“But I will contact Victor’s clinic,” she assured him. “Just as soon as we get out of here.”
“I know,” Zubov said.
Despite their grim discussion, Zubov could not help but be entranced by the doctor’s knowledge and passion for her work. The warren of regulatory agencies, panel reports, field clinics, advisory boards, and governmental programs in which she operated would easily have numbed many researchers into hapless submission. The Arctic itself might have discouraged the rest. This woman, however, seemed to gain strength from massive, convoluted bureaucracy and use that strength to fight. If any individual was capable of breaching those administrative barriers, Zubov was certain it was Dr. Junko Kokura. He admired that about her most of all.
Junko shivered, recalling the vivid memory of what they had discovered aboard the Explorer. Zubov took her delicate hands in his own massive palms and held them there, sharing their warmth but not knowing how to proceed. Despite his popular, outgoing disposition and his exotic ports of call, Zubov was not experienced with meaningful companionship.
Touching another human being, much less seducing a most engaging woman, had not been part of his daily routine. He rarely approached women his last intimate relationship was a distant memory. Yet it was not loneliness, isolation, or sexual attraction that had inspired his interest in Junko. It was the woman, the whole woman, in all her beauty, wisdom, compassion, and humor. These things radiated from her eyes, her words, and the gentle touch of her hands.
It was simply, preeminently, her.
“Well, Sergei,” Junko said, slipping her hands out of his grasp and sliding them softly over the outside of his hands and wrists, her nails lightly tracing lines along his thick forearms. “As usual, I have enjoyed our talk, but it is getting late.” Her voice held the understated allure of a woman who had not needed to be seduced in many years but continued to be open to the possibility, even from a novice.
“Yes, it is,” Zubov said, his heart poised on the threshold between leaving and entering further still.
“Then what do you suggest we do now?” she asked.
Her continued caress inspired his answer.
“What is the Spanish Armada?” Carol said to no one, then took a drink from her tumbler of Jim Beam and water. Whiskey was considered contraband on board the Phoenix, but tonight she didn’t care. She leaned forward on her bunk, anticipating the next question like a volleyball player awaiting a serve.
“Who is Emily Dickinson?” Yes! Another correct answer.
“What is the Black Sea?” Three for three.
So far she had amassed almost twice as many points as the returning champion on “Jeopardy!” ― the game show playing on the small television at the foot of her bunk. As well she should have; she had watched this particular videotape at least four times in the past month. At the moment, her ego needed a boost.
There was a knock at the door.
“Go away,” she growled. The door cracked open anyway and Garner ducked his head inside, one arm held behind his back.
“Are you decent?” he asked with a smile.
“For you? Always, darling,” Carol said. She held up her tumbler of amber liquor. “For Mr. Beam, well, that’s another story.”
Garner stepped into the cabin and drew his trailing hand into view. He held a dessert tart with a single birthday candle flickering atop it.
Carol only needed to glance at the topping to know it was raspberry cheesecake, her favorite.
Garner handed her the tart and leaned close to kiss her on the forehead. She caught the faintest whiff of his cologne as he murmured, “Happy birthday, sweetie.”
“I was trying to avoid the issue,” she said. “The day started with a funeral service and went downhill from there.”
Carol had never been one for birthdays, and the events of the past two weeks had hardly changed her attitude. From an early age, Carol’s ability to celebrate had been impaired. Carol’s father — when he was home in May and not attending spring conferences abroad — had frowned upon noisy gatherings of children and loudly made known his loathing for any kind of sweets in the house, including birthday cake.
Now that she thought of it, Carol’s birthdays had been regularly marked and celebrated only since she’d known Garner. While they were married, despite his other absences, Garner never missed a birthday or an anniversary. He had an infallible memory for such occasions and never failed to send a card or flowers from wherever in the world he happened to be. Of course, the years he had managed to be home were by far the best.
“I told the crew that if anyone tried to ambush me with a party I’d make them walk the plank,” Carol said.
“I figured as much when nobody else brought it up,” Garner said. “But it’s hard for me to overlook these things. On condition of anonymity, one of the cooks whipped this up for me and I said I’d deliver it personally. I guess that makes me a plank walker.”
“A plank walker, huh?” The notion was amusing to her. “You should try using Vaseline for that.”
She sat up in her bunk, propping her pillows behind her. Next to the intercom at the head of the bed, Garner noticed a stack of books and reports, each one book marked or dog-eared a portion of the way through. Carol had always been a voracious reader; the current selection included a number of weathered Scientific American magazines, coil-bound tomes of ice cover and salinity data, a biography of Nikola Tesla and the Philadelphia Experiment, and Von Clausewitz’s classic text On War, in the original German. No fluffy bedtime reading for Dr. Harmon, Garner mused — no wonder she was so uptight.
“Good thing you didn’t have to send flowers from Antarctica,” Carol said. “The delivery boy would have had a hell of a time getting to me.”
Gradually, her pout faded into a grateful smile. She pulled him back by the collar of his turtleneck for a tender kiss on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t deserve you, you know?”
“Yes,” Garner agreed. “You’ve been saying that for a few years now.” In truth, the phrase had been I don’t deserve this, which had been regularly uttered during the months of their divorce in a much different context.
“If you keep this up, I just might have to change my mind,” she said.
His body was so close to hers now, his scent and his tight, lean muscles only inches away from her. And his eyes: those marvelous gray eyes that could reveal either the cold, predatory gaze of a wolf or display the most honest, loving warmth she could possibly imagine. Not at all like… like… Like the arrogance of Bob Nolan. Like the eagerness of Jeff Dexter.
Suddenly overwhelmed, the Widow Nolan faltered, then broke.
Tears welled up in Carol’s eyes as she crushed herself to Garner’s chest. Sobs wracked her body as his powerful arms drew her close.
“I’m crying again,” she said, ashamed. “Why am I always crying around you? I never cry — isn’t that sad? I never cry anymore. Only with you.”
Garner broke a crooked grin.
“Thanks. I guess there’s a compliment in there… somewhere.”
“I don’t feel things anymore,” she continued. “It’s all rush, rush, rush. Wait and worry, then worry some more. Lose a friend and miss the funeral. Lose a contract and just shrug it off. Find an entire pod of blue whales and then just let them go, off to fight the next fire. Relationship? What’s that? Sex, no sex, what’s the difference?”
“I could show you a subtle but definite distinction there—” Garner began.
“—It’s not that I don’t care, of course I care. I do care.” She was trying as much to convince herself as Garner of this. “I probably care too much. I just don’t let go like I used to. And for every one thing I relax on, ten more things come along to juggle. First it’s the whales, then the Explorer, now you’re talking about a goddamn ice age and nobody is laughing about it.”