Let There Be Love: The Sled Dog Series, Book 1

by Melissa Storm

  Let There Be Love

  The Sled Dog Series, Book 1

  Melissa Storm

  © 2017, Partridge & Pear Press

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

  Editor: Megan Harris

  Proofreaders: Falcon Storm & Jasmine Bryner

  Partridge & Pear Press

  PO Box 72

  Brighton, MI 48116

  To Falcon:

  * * *

  Who first introduced me to the beauty of Alaska

  Whose experiences as a handler served as the inspiration for this series

  And who opened my heart to the greatest of loves

  Contents

  Free Gift

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Melissa Storm

  About the Author

  FREE GIFT

  Thank you for picking up your copy of Let There Be Love. I so hope you love it! As a thank you, I’d like to offer you a free gift. That’s right, I’ve written a short story that’s available exclusively to my newsletter subscribers. You’ll receive the free story by email as soon as you sign up at www.MelStorm.com/Gift. I hope you’ll enjoy both books. Happy reading!

  Melissa S.

  The call came in while Lauren was at work. Her eyes practically crossed as she tried to make sense of the never-ending spreadsheet before her. She’d never cared for numbers, but when you graduate with an English degree in the twenty-first century, you take whatever job you can get.

  In her case, it was data processing for a large New York-based company that sold their data to other data centers, so together they could invade people’s personal space with the kinds of ads that stalked you around the Internet with an uncanny ability to know where you’d been and what you might buy.

  Personally, she hated it.

  Which is why she was all too happy for the distraction of whatever waited on the other end of that call.

  She took off her headphones and picked up her cell phone. “Hello?”

  A man with a deep, unfamiliar voice greeted her. “Lauren Dalton?”

  “Yeah,” she confirmed, doing her best to sound friendly but busy, just in case this was a sales call. She didn’t have the money to buy anything even if she wanted to, which is why she was here at this mind-numbing job trying to make a few bucks so she could one day maybe pursue what she really loved.

  That is, once she figured out what that might be.

  The man on the other end of the line took a long breath out. “I’m Officer Reed. Is this Lauren Dalton, daughter of Edward Dalton?”

  Panic gripped at Lauren’s heart. She clearly wouldn’t like whatever this man had to say, so why on earth was he dragging it out? This moment needed to be over, and it needed to be over now.

  “What happened to my father?” she whispered, hardly capable of pushing the words out.

  “I’m sorry to inform you that your father was involved in a traffic collision and has passed away.”

  Lauren let out a loud hiccough of a sob, eliciting irritated stares from the neighboring cubicles.

  “There was a deer. We think he died instantly. I know this is a hard time for you, but when you can, you need to come claim his effects at the station.”

  Dead? How could her father be dead? She’d just been home for Christmas. He’d given her a scrapbooking kit and a shelf full of novels, and she’d given him a fancy new coffee maker. How could he enjoy his morning lattes if he were dead? How could they take their yearly spring break trip to Disney World if he was gone from this world? And what about in the future when she got married—who would walk her down the aisle then?

  She needed to be sure. “Can I see him?” she asked, choking back another sob.

  Her father had been the only family she had left. Her mother had died when Lauren was too little to have formed any lasting memories of her, and both her parents had been only children, just like she was.

  It had always been Lauren and Dad against the world.

  But now it would just be Lauren, all by herself, and the world made a mighty opponent when you had no one to face it with.

  “If that’s what you want.” The officer rattled off the location of the morgue and waited as she wrote it down on a sticky note.

  “I’ll be right in,” she told him and hung up quickly after he’d given her the address. She looked back at the wall of numbers on her computer screen. Is that what people became once they were no more, just a series of numbers and data, likes and dislikes, buyer profiles and click behavior?

  The thought made her sick. It would be up to her to make sure Edward Dalton was remembered for the incredible man he’d been and not just as part of someone’s marketing quota for the year.

  She shut her computer down, gathered her things, and went to find her boss. When she couldn’t find her in the office, she checked the conference room, where, sure enough, Joanna Brocklehurst was wooing a couple of well-groomed, bored-looking clients.

