Icebound (10 page)

“You’re right, I care, maybe too much. More than you want, that’s for sure.”

He released her. “How do you know how much I want?”

“You’ve made your line in the sand wide enough. I know.”

Tom paced away from her only to return to meet her patient gaze. “How can you know what I want when
I
don’t know what I want?”

That was part of the problem.

“It’s written all over you,” Emilie said, standing and waving a hand up and down in front of him. “Sure, you’ll have sex with me, but that’s as far as you’re willing to go. You’re an intelligent, interesting, articulate man who’s sexier than any legal limit should allow. Yet when it comes to the emotion department, you’re stunted.”

He squared his shoulders and glared at her. “Stunted?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes.”

“Are you saying I’m afraid of a real relationship?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“You’re terrified by the prospect.”

“I’ve climbed Everest and crossed the Gobi Desert on a camel,” he said, walking around the desk to tower over her. “I’ve looked down the barrel of gun pointed right at me and delivered a baby in the backseat of a cab. Nothing terrifies me.”

“Are those the important things in life to you, Tom? Events? Living through danger? Conquering a pile of rocks? It’ll be a damn cold bunch of memories to cuddle with when you’re old and alone.”

“At least I’ve done something with my life, done the things I set out to do and learned about myself in the process.” He took her by the shoulders. “The world is a beautiful place. Come out of that ice palace you’ve been living in and let me show you there’s more to it than grief and work.” He cupped her cheek with one hand. “I can guarantee the memories we make won’t be cold.”

Emilie smiled sadly and backed out of his embrace. “I want more than memories, I need more. What I want, you won’t give me.”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “What
do
you want?”

“Everything. A commitment, children, a home.” She stared at his confused and frightened expression. “Can you give me a family, Tom?”

He sighed. “You’re looking for that fairy tale again. It doesn’t exist.”

“Sure it does.” She touched her temple. “Right here.”

“But it’s not mine.” He shook his head, his mouth turned down. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” Her own words shredded her heart, leaving it tattered and exposed to the harsh cold wind outside.

They stared at each other for several moments.

“So where does this leave us?” he asked. “We have to work together for a long time.”

Emilie’s shoulders drooped and she struggled to keep from crying. “I don’t know.”

She started to turn, but Tom swore and gathered her close, wrapping his arms around her, cradling her head against his chest. “I never thought I’d ever say this,” he began. He didn’t finish. She felt the muscles in his neck move as if he swallowed something distasteful, something that didn’t want to stay down.

“Say what?”

He placed one finger under her chin to tilt her face up so she was looking at him. His eyes bored into hers, bottomless with longing and regret. “If I can’t be your lover, then let me be your friend.”

Emilie nodded, but couldn’t stop the flood of tears his words released. She buried her head in his shirt and let the pain go.

Tom wasn’t a comfortable friend. Though Emilie was the one to nix their physical relationship, her body responded to his whenever he came near. Frustration caused her to be occasionally short-tempered, which resulted in him teasing and flirting with her even more.

Everyone else was certain the two of them were sleeping together, especially since Tom hadn’t pursued any other women at the station. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, nor did she know what to think of the relief surging through her when she realized he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else. He spent most of his free time playing music, cooking or working out in the gym, but always seemed to be close by, and found time to check in with her several times a day during work hours.

After a couple of weeks, Emilie found herself in a comfortable routine. Work progressed rapidly on David’s project and she was certain it would soon be ready for the final tests. She was due to go up to the space station on a rocket in eighteen months where she would run the chemical test for life through its last testing stages before sending it out on the Io probe.

Several Polies had expressed an interest in the experiment, and Emilie had even given a lecture on the science behind it to a well-attended group.

And she hadn’t frozen up with grief, hadn’t thought of the project in terms of what David had left behind, but in terms of what David had accomplished. She’d felt pride, not the usual sorrow and became intellectually engaged, rather than emotionally cut off.

