Warming Trend Read Online Free PDF

predictable in results.”
    Ani glanced at her father, meeting the gaze from the same snapping black eyes that stared back at her from mirrors. “You’d prefer to stick with dynamite.”
    He nodded. “Yes, but if I want to keep working, I need to be open to different ways. Let’s get the last blast done, Ani-my-dear.”
    “Can I press the button?” Her father had laughed and handed her the controls as they crawled back under the protective blanket.
    Lisa smacked Ani on the arm, jarring her out of her reverie. “This is the best one I’ve seen down here.”
    “Me too,” she said automatically.
    There wasn’t bone-freezing ice under her and the concussions from another barrage of fireworks wasn’t followed by the endless rumble of a glacial ice crystals breaking and falling into packed ice below. In spite of the heat still rising from the sand, Ani’s arms were covered in goosebumps.
    It wasn’t that late when Lisa disappeared on foot toward her own bungalow, not far from the beach. Ani packed up her belongings, found her scooter and headed for home, telling herself not to speed. Once in her door she made her way to the table, dumped out the contents of her messenger bag and opened up the Fairbanks Gazette .
    Right there. Monica and Eve, with Monica’s arm casually around Eve’s waist. Eve had let her hair grow a little longer, but it was much the same curly and light. She was almost the same height as Monica. Her ear had nestled perfectly just below Ani’s shoulder when they’d hugged and Eve had been given to secretly smooching Ani’s neck during otherwise casual looking embraces. She devoured the photograph with her eyes, then finally made herself read the caption. Braced for it, the words still took her breath away.
    University of Fairbanks Professor Monica Tyndell and local chef Eve Cambra celebrate their partnership outside of the new Dragonfly restaurant in North Pole.
    Eve had always wanted a restaurant of her own. “I’d open it in North Pole,” she’d said, her voice drowsy as she nestled against Ani’s shoulder. “A short commute and lots of military folk.”
    Ani had laughed and pulled the covers around them. “I can hear the ad now. Box lunch at Eve’s, across from Dyke Range, oops we mean Fort Wainwright.”
    Eve giggled softly in her ear. “Crude. Funny, but crude.”
    “I was raised in the society of men. Dad, buncha guys who liked to climb around on glaciers and sometimes blow up parts.”
    One knowing fingertip drifted along Ani’s arm, sending tingles all the way to Ani’s toes. “I’m glad to show you what you were missing out on.”
    Ani spread Eve’s lustrous golden hair on the pillow, loving the way the midnight sun turned it bronze. “I always knew I was missing out on women.” She brushed her lips against Eve’s. “But life didn’t get good until I realized what I was really missing was you.”
    “Sweet,” Eve had murmured. “Show me.”
    Ani had shown her, shown her every way she could think of. Loved her, wanted her, lived for smiles from her. Watched the play of red and green aurora over Eve’s face as they danced on a glacier at three o’clock in the morning.
    Now Eve was with Monica. Monica was an amazing woman, a gifted and talented one, the type of woman that someone like Eve deserved.
    She made herself memorize the photograph of the two of them. They looked good together. She played back in her head Lisa’s offhand remark: You broke her heart and took off so you didn’t have to watch her suffer .
    Maybe that was exactly what she’d done. She didn’t want to see Eve suffer, and the disappointment in Monica’s eyes had cut her ego to ribbons. Now they were better off. At least they’d moved on.
    She could do the same, now that she knew. She could leave them be, finally, and move on herself. It was a relief. Crawling into bed, she told herself that she had warm, sensuous Key West nights all to herself, no more regrets. It had all worked out for the