Page 1 of Falling for the Recluse

ChapterOne

JOSIE

TO: Dr. Gavin Stark, Needle Island Antarctic Research Station

FROM: Josie Bennett, Stanford University

Hello, Dr. Stark!

My name is Josie Bennett. I’m the future penguinologist who will be interning with you at the Needle Island station. The Penguin Research Group selected me out of a pool of 540 applications (who knew there were so many aspiring penguin researchers in the world?!), and I’m honored beyond measure by the opportunity.

My research this summer (well, your Southern Hemisphere summer and my Northern Hemisphere winter) will involve studying and counting the newly arrived penguins on Needle Island. Then I’ll return to California to analyze and write up all the data, after which I’ll have the honor of delivering a lecture at the California Academy of Sciences about my findings. I hope my little contribution to science will help us better understand and protect these intriguing, unique animals.

A little about me—I’m twenty years old, a junior at Stanford University, and I’ve been fascinated by penguins since I was six years old and received a stuffed penguin for Christmas. I named him Oswald.

I stop typing.Am I telling him too much? Does a scientist as renowned as Dr. Gavin Stark really need to know that Oswald determined my life’s path? Will he find such details endearing or just ridiculous?

Probably the latter, but I’m determined to keep my introduction letter peppy and upbeat. I have to make sure I start off on Dr. Stark’s good side.

Assuming he even has one.

“You’re going to live with the Ice Prick?”

I look up to find my fellow student Carol approaching, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline. The two other biology students working in the lab look up sharply.

“There’s an announcement that Josie was chosen for the PRG internship,” Carol tells them, waving the biology department newsletter in the air. “Which is fantastic and deserves major congratulations, but…the Ice Prick?”

“That nickname is an exaggeration.” I shake my head dismissively, trying not to let the sudden ominous atmosphere quell my excitement. “I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.” Hank, a senior, grabs the newsletter from Carol and scans the announcement. “Have you ever met Gavin Stark?”

“No,” I admit.

“He’s going to eat you alive.” Carol scans me from head to toe. “I can’t believe they’re letting you, of all people, go down there alone.”

I bristle a little, even though her skepticism is understandable. With my perfect academic record and reputation for being in bed by nine—not entirely untrue—everyone in the department was surprised that I’d even applied for the highly adventurous internship.

“Josie deserves the opportunity more than anyone,” my friend Brenda says, and I throw her a grateful look.

“What about you?” Hank asks Carol. “Have you met Stark?”

Carol shakes her head. “Not many people have. Everyone’s afraid of him. He’s been alone on the ice for, like, five years. He only has human contact when he needs help with drilling and research or when the supply boats arrive. Even before he was stationed there, he was always off on some other solo expedition in Greenland or the Arctic tundra. He sends in all his research via email, but he’s turned down a bunch of job offers at universities and other institutions. Won’t do video calls with other scientists. He’s brilliant, but he’s a snarly bastard who refuses to actuallycollaboratewith anyone. There’s a reason people call him the Ice Prick, and it’s not because he’s a hockey player.”

We fall silent in the aftermath of that little speech. Carol is a graduate student, so she’s been around a lot longer than us lowly undergrads and knows all the gossip.

But that’s what it is, I remind myself. Just gossip. If no one has actually worked with Dr. Stark, then no one really knows the truth about him.

“He must get super lonely,” Brenda remarks.

“He wouldn’t be there if he didn’t want to be,” Hank says. He widens his eyes. “Do you think he’s, like, one of those people who has to hide away from society because he’s super scarred and ugly?”

Carol snorts. “A few old photos of him are floating around, and by the looks of it, he’s anything but ugly. At least, he wasn’t years ago.”

“No one’s even seen him for five years?” Brenda asks.

“Just the supply guys or the other scientists doing fieldwork.” Carol sits down beside a microscope. “And Josie will be next.”

The three of them turn their attention back to me. I try to look nonchalant as if traveling to the southernmost point of the world to live with a scary, bad-tempered, and possibly scarred ice scientist is really not that big of a deal.

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