On Thin Ice. Debra Lee Brown

Caribou Island was one of her projects. Besides, the operation had been plagued with nothing but setbacks from the start. All the more reason for her to be on site herself.

      “Roger that,” the pilot yelled into his communications headset.

      She looked at him, her brows raised in question.

      “It’s for you. Here.” He ripped the headset off and handed it to her.

      “Me?” Who on earth was calling her out here? If it was Mother, Lauren would have a fit. She didn’t have time to discuss things like who was taking whom to Crocker’s birthday bash at the Fairmont next month, or what she was expected to wear to the latest charity ball.

      Lauren’s life had changed radically after her father died and her mother remarried into the wealthy Fotheringay family. Mother had insisted her new husband legally adopt Lauren, so she might enjoy all the privileges associated with carrying the Fotheringay name. Sometimes Lauren wondered if her life had changed too radically.

      Exhaling in exasperation, she pushed her hood back and slipped one of the earphones under the flannel lining of her hard hat. “Hello?”

      “Hey, babe,” the choppy voice came back.

      “Crocker!”

      “Just checking on—” Static ripped the end off his sentence.

      “Crocker, you’re cutting out.”

      “—that everything’s okay.” His voice sounded a million miles away. Still, she’d know it anywhere.

      “Everything’s fine, Crocker. Well, except for the weather.” She glanced out the window at the dry snow blowing across the ice. What little light there had been was now obliterated by the onslaught. She could barely see a dozen yards ahead of the chopper.

      “Be careful out there, babe.”

      “I will. And I’m sorry about this morning.”

      “Me, too. It was my fault. Don’t give it another thought. Oh, and have Salvio call me on the satellite uplink as soon as you get there. Phones must be out. I want to—”

      Another blast of static cut short his explanation. A deafening gust of wind blew the chopper sideways, and the connection was lost.

      She handed the headset back to the pilot. “Guess we’re out of range.”

      “Nope. It’s the weather. Damned dangerous to be flying. I’m droppin’ you and I’m outta here.”

      “Okay.” She grabbed her duffel bag from the bench seat behind them, fighting a smile.

      Crocker was likely going to ask Jack Salvio, Tiger’s “company man” overseeing the Caribou Island operation, to keep an eye on her. Make sure she didn’t run into any snags. Sweet of him, really. Crocker knew she was burned out and growing more and more disillusioned with the whole corporate scene.

      Sometimes she wondered why she wanted the promotion at all. She’d even gone so far as to suggest that after they were married they stay in Anchorage instead of moving back to San Francisco like he wanted them to.

      Crocker had not been very receptive to the idea, so she hadn’t even broached the subject of her leaving Tiger and the oil business altogether to do something more meaningful with her life. Like teaching, maybe. She could teach earth science to elementary school kids, just like her father had always wanted to do, but never did because of her mother’s objection.

      She supposed it was a silly dream. And not at all in keeping with the ambitious edge that was her trademark. Oh, well. Maybe in the next lifetime.

      She should make a point to spend more time with Crocker once this assignment was over. Between their two careers and his philanthropic commitments, they hardly had time to see each other. Crocker said all that would change once they were married, but she wasn’t so sure it was even possible given their manic schedules.

      When it came right down to it, she wasn’t sure if they even had that much in common outside their jobs. Crocker had convinced her to push their wedding date up nearly a year. Lauren had wanted more time to get to know him, to make sure they were really meant for each other, but Crocker was insistent. He loved her, needed her, he’d said.

      And she loved him, too. Didn’t she?

      “There she is.” The pilot pointed a gloved finger to the north. Well, she guessed it was north, but couldn’t tell anymore with the blowing snow. “Altex rig 13-E. What a hunk a junk.”

      Harsh sodium lights lit the site, bathing the island in a ghostly glow. Lauren’s lips thinned into a hard line as the rusted orange paint of the steel walls housing the tired-looking drilling rig came into view just ahead.

      Nothing had changed in the three years since she’d seen it. The last field operation she’d worked had been on that very rig. Against her will, her eyes glassed. She swiped at the tears with a gloved hand.

      “Still gets to you, don’t it?” The pilot shot her a compassionate look as he slowed the chopper into a wide arc skirting the site.

      She focused on the line of beat-up Suburbans, their engines running to keep from freezing, in front of the prefab buildings that made up the camp. Ninety-foot stands of drilling pipe hung in the oil rig’s derrick, swaying in the near gale force wind. “Yes,” she said. “A little.”

      Her father had been killed on 13-E when she was only eleven. He was a geologist just like her, working for a big oil company just like she did. But their reasons were different. He’d done it for the money. Her mother had nagged him incessantly about it. She remembered Mother’s tirades each time her father had talked about giving it up to teach.

      Though the work was dangerous and the conditions harsh, there had been only a handful of serious drilling accidents in the few decades since Alaska’s North Slope oil fields were developed. It was a small, tightly knit community. Everyone knew about Hatch Parker and what had happened on 13-E. And everyone knew Lauren was his daughter.

      “You’re sure, now?” The pilot set the chopper down smooth as glass on an ice pad built fifty yards from the camp. “Last time we had weather this bad there was no gettin’ in or out for weeks.”

      “I’m sure.” Through the blowing snow she caught a glimpse of the brand-new geologist’s trailer out behind the rig, by the big open pit—the “reserve pit”—that acted as an overflow for the oil well’s drilling fluids. She checked her watch. Fourteen hundred. Two o’clock in the afternoon and it was pitch-black out. There was nothing quite like an arctic winter.

      “Suit yourself, then. Take care, kid.”

      A roustabout, the oil field equivalent of a ranch hand, dressed in a down jumpsuit and white bunny boots, yanked the chopper’s door wide. Lauren sucked in a blast of frigid air. Big mistake. Lung freeze. She’d forgotten you weren’t supposed to do that.

      The roustabout grabbed her duffel as she hopped out of the chopper with her overstuffed briefcase. They made a mad dash toward a waiting vehicle. Fifty yards to camp was too far to walk in this weather. Climbing into the Suburban, she waved to the pilot who gave her the thumbs-up before he took off.

      For the barest second Lauren wished she was taking off with him. Too late now. She was here and, given the weather, here she would stay for at least a week. In a whiteout nothing could fly, and Caribou Island was over a hundred miles from Deadhorse, Tiger’s outermost base camp. Too far to drive in these conditions, even if Tiger had maintained the ice road, which it hadn’t. Budget constraints, her foot. She’d remember to talk to her boss about that. Not that it really mattered. She had a job to do, and she’d do it. She always did.

      Two minutes later the wind blasted her through the main door to the camp and into the break room. A dozen pairs of eyes focused on her as she pushed her hood back, snatched the hard hat from her head, and shook out her shoulder-length hair.

      No, nothing had changed at all. There was still that momentary shock in the crew’s eyes