IN THE WEEK that passed since Nigel had been stabbed, Lia had learned to treasure short moments where she and West could steal a kiss, or the half an hour window after someone had checked on their one inpatient, the stabbed astrophysicist. In those brief periods, they would sneak into her cabin and sit on the bed to watch the night sky for streaks of color, whatever shades they may be, and talk.
That was their time, between the chaos of two doctors monitoring one patient around the clock. Moments between when he left her bed, where he’d slept alone, and she crawled into the sheets that still smelled of him later.
But today Nigel had been discharged to sleep in his own cabin, and his now-contrite and formerly stabby neighbor, now on thyroid therapy, had been moved to a bunk in the security office until they could figure out what to do with him. Barring emergency, it was Lia and West’s first night together since the one where they’d nearly died in the lifeboat.
They’d had dinner, talked about work, then retired to her cabin to change into sleep clothes and curl up on the bed together, her back to his chest and his arms around her, bearded chin on her shoulder, watching the sky. It took a clear sky to see the aurora, and it was a little overcast, which led to other thoughts brewing.
It wasn’t long before West’s low voice rumbled in her ear. “We haven’ talked about whether we’re still in the ‘no good touching’ zone.”
She knew that timbre in his voice. Teasing, playful, definitely hoping to stir something up.
And she couldn’t resist him in this mood. She twisted to meet his gaze, adopting her best fake scowl. “Are you saying my touches have been bad?”
“Oh, no,” he denied quickly, pressing a quick little kiss to her mouth. “Your touches are always good. I imagine. I almost remember them.”
“We might need to check your thyroid levels,” she tsked, because she was nowhere near as good at the playful shenanigans as he was. “Because of forgetfulness. You got that, right? The forgetfulness part of low thyroid?”
When he laughed, she laughed with him.
“If you have to explain the joke...”
“Yeah, yeah,” she groaned, but shrugged. She had to play along. There was no choice to be had. It made her smile too much, even if it was quite literally the only dance she was good at—what came next, not this clumsy verbal tango he exceeded in. “I’ve got nothing.”
“Got me.”
Just hearing those two words made every cell in her body smile, but going gushy wasn’t how the game was played.
She lifted an eyebrow at him.
He lifted one in return.
Then both brows.
Then wiggled them and graced her with such a cheeky grin she had to laugh at the fool.
With her off her game, he turned her to face him just as he rolled to meet her. The bed wasn’t big, and rolling involved a bit of scooting and adjusting, but soon, he had one leg between her furry pink legs and his arms around her, their noses nearly touching as he stared down, looking happy, relaxed, charming as the devil.
Just looking, up close and personal, in a way that demanded attention and fully gave his own. He stole a little kiss, and then another. Almost chaste, were it not for the full-body contact happening.
“You could charm the starched white panties off a nun, you know that?”
“Never tried.” He shifted to one elbow so he could pull her hat off, then did his. “I think I like the new hair. It’s out of control. Feels right for Antarctica. Have you decided if you like it?”
“Oh, I hate it,” she admitted, then shrugged. “But I think I might like it in the future. When it’s a little longer and I don’t feel like I’m going to be accused of time-traveling from the 1980s. I’ve been fantasizing about having a ponytail on hot days, and not having to fix it every day.”
“It’s haircuts you’re fantasizing about?” He sounded so outraged she laughed again.
“In my defense, when you get a supershort pixie, you think it won’t need work to make it look right, but it’s tons. You have to blow it dry every single day.”
“Or wear a hat.”
“Or wear a hat!” she echoed with a grin she felt in her bones, then she slid her hands up his back, just to feel him, up and down the flexed muscles along his spine. “Which you removed.”
“I could help you out of those terribly sexy, fuzzy pajamas, too. I mean, if you wanted.”
She made like she was considering it, then shook her head. It only took a little pressure from her hands sliding to his chest for him to ease onto his back.
“You undressing me would not provide any surprises. Instead, you’ve been in Antarctica on the insane metabolism diet for months, grown this manly beard. I’m curious to see if you’ve sprouted impressive fur elsewhere. In the name of science, I must do research!”
This time it was him laughing. He splayed his hands, palms forward, to show them off. “You should probably look here for hair. I heard that sometimes it’s a problem when a lady puts her man in the ‘no good touching’ zone and he must ‘good touch’ himself.”
She laughed again. “Well, if you pass inspection, the ban might be lifted. But I’m going to have to get this shirt off you. And the pants. Everything must go. My medical integrity is on the line.”
“Can’t have that, can we?”
