She made him want different things. She made him want things for
her
. More than either of their lives offered them at the moment. But he truly believed she deserved so much more than he had to offer.

He worked insane hours—volunteering for extra work to try to wear himself out enough to fall asleep at night. Except night never came down here, and his brain never shut down, either.

He knew she wouldn’t contact him. She’d been too hurt in the past. People walked out on her, and the one time she had gone after someone she’d been rejected. By him. And he’d hurt her, too. He’d tried not to, but it had happened anyway—and why? Because she’d come to care about him. He’d let that happen—talking with her, confiding in her. But he’d only done that because he liked her, too. He’d been inexorably drawn and too human to be able to resist her. But it was utterly over unless he did something about it.

He couldn’t live knowing she was unhappy. She might have acted cool, but he’d seen it in her unevenly green eyes. It cut him. He cared deeply about humanity, yet caring so deeply for another person was foreign to him. But this ache wasn’t going away—it was only worsening.

Fact was, there was something truly special about her. Something about her that affected him.

He was awake to see in the New Year, went to the annual Icestock music festival at the big base, but not even frozen out-of-tune guitars could help get her out of his head. He could see no happiness on the vast, empty horizon. By the end of the next week, he’d finally accepted that she was the one chance he might ever have of building any kind of “normal” life. The kind of life he thought he’d never want—the home, the garden, the kids kind of life.

The kind of life he’d never had and didn’t know if he could ever pull off.

But he’d hate himself forever if he didn’t give it a shot.

…

Two weeks later, Emma was sitting in her office working through her lunch break. She was working on the sketches for her mirror mural. The one here was supposed to reflect life down on the ice, so all she had to do was decide on those tiny Antarctic details that she’d magnify to mural size. There were the obvious choices of course—the penguins, seals, insects, and other birds. Those ghost fish, the lichen that grew inside the rock…but there were the human details as well—the slash of a dimple, the sound of laughter, the orange of the ECW, the red of a flag, the thermometer outside the sauna…

Yet somehow it was a pair of bluer than blue eyes that she drew.

The physical aches from that final paint-a-thon had eased, but the heartbreak worsened with every passing day. She was furious with herself for letting him in. She should never let anyone in—certainly not some scarred lone wolf.

Her computer pinged. She glanced up—who was Skyping her here at work?

She didn’t recognize the caller ID. But when she clicked to accept the video, she knew. Someone at the base—outside—because that was the image the webcam broadcast. Not that she’d been obsessively checking it or anything in the vain hope she might catch a glimpse of him.

But there he was, standing in front of it. It wasn’t the best connection—the image grainy and literally freezing every other second.

“Emma?”

“How are you, Hunter?” She willed herself to sound collected, but she had a massive frog in her throat.

“Not as good as I’ve been before.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not as much fun here without you.”

It was her turn to freeze, and it wasn’t because of the Internet connection.

“Emma?”

She couldn’t do this. She simply couldn’t let him in again only to have to say good-bye when next he left.

“Holiday romances never work out,” she said.

“It’s no longer the holidays,” he said.

“Plus we live in different countries,” she said, ignoring his comment. “We have vastly different lives.”

“Not so different.”

“Very different. You’re a loner; I understand that. And I’m…not so good at trusting people.”

“Yeah, but do you
want
to trust me?”

She more than wanted to trust him, but that really wasn’t the point, and it was really mean of him to even ask her. “Where’s your next project once you finish up down there?” She had to move the conversation on. Move
them
on.

He shrugged. “Where’s the next big disaster?”

She waited.

“I’m sorry you left.” He drew in a deep breath—expelling it with a big sigh, the words tumbling out with it. “Emma, I don’t have the experience of a happy family Christmas. I don’t know if I can have the experience of a happy family at all. I don’t really know how to do it.”

“What makes you think I do?” She gazed at the grainy screen. “I’ve never had that, either, Hunter. All my Christmases sucked until the last few where I just hung out with Grandma Bea.” She shook her head. “But I still want to try; I want the fun of the season. I’m not just going to roll over and think, ‘Oh well, that’s my lot, I’ll just run away and ignore it altogether.’”

His smile was slow in coming, but when it did it nearly melted her. “Oh, you’re strong. And mean, when you have to be.”

“I’ve learned how.” She blinked back the sudden stinging tears. “Why are you Skyping me? And why aren’t you wearing your survival kit?” He shouldn’t be out in that weather without it, not down there.

“Look out the window.”

She had to stand to see out from her small office. She frowned. There was a Hägglund parked outside the hotel. It was one from the Antarctic experience facility across the road—but it really shouldn’t be here.

“How did—?”

She stopped talking when she turned back to the screen and saw he’d cut the video connection. What on earth was going on?

She faced the window again, looked at the Hägglund, her heart pounding. The driver had gotten out and was waving at her—he had an awfully familiar physique and a killer smile with it.

Emma’s legs failed and she sat in her seat—nearly missing it altogether.

No way. No way, no way, no way.

She stood again to take another look out the window.

He was leaning against the vehicle now, and it really was him…and no, he wasn’t wearing his safety gear.

Her heart thudded so fast neither her breathing nor brain could keep up. The room spun around her.

“No, no, no, no,” she told herself. Fainting was not allowed. Walking was what had to happen. She got to the main entrance of the hotel, and he was away from the Hägglund now, halfway up the path.

They both stopped.

She broke the silence. “How come you’re finished early?”

“Worked around the clock and caught an early bird back.”

“You didn’t want to stay longer?”

He shook his head. “I blame you for that.”

She shook her head then. “Hunter…”

He stepped forward and put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t argue, don’t think, don’t
worry
.”

She paused and slowly she smiled. The devilish urge that only surfaced when he was around came to the fore again. She licked the palm of his hand.

In a second, she was locked in his arms. He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. Some mouth-to-mouth helped with that even though he hauled her even closer, harder.

It was a heavenly collision.

“Two blocks of ice like us make a good pressure ridge when we come together,” he joked, kissing her cheeks and forehead, neck and nose. “I thought I might like to keep my Christmas present.”

“What present was that?” she asked breathlessly.

He smiled. “The possibilities you planted in my head.” He spoke so fast she hardly understood his words. “I need a base. I want one. So I could have a base in Christchurch. That way you can be back regularly to keep an eye on Bea.”

“What do you mean
I’ll
be back regularly?”

“Come with me.” His grip on her waist tightened even more. “Come and have some adventures. We could make an amazing team.”

“Hunter, this is crazy.”

“Yes, it is. But why not just see where it leads us?”

“Because I wouldn’t be much use. I’d be a hindrance.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t be of any use? You can drive a Hägglund,” he joked.

“I didn’t need to do that even in Antarctica. I’m not sure I’ll need to anywhere else.”

“Yeah, but you could learn to drive other off-road vehicles. And you organize things, right? You look gorgeously efficient in that suit.” He gazed down at her crisp blouse and skirt with a wicked smile. “And you can draw and paint and let me tell you, in the places I go, people need some beauty in their lives. You could bring them some beauty.” He leaned forward. “You could bring me beauty.”