  “Lauren!” her boss gasped as the employee barged into the room and demanded an audience. “My apologies,” she murmured to the clients, rising to her feet to meet her wayward employee.

  “I’m going home early today,” Lauren said and turned to leave again before the door had even managed to swing shut.

  Mrs. Brocklehurst chased her out into the hallway. “Excuse you, you can’t just barge into a meeting like that, and you can’t leave early on reports day. You have responsibilities.” She emphasized the word reverently, as if nothing could be more important than her work for data corp.

  “Yes, I have responsibilities and I need to go see to them. I’ll be back on Monday, probably.”

  “Monday? But it’s only Wednesday. I’m sorry, but I can’t grant you time off with such short notice.”

  “Fine, then I won’t be back. At all. I quit. Good luck with the reports.”


  Sure, it would have been easy enough to explain what had happened and why she needed to go, but somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to speak of her father in the past tense or to share any part of him with the stingy boss who signed subsistence level paychecks for her employees while vacationing at St. Bart’s.

  She’d given too much of herself to this place already. It was time to move on, to make something of the Dalton name, now that it would be entirely up to her to keep their legacy alive.

  Lauren reached the morgue a couple hours later despite driving at least ten above the speed limit the entire time. Perhaps if she drove fast enough, she could turn back time like in those popular ‘80s movies with Michael J. Fox.

  But instead of revisiting the happy past, she soon came face-to-face with her new future, and it wasn’t one she wanted any part of.

  The mortician had done a good job cleaning him up, but dark bruises still mottled her father’s skin. Cuts and scrapes peppered his arms, though no blood—indeed, no sign of life at all—clung to them.

  And when had he gotten so old?

  She still thought of her father as the young man with brown hair and a few days’ scruff framing sharp, green eyes she’d always wished she’d inherited instead of her dull browns. She thought of him as the man who’d graciously attended all her school Mother’s Day events since he was her mom just as much as he’d been her dad. He was the man who’d changed her diapers, taught her to walk. He’d had to help her understand her first period, comforted her after her first heartbreak.

  He’d been her world, and now—just like that—Lauren’s world had ceased to turn.

  The mortician beckoned her forward with a tight-lipped nod.

  “Hi, Dad,” Lauren managed to say as she stepped up to the gurney.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the other woman said, even though she had no idea, no idea at all, what had been lost to Lauren that day.

  What kind of brave, new world would she face tomorrow? Because certainly Lauren would need to be brave to carry on in a world that no longer held her heart.

  “I love you, Dad,” she whispered, kissing her fingers and placing them to her father’s impossibly cold cheek. She bowed her head and murmured a quick prayer. One day they would meet again, but Lauren still had many more days in which she’d need to make it on her own.

  And make it she would, because that’s how her father had raised her, and she refused to let him down.

  Lauren drove to her father’s home and let herself in with the key he kept stashed under a colorful frog garden ornament she’d painted for him in the third grade. The house felt as if it, too, felt the loss of its master, even though so few hours had passed since he’d last left it.

  Coming home had often been her refuge after a stressful week at work or after yet another bad breakup. This time, she could scarcely recognize the house that had once served as the backdrop to all her most precious memories.

  One thing in particular bothered her today, though. Why had her father been out driving that morning, and why so recklessly that he failed to see the deer dart across the expressway until it was too late for either of them?

  As a retired school teacher, he didn’t have anywhere pressing he needed to be. And when he did, he preferred to walk through their small town to greet his former students and the neighbors he’d known for years. So why had things been different today?

  She’d need to plan a funeral, and no doubt half—if not, all—the town would be in attendance. And she would have to sort his things, settle his estate, make sure everything was buttoned up neatly with her father’s life.

  But what happened next?

  She no longer had a job, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear life in this place on her own. Despite loving her neighbors, she’d now become the one they would all pity and whisper about when she was nowhere to be seen. That’s not how Lauren wanted to live. She wanted to live a big life, one that would honor her father’s memory rather than linger in his shadow.

  Lauren found the coffee maker she’d bought her father for Christmas just a couple weeks before and was happy to see he’d gotten the chance to use it. She set it to brew and went to her father’s room to check for clues as to why he’d gone out that day.