In late April, about eight weeks after arriving at the station, Emilie woke up feeling queasy. She put it down to the lobster she ate the night before, and made a mental note not to eat such rich foods so often. But when she got up to the same nauseating roll in her stomach the next day and the day after that, she began to wonder if there was more to it. Her period was late, but that wasn’t unusual given the amount of travel she’d done to get to the South Pole and the stress of her first few days. Besides, the only man she’d slept with was Tom and they used a condom. Still…

On the morning of the fourth day of feeling sick, Emilie took a pregnancy test and stared openmouthed at the little blue dot sitting majestically on the snowy white background of the test well.

“I’m pregnant.” One tentative, shaking hand covered her belly. “A baby.”

Joy warred with sadness and shock. Finally, the baby she’d craved for years.
God.
It had happened, the one thing she desired most, but all out of order, with a man who wanted nothing to do with a baby or a family.

Emilie sat, slumped over her desk, with her head in her hands.

What was she going to do?

She couldn’t tell Tom, couldn’t stomach seeing the expression of disappointment, disbelief and distrust on his face sure to follow her news. Yet he was the one other person who needed to know. Immediately.

Not just pregnant, she was pregnant in a place where
she
was the only doctor. If anything went wrong, there would be nowhere for her to go and no one but Tom to turn to.

Wait.
Nexadren could send a plane in with a doctor to replace her. They’d done it before for other medical reasons.

She snorted. Other
life-threatening
reasons. Pregnancy didn’t qualify.

A tall, muscular figure came through the center’s double doors.

Tom.

Emilie shoved the pregnancy test in her pants pocket as her stomach swan dived into her thermal rubber boots.

Her head said,
Tell him now, tell him now
, but her gut wasn’t ready to see him, talk to him. She needed time to figure this out.

“Morning, have you had breakfast yet?”

Just the thought of food made her want to vomit. “No, not yet.”

“Join me?”

She summoned a smile from somewhere. “Sure, I need some coffee. Bad.”

“Restless night?”

“No, it just wasn’t long enough.”

“I know how that feels,” he said as he held the door open for her. “The main generator went down again last night.”

“Ugh. For how long?”

“An hour.” He smiled and hung an arm over her shoulders as they walked to the cafeteria.

God, it felt good, warm and secure, the way she wished her life could be and now never would. She choked on tears and had to cough to cover it up.

“Everything seems fine today.” He rubbed her back to ease her coughing. “But I think we’ll have to do a major overhaul a little sooner than planned.”

“Let me know when you decide to do it so I can schedule around it.”

“No problem.”

They entered the cafeteria and had to wait in line for coffee. He kept his arm around her right up until he reached for a cup.

Sharon and Carol waved at her from their table.

“You can’t have her,” Tom called out to them.

“Oh, come on, you can share,” Sharon replied.

“Yeah, we hardly ever get to gossip about you behind your back anymore,” Carol added.

He snorted. “You’ve gossiped about me in front of my face plenty of times.”

She waved him off. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“You know, you’re not going to win,” Emilie told him as she filled her cup and took her first sip. She had to get away from him, at least for a little while, to try to find some distance, some way to deal with this unexpected, wonderful and potentially devastating miracle.

“You women always gang up on us guys.”

“That’s a figment of your imagination,” she said, forcing a smile. She walked over to join her friends. “Morning, ladies.”

“Geez, Em, you look pretty pale,” Carol said, frowning at Emilie. “Are you coming down with something?”

Yeah, a case of pregnancy, hopefully it won’t be contagious
. She shrugged. “I hope not. Besides all I really need to make me feel better is this.” She held up her cup of coffee then drank some more.

“How’s Tom?” Sharon asked with a sly grin.

“He’s sitting right over there, go ask him.”

“I don’t want to know how he is. I want to know
how
he was.”

Emilie glanced up at Sharon’s expectant expression. “None of your business.”

“Ah, tell us,” Carol pleaded with puppy-dog eyes.

She could tell Carol he was fine, now, but in an hour or so when she finally found the courage to tell him about his impending fatherhood, Tom was likely to be a lot worse off. Nothing like hearing your ex-girlfriend has the nine-month flu to make a man ill.