The way he watched her was some heady mix of desire, amusement and contentment, and made it impossible for her to go as slowly as she wanted.
She rid him of his top, and then froze as she saw her ring on the chain around his neck. He looked at her for a moment, and the chance this evening could turn upside down suddenly sat between them.
Not what she wanted. It wasn’t time to talk about the ring. And she could see the clasp. Gingerly, she pinched the little claw and removed the chain from his neck, placed it onto the bedside table and turned her attention to his drawers with the same kind of popping eyebrow wiggle he’d given her.
Just like that, the tension passed. She was free to go as slowly as she wanted, draw out the moments that somehow felt new. He helped wrestle his thermal layers off, then unzipped her ridiculous onesie to find three layers of thermals beneath.
“You’re like one of those Russian dolls.” He didn’t stop to count layers, just burrowed his fingers beneath all the waistbands he could find and, once he hit skin, pulled them off, knocking her socks off in the process.
“I’m built for a more temperate climate. You’re going to have to keep me warm.”
Stretching out beneath the blankets, he pulled her again half under him, and made his intentions clear with the kind of kiss that could turn her inside out. One kiss, and then another, all thought of playing doctor gone in the moment. Kissing until breathless, just to stop again so he could look at her, at her hair, her face, into her eyes.
His arm supported her head, fingers twined with her hand curled there, and just looked. Nose to nose, his warm breath fanned her cheeks, eyes just locked to hers for long, intimate stretches of time. She couldn’t even say how long, just long enough that she had to know what was going on in his head. She wanted complete connection, not just hands, eyes and skin molding together.
“Are you telling yourself a story for the future?” she asked, because that’s what he did. He dreamed of the future, built castles in the air, and had invited her into them.
“No,” he said softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “I’m right here. With you. Right now. One hundred percent.”
She had to swallow a sudden thickness in her throat, his answer cutting through the need to name what she felt, to know if he felt it, too. He did.
It was different this time. They were different. All the times they’d touched and loved had been different. Had been less, somehow, even if she hadn’t known it in those moments.
Passionate, desperate, hungry, playful, flirty, but this...connection. And he wasn’t even inside her yet.
Hand free, she slid it down his chest, ruffling at the crisp male hair dusting his chest and belly, all pretext of a fur inspection gone as soon as she reached the hard length of him pressed at her belly, and she stroked her fingers over the wet head, making his breath stop, then stutter. One little touch and he let go of her hand so he could free his arm and slide over, center himself above her.
She pointed to the bedside table where she’d already made a small tear in the condom packet she’d placed there.
No words passed; he simply covered himself, gripped his erection to ease through her slick folds, then slowly slid inside her. Several months had passed since they’d last been together, but it had never been like this. They’d never had this searing connection that made him go so achingly slow, eyes still locked to hers. Still there, with her, one hundred percent.
They’d been that couple who would annoy everyone with sneaky kisses and flirting, and the lighthearted, playful, energetic coupling of the first months of their relationship had barely deepened. Until life had torpedoed them. And she’d made sure it had been devastating.
And it all could’ve been avoided, if she’d been unafraid to tell him the truth about what was going on in her head, why going home was so hard for her. Why she didn’t want him to witness it, or how weak she knew she’d appear to him there. If she’d asked him to come with her, for support, she’d have been there when he needed her, too.
Would he have accepted her then? Without months and a painful separation? Without life breaking down their barriers? Maybe. Maybe not. But he’d deserved the truth.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered the words, feeling her eyes dampen, and he stilled, the love in his eyes so completely undisguised even she could see it.
“Why are you sorry?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you and explain that last day in London.” She sniffed and stilled as he kissed away the tears trickling from the corner of one eye. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you would still love me.”
“You did,” he reminded her softly, still holding himself perfectly still and hard within her. “You came all the way to Antarctica for a reason, love.”
“Yeah...”
“Maybe we’re just slow learners.” He smiled then, a tender, soft curl of his lips, then leaned in and kissed her. Long, slow and deep, a kiss that bordered on worshipful. When he began to move again, she couldn’t stop the stuttering, gasping sounds he wrung out of her.
Under the glorious thickness of him, the friction and depths built slowly, until she felt it scratching down her spine, and spiking the arches of her feet. He held her there until she couldn’t take one more second, then picked up the pace. Faster. Deeper. Until the world went white and that desperate, clawing pleasure sang through her. But more, it wasn’t just pleasure he gave in that moment, staring into his eyes, feeling him quaking inside her; it was more than that future they’d planned and promised. It was them, truly who they were, without armor, sharing the pieces of their hearts that had been hidden and protected for so long. The parts of their souls that had never been allowed to join before.