  It felt strange rummaging through his things when he’d so recently used them, almost like an invasion of privacy. But that was silly. She and her father hadn’t kept any secrets from each other over the years. It’s why their relationship had been so strong. He spoke candidly to her about her mother’s death, about whether or not there was enough to pay the bills each month, about everything.

  He’d prepared Lauren for life as best he knew how, which Lauren knew was far better than most young women her age. But he’d never taught her how to carry on without him. They’d both foolishly assumed that such a day would be a long way off, that Lauren would be married, with kids, living her best life—not a freshly unemployed nobody lacking any clear direction.

  She returned to the kitchen and poured herself a mug of coffee. Normally she’d soften the taste with extra milk and sugar, but today she lavished the sharp, acidic flavor as it hit her tongue. Carrying her mug with her, she returned to the bedroom and opened up the closet.

  Her father’s shirts hung in a straight row, neatly pressed and ready for wears that would never come. In the far corner, a stack of four shoe boxes pressed against the wall. It was where he kept his memory boxes. They’d often leaf through the contents together as he told Lauren stories of her mother and how much alike they’d been, how proud she would’ve been.

  Proud of what, though? Lauren wondered with a sad, nostalgic sigh.

  She pulled the boxes from the closet and set them on the neatly made bed. She knew the one with the turquoise lid held the memories and photos of her mother. The purple one contained Lauren’s childhood, and the orange her high school years. She didn’t remember a fourth box and now eyed the additional brown cardboard container with suspicion.

  Naturally, she opened that one first.

  Immediately she was met with neatly stacked newspaper clippings and old Polaroid photos. The Anchorage Daily News, the masthead on the first read. But hadn’t they always lived in New York?

  She continued to read the article:

  Edward Dalton becomes the youngest musher to place in the top twenty at the Iditarod, beating out several more experienced men and securing his place as a rising star and a serious contender for next year.

  Dog racing? Alaska? None of this made sense. Why had her father kept something so innocent from her all these years? And why had he stopped if he was one of the greats?

  She continued to leaf through the contents of the box, unearthing pictures of dogs, tightly bundled men, and even an old collar. Clearly this had meant something vital to her father, but again, she could not figure out why he’d keep this, of all things, from her.

  She took out her phone and did a search on “sled dogs.” Perhaps there was some seedy underbelly she didn’t know about? The idea seemed ridiculous, especially given how straight-laced her father had always been dating back as far as she could remember.

  One of the top results on Google was for the country music star Lolly Winston. Lauren owned both of her CDs and liked to listen to Lolly on the long commute to her old job. Curious, she clicked into an article about the Sled Dog Rescue Organization, a charity founded by Lolly and her husband Oscar Rockwell roughly two years back.

  “We need to preserve the last great race, and to make sure retired dogs find loving forever homes,” Lolly had been quoted. “There’s something so beautiful about seeing these dogs in their element both on the slopes and at home.”

  Lauren found herself nodding along as she read and, before she knew it, she’d clicked over to the SDRO website, which featured a list of adoptable dogs along with other ways to help.

  If you have the heart, they need the home.

  Lauren liked that, especially considering it felt like a heart was the only thin
g she had left these days—and a badly broken one at that.

  The longer she stayed on the website, the more it called to her.

  These dogs will love you with everything they’ve got. They are so grateful to be rescued, to get a second chance.

  A second chance, Lauren thought. I wish someone would rescue me.

  And then she found their blog, and at the top of the feed was a picture of a handsome, rugged-looking man standing with a group of nearly thirty dogs.

  Shane Ramsey, the post said, has long been considered one of the top racers of the day. Unfortunately, an ill-fated training run with his snow machine has crushed in his kneecap. The injury will require a long and difficult healing process, if indeed healing is to occur at all. Although his condition is stable, no word yet as to whether he will be able to continue racing. Mr. Ramsey is now searching for a handler to help care for his team while he attempts to make a full recovery. All the other teams are already deep into this season’s training, leaving Shane and his team sidelined. That is why he’s come to us, and we are now coming to you. If you have the heart, we have a job and a home for at least the next three months, but for as long as a year. Will you help care for this incredible team? Please enquire at…