Melting the Ice Read Online Free PDF

ring. The little Ethiopian silver ring she had bought for him at a market in Marumba. It had been a lark. They’d been deliriously happy. She’d been in love, or so she had thought. She had joked that as long as Rex wore that ring, he belonged to her.
    And he was still wearing it. On the little finger of his left hand.
    Hannah was suddenly overwhelmed with six years worth of conflicting emotions. They surged up in waves and crashed over her. Her need for him. Her hate. Her bitterness. Her anger. Her desperate need to understand.
    She started to shake inside. All those things she had thought to say to him if she ever ran into him again were obliterated, deleted, at the sight of those darkly fringed eyes of blue ice. And the ring.
    She looked up from the ring into those wolf eyes. They bit back into her with Arctic intensity, searching, probing. She felt naked under his scrutiny. He held her captive with his gaze as he slowly came round to sit on Danny’s rock.
    “What are you doing here, Rex?”
    “I came for the toxicology conference.”
    Not for her. His words cut deeper than they should have.
    “You…you didn’t know I was here?”
    He leaned forward, as if to touch her, held back. “I knew, Hannah.”
    What else did he know? She felt a talon of fear claw at her heart. What had he really come for? “You were hoping you wouldn’t run in to me?”
    “I was going to look you up. We need to talk.”
    There was so much to say. She had so many questions. Why did you leave me like that? She wanted to scream it at him. Damn her pride. She wanted to hit that hard, muscular chest with her fists. She wanted to shake him. Hurt him. Run her fingers through that gloss of ebony hair. Feel the give of those sculpted lips under the tips of her fingers. God, she just wanted him to hold her.
    She tried to stand. The world seemed to have shifted on its axis, leaving her unbalanced. She fought the buckling sensation in her knees. She needed to stand over him. Feel the height. Find some strength. “I don’t think there’s anything to say, Rex. You made that clear in your note.” She needed to buy time. To think.
    She took a step back, turned to leave.
    “Wait, Hannah!” He was off the rock, gripping her wrist. She could feel her pulse beating against the strength of his fingers.
    She looked up into his eyes. “I did, Rex. Six years ago I waited. I’ve waited long enough.”
    He stiffened, eyes narrowing like those of a Siberian husky. A small muscle pulsed in his jaw. But he said nothing, just loosened the grip on her wrist, let it fall.
    It was the ultimate rejection. He was doing it to her all over again. Hot wetness spilled up into her eyes. She turned so that he wouldn’t see. And she started up the riverbank, half hoping he’d call out to her and explain.
    He didn’t.
    She held her spine stiff. Ignoring the bite of stones in her sandals, she walked smoothly, proudly, away. But inside she cried. Like the child who had cried for the love of her father. Like the woman who had vowed never to need a man to make her whole.
    Rex watched her go. A proud and beautiful woman, her long hair swinging gently across her back. A woman once his. His body screamed to call out to her. To tell her the truth. To explain that he’d had to leave. That he could never be with her. That he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. And nothing…nothing in this world had cost him more than that one act. He’d left her, alone in that tent, sleeping under an African sky. And with her, he’d left his heart.

Chapter 3
    “’N ight, Danny. Love you.”
    “Love you more.”
    “You know that’s not possible. Bye, sweetie. Be good.” Hannah put down the phone, picked up her mug of cocoa and walked barefoot out onto the deck.
    At least Danny was enjoying himself. She stood at the railing, looking out over Alabaster Lake, cradling her cocoa. She missed him more than she could have imagined. She missed his constant chattering, his incessant