After, when he’d rolled with her in the narrow bed to anchor her to his side, his chest rapidly rising and falling beneath her cheek, she knew he’d felt it, too. It was in his long, trembling fingers continually petting her hair back from her forehead, and the other hand that twined with hers.
And the silence. No quips, no teasing, no joking boasts about his exceptional performance, just holding, touching, until hearts slowed. Until she lifted her face to look at him again, and noticed the pink cast of the room, the pink light.
He lifted his chin purposefully toward the bubble window, and she tilted her head back down to look out.
The dazzling light show could’ve just started, or it could’ve been going on as long as they had. Pink and blue in alternating waves, purple where they overlapped.
Beauty, peace and contentment. She watched until his hand stilled, and his breathing turned slow and deep, then turned to watch him instead, the soft light playing over his handsome features, relaxed in sleep, until she followed him.
West woke sometime later, the two of them curled together in the small bed, nose at the back of her neck, and the unruly brown hair she currently hated, but which made him smile, tickling his face.
She shifted and he tightened his arms around her and murmured in her ear, “Don’t go squirmin’ unless you’re lookin’ to wake the beast.”
Her soft laugh and purposeful bum wiggle was sexy and adorable in one go.
“Unless that’s your wish, then I’m sure I can oblige.”
“Well, I would absolutely—” she paused, looking over her shoulder at him “—but after, can we talk about the vineyard first? I meant to do that earlier.”
Talk about the vineyard? He tried not to groan, he really did, but his throat did what it did.
“It’s not a bad thing. I just want your opinion on something. I woke up a while ago, and I’ve been thinking to the dancing sky and the music of soft snores in my ear.”
He grinned, even if she couldn’t see it, and gave her a good squeeze. “Right, then, talk fast. Get it done before I let the lad have his way.”
She squirmed and made to roll over, so he loosened his arms to accommodate her, and soon had one shapely leg wrapped over his hips, and a tangle of arms together.
“Traditional village, right?” she said.
“Sim, Dona Monterrosa.”
His meager Portuguese earned him a grin, but she kept on with her deep thinking. “Things are not that much different than they were a century ago. They didn’t get electricity until the 1960s, so it’s been very slow adapting to modern ways,” she murmured, with a touch of dismay clinging to her tone. “I want to bring them more into the twenty-first century...”
“How? Broadband?”
“Don’t laugh. I actually got that done when I first went back.”
“For real?”
She nodded. “Wasn’t dial-up before, but it did run over phone lines and was hideously slow. Also pulled some strings and got a new cell tower installed closer for more reliable service.”
“Impressive.”
“The cell tower was an easy decision. What I’m considering isn’t so clear-cut.”
She sounded uncertain, and he was starting to see that anything to do with the vineyard and the village was where she was most uncertain in her life. That and her father, but he wasn’t really in the picture now. She might not think she knew herself, but it seemed to him that it was more that she didn’t know how to fit into what they wanted her to be.
The way she lay there, with the lights returned to the skies, the pink hue colored her dusty pink nipples, which stood from the chill in the air.
The urge to interrupt her with his mouth nearly overwhelmed all sense, but she touched his arm and helped him refocus.
“What do you want to do?”
“I’ve been thinking about giving forty-nine percent of Monterrosa Wine to the villagers. Profit-sharing. Giving them more of a voice in the company and bringing the families in more economically as they all work hard to help us recover.”
He blinked, scrambling mentally to pay a lot more attention to what she was saying. “You want to give away almost half of your company?”
“Well—” she nodded, but it was still an uncertain kind of rolling head jiggle “—I’d keep controlling interest, which would allow me to overrule any bad decisions they might not fully understand the ramifications of. Keep the company on steady ground while they get to know more of the business. Selling wine is different from making wine. Or growing grapes...”
“That’s...” West didn’t know what it was. Brave? Generous? Foolish? A risk to her future security. “Are you allowed, legally, to do that?”
“Pai only had to be gone for ninety days with proof that he was alive but neglecting duties. Then it became mine. One hundred percent. Abdication of duty clause.”
“I see.” Her voice said she was already certain it was what she wanted to do, but there again, maybe looking for permission? And that was something he couldn’t help her decide. All he could do was try and gather more information. “Are you doing it to get away from the business and back to medicine?”
