On Thin Ice

Thirty-six below. Forty-knot winds out of the east. It was gonna be a big one.

Lauren Parker Fotheringay zipped her down survival jacket to her chin, cinched the fur-trimmed hood tight and peered out the chopper's frosted window across an endless expanse of ice. In the dim winter light she could barely make out where land ended and the Alaskan coastline met the frozen Beaufort Sea.

"Whiteout comin'," the pilot shouted over the roar of the chopper's engine. He squinted into the blowing snow threatening to reduce visibility to zero. "Three hours, four tops. You sure you want me to drop you?"

Lauren shot him a wry look. "No, I changed my mind. Let's turn this thing around and head for Hawaii."

The pilot laughed, though she couldn't hear him over the engine noise. She settled back in her seat for the last few minutes of the trip out to Caribou Island, the site of Tiger Petroleum's latest oil exploration well.

It was simple, or should have been. Drill a ten-thousand-foot hole in the ground, collect rock samples over the target depth, document traces of oil, clean up the mess and come home. Your basic exploration well. Oil companies drilled them all the time on land leased from the government.

Caribou Island was nothing special, really, though it did sit just outside the boundary of a wildlife refuge, an area currently off-limits to oil exploration.

Tiger had leased the island's drilling rights on an exclusive basis. The rock samples and data collected would be proprietary, giving Tiger an edge in finishing its geologic maps of the area, and when bidding on future land leases. In the oil industry, figuring out where the oil was, was only half the battle. The other half was managing to lease the land overlying it before anyone else did. Land was everything. The only thing. And competition among oil companies was fierce.

As Tiger's most senior geologist and project manager, Lauren hadn't done any real fieldwork for years. Her early successes had catapulted her to the top of the technical ladder, and this next promotion would take her even further. She couldn't let anything screw it up. Especially a last-minute, routine assignment she had no time for, and that should have gone to one of her subordinates.

Both of the geologists originally assigned to Caribou Island had caught a nasty winter flu. Just her luck. Regardless, she was determined to get in, get her rock samples, and get out as quickly as possible. The well was nearly at target depth. A week should do it. Two, at most. She had three other projects to manage besides this one. And she wanted that promotion. Bad. Everyone expected her to get it, and she was never one to disappoint.

Lauren gazed out the window just as the chopper's high beams caught an arctic fox scampering across the tundra on the prowl for lunch. She caught herself smiling. The assignment wasn't really such a hardship. She was glad to be out of her hose and heels and into some comfortable clothes for a change. And she could breathe again. She'd forgotten how much she loved the Arctic. Untamed, fresh, real. So different from the life she'd been living these past few years.

On the corporate jet from Anchorage to Deadhorse, she'd slipped out of the expensive business suit Crocker had bought her on his last trip to San Francisco. He was always buying her gifts like that. No man had ever treated her with kid gloves before, not like Crocker did.

On board the chopper she'd coiled her carefully styled hair into a knot and stuffed it under her beat-up old hard hat. She felt good. Relaxed, almost. A break from the rat race was exactly what she needed. She grinned, wondering what Crocker would think if he were here with her now.

He'd never seen her in her field clothes: holey jeans, a turtleneck and the moth-eaten cardigan that had been her father's favorite when he was alive. She twisted her two-carat diamond engagement ring inside her glove, imagining Crocker's shock and her mother's disapproval.

There was a whole side of her, come to think of it, that Crocker knew nothing about. They were to be married in New York in the summer. A big, traditional affair. Mother had it all planned, down to the last white rose and swath of expensive silk. Lauren supposed she should be grateful. Her commitment to her career left no time for such details.

Besides, Mother was wild about Crocker. Who wouldn't be? As VP of finance for Tiger Petroleum, he was quite a catch, and one of the most respected oil company executives in the industry. Everyone liked him.

She was sorry, now, that they'd argued that morning. Crocker hadn't wanted her to take on the Caribou Island assignment herself. He said he didn't like the idea of her spending two weeks in close quarters with eighty guys - the type of men her mother called "oil field trash."

Lauren had dismissed his concerns. The way she saw it, she had no choice. 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.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from On Thin Ice by Debra Brown Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.