Running Wild: A novel

by K. A. Tucker

  Jonah checks his watch. “Quarter to twelve.”

  My heart skips a few beats. “I’m actually gonna try to get an hour or two of sleep before the afternoon rush.” Several teams are on their way here and, with the balmy minus-ten-degree weather, they’ll be resting their dogs for a few hours to keep them from overheating.

  He grimaces and looks around. “Am I gonna have to deal with that idiot?”

  It’s my turn to reach out and shove him. I don’t have to ask who he means. Jonah has heard me gripe about the Hatchetts enough times to have made up his mind about Harry without even meeting him. “He’s sleeping.” Thankfully.

  Jonah grunts in response. “Fine. I’ll get your sandwich for you.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Bullshit, you’ll eat my sandwich for me.”

  “You know me too well, Lehr.” He winks.

  I do know Jonah too well, and he’d give me the boots off his feet if I needed them. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye!” I watch his back as he veers off, sauntering to the little hut that will surely feel smaller with his larger-than-life presence in it.

  My stomach is a ball of tension as I approach the yellow tent, toying with the idea of turning around and coming back in fifteen minutes, when it wouldn’t seem like I’m angling to pick up where we left off.

  The tents are spread out, away from the cook hut and the dog teams, guaranteeing some degree of quiet. I’m careful as I draw open the zipper, hoping the sound of it sliding against its teeth doesn’t disturb Tyler. Inside, the air is on the verge of being too cool, the wood in the stove nothing more than glowing embers.

  Tyler sleeps on his back like before, his arctic bag pulled to his chin.

  I admire his still, handsome face for a moment before turning away. I shuck my outer clothes and boots, hanging them on the line next to his, thankful for the stop Terry and I made in McGrath on the way here yesterday morning to shower at the laundromat. By the time I catch a flight home, I’ll smell as bad as the sled dogs I’m treating.

  My attention gets caught on the black-and-white badge on Tyler’s sleeve.

  Mila. Am I right? Was that his wife’s name?

  Is he wearing her name on his sleeve in her honor?

  His heart on his sleeve?

  What has this man been through?

  There’s so much about Tyler that I don’t know, and yet here I am, eager to hear him tell me how beautiful I am again, hoping this time he’ll roll over to kiss me and it won’t be a mistake.

  “It’s not noon already, is it?” Tyler’s sleepy croak startles me.

  “In another fifteen minutes. I’m sorry, I thought I was being quiet enough.”

  “You were.” He smooths his hands over his face. “It’s me. I’ve been drifting in and out.”

  “That’s not good.” I step over him to stuff a log into the stove and then I make my way around to slip into the warmth of my sleeping bag, adrenaline racing.

  He rolls onto his side. “Is something wrong?”

  I realize my flurry of thoughts sits plainly on my face. “I was looking forward to kicking you awake, is all.”

  His crooked smile may as well be an accusation of my ulterior motives. “I can close my eyes and pretend to be asleep so this plays out.” Our mattress pads are still butted against each other. He’s lying so close to me.

  “My plan has already lost its luster.” I pray the cold air hides the flush from my reddened cheeks.

  “I should have kept quiet, then. I’m not always a smart man.”

  I shift to face him. “Wow. I never thought I’d hear you admit that.”

  “I have moments of weakness.” His voice has turned raspy. “This is definitely shaping up to be one of them.”

  The silence in the tent is palpable as I study the tiny golden flecks in his irises and the deep green ring that surrounds his pupils. I sense him shifting ever so slowly toward me, and my heart rate races with anticipation.

  But then a troubled expression fills his face, as if he’s remembering something that perturbs him.

  “Is something wrong?” I echo his question of a few moments ago.

  “No, nothing. Just …” Turning onto his back once again, he studies the tent’s ceiling, his breathing measured and slow. “I should get up. I have a long way to the finish line, and my dogs need all my focus.”

  As opposed to giving some of it to the infatuated veterinarian who is eager to climb onto your lap.

