Melt

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.