Several steel-gray Land Rovers met them at a private airfield. Luggage was magically whisked away by a team of men in dark suits and sunglasses. Clay and Lexi went in one Rover, Connor and Angelina in another. Dylan chose the front passenger seat in the third vehicle, allowing Claire and Aly to sit together in the back.
Claire was quietly texting on her phone. Aly seemed to be enjoying the scenery. Straight out of the airport, the road was flanked by a fjord on one side that had a small town jutting out into the water with the backdrop of a mountain behind it. The other side was a moss-covered hill. Dylan turned in his seat to address Aly and Claire. “The road is about to get a little bumpy. Summer in the Westfjords is really the only time of year this area is accessible, so it’s not as touristy and the roads aren’t as well maintained as you might see near the cities. As we drive, imagine that we’re tracing the edge of Iceland. We’ll head out to each peninsula’s end then back in along a fjord and out again along another peninsula.”
Claire looked up from her phone. “What’s the difference between a bay and a fjord?”
Without taking her eyes from the view, Aly said, “A fjord is technically a bay that has steep sides or a cliff. It’s formed via ice segregation when a glacier moves through a valley and carves out the bedrock. It’s usually U-shaped and can be deeper than the surrounding ocean. In contrast a bay usually has a large mouth that accesses a larger body of water. It can be formed by glaciers, but many were a result of plate tectonics. For example, when Pangea broke along an indented fault line, some of the largest bays in the world were created.”
“Glaciers,” Claire said. “They sure do beautiful work.”
Aly continued, “Interesting fact: much of Iceland has been underlain by permafrost for over a thousand years which has facilitated the stability of those moss slopes.”
Dylan and Claire exchanged a look. He considered tossing out a tidbit he’d learned about the area that might make it seem like he was more knowledgeable about glaciers, but he was enjoying hearing what Aly knew. “I’ve never heard of ice segregation.”
Aly’s face became animated. “Me either until I started reading about the area for this trip. It’s a geological phenomenon brought about by ice lenses. I find water fascinating because it really is a force of global change. Nothing can withstand it. Take a seemingly impenetrable bedrock. It isn’t. All water needs is a small pore or a tiny crack. It fills in those spaces and as long as the conditions remain favorable for it, more and more ice will collect and form a lens. It often causes something called a frost heave, but that’s a misnomer because frost occurs from water in the air when water vapor—” She stopped. “Sorry, I love to learn new things but you probably don’t care about the technical stuff.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” Dylan said. “I understand how you feel, though. I spent most of my life working on large machinery and I can diagnose the cause of intermittent versus function failure. I can list failure patterns and design preventative maintenance plans for them, but a lot of people don’t care to know how things work. They just want the end result. I, on the other hand, like to understand the process. I spent some time with a geologist when I first got here and learned a lot about deglaciation. She was equally excited about land formations.”
“But she didn’t mention ice segmentation?” Aly asked.
“We didn’t do a whole lot of talking.” He made a face. “I’d introduce you, but things got a little complicated between us.”
“Let me guess—after you had sex,” Aly said.
Dylan’s face warmed. “Something like that.”
Claire covered her eyes with one hand then rubbed her forehead.
Dylan’s mood took a bit of a dive when Aly shook her head and returned her attention to the passing view.
Her judgement of him hung heavy in the air and he was done with it. “I guess she didn’t want to be a member of my herd.”
Aly’s head snapped around and she glared at him. “Do you blame her for that? No woman wants to be one of many.”
He waved a hand in the air. “I’m single. She asked me out. I said yes. We didn’t make promises to each other. We were both perfectly free to have sex with anyone we wanted to.” He frowned. “I had no way of knowing the next woman I was with was her sister. One of them should have said something.”
“Oh. My. God.”
I probably shouldn’t have shared that last part. Aly was a member of his circle of friends, though, and he wanted to relax when he was out of the public eye. “They looked nothing alike. I never saw them together. Trust me, now I ask for last names.”
Aly looked away. “None of this surprises me.”
Dylan made a sound of frustration deep in his throat. He didn’t know why her opinion of him mattered, but it did. “Hey, before you get all judgey again, I don’t see a guy next to you. Maybe you’re doing better than I am, but I highly doubt it.”
“I am definitely doing better than you are.”
“Really? Who was he? This last wonderful man you fucked?”
Claire intervened, “Dylan, I don’t really think this is—”
Aly leaned forward. “He was a neurosurgeon.”
“Wait, wild guess, he was married.”
A near growl came from Aly as she sat back. “I asked about his marital status, but he lied to me.” She hugged her arms around her and snapped, “I wasn’t alone, he fooled half the nurses on the floor.”
Despite the heat of the moment, a sadness in Aly’s expression stopped Dylan from voicing his initial comeback. She’d been hurt by the experience and that realization brought out a protective side of Dylan. “It happens.”
She blinked a few times then seemed to relax. “Like accidentally sleeping with sisters?”
He turned his most charming smile on her. “Just like that.”
With a hint of a smile pulling at her lips, she asked, “You’ve been here for months, are there any women you haven’t been with?”
“One or two.” This time he winked. “But I’m working on that.”
She rolled her eyes skyward, but there was growing amusement in them. “Don’t drag your feet. Filming wraps up after this trip, correct?”
“It does.” He almost turned back around to face forward, but felt he needed to say, “Hey, Aly. It might take us a bit to figure each other out, but it’ll get easier. I like to joke, and I may overshare at times, but I’m harmless. I’m looking for nothing beyond friendship with you. In fact, trying to picture the two of us together makes me chuckle. Can you imagine—?”
Claire slapped his arm. “Dylan, is that the lodge we’re staying at?”
Dylan turned to see what she was referring to. “No, ours is much larger.”
She pointed toward the water. “Which fjord is this?”
Claire kept asking question after question about the area. He had no idea she was so interested, but thankfully he’d been there long enough to have the answers.
Aly remained quiet. In his limited experience with her, that wasn’t surprising. She was likely calculating the exact perimeter of Iceland’s land mass or something equally cerebral.