Breaking the ice

Megan finds herself jumping into more than just freezing water at the local polar plunge. With Reid, she may just dive into love too

-  Mina Beckett

Megan's breath puffed into frosty clouds M in the icy January air as she stared at the lake. Its dark surface was still and unyielding, unlike her nerves.

Around her, the crowd buzzed with chatter and laughter, bundled in scarves and hats, their energy a stark contrast to the panic hammering in her chest. What had possessed her to sign up for a polar plungeeven if it was for a good cause?

"Okay," she muttered, pacing along the snow-dusted dock. "It's just water. Freezing water. But I'll survive. And I'll have an amazing story for the office holiday party."

"You know," a cheerful voice interrupted her pep talk, "you're supposed to save all the hypothermia-induced hallucinations for after the plunge."

She spun around to find a man grinning at her, his cheeks pink from the cold. He was tall, with windswept brown hair and an easy smile that made him look like he didn't have a care in the world-even though he was about to leap into a lake that could freeze the toes off a polar bear.

She gestured at the water with a halfsmile. "Oh, I'm just...psyching myself up."

"Psyching up psyching out?" he teased. "I saw you doing that little shuffle.

" It's a classic pre-panic move." "I'm not panicking," she said, crossing her arms. The tremor in her voice betrayed her, though, and his grin widened.

"Well, if it helps," he said, leaning in, "I brought my own emotional flotation devices.