don’t avoid it on purpose or anything.”
He gave her a little smile that seemed almost sad. “I know. But we’re going to make it more regular.”
She was all for it. “Nice office,” she commented, even though she’d barely glanced at it.
He looked around. Two walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, one wall had a huge window—of course—and the other held the door that obviously led to the rest of the clinic. His desk was huge and cluttered. There were distinct piles but there were a lot of them, and he had at least four coffee cups, a bowl and spoon, and three textbooks along with the usual desk stuff—penholder, phone, lamp, clock.
He smiled. “This is the one room in my life Lydia doesn’t touch.”
“It shows.”
“I know.” He pulled her toward the door to the clinic. “But a guy needs some space to just be himself.”
“Even if himself is messy and unorganized?” she asked, following.
“Even then,” he agreed with a grin.
His office opened into a break room with a fridge, microwave, small table and coffee pot, which then led into the front lobby. It seemed to be a typical vet office with chairs in the waiting area, a tall desk where patients—or their owners anyway—signed in. What was a little unusual, though, were the huge color photographs that covered the walls.
Polar bears.
Everywhere.
But not just nice wildlife photographs of random polar bears. Gavin was in every photo.
He was bundled in cold weather gear from head to toe, his eyes covered with dark goggles, but she knew it was him. It was the grin.
She’d know that smile anywhere.
She moved toward the big photo in the middle of the far wall. It was Gavin holding two polar bear cubs and looking like he’d never been happier. Her heart ached at the sight of that smile. God, he was gorgeous, and warm, and amazing.
“These are beautiful,” she said, lifting her hand to touch the face of one of the bears.
“Thanks. Those were taken last summer. Those are twin girls.”
Something in his voice made her turn to look at him. He was looking at the photo with pride in his expression.
“Where is this?” she asked. Did they have polar bears wandering through their neighborhoods in Alaska?
“Up on the Northern Slope,” he said. “It’s one of only seven polar bear populations in the world. One of two in North America.”
“What were you doing?”
“It’s a capture and release program through the US Geological Survey that’s been around about thirty years. Three times a year—spring, summer and fall—we go out with the goal of capturing and monitoring about one hundred bears. We gather samples—like skin, hair, fat—and take lots of measurements. We also tattoo ID numbers on them so we can track them long-term. Most of the bears are monitored for years.”
His face lit up as he spoke about this obvious passion, and Allie found herself fascinated.
“Where’s the Northern Slope?” she asked.
He moved to a huge map of Alaska he had mounted on another wall. “North,” he said with a grin.
“Ha-ha.”
He pointed. “I’ve worked near both Deadhorse, which is a town of oil-field workers, and Barrow, which is a native community of Inupiat people.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“Really?”
Something that made him look that happy? She definitely wanted to hear more. “Yes, really.”
He didn’t need any further nudging. “The season is usually four to six weeks, and the work depends on the amount of daylight and how lucky we get finding the bears. They’re tracked with GPS coordinates from their collars, but the satellites only upload coordinates every forty-eight hours and a bear can cover a lot of ground in that amount of time, so sometimes we go a couple days without seeing anything. Other days we find ten bears at once. So we stay up there while we’re working. The days can be long and the weather can be nasty, but…I love it.”
That was clear.
“What’s this?”
The photo she was looking at showed a helicopter lifting a huge bear in a slinglike contraption.
Gavin moved to stand behind her and she leaned back into him. She loved feeling the rumble of his voice through his chest as he talked. She also loved the warm weight of his hands on her shoulders.
He chuckled looking at the photo. “That guy weighed just a bit over one thousand pounds. Can you imagine four or five of us trying to get him into that sling when he was completely knocked out? It was a great workout.”
Her eyes widened. “A thousand pounds?”
“Yep. The helicopter is the only