  I smile, even as my discontent stirs. “You’re right, they do.” We can always pick this up back home, after the race. “Get out of here already and let me sleep.”

  He climbs out of his sleeping bag with a stretch.

  I watch him as he collects his bedroll and sleeping bag, securing them to tuck back into his sled. Too fast, he has all his outer gear on and is pulling on his hat.

  Is it just me, or does he seem eager to get away?

  He’s peeling back the zipper when Karen’s reedy voice carries. “You’ve already had your ration, Hopper!”

  She must be chasing him out of the hut again. It makes me laugh, despite my disappointment.

  Tyler watches the debacle outside unfold. “Any idea what’s for lunch?”

  “Soup and a sandwich.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  Not as perfect as if Tyler turned around and slid into my sleeping bag for a few hours. “I’ll see you later?”

  He falters. “You know where to find me.” With that, he’s gone, shuttering the tent and leaving me alone.

  Sleep evades me.

  * * *

  The cacophony of dogs barking and tugging on their harnesses has the nearby teams howling in protest. They all want to run, but after a full twenty-four-hour rest, Tyler’s dogs are heading toward the trail.

  Tyler and my paths danced around each other all afternoon without ever crossing. Or maybe it was my path that weaved in and out, looking for a reasonable opportunity to cut in while he toiled away on his sled, replacing the runners, tightening bolts, taking full inventory and rearranging. I never did find the right time, wanting to respect his space while he prepared to leave.

  But now he’s about to take off, across the tundra and along the Bering Sea, and I feel the overwhelming urge to speak to him one more time before he leaves.

  “Counting down the minutes?”

  “Basically.” He checks his watch, his mood subdued. I guess mine would be, too, if I had days and another four hundred miles ahead of me.

  My gaze floats off into the waning sun. There’s a lot of nothing out there. Anywhere from ten to thirteen hours of snow and stunted trees, depending on how fast he travels until he reaches the next checkpoint in Ruby. Hours of just him and his dogs and his drifting thoughts. Some mushers have claimed traversing those flat plains are the most challenging.

  Gary is heading this way with a clipboard to take down information to feed into the official race, which means Tyler’s time at this checkpoint has come to an end.

  “Good luck, stay safe, and call me when you’re back in town. We can grab a coffee or dinner or something.” It’s as overt an invitation as I can collect the nerve to offer.

  “Yeah …” The smile I get back is not the playful smirk I was growing used to. It’s sad and full of resignation. “I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. Again. This was fun, Marie, and you’re an incredible woman, but I don’t want to make it more than it is.”

  An uncomfortable, cold feeling washes over me.

  Tyler searches the expanse of wilderness. “I can’t get into it because I’m about to go out there with my dogs, and my head has to be one hundred percent focused on them, but the truth is, I was married once and now I’m widowed, and my life is the way I want it. Uncomplicated.”

  I force a wide smile. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.” How else do I respond, after that shutdown?

  What the hell happened?

  “I won’t change my mind. Not about this.” His int
ense eyes lock on mine. “But friends, I can do. I’d really like to do. I think you’re pretty cool.”

  “Friends. Great.”

  Friends.

  Great.

  He tugs on his fur-lined mittens. “Come by the kennel sometime. I’ll give you that tour I didn’t want to give you before.”

  I can’t tell if he’s serious or if it’s a vacant offer—I don’t have his number to call ahead so he’ll unlock the gate—but I nod, anyway.

  “Ready.” The sled jerks with the dogs’ wild jumps at that softly spoken command.

  Gary saunters over. “Okay, musher number ten, looks like you’re off?”

  “I am.”

  Gary scribbles down the time.

  Tyler’s jaw is set with determination as he releases the snow hook. His sled speeds away with a round of cheers from the volunteers. He throws an arm up to wave but doesn’t look back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A deep rumble sounds in Bentley’s chest, his rapt attention on my laptop monitor as fourteen dogs run toward the Burled Arch, their path lined with cheering fans and bright spotlights to cast out the darkness.

