Chapter 11
The next stop on our excursion is the lava fields. The bus deposits us at Námaskare, and the moment I step off, I’m hit with the unmistakable scent of, well, rotten eggs.
“Oh my word.” I cover my nose. “Who died?”
“Well, you are here.” Tinsley rolls her eyes. “It only makes sense that a body would follow.”
“Very funny,” I say.
Elodie shrugs my way. “It sort of is.”
“That smell would be the sulfur,” Bess says, consulting her guidebook while somehow managing to breathe through her mouth. “Hydrogen sulfide gas is a natural byproduct of geothermal activity.”
“Smells like someone’s digestive system gave up and exploded,” Nettie announces while sniffing freely.
“That’s one way to put it,” I grunt.
She nods. “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”
Everywhere I look, the earth is cracked and steaming, rust-colored and alien, like the planet forgot to finish this particular patch.
The landscape stretches out before us, otherworldly in every direction.
Steam vents hiss and billow white clouds into the gray sky, bubbling mud pots make unsettling glooping sounds that remind me of oatmeal having a nervous breakdown, and the ground is stained with sulfur yellow and rust orange mineral deposits that look like someone spilled paint across hell’s front yard.
There’s not a single plant in sight. No grass, no trees, no scrubby little bushes trying to make a go of it. Just barren, otherworldly terrain that could double as the set for the apocalypse that seems to stretch in all directions.
Wooden walkways snake through the geothermal field, keeping visitors from stepping on ground hot enough to melt shoe soles.
Warning signs are posted every few feet: STAY ON PATH.
BOILING WATER. DANGER. And yet the barren landscape with its red and yellow dirt, its gaping mounds of what looks like ash—there’s still something very serene about it all.
“This is gorgeous,” I breathe, and I mean it.
Ransom raises an eyebrow. “Your definition of gorgeous concerns me.”
“It’s gorgeous in an end-of-the-world sort of way,” I tell him. “Something so raw and powerful it reminds you the planet doesn’t need us to survive.”
A low laugh rumbles from his chest. “That’s dark, Mrs. Baxter. But it’s beautiful, much like you.” He lands a kiss to my temple.
“I can’t help it,” I say as he squeezes me tight. “I’m feeling philosophical today.”
The group naturally splits up as everyone gravitates toward different areas of the geothermal field.
Elodie spots a cluster of tourists about fifty feet away—several tall, blonde men in hiking gear who look like they stepped off the cover of Vikings Weekly—and her entire demeanor shifts.
She smooths her hair, checks her lipstick in a compact mirror that materializes from nowhere, and adjusts her designer puffer vest to maximum cleavage advantage.
“Ladies,” she announces, “I’m off to catch myself a Viking. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, assume I’ve been swept off to a fjord and send my belongings to South Africa.”
“What if they don’t speak English?” Bess asks.
“Darling, attraction transcends language barriers,” Elodie shoots back. “Besides, I know three crucial Icelandic phrases—hello, you’re handsome, and where’s the nearest hotel.”
“You learned those specifically for this trip?”
“I learned those specifically for this moment.” She fluffs her blonde bob one more time. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck,” Nettie calls after her. “You need a lasso!”
Elodie winks over her shoulder and saunters toward the Viking candidates with the confidence of a woman on a lusty mission.
Tinsley spots Wes and Marina standing near a particularly active steam vent, their heads bent together as Wes points out something in the landscape.
Her eyes narrow, she clutches her phone tight to her chest, and she marches over to insert herself between them with all the subtlety of a volcanic eruption.
Meanwhile, Bess and Nettie wander toward the largest mud pot, bickering the entire way.
“This is what hell looks like,” Nettie declares, peering into the bubbling gray sludge.
“How would you know?”
“I was married for forty years, wasn’t I? Not to the same person, but still.”
Bess nods. “Good point.”
I grab Ransom’s hand and steer us toward a quieter section of the boardwalk where the steam vents create a natural privacy screen. The boards creak under our feet, and the air is thick with moisture and that ever-present rotten egg smell that I’m trying very hard to find romantic.
It’s not working.
“So.” I lean against the railing and watch a steam vent belch white clouds into the air. “How are you doing? And I want a real answer, not the stoic ex-FBI agent version.”
He’s quiet for a moment, his blue eyes scanning the volcanic landscape. “I’m fine.”
“Ransom.”