She tilted her head, brows bunching up. “I haven’t left medicine. I plan on practicing part-time in the village. But I have to do something for them. They’re too much in the past, and while that can be good in some ways, in others it’s bad. The population is aging and the younger people move away, to one of the cities, to find opportunity. If the families have a financial stake, there is incentive to stay.”
“I see...”
“You see?” she repeated, and then sat up to turn on the bedside light, a deep frown creasing the corners of her mouth. “You don’t think I should do it?”
It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but there was some measure of alarm in her voice.
“I don’t know.” He waved a hand, trying to make sure she didn’t read too much into his commentary. “It’s yours, your...you know, ancestral inheritance, or whatever you want to call it.”
And he didn’t want to muck that up. She had to know that.
“But you can have an opinion.”
He sat up, too; the sexy feeling that had been wafting over him dissipated too fast to even picture trying to recover. “You don’t need my opinion. You have people to consult with.”
“No, I don’t. Not about this.” The pleading in her voice made his shoulders stiffen, alarm bells starting to sound. “I’m flying half-blind on this part of my life, and I can’t exactly ask the people if they think I should do this. They would say yes regardless. And I value your opinion. Is that something that you would’ve wanted? Something that would’ve helped your family when you were little?”
The conversation turned, and so did his stomach. “No, but other families probably.”
“But...before foster care?”
“Before foster care, it was just me, Mum and Charlie. And she didn’t work in a factory or anything like that.”
Her voice lost some of the shrill notes. “What happened there? Did she die?”
“She’s still alive, love. She just was a bad mum, and the government came in, took us. And she never cared to try and get us back. For about six months, when she would sometimes visit, she’d tell us that was the plan, and what she was working on, but then she gave up custody. She wasn’t one of those parents who struggle to give their children better lives.”
When he looked back at her, she looked stricken, and almost frozen there. “I don’t know what to say.”
“About?”
“You don’t like sympathy.”
“Not so much,” he admitted, then stood up, needing to move, muscles across his shoulders starting to stiffen again. “And I don’t like giving my opinion on this, something this big and important to your future.”
She didn’t stand, too, but she did look up at him, confused, arguing in the dark. “Just tell me your first thought?”
“My first thought is, this is your future. I can’t make decisions about your future.”
“My future?” she said, and a little edge of frustration crept into her voice, dampening the worry.
“Your future.”
“Do you still see us trying to have a family, vows, rings?” She reached over to pick up the ring on the chain from the bedside table and held it up to him, her sweet face stuck somewhere between scowling and those seconds before someone cried, when the domino was about to fall.
They hadn’t spoken about a new engagement, hadn’t had enough time to talk about much of anything this week. He took the chain and slung it over his head. “Let’s just take a breath. I’m not saying no future together. That’s nothing to do with this.”
“Of course it is. The vineyard is your future, too, if we’re together.”
“And you’ll still be running it.” He looked around for his thermals, and pulled the pants on. “The men will get used to having a woman for a boss, and start listening without so much effort. Isn’t that the whole point of modernizing it?”
“No,” she said, and was full-on scowling now. “I’m not talking about the vineyard anymore. I’m talking about how you keep doing this. You give diagnoses on my father, but no opinions about how to deal with him. You don’t give them about the vineyard, either. You have opinions—I see them running all over your face—but you won’t share them with me. I love that we’re talking about our lives and we’re both trying to be open and grow together. Lean on each other. And when we were together...it was different. It was more. We’re more than we were. Why don’t you want to take part in that future? Do you not want it?”
“If you want to do it, you should do it,” he said again, but he was already half-dressed, ready to make his escape. But first give her a minute to calm down.
“I can be strong. I can be the strongest person in the world, but I don’t want to have to be that person all the time. We’re great partners, we work together so well, and we can play and have fun and have...tonight. We—” She stopped, words obviously failing her when she tried to describe what had happened tonight. Which had definitely been more. A kind of more he didn’t have words for, either, and which suddenly seemed fragile and transitory when earlier it had felt like peace. “But I want us to be partners in everything. I value your opinion. Just tell me what you’re thinking.”
She scampered in between him and the door, still fully naked. And cold. Her eyes locked to his, and her hands flattened against the door, like her palms touching the wood would add just enough weight to make it immovable.
Just tell her?
“Okay, fine. When I came back, I made a deal with myself that I would only be able to be with you if I was putting your safety ahead of my own. Your life is more valuable. That was my deal with myself. Physical safety. I can’t make decisions about your future, or about your family, for you. My job is to keep you from harm.”
“Why?”
“I don’t even know if we’ll make it once we get past the winter. Maybe we’ll both go screaming the other direction once we set foot back on soil instead of snow.”
