After streaming a long cloudy exhale ahead of her, she ignored him. No surprise. He deserved her disdain. He was being an ass and he knew it.
He should shut up, except damn it all, he was working to survive on a lot of levels today. Must be the whole holiday season dragging him down. Since a gunman's siege at his college right in the middle of December semester exams, he dreaded this time of year. He'd hoped to make happier memories with Alicia in front of a fireplace with a bottle of merlot, some mistletoe and no clothes.
But he'd grossly underestimated the amount of effort required by marriage, and all the damn logic in the world hadn't helped him figure out this woman. "Maybe we could both take leave and fly down to Mexico for a quickie. Divorce, I mean."
"I know what you mean." Her voice might be quiet, but she snapped with tension louder than the crack of fallen branches underfoot. "And you are so not funny right now."
"Yes, I am."
"Comedy and arrogance. Just what every girl looks for in a guy."
"Arrogant?" He plastered an over-innocent look on his face, chapped skin pulling tight at the effort, but it was a helluva lot easier to joke than vent his real frustrations. "How so?"
Her snowshoes slapped the ground, wafting a powdery patch. "Don't be a smart-ass."
"But I am a smart-ass." He checked his compass, adjusted their steps. "My IQ's just a fact, a fluke of birth, nothing I can take any particular pride in."
And that IQ told him he'd mastered funny, a talent he'd developed to help him fit in when he entered college at thirteen. He didn't intend to go through life as an ostracized whiz kid freak. He'd needed something to help him assimilate into the college community until he hit his growth spurt, which, thank you, sweet God, finally happened at seventeen to the tune of six feet tall.
Of course, he'd quickly learned that humor was harder than landing a perfect score on the SAT, which made it more of a challenge. And damn, but he loved a challenge.
Alicia was his biggest challenge ever, more so than studying the rim-shot humor patterns of the Three Stooges' comedic routines. Problem was, he was losing this challenge.
Losing her. Not that she'd ever really been his, with her walls so damned high.
Right from the first time he'd seen her in the Kunsan O'Club, he'd been freaking mesmerized by her uninhibited laugh and stand-back confidence. She'd worn civilian clothes instead of her flight suit. How somebody could carry off an orange silk shirt with purple jeans and black thigh boots anytime other than Halloween, he didn't know. But then Captain Alicia "Vogue" Renshaw was all about the unexpected.
For a man who pretty much had life wired through sheer intellect, her unpredictability brought him to his knees.
He'd pulled together his best laugh lines, talked to her for a half hour before asking her out. He remembered his words distinctly. Would you like to get a drink? I'm buying. Not all that original, but she'd said yes.
Then she'd invited five other guys to come along. After all, Rose-Bud was offering to pick up the tab.
Even now, a smile tugged at him. He should have been pissed. The night had ended up costing him three hundred bucks, but he'd been laughing too hard to be mad. She out thought him, and he liked that for a change.
Or he used to, anyway. Not so much anymore. "What do you want, Alicia? Do you even know?"
The question fell out before he could think, which said too much about his frustration level.
Silence answered him for at least eight trudging steps under the cover of silent trees, her arms swinging along her sides. "I want to finish this course. I want to start my job here. Simple stuff. Nothing complicated. So quit placing me under a microscope. I'm not an equation for you to figure out. I'm just...me." Her snowshoes smacked the ground with increasing force and sound. "And most of all, I am not your love. Not anymore, if I ever was."
He had loved her, damn it, before too much distance and arguing had killed it for both of them. She could just bite him if she thought otherwise.
Not that he intended to mention the point and thus offer up the rest of his heart for target practice.
"Thanks for clarifying. Consider the microscope officially packed away. We'll walk. No talking other than directions. Speaking of which, veer left at the Y-looking birch tree up there."
So now this crappy day would be silent. Fair enough. Couldn't get much worse, anyway.
Snowflakes whispered from the murky sky.
Chapter 2
Snow pummeled Alicia.
Who'd have thought flakes could be so heavy? But after three hours of combating the early-arriving blizzard, she found every flake weighed a ton against her dwindling energy.