Alaskan Hearts

by Teri Wilson

  To say that the man was moody would be an understatement of Alaskan-sized proportions. The morning had started off just fine. More than fine. It had been blissful. Ben was relaxed, charming even.

  And he’d told her she was beautiful.

  She could still hear his voice, see his face, surrounded by tiny snow flurries as he said it.

  How they had gone from that moment to walking back from the army surplus store in awkward silence was beyond her. He hadn’t even tucked her arm through his, as he’d done earlier. The good news was she no longer needed to lean on him for balance. He’d been right about the bunny boots. She was perfectly fine on her own.

  And isn’t that what she wanted?

  Yes, that’s exactly what I want.

  She made every effort to forget how comforting it had felt, walking through the snow-covered sidewalks arm-in-arm, and instead concentrated on the stack of papers in front of her. It was no use. All the legal mumbo jumbo did nothing but make her nervous enough to almost reconsider Ben’s foot lotion offer.

  Not that she would have ever admitted as much to him.

  She couldn’t change her mind now anyway. While she’d been shopping with Ben, her boss at Nature World had called. She hadn’t spoken to him yet, but his voice mail was more than clear. Not only did he want her to handle dogs, but he also had a new assignment. He wanted her to learn how to mush.

  She gulped.

  I can do this.

  “If everyone would pass me their release forms, I think we’re ready to begin.” The instructor, a young man who looked barely old enough to drive, stood at the front of the room.

  Maybe he wasn’t old enough to drive. Clementine supposed he could have mushed a dog team to the hotel. But he already had the requisite Alaskan beard, so she supposed he must be older than he looked.

  “Thank you for volunteering as dog handlers for this year’s Gold Rush Trail. The mushers couldn’t get past the starting line of the race without the help of everyone in this room.” He paused while Clementine and the other dog handlers looked at one another and smiled. “My name is Aidan Jackson. I mushed the race last year as a rookie and I’m back this year as a lead dog handler. I hope to teach you what you need to know to help get the dog teams to the starting line safely. That is your job as a handler. You are responsible for helping the musher get the dogs all harnessed up, keeping them under control until race time and slowing the team down until they cross the start line.”

  Clementine thought about Nugget, tucked safely at the foot of the bed in her hotel room. It certainly wouldn’t take a team of people to get a dog like her under control. Then again, she was a Pomeranian, not an Alaskan husky.

  “There’s really only one thing you need to know to be a successful sled dog handler.”

  Clementine sat a little straighter in her chair, eager to hear this important bit of wisdom. Whatever it was, she was ready for it. Hopefully it would be enough to forever eradicate the visions of foot lotion dancing in her head.

  Aidan raised his hands. His voice boomed, emphasizing the gravity of his message. “If you fall down, roll out of the way.”

  Clementine blinked in disbelief.

  If I fall down, roll out of the way? That’s it?

  She felt like a five-year-old, sitting in a circle in kindergarten class. She remembered with perfect clarity the day the fireman had come to visit her classroom. How could she have forgotten? He’d brought along that striking, spotted dalmatian. Clementine had been a dog lover, even back then. And 101 Dalmatians was her favorite movie.

  Stop, drop and roll. That’s what the fireman had told the class, over and over again.

  Stop, drop and roll.

  If you fall down, roll out of the way.

  They were remarkably similar.

  “If you fall down, roll out of the way,” Aidan repeated. “You’ll be running alongside a team of sixteen strong, athletic dogs through at least a foot of snow. Many of you will slip and fall. It might not feel so bad if you get trampled by sixteen huskies, but behind those dogs is a sled. And when the sled runs over you, it will hurt.”

  Clementine’s throat grew dry.

  Oh, dear Lord. What have I gotten myself into?

  She reached for the gold cross she always wore, for reassurance.

  If I fall down, roll out of the way. If I fall down, roll out of the way. If I fall down, roll out of the way.

  The phrase brought her little comfort, no matter how many times she repeated it.

  Then, as she wrapped her fingers around the familiar cross, other words took their place.

  I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.

  She let the holy promise soothe her nerves as Aidan explained how the dogs were harnessed and attached to the sled. As she learned the difference between a gang line, neck line and tug line, she reminded herself that the reason she was there in the first place was because God had called her to live a fuller life. He was on her side. With His help, she could do this. And if she fell down and forgot to roll out of the way, maybe He would give her the push she needed.

  “Are you guys ready to head outside and get some practice?” Aidan asked.

  “Yes!” A collective roar rose from the crowd of students.

  Clementine’s whispered “Yes, I’m ready” was lost in the animated chatter of the others as they rose and headed for the parking lot.

  She filed out with the rest of them and was almost surprised when her feet didn’t slip out from beneath her as she stepped onto the icy pavement.

  Aidan pointed at her feet. “Nice shoes.”

  “Thank you.” Clementine looked down at her bunny boots, which reminded her far more of Ben than any kind of leporid.

  She looked around, hoping to see him somewhere. There were a few photographers milling around, snapping pictures of the musher trucks clustered on the side of the hotel. Not one of the newsmen in her sight had a husky trailing along. Not that Clementine would have had trouble recognizing Ben, even without Kodiak by his side.