“What happened?” she asked, then grabbed his cheeks to keep him looking her in the eye. “I know this is about Charlie. I know that he died. You told me you never loved me to keep me away from you, didn’t you? And you said that the catastrophes in your rear view are your fault. Is that what this is about? What happened to him?”
“He overdosed.”
“Did you shoot him up?”
“No. But I might as well have. Okay?” The question was like battery acid in his mouth, and his reaction was just that, words said by reflex, at least at first. “He didn’t overdose by accident. And he did it right after I went to tell him that he couldn’t be a part of our family unless he got help. Because I couldn’t risk you, or our future family, exposing them to an addict who was erratic enough to be dangerous. Get clean or get out. And he...”
He stopped there, the back of his neck aching enough he felt the need to rub it away.
“You told him to get clean, or he wasn’t welcome with us, and he took too much on his own?”
He nodded.
“That’s not your fault.”
Those words brought that ice dagger back to the base of his skull, the sharp, frigid pain he’d felt that first day he saw her.
“See? I knew you would say that. But it is my fault. I was so busy and so focused on how I wanted that conversation to go that I didn’t hear what he actually said. I didn’t hear him at all. I heard excuses. When he said, ‘I hope you have a good life,’ I heard a passive-aggressive jab. Later, when I replayed the conversation—what I could even remember of it—I realized he was saying goodbye. He even told me he loved me, and I didn’t hear him. Tell me that’s not my fault.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, just a kind of confused and near frantic waffle of her breath.
“If you still want me after this, I will stay with you forever.” He crammed his feet into his boots, fully ready now to go. “There’s probably very few lows I wouldn’t stoop to, to keep you safe. But I make bad decisions when it comes to the emotional health of people I love. You can’t ask that of me if this is going to work.”
“West...”
“You want another example? You want to know what I want you to do with the vineyard?”
She looked less certain then, her eyes once more full of worry and fear, but she nodded.
“I want you to keep it. I want you to keep the whole damned thing because money means security. Sure, you’re doing fine with your job, but money means security. You don’t know what will happen in the future, and I don’t give a damn about those sweet little cartoon people who live in the nineteenth century and probably all sing while they work, in four-part harmony, and everyone knows the words. I care about you. That’s it.”
“That’s not true,” she said, but it was just a processing sound. She wasn’t agreeing, she was trying to figure out how to argue with him. “You care about your patients.”
“For a while,” he agreed, but then asked, “Your father? You want to know my opinion there?”
Again she nodded, but a touch slower. Wary.
Good.
“Cut off his access to bank funds. No company funds. He disappeared after burning down the vineyard. Press charges. He’ll be found when governments get involved in tracking his passport. You want to find him? Play his game, play dirty. That’s how you find him. You like my ideas?”
“I appreciate them, and—”
“Don’t do that.” He cut her off with one silencing jerk of his hand. “These are not decisions you would make and I cannot make them for you. I make bad decisions for other people, and they suffer for it. And then I suffer, too. See? It’s not just me feeling protective. I have to protect you because if something happens to you that I should’ve seen coming, I won’t survive it. I’ll have ruined you. Taken this beautiful person and...and...maybe you end up like Charlie.”
When he noticed tears starting to leak from her eyes, he dialed it back a little, and asked, “Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” she squeaked. “Have you?”
It took him a second, but he nodded. “This isn’t going to work. If you need someone to count on so you don’t have to be so strong, or because you don’t know what you want, I can’t make those decisions for you. I picked you because you’re strong. You wanted to know if I’d still love you if you changed? Maybe the answer is no. Or maybe the answer is I love you, but we can’t make this work.”
“I’ve already been counting on you,” she whispered. “No amount of me telling you it wasn’t your fault is going to help, is it?”
“A less selfish man would’ve heard him. That’s on me. I drove him to this with a threat to take away the last person in his family. And that’s on me, too.”
Since she wasn’t moving from in front of the door, he gently as he could took her by the shoulders and moved her out of the way.
“You can stay here. This is just a...it’s a bump,” she said behind him, and shifted when he gestured for her to move her nude body out of where people walking by could see in when he opened the door. “We can sort it out.”
“I’m going to my cabin.”
She reached a hand for him, eyes pleading. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry, too, that you keep trying to run from it. You can’t outrun painful memories. Punishing yourself for something beyond your control isn’t—”
“It’s not punishing me.” He was dressed; there was nothing left to do but to go, and that’s exactly what he did. “It’s saving you and your children.”