Polar Bared (2 page)

Yeah, that bond might have worked better if she was a man. While sexual harassment wasn’t a problem—no one was interested in the chubby little nerd with the thick glasses—she did feel outnumbered given there was only one other female in the group of twelve.

Jackie was a nice girl, but given she’d chosen to come on this trip as a honeymoon with her new hubby, Conrad, not exactly looking to bond. Unless it was with her hubby’s lips. Joined at the lips best described the pair.

Apart from Jackie, there were no other women and nobody looking to share notes and adventure with the odd one out. Everyone had their own agenda it seemed.

The guy who’d organized the expedition, while nice, was an older fellow who made it clear he was paid to be there and make sure none of the ‘cidiots’ hurt themselves. For the uninformed, a cidiot was a slang term used to describe a person who believed toilets were required, Wi-Fi was a must, and that coffee should be brewed over real grounds and not from instant dissolvable crystals. Sob.
I miss my Starbucks so much.

Of the rest of the group, a few were non-English-speaking students, French by her estimation, two more in the mix were older scientists studying the climate change and its effect on the ice and water levels, and then there were the scary guys. Yeah, not exactly the nicest way to think of them, but still the first thing that popped in her head when she met them the first time.

It wasn’t as if they’d done anything overt to earn that name. In reality, they looked like everyone else, they dressed the same, and, yet, something in their eyes, the set of their lips, strummed her warning meter.

It didn’t help that she couldn’t quite figure out what the five of them were doing here. Flinty gazed, and keeping to themselves, they went off every day to do their thing. What that thing was, she couldn’t guess, and she wasn’t a curious cat with a need to follow them just to find out. If she were to wager a guess, it wasn’t a love of the outdoors that brought them, but other than that, what did it leave, other than illegal activities?

The company organizing the trip made them sign strict waivers about not coming along to hunt or poach, and yet, she could have sworn she’d seen one of the scary guys wearing a gun.

It could be for protection.

But in that case, why not openly wear one of the tranquilizer weapons encouraged to preserve wildlife?

Speaking of wildlife. She wasn’t about to waste another day wandering aimlessly around the perimeter of camp. After several days here, she had nothing to show but pictures and more pictures of snow, ice, more snow, and, yes, more ice. How exciting.

That’s not what I came for.
Problem was, her goal for this trip didn’t seem to coincide with anyone else’s, so despite the recommendation from their guide to stick in pairs or more, Vicky had to make a decision. Play it safe and get more pictures of snow or strike out on her own? Not too far, but enough she might finally see something of interest. Something to remember when the adventure came to an end.

With some basic gear tucked into a knapsack—snacks, thermos filled with hot coffee, blanket, spare socks and thermals, flashlight, flares, and the most important item, her satellite phone—along with her camera slung around her neck for quick grabbing, Vicky set out from base camp determined to prove to herself that she could do this, cidiot gene or not.

She couldn’t deny a certain trepidation. Make that a big
OhmygodIcan’tbelieveI’mdoingthis
feeling. Vicky had spent a lifetime under the thumb of others, people who told her what to do and when to do it. First her parents and then, later, her husband. Only in recent months had she begun to truly take charge of her own life. To pursue her destiny. Or at least learn to venture forth and attempt new things.

A saner person would have taken baby steps. However, Vicky decided something bolder was in order.
I need to really get out of my comfort zone.
Which was why, when she saw the ad advertising the arctic adventure, she jumped on it, not just because she wanted to do something wild but for more practical reasons too.

I need to do this for my research paper.

An older intern than most in her mid-twenties, Vicky had stumbled into the field of research and became determined to make something of herself, despite the fact her husband had mocked her choice.

“You’re wasting your time,” he’d say. “What will you do with the degree?”

Do? Probably nothing, but that didn’t matter. She still wanted it.

Independently wealthy, her parents’ untimely demise having left her with a small fortune, Vicky didn’t have to work, but keeping house for two, especially when they employed a maid, meant hours of boredom. Until she discovered volunteering. Not with real people, of course, her somewhat shy nature made it hard for her to bond with others, but she’d always found it easy to relate to animals.