  “You remember that, huh?” I stroke the husky’s fur with my fingers, comforted by his warmth next to me as we watch the livestream of the Iditarod from my bed. “I’ll bet you miss it.” It’s been five years since Bentley was retired from his racing team, and while the dog never crossed that finish line in first place, he completed the grueling journey to Nome enough times to be considered a world-class canine athlete by many in the mushing community.

  It feels good to be home, and yet the sudden and complete silence after so many days of people and planes and hoopla is at the same time disconcerting.

  Jonah and I landed in Trapper’s Crossing early this afternoon. My truck was waiting for me where I left it, cold and buried under a foot of snow.

  After a lengthy scalding shower to soothe my aching muscles and a touch-base call to Cory to learn all that I’d missed in my days away, I swung by my parents’ place, collected a dog and a plate of lasagna, and came back to my little cabin in the woods.

  All day, I lectured myself about how I didn’t need to lose another moment of sleep over dogsled races and mushers, how I needed to get back to regular programming. And yet my carefully laid plan of passing out from exhaustion was foiled the moment I knew Tyler was going to win the Iditarod.

  He took the lead after Unalakleet and has held it, growing it by the hour as he raced along the coast, whipped by high winds across Norton Bay near Shaktoolik and then narrowly escaping a snow squall before White Mountain that slowed several other mushers.

  They’ve been preparing for his grand entrance for hours in Nome, and now, after nine days and ten hours of racing crossing the Alaskan wilderness, I’m watching Tyler cross the finish line.

  I could lie and say my only interest is in the dogs—like it was when I stayed up to watch Harry cross last year—but I wouldn’t be fooling anyone, including myself.

  Still, I let my attention shift to the dogs for as long as possible. There’s nothing in their gaits to suggest Tyler worked them too hard, but I already know he wouldn’t. The veterinarians handling the finish line won’t find anything worrisome with any of them.

  The team passes under the mammoth carved wooden archway, and Tyler pushes back his hood. My excitement and disappointment war inside, constricting my chest. He’s achieved something no one has since 1975: he has won the Iditarod as a rookie.

  And he did it with his entire team of dogs crossing the finish line. Another rarity.

  Based on the GPS tracking, Harry will come in fourth, behind Skip and last year’s winner, Jessie Schwartz from Seward. But he’s a good seven hours behind. Tyler will be snoring in a warm bed by the time the next racers slide into town.

  For a man who was so convinced this was his year to shine, Harry is going to be furious.

  Reporters flock toward Tyler with their cameras and microphones angled as he throws a hand up to the crowd. The commentator, a man with a deep, buttery voice, interprets the scene—the chaos, the excitement, the adrenaline that must be coursing through Tyler’s veins.

  Tyler looks rough. More than nine days without a shave or a decent sleep, beyond the one he had lying next to me. The ruff around his hood is iced over, his skin is wind-burned, his eyes red and drawn.

  But a serene look passes over his features, overshadowing all those other details, and when he tips his head back toward the night sky, it’s as if I can feel his triumph radiating through the screen. It gives me a small reprieve from the awkward exchange at our parting, a moment where I can be happy for him and his accomplishment.

  It doesn’t last long, though, as he flaunts that devastatingly handsome smile at the crowd and cameras flash, capturing the moment.

  My stomach sinks with the bitter heaviness of regret. How did I misread everything so epically … again? I was so sure there was something more between us than friendly banter. But did I imagine everything? Was he leaning in to kiss me, or was it me, leaning into him? Was his comment about me being beautiful just innocent flattery? Jonah has told me I’m beautiful before, too, and look where that ended.

  I’m thirty-eight years old. I can repair torn ACLs and clear blockages from intestines, reconnect nerve tissue, and, when necessary, amputate limbs, but I can’t accurately decipher when a man is flirting with me?

  I didn’t understand how much I was hoping for this thing between us to be real until Tyler told me it wasn’t.