  She felt a tug of disappointment when she realized he was nowhere to be seen.

  That tug was quickly forgotten when Aidan began removing dogs from his truck, one by one, and lining them up in the parking lot.

  “Here, hold him, will you?” He walked toward her, hauling a cream-colored, barking dog alongside him. A dog that appeared to weigh twenty times as much as Nugget.

  There was no time to hesitate. Clementine grabbed the dog’s harness, right at the X above his shoulder blades. Aidan strode back to his truck, leaving her standing there, holding the dog, who was practically frothing at the mouth with excitement.

  “Hey, boy.” She reached her free hand toward him, with her palm up.

  He stopped barking long enough to give her a wary sniff. She dropped to one knee and ran her hand under the dog’s chin. To her surprise, the husky stopped barking again, craned his neck toward her and licked the side of her face.

  Clementine laughed. “You silly thing. You might be an elite athlete, but you’re just a regular dog at heart, aren’t you?”

  The dog gave her another kiss, this time accompanied by a furious wag of his tail.

  “What’s your name?”

  Even though the dog wiggled with glee, she managed to read the name printed on his bright purple sled dog harness. “Akiak?”

  “It means brave in Inuit,” the volunteer handler standing behind her chimed in.

  Clementine turned toward her as best she could while maintaining a firm grip on Akiak, and recognized the handler as the barista from the hotel. “Really? You know Inuit?”

  She shrugged. “A little. My grandmother on my mother’s side is Inupiat. Most of the Native peoples in Alaska are either Inupiat or Yupik. Both speak
Inuit. So I’ve picked up some of the language here and there. But my grandmother would be the first one to tell you I’m by no means fluent. My dad’s side of the family is Russian and I can’t exactly speak that language, either. I know enough to get by.”

  So that’s where her exotic looks come from, Clementine mused. She had hair the color of dark chocolate, but her eyes were almost violet.

  “I’m Clementine, by the way.”

  “Extra whip. Of course. And I’m Anya.” She smiled and seemed perfectly relaxed. Obviously she’d done this before. And she’d lived to tell about it.

  Clementine’s nerves eased somewhat with this realization.

  “Don’t worry. This isn’t as frightening as they make it out to be. It’s more fun than scary. I promise.” Anya winked.

  Clementine could have been embarrassed by the comment, seeing as it indicated her fear was clearly written all over her face. But any embarrassment she felt was superseded by relief. “That’s good to hear. Thank you.”

  “Just remember—” the look in Anya’s eyes turned serious “—roll out of the way if you fall down.”

  “Will do.” Clementine tried to swallow, but the panic rising up her throat made it impossible.

  She thought about asking Anya if she’d ever fallen down before when handling sled dogs and decided that maybe she didn’t really want to know.

  Aidan returned and, after securing Anya’s dog, connected Akiak’s harness to the gang line.

  He showed Clementine exactly where to hold on and watched while she grabbed hold of the line. “Hang on tight now.”

  “I will.” She tightened her grip with both hands while Akiak barked at another dog being harnessed beside him.

  “They’re all keyed up because they know we’re about to go for a ride.” Aidan ruffled the fur on the scruff of Akiak’s neck before turning his attention back to Clementine. “I’m going to hop on the sled and give the Hike command. Once I do, the dogs will take off. You and the other handlers will pull back on the gang line and try to slow the team down until I tell them to stop. This is exactly what you’ll be doing on race day. Now, what’s the most important thing to remember once the dogs start moving?”

  Panic beat against Clementine’s rib cage with fast, furious wings.

  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

  She glanced down at Akiak. A gorgeous cream-colored husky who bore the Native name for brave.

  Make me brave, Lord.

  “Do you remember what we talked about in class?” Aidan looked at her with expectation shining in his youthful eyes.

  He couldn’t be a day over nineteen, beard notwithstanding. Clementine chose to ignore the fact that all her training was coming from someone barely old enough to vote. “Stop, drop and roll.”

  “Uh?”

  “Oops.” Her cheeks burned. She thought she heard a snowflake sizzle when it landed on her skin. “I mean, if I fall down, roll out of the way.”

  “That’s right!”

  He moved on down the line, giving all the other dog handlers a similar, last-minute quiz. When he reached the end and hopped up on the sled runners, Clementine’s heart leaped straight to her throat.

  I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

  She squeezed the gang line with all her might and whispered in Akiak’s ear, “We can do this. You and I will be brave together.”

  Akiak gazed back at her with eyes so blue that they were almost translucent. Then Aidan’s sharp Hike command pierced the air. The husky became nothing more than a barking, whirling blur of quick-moving paws. The raw power of the dog team lifted Clementine clear off her feet and, for the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to fly.

  * * *

  Ben slumped on the bed in his hotel room and tried to ignore the mournful whine coming from Kodiak’s direction. He’d already closed the thick, blackout curtains in an effort to plunge the room into dark silence. But curtains were no match for a team of howling, wound-up sled dogs. If he really wanted to drown out the sound of the dog handling class outside, he supposed he should turn on the television.