At the suggestion of her therapist—after many awkward sessions where she spoke quietly in one or two phrase sentences—she decided to offer her services at the local animal hospital. She enjoyed the time she spent with the animals, who she found easier to talk to than most people, even her husband.

Animals were simple to understand. They didn’t care if she was nerdy or wore glasses. They didn’t look at her askance if she ate that second slice of cake, although they did give her big woeful eyes in hopes of crumbs.

When the animal hospital proved too depressing, her late husband, Rick—while supportive of her volunteering was not exactly willing to let her adopt every single animal scheduled for euthanasia—suggested she volunteer for something else, which was how she ended up at the local zoo.

And where she fell in love with bears.

Not just any bears, but the polar ones.

There was something so darned adorable about them, especially the playful cubs. A
joie de vivre
seemed to inhabit the furry white beasts, and she envied it because she needed that in her life. So she volunteered to help with them. Not hands-on, of course, that was for the trained professionals, but just being around the big, cuddly creatures never failed to lift her spirits.

When new management came along, who seemed to think volunteers were a form of slave labor they could exploit, she made the hard decision to leave her beloved bears—although she visited them every weekend with her season pass to the zoo. She used her free time to go back to school.

Why not? She didn’t have a job. She wasn’t needed at home. In spite of Rick’s mockery, Vicky decided she wanted to become a researcher. Not for money or anything. She didn’t need any more. As a lawyer with a prestigious firm, Rick had made good money while alive and, when he died in the car accident, left her well off. Between his inherited assets and the lump sum the reluctant life insurance agency had to pay out, added to the money she’d come into in the last year as part of a trust her parents set up before their death, most would label her rich.

Rich, but bored.

She decided to major in zoology with a minor degree in ethology, which was the study of animals in their natural habitat. To cut a boring story short, that pending degree was why she was in the Arctic Circle, somewhere northeast of Alaska, freezing her butt off and eating lukewarm rations. Surrounded by people and yet more alone than ever.

Screw them. She didn’t need her hand held while she did what she’d come out here to do. She knew how to use her GPS satellite locator. She wasn’t completely inexperienced when it came to surviving outside. Of course, her previous experience, which she’d accumulated just this past summer in the woods with park rangers within screaming distance, might not have prepared her for the arctic, but she could learn. If she didn’t freeze to death first.

Brrrr.

Setting off on foot, her boots sporting crampons, which were much like the golf spikes on her husband’s golf shoes, she went in search of things to observe. While she was really interested in the study of polar bears, she wouldn’t ignore other wildlife.

Snow geese, arctic foxes, seals, and even walruses would make welcome additions to her notes. With the age of digital cameras and virtual cloud storage, she could snap images to her heart’s content. When it came to tagging and tracking specimens, she hadn’t managed to score any of the prized collars with the electronic sensors to monitor the animals’ every move. Those were reserved for the more intrepid researchers. Then again, that was probably for the best, as she doubted she’d actually find an animal cooperative enough to let her place one around its neck.
With my luck, if I do find an animal, it will be because I accidentally trip over it or it’s hungry.
Gulp.

Considering she was wandering around on her own, it might be a good idea to not imagine the various things that could happen to her should the wildlife not prove welcoming.

In order to make her first excursion easy, she followed the sea’s edge. She walked, for an hour, and didn’t spot a thing. The vast white plain stretched before her, a gleaming, blinding mass with dips and swells and the occasional dangerous crevice. The dark water lapped at the edge, bereft of the movement that would have indicated life.

It was only when she stopped to take out her binoculars that she revised her plan to turn around after an hour. Thus far, the ridge she’d walked along rose as a sheer bluff from the water. But, through the far-scrying lenses, she could see in the distance a change in the vista. Slopes led down to flat shelves, frozen beaches of sorts.

