Page 36 of Fire and Ice Cruise

“I’m observant. There’s a difference.”

Bess and Nettie reconvene near the main viewing platform, both looking windblown and thoroughly pleased with themselves.

“This place is wild,” Nettie announces. “I stuck my hand over one of those steam vents and nearly got third-degree burns.”

“Why would you do that?” Bess demands.

“Scientific curiosity.”

“You don’t have a scientific bone in your body.”

“How do you know? Have you X-rayed me?”

“I live with you. I don’t need an X-ray, I need a support group.”

Ransom returns, and we all stand together for a moment, taking in the absolute chaos of the volcanic landscape. Steam rises from dozens of vents, mud pots burble and pop, and the whole place looks as though the earth decided to have a tantrum and never quite calmed down.

“It’s beautiful,” I say again, because it bears repeating.

“It smells like Satan’s bathroom,” Nettie counters.

“That too.”

We start making our way back toward the bus, and I notice Nicolette standing alone near the gift shop, her phone pressed to her ear. Even from here, I can see the tension in her shoulders, the tight set of her jaw. She’s listening to someone, and whatever they’re saying, she’s not happy about it.

She spots me watching and quickly ends the call, pasting on a smile that seems forced.

“Isn’t this place incredible?” she calls out, overly bright.

“Incredible,” I agree, filing away her reaction for later examination.

The bus ride back is quieter than the ride out. Everyone is exhausted, overwhelmed by sulfur fumes and volcanic drama, and the landscape rolling past the windows is starting to blur together in my mind—mountains, lava fields, more mountains, distant glaciers. Iceland is a chef’s kiss in its artistic glory.

I lean against Ransom’s shoulder, and he wraps an arm around me, pulling me close.

“Do you think they’ll reinstate you?” I murmur.

“Hard to say. I get the feeling Quinn sort of wants me gone, but she also wants the case solved. Those two things don’t exactly coexist.”

“And if they don’t reinstate you?”

“Then I find something else. I spent twenty years doing a job I was good at. I can learn to do something else.”

“Just not pottery.”

“Especially not pottery.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Unless we do it together. I like doing things with you.”

I nod with a smile quickly taking over. “And I know exactly what we’re good at doing together.”

A wicked gleam glints in his eyes. He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “As long as you’re in the picture, the rest is details.”

“Even if the details involve smelling like sulfur for the next three days?”

“Even then.”

The bus pulls back into Akureyri’s port area just as the sun starts to break through the gray clouds, sending shafts of golden light across the fjord. The Emerald Queen sits at dock, impossibly huge and white against the colorful town, and I feel that familiar tug of home.

We file off the bus smelling like rotten eggs and volcanic minerals, our hair windblown and our cheeks pink from the cold, and everyone looks thoroughly satisfied with the day’s adventure.