‘Doc? We’re almost here.’
Alex woke her as they approached the station. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep but the interior of the over-snow vehicle was warm and cosy, and despite the excitement of her new surroundings she was exhausted. She hadn’t slept the night before—she’d had to be at the airport by three-thirty in the morning and she hadn’t seen much point in going to bed first so she’d stayed up, double-checking her packing. She’d taken out clothes and put in a few nonessential luxury items that other women who had worked on the ice suggested she take—a nice dress, decent shampoo, a thick bath towel, sheepskin boots—and as much as she hadn’t wanted to miss anything on the seventy-kilometre trip from the airstrip to the station she’d been lulled to sleep by the monotonous sound of the diesel engine and the warmth of the cabin.
‘I thought you might like a first glimpse of your temporary home,’ Alex said, as they came over a crest in the snow.
The station was spread out before her. It was perched on the edge of a natural harbour and while Sophie had seen photos the scale still took her by surprise. Close to a dozen brightly painted buildings were scattered over the snow, as if someone had spilt a handful of children’s building blocks. The buildings were a collection of shipping containers welded together to form larger structures, exactly the same as the buildings at the airstrip but on a bigger scale.
Sophie knew the bright paint scheme—red, yellow, blue and orange—was to make the buildings distinguishable from each other in blizzard conditions. The colour each ‘shed’ was painted depended on its function, but the brightness of the paint made the buildings look out of place, a blight on the landscape and a stark contrast to the ancient, icy plateau surrounding her.
A large dock poked out into the harbour and parked on the dock and scattered between the buildings were dozens of vehicles—trucks, graders, snowmobiles and trailers. Antennae and tanks, for water and gas storage, she suspected, sprouted out of the ground between the sheds, competing for space on the ice.
Her nervousness kicked up another notch. This was the station, her home for the next few weeks, and the little outpost of civilisation looked even more alien than the landscape.
‘Welcome to Carey,’ Alex said, as he brought the Hägglund to a stop in front of the largest of the buildings. This building was painted bright red and it was one thing Sophie did recognise. It was called, not surprisingly, ‘the red shed’, and it housed the accommodation block, the kitchen and the medical centre, and it was where she expected to spend most of her time.
Sophie pulled her gloves back on, squared her shoulders and climbed out of the cabin as she told herself everything would all be all right.
The wind whipped past her cheeks, making them ache with the cold after the warmth of the vehicle. She reached for the neck warmer and pulled it up over the lower half of her face.
‘Doc, welcome.’
A tall, solidly built man greeted her as he strode across the ground without a hint of the clumsiness she herself had felt as she’d negotiated the icy conditions. This man looked completely comfortable in the alien environment. He was dressed in a bright red cold-weather suit, identical to hers, but like Alex he had his head and face uncovered and exposed to the elements. The only concession he made to the conditions was in the form of sunglasses to protect against the blinding glare of the sun. Didn’t anyone else think it was cold?
He stopped in front of her and Sophie looked up, way up.
He was several inches taller than her and she stood five feet seven inches. His dark hair was cropped short and sprinkled with a little salt and pepper, and a dark, neatly trimmed beard covered the bottom half of his oval-shaped face.
‘I’m Gabe Sullivan, the station leader.’
So this was the man whose job it was to run Carey Station. This was her new boss.
He took his sunglasses off and extended his hand. His eyes were a dark chocolate-brown, kind and warming, and when he smiled at her, showcasing perfect white teeth framed by the darkness of his beard, Sophie forgot about being cold. Whereas Alex looked like a weekend surfer, Gabe Sullivan looked like a pioneer. Dark, rugged and strong. He looked like an explorer who was perfectly suited to this environment. He looked confident, like a man who could easily withstand the harsh elements of this climate, and as Sophie shook his outstretched, gloved hand she felt her nervousness recede as his gaze instilled confidence in her too.
Holding Gabe’s hand and looking into his dark-eyed gaze, she had an immediate sense that things would be okay. It was a bizarre feeling to get from a complete stranger, it was a ridiculous notion, but she saw something in his eyes, felt something in the strength of his grasp, that made her feel as though she had made the right decision. That this adventure would not be a huge mistake.
She could sense the strength in him and she could draw her own strength from that. In the same way that Danny had made her a stronger person she felt the same sense of security and confidence when she looked at Gabe. Standing here, looking up at him, she knew she’d be all right. She could do this. She was ready for the next stage of her life.
Alex had opened the back of the Hägglund and was removing her luggage from the trailer. Sophie forced herself to remove her hand from Gabe’s glove and break eye contact as she went to help with her bags. But Gabe was there before her.
‘We’ll get those for you,’ he offered.
‘I can manage,’ she said, even though she wasn’t certain that she could. Her bags were heavy and her stomach muscles complained every time she moved too quickly, let alone tried to lift something heavy.
‘Alex and I will do it,’ Gabe insisted. ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunity to help out once you get used to moving in your cold-weather gear.’
Sophie wondered if he was normally this chivalrous or whether he knew she’d recently undergone surgery but, either way, she didn’t bother arguing any further. It was nice to have someone look after her for a change so rather than debating the issue she graciously accepted his offer.
She did feel awkward in the padded overclothes and she suspected it would take some time for the bulky layers to feel comfortable. But even though her movement and her vision were restricted, she was grateful for the modern comforts. She couldn’t imagine surviving out here without this clothing. She was no intrepid explorer. She wasn’t really any sort of explorer. While Danny would have survived and thrived in these conditions, much like she suspected Gabe did, she knew she would be quite happy to experience the wilderness provided she had some twenty-first-century comforts.
Gabe and Alex retrieved her bags from the vehicle and Sophie followed them up the metal stairs to the red shed. She needed to steady herself with one hand on the rail of the steps, which were slick with a coating of ice, and she was glad she wasn’t trying to wrestle with her bags at the same time.
The two-storey building towered above her as Gabe stomped his feet on the steel grid at the top of the stairs to dislodge any snow and Sophie followed suit. Alex deposited Sophie’s bags beside her and excused himself, explaining he needed to return the Hägglund to the vehicle shed.
Gabe pushed open the door. It looked heavy and exactly like a door one would find on a freezer room. As she stepped through it she could see that was precisely what it was. As Gabe closed the door softly behind her, she noticed an immediate increase in temperature for, despite the sunshine, the outside temperature remained well below freezing. She understood the point of the freezer door now—it wasn’t to keep the cold in but to keep the cold out.
She found herself in what looked like a large mud room, similar to the drying rooms she’d seen in ski lodges. Around the edge of the room were open-fronted lockers with hanging space and shelving. Gabe directed her to one with ‘Doc’ written above it. ‘You can keep your outer layer of clothes here—boots, jackets, pants, gloves.’ His voice was deep and sounded like it held a smile, Sophie felt as if she could listen to him for hours. ‘The shed is heated to around twenty degrees Celsius,’ he continued, ‘so you don’t need