I need to go there.
She knew from her studies that many arctic residents preferred to hang out by sea ice. Decided, she packed away her binoculars and set off again.

And that was when things began to go wrong. As usual.

It took her about thirty minutes to reach the edge of an embankment, which sloped down instead of sheering off. A worthwhile walk because, lo and behold, she caught her first hint of life. A lonely seal pup, head bobbing in the sluggish current.

Excited, she unslung her camera and snapped a few shots. As if preening for her, the seal waddled onto shore and gave her a lovely profile to photograph. Vicky forgot the cold and discomfort as, for the first time since she’d begun this trek, she felt like a real researcher. One who needed to get closer to get the best images possible.

A quick peek around showed the dark blue water lapping at the icy ledge found at the foot of the hill. However, there was no safe or easy way down, not for a girl whose only experience climbing involved stairs when the elevator was out of service.
And I cussed and huffed the entire time.

But survived it. What was it those buff trainers at the gym told her, no pain, no gain? She could do this.

“You stay right there, Mr. Seal,” she muttered. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Determined to locate an easier angle of descent, she decided to go a little farther, but only after a long pull from her Thermos of the barely warm stuff that called itself coffee, bitter tasting even with the loads of sugar dumped in it.

Perhaps it was the hot shining sun, or the fact that, as she went to tuck her coffee canister away, she fumbled her knapsack and dropped it. Whatever the reason, as she bent to grab her bag, a wave of dizziness struck. Whoa.

Lightheaded, she blinked a few times and shook her head. It didn’t do much to dispel the odd lethargy invading her body. How odd. She took a step and wobbled on her feet. Another step and she slid on a patch of ice—cleats or not.

She windmilled her arms in an attempt to regain her balance and failed. With an oomph, she landed on her bum, and that should have been the end of it, except she landed hard enough to cause a chunk of ice and snow to crack off from the edge she stood on.

Uh-oh.

Before she could yell, off she went. On her makeshift sled, she tobogganed, down the sloped embankment, which might have been fun in other circumstances, but as she eyed the killer cold water lapping at the edge of the ice, which she skidded toward with no means of slowing down or stopping? Yeah. Not a good scenario. She would have screamed if the cold air she sucked in didn’t have her choking.

Throwing herself to her side did nothing, and neither did flipping to her tummy, other than throw snow into her face and fogging her glasses so she could only perceive her imminent demise in blurry snatches. She tried to slow her rapid flight, digging for purchase on smooth ice with her gloved fingers.

Ha, that did nothing to reduce her speed, but the wild flailing did somewhat veer her trajectory, aiming her toward a white, snowy hump, which if she was lucky—
Please please please—
would jolt her to a stop or, if her clumsiness prevailed, would launch her rocketing body and send her plunging to an icy-cold death.

Curse you, vivid imagination!

Unable to watch, she closed her eyes just before impact. She hit the furry mound, and the breath was knocked out of her, but, good news, she stopped. She panted, hair-like strands sticking to her lips and getting inhaled with each breath.

Wait a second. Furry mound?

Face buried in what was most definitely hair, she stopped breathing. Only one animal with this kind of mass had thick fur of snow white. She would have gulped if she wasn’t so terrified.

When she’d come on her expedition to study polar bears in their natural habitat, she’d meant to do so from afar, where it was safe. Or approaching after nailing it with a few tranquilizer darts to ensure it was sleeping soundly.

With her backpack who knew where, the putting-it-to-sleep option was out. She could think of no Plan B.

But maybe she panicked for nothing. Perhaps this bear was dead. After all she’d hit it pretty hard, and it hadn’t budged.
Could be the bear is sleeping deeply and won’t wake up? Maybe—

Massive muscles shifted against her buried face as the mound moved, and she craned her head to peek, morbid curiosity not allowing her to stay hidden. Even through her blurry lenses—her glasses miraculously still on her face—she noted the bright blue eyes glaring at her and the lips on a muzzle pulled back in a vicious snarl.

Wow, what big teeth it has.