“I’m not the kind of gal who kisses and tells,” she finally said.

Sharon and Carol stared at her with big grins then glanced at each other.

“It’s serious between you two, isn’t it?” Sharon asked.

They had no idea.

Emilie sighed. “You could say that.”

Carol held up a hand. “Say no more, we’ll quit bugging you.” She glanced past Emilie’s shoulder at something. “Would you look at him.”

Emilie glanced behind her and smiled at Tom, who was looking her way. He smiled back and winked.

“You two are so cute,” Sharon said. “I never would have pegged Tom as a romantic, but it oozes off him whenever you’re around.”

But they were just friends. “You think so?”

“Oh yeah. Oh, wait, here he comes.”

A warm hand slid up Emilie’s back to massage her neck. “Hey, I’m heading down to the powerhouse to help with repairs, do you need me for anything today?”

She choked on her coffee and started coughing. “Yes,” she gasped, her eyes watering. “I do. I’ll need about thirty minutes whenever you can squeeze them in.”

“I’ll head down there, get a handle on what needs to be done, and then I’ll give you a call to schedule it. Sound good?”

Still coughing, she nodded.

“Great.” He smiled then kissed her full on the mouth. Not a peck or even a press, it lingered a lot longer than any friendly kiss she’d ever received before. “See you later, gorgeous.”

Good Lord, she so didn’t need this.

Emilie hunched over her microscope and examined a slide of stained bacteria. Bacteria that grew in the intense cold of Antarctica. Bacteria that caused a brilliant positive result in David’s chemical test. She had three more strains to check, but if they all reacted like this one, the test would be ready for space.

But who would perform the final testing? She would have to notify NASA of her pregnancy soon so they could choose and train a new person for the mission. Her recommendation would carry a lot of weight. Who could she trust with it?

Even more important, how was she going to tell Tom about the baby?

The doors to Club Med swung open. “Hi,” he said, grinning. “How’s it going?”

Would he ever smile at her like that again?

“Good,” she made herself say. “There have been no roadblocks to getting the experiment finalized.”

He came to a stop next to her, his eyes narrowed. “If it’s going so well, why do you look like you’re about to be sick?”

Emilie laughed without humor. “Have a seat.” Tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes.

He snagged a chair and sat facing her. His eyes flickered as he took in her tears. “What’s wrong?”

She released a deep breath. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t stay and see his closed, angry face for the rest of the winter. “I need to leave.”

“Leave?”

“I need a plane to fly in and extract me. The sooner the better.”

He stared at her for a full two seconds.

She bit her lip. This was even harder than she’d thought. Emilie glanced down at her lap and realized her hands were shaking.

Tom shifted his chair toward hers until he was close enough to embrace her, his legs on either side of hers, one hand cupping her cheek. “What is it?” He paused, his voice going hoarse. “Cancer?”

She hated what this was going to do to him, to them. “No,” she said on a sob.

“Just tell me, Em.”

“I…I’m…please, just ask for a plane.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’ve got to give them a reason. It’s damn dangerous to send a plane in these conditions. They won’t authorize one unless it’s life or death, you know that.”

“But I don’t want anyone to know.”

“It’s going to make the news one way or the other, so just spit it out.”

“Oh God, you’re right, it will make the news.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “That’s even worse.”

“What?” Tom put one hand under her chin and tilted her face up. “Start talking, lady. What’s going on that’s got you so worried?”

When she still didn’t answer, he sighed. “Don’t worry. Whatever it is, I’ll protect you.”

“I won’t hold you to that, because you’re going to hate me in a moment.” She sucked in a deep breath and steeled herself against the rejection she knew would come. “I’m pregnant.”

Tom didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. “What?”

“I’m pregnant.” Emilie winced, waiting for him to withdraw, to take his warmth and support, to leave her alone in the cold.

He just sat there, his arms around her, immobile, as if he’d been encased in ice.

“I found out today,” she continued, confused by his lack of response. “I’ve been feeling sick the last few mornings and my period is late, so I decided to…”