On Thin Ice

“Well, then?”

Lauren swore. Salvio was in charge and couldn’t leave the island while they were drilling, especially now that they had no toolpusher to manage the crew. And if they didn’t keep drilling, they’d never finish on time.

“Start packing.” Salvio shot her a nasty look just begging her to challenge him. “The break in the weather’s temporary. We got a half hour at best.” He started for the door.

Lauren’s hand closed over the rock sample in her cardigan pocket. Instinct told her it was the key to this whole nightmare. On impulse, she dashed into the bedroom and stuffed it into a half-full box of tampons. Safest place on the planet. No guy in his right mind would ever touch that box.

Grabbing her jacket, she followed Salvio out the door. The cold hit her like a brick wall. The wind had died, but the ambient air temperature had dropped. She jogged after him, teeth chattering.

The whole place was in an uproar. Salvio hadn’t been kidding. Four men in bunny boots and survival gear exited the prefab camp, bearing Paddy O’Connor’s stiff, plastic-wrapped body across the yard toward the chopper pad out back.

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner? You can’t make a decision like this on your own. What if the weather gets worse? I might never get back to the island. We need to call in, tell someone what’s hap—” Lauren stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait a minute!”

Salvio turned.

“The chopper. How’d you get it?” She spun toward the tiny communications shack nestled between the camp and the rig. “The satellite link! It’s up!”

“Not anymore. It was working just long enough for me to make the call to Deadhorse for the bird.”

“But Bill Walters… Didn’t you—”

“Never got the chance to call him. Besides—”

Lauren didn’t wait for him to finish. Pushing through a line of men making for the rig, she stormed toward camp.

“Get your stuff together, Fotheringay!” Salvio shouted after her. “You’re gonna be on that bird.”

She blasted through the door into the break room and collided with one of the crew. “Dammit! Watch where you’re going.”

Seth caught her by the shoulders. “Whoa! What’s the hurry?”

She gritted her teeth and mentally counted to ten, trying to calm her anger. He pulled her off to the side, so more men could file past.

“It’s Jack,” she said. “He has no right to do this without permission.”

“Do what?”

“He’s sending me back to Deadhorse with Paddy’s body.”

“Makes sense. Someone has to go.”

“But why me, and why now?”

Paddy didn’t have any family; his crew was his family. Altex was his whole life. There was no one else to notify except the borough police and Tiger’s senior management, and that could all be done by phone.

“The weather’s supposed to get worse. Another hour, maybe less, and it’s coming back.” His voice was calm, smooth as glass. Exactly the opposite of the way she felt. “With a vengeance, so the chopper pilot says.”

“So I’ve heard.” She brushed past him and started for Salvio’s office.

“Where’s your gear? Don’t you need to—”

“I’m not going.” Her declaration didn’t seem to surprise him one bit.

She plopped into Salvio’s desk chair and snatched the red phone receiver from its hook. Dead. “Damn!”

“Communications are down.” Seth looked at her hard, as if he expected her to react in some way to his comment.

“Well, they were up at some point, now weren’t they? Long enough for Jack to call in that helicopter.”

“Yeah, I guess they were.”

She glanced briefly at the computer monitors on Salvio’s desk. They were blank. Figured. The whole system must be down.

She had to call in. Had to tell someone what was happening. Her boss would be furious if he knew Salvio was trying to send her back to Deadhorse without consulting anyone else.

“I’m going over there.” She pushed back from the desk.

“Where?”

“Sat-comm shack.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She looked up at Seth, and their gazes locked. She realized he expected her to protest. To tell him no, that she didn’t need his help. Common sense told her to steer clear of this guy, but instinct told her different.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

By the time they slipped out the camp’s rear emergency exit, the wind had started up again. Visibility dwindled as the gale whipped swirling, needle-sharp blasts of dry snow into her face. Lauren pulled her fur-ruffed hood tight as they jogged along the back side of the metal building.

Where the snowdrifts deepened, Seth grabbed her gloved hand and guided her on, sheltering her from the wind with his body. He was so…what was the word? Chivalrous came to mind.

She recalled the last time she and Crocker had been caught in a snowstorm. It was during that awful ski vacation in the Alps. She had wanted to ski down the mountain, leaving space on the cable car for children and seniors who hadn’t the stamina to brave the weather. But Crocker wouldn’t hear of it. He’d pushed his way onto the car. Lauren was so angry at him, she’d skied down alone.

As Seth’s grip on her tightened, she felt a warm sort of satisfaction blossom inside her. No man had ever gone out of his way to protect her before. Well, not since she was a kid and her father was alive.

“Wait here!” Seth shouted over the wind. He ducked inside the back door to the machine shop and emerged thirty seconds later with a pair of bolt cutters. Of course! The sat-comm shack was always locked for security reasons. Jack Salvio had the only key.

Together they rounded the corner and peeked between the buildings. No one was around. He pulled her into the tight space between the two steel structures. “Come on.”

A dozen paces later they stopped dead. The door to the sat-comm shack was cracked, light spilling from inside. The heavy padlock lay open on the ground.

The door crashed wide, and Lauren’s heart leaped to her throat. Seth pushed her hard against the wall of the shack and flattened his body over hers. It was dark, and if they were lucky—