"I think we do." He turns then, shifting in the snow so he's facing me. The playfulness is gone, replaced by that intense, hazel-eyed seriousness that makes my mouth go dry. "Because I left last night, and I gave you the cold shoulder this morning, and neither one was fair. I told myself I was giving you space. I wasn't. I was scared."
"Of what?" I ask, quiet.
"Of what I want. Of what I'll do if I let myself have it. So tell me what was going on for you in that tent, because I've been guessing since three AM and none of my guesses are good."
"It was … panic," I admit. "It was me realizing that I am in the middle of nowhere with a man who is confusing the hell out of me, and I have a job to do, and I promised a dead man I would finish it, and I can't … I can't mess this up."
"You think this"—he gestures vaguely between us—"messes up the work?"
"Doesn't it?" I look at him, pleading for him to understand. "Nash, you're the guide. I'm the client. When this is over, I go back to Seattle. I go back to a tenure-track review and faculty meetings. You stay here."
"I know where I stay," he says, quiet.
"So what are we doing?" The question comes out sharper than I intended. "Are we pretending that we aren't … that there isn't …"
"Chemistry?" he supplies. "Attraction? The fact that I wanted to kiss you so bad last night I had to go sleep in a snowbank to stop myself?"
The admission hits me in the chest. He wanted to. He did want to.
"You slept in a snowbank?"
"Figuratively. But it was cold." He holds my gaze. "I'm not blind, Aris. And I'm not made of stone. I know something is happening here. But I also know you're right."
He looks back at the valley, where Waldo is calmly chewing lichen, oblivious to the human complications observing him.
"You have a mission," Nash says. "That caribou down there? That's the priority. That's the promise. Anything else … anything else is a distraction."
"A distraction," I repeat, the word tasting bitter even though I know it's true.
"We need to get that collar off him," Nash says. "We need to get your data. And then I need to get you home safely. That's the job."
He looks at me again, and for a second, the mask slips. I see the longing, raw and unguarded. "And if I start something with you out here … if I let myself have what I want … I'm not going to be able to do the job. Because I'll be too busy worrying about you to keep you safe."
I take a deep breath, the cold air stinging my lungs. He's right. Of course he's right. Thaddeus would say the same thing.Focus on the data, Aris. The variables.
"Okay," I say. I force my voice to be steady. "Okay. You're right. The mission comes first."
"Friends?" Nash asks. He holds out a gloved hand. It's a peace offering, a boundary line drawn in the snow.
I look at his hand. I know that if I take it, I'm agreeing to put the genie back in the bottle. I'm agreeing to be colleagues, partners, friends, and nothing more.
"Friends," I say.
I put out my hand, and he shakes it.
It should feel like closing a door.
Instead, as his fingers close around mine, strong, warm, protective, it feels like a lie, necessary and survival-based, but a lie, nonetheless.
"Good," Nash says. He releases my hand a fraction of a second too slowly. "Now. Look at the herd. The young bull is moving up. I think he's going to challenge Waldo for the best patch of lichen."
"Right," I say, lifting my binoculars with hands that are shaking again. "Dominance behavior. Recording."
We watch and we work. We talk about caribou ethology and snow conditions and wind direction, and we joke about Waldo's various aliases—Tank, Brutus, and the day Nash tried out Sir Hoof-a-lot.
But every time he moves, I feel it. Every time our eyes meet over the equipment, the air snaps tight.
We've agreed to ignore the fire. But as I watch Waldo trudging through the snow, keeping his head down and moving forward against the wind, I have a feeling that ignoring the fire doesn't put it out.
