"Right," she says. "Of course. Dawn. The data comes first."
She stands up quickly, brushing at snow that isn't there. "I'll … I'm going to turn in. Goodnight, Nash."
"Night, Aris."
I watch her duck into the tent, the zipper hissing shut like a barrier sealing her away.
I stay by the dying fire, staring into the embers until my eyes burn. I add another log, watching the flames catch and climb.
I told her the truth about the hunting. I told her the truth about my family. But I lied about the cold.
I'm not cold. I'm burning up. And the terrifying thing is, I think she is too.
We found the herd today. We crossed the big hurdle. But sitting here alone in the dark, listening to the woman I shouldn't want breathing softly in the tent behind me, I have a sinkingfeeling that the real danger out here isn't the weather, or the wolves May warned us about.
It's the fact that for the first time in my life, I'm looking at something wild and beautiful and thinking about trying to keep it, when I know damn well that wild things always have to go free eventually.
I kick snow over the fire, drowning the light in a hiss of steam, and sit in the darkness, letting the cold seep in where it belongs.
Chapter Nine
ARIS
My fingers findcold nylon where Nash should be.
In the disoriented haze of morning, I reach out, my hand searching for the body that has become my anchor in this frozen world. My fingers brush cold nylon and then nothing. His sleeping bag is gone. His pad is bare, flattened into the tent floor. He didn't just leave—he took his kit with him.
He didn't come back in last night.
It all returns in one humiliating piece: two almost-kisses in one night, my cowardly retreat into the tent, and him choosing the bitter dark over the small space beside me.
I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest. The air inside the tent is frigid, lacking the shared body heat that kept us comfortable during the storm. My breath plumes white in the silence.
I am a scientist. I deal in data, in observable phenomena, in cause and effect.
Cause:
Prolonged isolation with a physically attractive, unexpectedly emotionally intelligent male who saves my life on a daily basis.
Effect:
Compromised judgment and a dopamine response that has absolutely no place in a professional expedition.
It's textbook. It's predictable. So why does it feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff without a harness?
I dress quickly, layering my misery under merino wool and Gore-Tex. When I unzip the tent flap, the blinding brightness of the Alaskan morning hits me like a slap.
Nash is by the sleds, re-lashing the equipment cases. He's moving the way he does when something has gotten under his skin, every tug on a strap a little harder than necessary, every knot cinched tight enough to cut. He looks like he hasn't slept; the shadows under his eyes weren't there yesterday, and his jaw is set in a line hard enough to break granite. His sleeping bag is rolled and lashed to the top of his pack, dusted with ice crystals from a night outside the tent.
"Morning," he says without looking up. His voice is gravel and distance.
"Morning." I feel awkward, ungainly in my heavy boots. "Did you … did you sleep out here?"
He finally glances at me. His hazel eyes are flat, the warmth from last night completely iced over. "I hollowed into the drift on the north side. Storm did most of the work. Warmer than you'd think."
It's a lie. Or if it's not a lie, it's a deflection. He slept in the snow to stay away from me.
"Coffee's in the thermos," he adds, gesturing to the camp stove where a battered metal flask sits steaming in the snow. "Oatmeal's ready. We need to move in twenty. If we want to catch the herd grazing, we need to be on the ridge by eight."