  The rest of my time at the checkpoint was a blur. I threw myself into my task, focusing on the teams coming through to keep my mind from wandering, working until I slumped into my sleeping bag, my eyelids shutting almost instantly.

  Tyler drops his snow hook and is off his sled, heading for the dogs with a bag of pork belly, their tails wagging. Meanwhile, the race officials rummage through his sled, ensuring he has all the mandatory gear as required by the rules, including the dog diary I signed, before they can officially declare him the winner.

  It’s difficult to see through the crowd, but he pauses long enough to hug an older gentleman. No one I recognize. His father, maybe? I never asked Tyler if he had someone waiting for him at Nome, but it would make sense. Most mushers have a handler lined up for when they arrive in the city, so the dogs can be properly cared for while they rest.

  From there, it’s an assembly line of procedure—Grant McManus introduces Tyler to the crowd as the champion before shuttling him over to hand him the oversized prize check for photo ops, and then beyond to a slogan-laden presentation of a pickup truck from the sponsoring dealership. Finally, they head to a table, where Tyler sits with Tank and Nala, and the officials place yellow rose garlands around the lead dogs’ necks.

  I smile as he ropes his arms around them, pulling them tight to his side, his grin for the cameras genuine and wide.

  Reporters converge with microphones and questions, and I strain to hear his answers around all the background noise, hoping to glean a bit more insight on a man who avoids talking about himself.

  “You were living in Finland before you moved to Alaska last summer. And you raced and won the Finnmarksløpet, the longest dogsled race in Europe, a year ago at this time. How would you compare these two trails?” a female reporter, unseen on the screen, asks.

  “They’re both incredibly challenging. The Finnmark is a bit shorter at 750 miles, but with strong winds across the fells and the temperatures, it can get treacherous. I’d say finishing either is a great feat, no matter whether you’re first or last.” His eyes dart to the camera before shifting to a spot on the ground

  “Did you grow up mushing?” a man asks.

  “I didn’t. I discovered it a few years ago, when I moved to Finland from Montana and fell in love with it immediately.”

  “You say you’ve only been doing this for a few years, and yet here you are, a world champion of the Finnmarksløpet and now the Iditarod.”

  “Maybe more than a few
years.” He grins sheepishly. “And I had good training. Tero and Anja Rask, of Rask Huskies in Finland, have been mushing their entire lives. Tero has raced and won the Finnmarksløpet three times. They’re both here, actually. Right over there.” He points somewhere beyond the camera and throws up a wave, I assume, to them.

  I mentally take note of the names, intent on searching them once I can peel my gaze from Tyler’s face. That answers the question about the man he hugged.

  “You were married to their daughter, Mila Rask, also a competitive musher in Finland. Is that how you were introduced to mushing?” another male voice asks. They’re firing questions at Tyler from all angles, as if armed with them ahead of time. I guess that makes sense. No one has been able to pin him down until now, and people watching want to know about this year’s champion.

  The muscle in Tyler’s jaw ticks. “Yes, that’s right. My wife’s family are big into mushing and when I met her, I fell in love. With everything, I guess. Her. The dogs. The life.”

  My heart squeezes, hearing him so candidly admit that.

  “Mila Rask was a top-five finalist in the Finnmarksløpet in previous years and expected to win one day, until she tragically passed away during childbirth just under two years ago, as did your son. Did you …”

  The reporter’s question fades with the blood rushing to my ears, my horrified focus on Tyler’s face as it takes on a stony expression. This reporter clearly dug into Tyler’s personal life in preparation for the interview. Why would he mention that on a livestream as Tyler’s celebrating his win, though?

  No wonder Tyler avoids interviews.

  My stomach churns as I wait for Tyler’s answer to the insensitive ass’s question—whatever it was. “That’s right. This is Mila’s team.” His attention shifts to Tank, his hand scratching the dog’s chest. “She always talked about racing the Iditarod, and so it was a no-brainer that I would do it for her now that she can’t. This race, and this win, was for her.”