She went around the food service line into the bare-bones kitchen. Nothing, she decided as she got the coffee going, would ruin her last day at Pole. Not this cold seeping into every pore, not the lights flickering above, not even the hangover chipping away at the inside of her skull.
Of course, there was the stupid thing she’d done last night. That might ruin today.
Oh, shut your piehole, brain. She slid a mug under the first drizzle of coffee, which would be too hot and too strong, but she needed something to knock the stupid right out of her.
Once her tongue had been scalded to her satisfaction, she shoved the frozen bacon into the microwave, pulled out the dough she’d thrown together last night, and punched it down with more vigor than usual. Then she went to work laminating the croissants—layering and rolling and layering and rolling. One advantage to cooking at Pole was that she didn’t need to refrigerate between stages. Until she turned the ovens on, the air in here was bracingly cold.
After an hour spent julienning, dicing, sautéing, and baking the ingredients of her last meal in Antarctica, she savored the aroma of thyme-laced veggies, glanced at the clock, and pulled out the fresh buns before sliding the croissants into the hot oven.
Soon she’d be snug in the cavernous belly of an LC-130 Hercules airplane, heading to McMurdo, then Christchurch, better known around here as Cheech. From there, she’d hop another flight to the United States, and finally, home to Pittsburgh.
First, though, it was time to run the gauntlet of one last breakfast in this place, which would be an absolute pleasure if not for the presence of a certain man.
Ugh.
Dealing with the guy most days was a trial, but after last night, it was the stuff nightmares were made of. Well, high school nightmares anyway, when crushes made or broke you.
She slid the covered pan of bacon onto the service line, added dishes of stewed tomatoes and crab cakes—a crew favorite—and fought the fresh, hot wave of embarrassment that washed over her.
What an idiot to have hoped that a dance might heat up that man’s subglacial eyes. Why did she have to go and ruin a clearly defined…what was the opposite of friendship? Enemyship? Didn’t sound right.
She sent a final glance at the clock and—
The door swung open, more violently than usual, and there he was, right on time, too-wide shoulders filling the doorway, perma-scowl on his annoyingly handsome face: Dr. Ford Cooper, the Ice Man himself.
* * *
Coop shoved open the galley door.
“Doctor Cooper,” Angel Smith said in greeting. She did not seem happy to see him. Unsurprising but not a problem. If the weather held, it would be her last day. The last time they’d be forced to converse.
In response, he grunted through scarred vocal cords, already raw from the morning’s arid cold. And then tried again. “You see Cortez?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just blinked at him, followed by a slow, deep inhale. “No. You’re the first person here.” She scowled. “As usual.”
Shit.
He’d just woken up all of Cortez’s students and half the people on his floor by pounding on the man’s door again. That had not gone over well with any of them. “He’s out on the ice,” they’d told him, with big intimidated eyes.
“Why?” Coop had asked the frightened-looking kids. “He was sick, right?” Ill, not sick. He was ill. “Why’d he go out again if he has the Crud? Was he feverish? Delirious?” he pressed. “What’s going on?”
The students had all glanced at each other, their expressions saying that both Coop and Cortez were batshit crazy anyway, so who knew what the hell he’d gone out for.
“Did you actually see him?” A few head shakes, so Coop had set off—he’d go out on the ice himself to find the man if he had to. This wasn’t normal. None of it was.
He’d made it about twenty feet before his stomach had produced a long, low grumble, however, telling him that he’d better feed himself now or he’d regret it. Sustenance was essential everywhere, but in Antarctica, where bodies consumed calories as fast as the generators burned fuel, eating was key to survival.
With a bitter sigh, he’d changed directions and stalked toward the central building.
On normal days, getting food from Angel Smith was a pain. Today, it was an annoyance he didn’t have time for. A necessary evil.
“You see or hear anyone else walking around this morning?”
She shook her head with a sniff and turned her back to him, leaving Coop to suck in a calming breath.
Just a few more hours of this and the place would empty out, only the die-hard winter-overs left to carry on the work meant to keep the station alive through the dark, cold months. For some of those months, even Coop would have to stay indoors. Which was fine, because after today, it would be just him and a skeleton crew of trustworthy souls. That knowledge brought relief flowing through him so fast and hard he could have sunk to the floor with it.
Angel Smith would leave and take her excessive everything with her. She was too curvy, too boisterous, too gregarious, too loud. Had she not noticed that people here liked quiet? Okay, not entirely true, judging from the unholy din the Poleys had made at the Nest last night.
The plates rattled as he grabbed one, still peeved that he’d gone there at all. But the Cortez thing had burrowed under his skin—a mystery he needed to get to the bottom of.
Hurriedly, he opened the first serving dish. His belly went wild as the warm fog of bacon hit him.
He’d just grabbed a croissant when Angel started sharpening a knife with a slow, even cadence that seemed oddly grim to his ears.
Slice. Slice.
His eyes were drawn to the enormous blade she dragged back and forth along the steel rod in her left hand. Each long, sharply ringing pull made his teeth clench so hard he could feel it in his balls.
Was he imagining the implied threat here? Christ, he thought, letting his eyes, for one brief moment, slide down her back, I need to hurry up or she’ll—
Why was she standing like that, her shoulders curved forward, her head tilted at a strange angle? The posture was different from anything he’d seen from her—a woman who didn’t seem to have a grumpy bone in her body. At that moment, she looked…defeated? Tired?
Swallowing back an unwelcome wave of discomfort, he picked up a sticky-looking bun, threw it on his plate, then paused as he scanned the food. She’d put out a feast. A riot of smells and shapes and colors vibrant enough to rival the bright red of his coat.
It was so over the top, even he could see that there was something behind it. A celebration?
Maybe, but she didn’t seem all that festive right now.