a louse he is later. I’m not just the welcome wagon, I’m supposed to show you to your physical.”
A physical she didn’t need but understood the reason for. As they walked back the way she’d come, Jordan filled up the empty space where Lia still had no words, chattering on about the station and the job. And Zeke. Jordan’s trip to the southernmost continent had led her to meet and fall in love with someone she may have never met otherwise. Lia would just be happy to meet the true Lia, not some version she’d learned to present, depending upon her audience.
“You won’t go into the schedule until tomorrow,” Jordan continued, walking Lia back the way she’d come. “I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight, but as tired as you look, I’m thinking you might just want to sleep.”
That wasn’t all she wanted, but it would probably facilitate her being able to think well enough to do the other thing: grab West by the beard and shake some answers out of him. Not that she had the energy for that, either.
“Play it by ear?”
“You got it. After I introduce you to Zeke…”
Every muscle in West’s body ached by the time he made it to the clinic. How he’d gotten there, he couldn’t say. One second, he was watching his second biggest regret catch up with him, the next he stood in the lobby of the medical center with his head buzzing and no idea why he’d even come.
What the hell was she doing there? He should’ve turned around and left Fletcher the moment he’d arrived and found Jordan Flynn stationed there. With her, it assured Lia would learn of his location. If he’d had any idea she’d come all that way, he wouldn’t have stayed. When it came to Lia Monterrosa, he was weak. The only way he could see to giving her a better life, not ruining it as he’d ruined Charlie’s, was to leave. Leaving had been the only way for them to both survive; he couldn’t go through that kind of loss again.
Without him there, she could move on and find someone more deserving than a man who couldn’t even hear her name without remembering the day, months earlier, when he’d had to claim the body of his little brother. Someone who would still be alive if it weren’t for West’s ultimatum. Not that it took hearing her name, or thinking of her, to be sucked right back there. It could barely be called a memory; it remained so present in his head it was like one long, unending day since.
He’d assumed once Jordan delivered the news, they’d both curse him and do whatever women did when thousands of miles separated them but there was an ugly breakup to contend with.
She hadn’t been going to his cabin. She’d carried luggage, and worn the standard-issue red snowsuit given to every crew member.
She’d been moving into the empty cabin beside his. And he’d just stood outside his door because…
He rubbed between his brows, trying to will some clarity to his thoughts.
It wasn’t morning. He’d…gone to the shop for supplies, then the post office to collect books he’d ordered a month ago, and…that was why he’d even been there. Dropping off his packages. After lunch. Which meant he was in the clinic because he had physicals to perform for the six new arrivals who the department head had put on the schedule a week ago: four scientists, a computer programmer and the doctor hired to overwinter.
Lia was there for the winter. The woman who lived for sunshine had signed up for six months of Antarctic night?
Whatever.
He wasn’t staying on. He just had to hold on for the next ten days without groveling and begging her to forgive him. Even through the horror darkening the edges of his vision, his whole body sparked, and he breathed too fast. He needed to slow that down before someone came in.
Regardless of the constant state of chill in the station’s open facilities, he felt sweat running down his spine, and did the only thing he could—ripped his jacket off and hung it on the wall hooks.
Damn it. The clinic was the last place he should be. Walking away from her just now had only hit the pause button on whatever she’d come to say. He just needed a minute to think.
Focus.
He walked to the counter at the wall where hard backups of patients’ files were kept, and braced his hands on the counter for stability, then closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath.
Get it together. With his current state of mental function, almost nothing permeated the towering brick wall cutting across his brain. He’d be useless like this if there was an emergency.
He never let himself picture what it would be like to see her again, but if he had, it wouldn’t have been gut-churning. Leaving wiped the slate, let him have a start fresh. Always. And once he’d gotten past that big first hump, the pain of loss dulled. Sometimes slower than others.
The thought of her projected her sorrow-filled expression on that towering wall in his head. Sad. Heartbroken, even. But not angry. She’d obviously come to see him, but hadn’t come out swinging. Something wasn’t right.
“West.” His name spoken jerked his attention back to earth and he turned to see the medical director, Dr. Tony Bradshaw, approaching, folders in hand. “The new arrivals—”
“I know,” West cut in, shaking his head, “you told us days ago.”
The man was getting so forgetful, West should be so lucky. And too thin, but he didn’t comment on that. They’d had that conversation twice before, and there was only so much West could do to make the man accommodate the increased metabolic needs Antarctica triggered.
He took another slow breath, fighting his own body, depriving himself of the increased demands for oxygen through sheer force of will.
“Right,” Tony said slowly, as if he truly didn’t remember, and handed over the folders. “Jordan is coming in to help you. She went to round some of them up.”
Went to round up Lia.
She’d just stopped outside his door, with eye contact that pulled at him like gravity, and dragged memories into the front of his mind. The way she smelled fresh from the shower. Or better, first thing in the morning when she had his scent all over her, and it all mingled together. His cabin didn’t smell like home still.
The sudden heat returned, and he noticed the inconsistency of it—the whole front of him on fire, and his spine like an ice core down his back, a frozen ice dagger digging into the base of his skull. Twisting. Tangling the nerves there, spaghetti-style.
“I’ve got a meeting, so you and Jordan sort them out,” Tony called from the door as West bent to gather up the paper he’d dropped.
“Right.”
He sighed hard enough to waft paper off the top of the pile.
Just get through the next couple of hours. That was the only thing to do.
Then she could go back home now and management would have time to get another doctor in there, someone suited to the winter, and he wouldn’t have to spend the next eight months thinking about her and wondering if the woman who lived in the sunshine was all right with the unending dark of Antarctic night. He needed a fresh start. Another fresh start.
“You all right?” Tony’s voice came from behind him, still there. Not gone.
And still no answer to give. At least, that he wanted to give. Far from all right. He hadn’t been all right for months, why should today be better?
“Not sleeping great,” he said. It was the only thing he could think of that wasn’t a lie.
“Are you taking the sleep aids?”
“Aye.” He stood. If they were going to talk about his health, he’d say something again about Tony’s. The man was going to overwinter