  He glanced at the darkened screen and groaned inwardly. He couldn’t take any more facts about musk oxen. Or the Gold Rush. Or anything else Alaskan, for that matter. The way things were going, he’d probably stumble across a documentary about snowshoe rabbits.

  Was everything in the state destined to remind him of Clementine?

  It appeared so. He didn’t know how she did it—within days of stepping off the plane she’d somehow come to embody the very nature of Alaska. Independent, free-spirited, a bit untamed. And yet, she still had a sweet, vulnerable quality about her.

  Ben found it an oddly stirring combination.

  His stomach churned.

  He’d fixed her shoe problem, so he really had no reason to see her until race day. But he knew he would. He’d barricaded himself in his hotel room simply to stop himself from wandering over to check out her dog handling class. At least he had the common sense to avoid that scene. He honestly didn’t think he could take watching a team of dogs drag her around the parking lot.

  As if her adventurous streak wasn’t enough to drive him insane, there was another matter. The matter of her faith.

  He pictured her delicate fingers, touching the gold cross as it lay in the subtle dip between her collar bones. It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her toying with the necklace. She’d done it the day before when she’d told him why she’d come to Alaska and quoted the Bible.

  What was that verse again? Something about living life to the fullest.

  The churning in Ben’s gut intensified. His fingers itched. He clenched and unclenched his fists, certain the sensation was yet another lingering effect of the frostbite from the accident.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew better. He was in a hotel room. He knew there was a Bible in the top drawer of the nightstand. Even if he hadn’t pushed it aside to make more room for his socks, he would have known it was there. Wasn’t there a Bible in every hotel room on the planet?

  He pushed himself up and let his restless fingers open the drawer.

  Sure enough, there it was. Red, with gold lettering in the bottom-right corner.

  Ben swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat, staring at the book. Kodiak lumbered over and rested his chin on Ben’s knee. The husky blinked at him, as if waiting for something.

  “What?” Ben’s gaze darted back and forth between the dog and the red book.

  Curiosity got the best of him. He dragged the Bible to his lap and flipped it open. A few years had passed since he’d opened a Bible, but he still knew how to find a specific verse.

  Four. It’s been four years.

  Exactly.

  His fingers trembled, shaking the wisp-thin pages as he flipped to the Gospel of John. He found the tenth chapter quickly, and scanned the page for the words Clementine had quoted over coffee.

  “Here it is.”

  Kodiak cocked his head at the sound of Ben’s voice.

  The verse was close to the bottom of the page, and it was printed in red letters. “I come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

  A slow smile came to his lips. If anything, Clementine was certainly full of life.

  He knew little of her life back home, but he remembered her mentioning working in a cubicle. He found that increasingly hard to believe.

  When he reread the verse, he realized it contained another sentence. Also in red, it preceded the one that was Clementine’s favorite.

  Ben whispered the verse in its entirety. “‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’”

 
A bitter taste rose to the back of his throat. He allowed himself to remember all the reasons why he’d buried the Bible below his socks, why one could no longer be found on the bookshelves in his cabin. His life, and everything it had once been, had been destroyed. He remembered the panic, the scraping of sled runners against the ice. And, most of all, the cold.

  He shook his head and slammed the book shut.

  When he’d needed God most of all, he hadn’t found life. In fact, he’d found the opposite.

  Steal, kill, destroy.

  Death and destruction. Those had been the answers to Ben’s prayers that night. Not life.

  Kodiak whined and nudged his chin more firmly against Ben’s knee. Ben met the dog’s gaze again. The husky’s eyes sparkled gold, the color of the precious mineral for which the dog sled race was named. As Ben searched those eyes, another truth hit him square in the chest.

  “You lived.” He laid his palm on the top of Kodiak’s head. Cold fingers met warm fur. “I didn’t lose everyone that night. You’re still here.”

  Kodiak’s tail thumped against the bed.

  “That’s right, isn’t it, boy?” Ben still gripped the red book with his other hand. “We’re still alive. You and me.”

  Ben knew whether he truly lived was debatable. He hated to think what Clementine would have to say about the matter.

  At that moment, just as her name came to him, a siren pierced the air. Kodiak jerked his head away from Ben’s grasp and barked. Once, twice, three times. Then he began pacing the small room and howling at the sorrowful wail of the siren.

  Ben flew to the window and threw open the blackout curtains to find an ambulance approaching the hotel. It slowed as it pulled up beside a crowd of people next to a sled. The dogs harnessed to the sled had their ears pricked back and their tails hung between their legs.

  The blood in Ben’s veins turned to ice. The ambulance was there for someone at the dog handling class. He should have known.

  What had he been doing, sitting here reading the Bible, when he should have been making sure Clementine was safe?

  He tossed the red book back in the drawer and slipped on his parka. In a firm voice, he told Kodiak to stay before he slammed the door behind him and sprinted to the parking lot. Then another word rose to his throat and stuck there. Too filled with dread to attempt to speak, Ben screamed the word in his thoughts.