“I am.” He turns to face me, and there’s something vulnerable in his expression that makes my heart squeeze. “I’ve been thinking about what comes next.”
“They’d be insane not to let you back into your post.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s time to find something else to do.”
“Like what?”
A smile tugs at his mouth. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I’ve got.”
“Pottery?”
“No.”
“Knitting?”
“I’d stab someone with the needles within an hour.”
“Professional napping?”
“Now that I could get behind.”
I laugh, and it echoes strangely across the geothermal field. “You do have a gift for falling asleep anywhere.”
He pulls me closer, his hands settling on my waist. “What if I just followed you around all day? Carried your art supplies. Kept Nettie out of federal prisons.”
“That last one is a full-time job.”
“Two full-time jobs.”
“With hazard pay.”
“I prefer to call it devoted and available.”
“That’s called being unemployed and clingy.”
“Semantics, Mrs. Baxter.”
We stand there for a moment, the steam swirling around us, and I can feel the heat radiating up through the wooden boardwalk. Somewhere behind us, a mud pot makes an obscene burping sound.
Romance at its finest.
“What do you really want?” I ask quietly.
He’s quiet for a long moment, his thumbs tracing circles on my hips through my jacket. “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been in security my entire adult life—first the FBI, then the ship. I don’t know who I am without a badge and a mandate to protect people.”
“You’re still you. Badge or no badge.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You’re the man who makes me feel safe without trying.
Who notices when I’m stressed before I even realize it.
Who puts up with Bess and Nettie’s chaos and actually enjoys it.
Who loves me even when I’m tripping over dead bodies and talking to ghosts.
” I reach up and cup his face. “The badge didn’t make you those things. You are those things.”
His eyes soften, and he leans down until our foreheads touch. “How did I get so lucky?”
“I ask myself the same thing. Especially since you’re currently unemployed and smell like rotten eggs.”
He laughs. He pulls back and takes in my face with those cobalt eyes before his lips find mine, softly at first, then with determination. Ransom kisses me—deep and thorough and completely inappropriate for a public volcanic field in Iceland.
His hands slide up my back, pulling me flush against him, and I forget about the sulfur smell and the tourists and the fact that we’re standing on a wooden boardwalk over boiling geothermal activity.
All I can focus on is him—his warmth, his taste, the way he kisses me as if I’m the only good thing in his universe.
A steam vent directly beside us chooses that exact moment to erupt with a dramatic hiss, surrounding us in a cloud of white vapor. It’s as if the earth itself is providing mood lighting—or trying to boil us alive. It’s really hard to say.
A wolf whistle cuts through the steam, and I pull back to see Nettie standing about twenty feet away with both thumbs up.
“Get it, girl!” she shouts.
Bess yanks her away. “Would you leave them alone!”
“I’m just being supportive!”
“You’re being a menace!”
Ransom tips his head. “We have an audience.”
“We always have an audience. It’s the curse of living on a cruise ship with two octogenarians who have no boundaries.”
“Should we stop?”
“Absolutely not.”
I pull him back down for another kiss, and this time I don’t care who’s watching.
By the time we finally separate and make our way back toward the main viewing area, my lips are swollen and my face is flushed—and it has nothing to do with the geothermal activity.
Elodie intercepts us near the largest steam vent, looking thoroughly disgruntled.
“This landscape needs a shirtless Viking to make sense.”
“Did you try the gift shop?” I ask.
“I tried the actual Vikings. There was a very handsome Icelandic tour guide over there.” She gestures vaguely toward a cluster of tourists. “Tall, blonde, looked like he could bench press a glacier.”
“And?”
“And he’s married. With three children. Who apparently love hiking and geothermal fields and making me feel like a failure at flirting.”
“You’re not a failure. You’re just selective.”
“I’m desperate, Trixie. There’s a difference.”
Ransom clears his throat. “I’m going to give Quinn a quick call and see how the case is going.”
He escapes before Elodie can rope him into her romantic crisis, which is smart. The man is learning.
“There’s always the next port,” I offer.
“That’s what I said!” Elodie brightens slightly. “Although if the next port smells like this one, I might skip the Viking hunt and just go shopping.”
“Solid plan.”
We make our way over to where Marina and Wes are standing near a bubbling mud pot, and I immediately notice Tinsley hovering between them—like a very persistent gnat in a windbreaker.
“Tinsley is a true terror.” Elodie rolls her eyes before walking over to the safety fence and taking a few pictures of the bubbling field.