Alaskan Hero

by Teri Wilson

  Think, Anya.

  She didn’t have a single piece of equipment with her—no beacon, no AvaLung, not even a shovel. She’d planned on picking up these regulation items once she reached the ski patrol cabin. But Dolce’s detour had changed things. And here she was, within moments of being buried alive, with nothing—and no one—to help her.

  Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

  “Please, God,” she cried. “Please.”

  And in the final, fleeting moment before the wall of white slammed into her, she remembered something Brock had once said. Something so simple and elementary, it had seemed like common sense at the time, barely worth mentioning.

  When you arrive at the scene of an avalanche, search the debris field for clues. A mitten or glove poking out from the snow could help lead you to a victim faster.

  Anya clawed at her mittens and tried to yank them off, but her hands were shaking so hard, it was hopeless.

  God, please. There has to be something.

  Then she remembered Brock’s hat.

  She jammed a hand into the inside pocket of her parka and there it was—right where she’d left it the night before, after their awful encounter.

  She pulled the hat out and tossed it as high in the air as she could at the exact moment her feet were knocked out from beneath her. Its garish bright stripes and cherry-red pom-pom streaking across the clear blue sky were the last things she saw before she curled her body, closed her eyes and let the snow take her under.

  Everything became little more than a blur. A blur of sound and sensation—the roar of the snow and the sense of being picked up and carried from one end of the world to another. There was no time to pray, no time to wonder if she would live or die. Because it seemed as if it ended as soon as it had started.

  And then there was nothing.

  The stillness and its accompanying quiet came about so suddenly that Anya found it almost as frightening as the noise. She lay still for several minutes, afraid to move and discover she’d been seriously injured. She attempted to wiggle her fingers first, then her toes before realizing even the tiniest movement was out of the question.

  It was as though she’d been buried in concrete.

  Don’t panic. You’ll waste precious energy.

  At least she’d somehow managed to end up with her arms curled, trapping a decent-sized pocket of air around her. She had no idea which direction her body faced. Up? Down? Who knew? What mattered most was that she could breathe.

  For the moment.

  When she’d willed her heart to stop beating out of control, she opened her eyes and saw nothing but blue. This caught her by surprise. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. White maybe? Gray? But not blue. Blue, like the beautiful Alaskan sky. Blue, like a glacier floating in the ocean in summertime.

  Blue, like Brock’s eyes.

  It was then, when she first allowed herself to think of Brock, that she began to cry. A sob rose up through her body from the depths of her soul. She wasn’t even sure if there were actual tears. Her face was so numb and cold, all she could feel was the weight of snow pressing heavily against her cheeks. But she wept all the same.

  Would she ever see him again?

  She doubted it. Even if somehow, some way she was rescued, he’d already left Aurora. To make matters worse, she didn’t even know where he’d been planning on going.

  She was sure he was long gone by now. That’s the real reason she’d come in early today. She’d fully expected to walk into the ski patrol cabin and discover he’d left. She’d wanted to face it as quickly as she could, like ripping off a Band-Aid, so she could forget all about him and move on. The only question that nagged at her was what he’d done with the dogs. He should have left them in her care, but after the dressing down she’d given him, he’d obviously taken them elsewhere.

  Maybe he’s still here.

  Maybe he’s still here, and he’ll come for me.

  It was too much to hope for. Anya couldn’t even allow herself to consider the possibility that Brock would come to her rescue. After the things she’d said to him, how could she expect him to stick around and dig her out from under a pile of snow?

  You’re no hero.

  Regret pierced her heart.

  She should have given him the hat she’d knit for him. It was a ridiculous thing to cross her mind at a time like this, but she wished she’d given it to him. Because then she would have found the courage to tell him how she felt about him.

  She was in love with him. If she’d been afraid to admit it before, she had no qualms about it now. Imminent death had given her unwavering clarity. She was in love with Brock Parker, heart and soul.

  Why hadn’t she told him? Would it have changed things? Would he have stayed?

  She’d never know.

  And now she’d never have the chance again to say those words to him.

  She’d been so afraid. And why? Look where being afraid had gotten her. She’d never been so completely or utterly alone in her life. Even Dolce was gone.

  Anya felt her breathing growing shallow. She tried to move her head from side to side to widen her pocket of air. It took every ounce of strength she possessed, but eventually she heard crunching noises and her head was able to move a few inches. She could breathe a little easier. For now.

  How much time did she have left?

  She wasn’t even sure how long she had been buried. Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen?

  The first fifteen minutes are the most crucial for locating victims, she heard Brock say in her head. At the thirty-five-minute mark, chances for survival drop to a mere thirty percent.

  She wished she didn’t know these statistics. They made her feel like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.

  The worst part was knowing there was nothing she could do but lie there and wait. She was completely helpless.

  Helpless and alone.

  Another sob wracked her body. She concentrated as hard as she could on God’s promise—the one that had always had a way of speaking directly to her heart. Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. And for the first time, she doubted those words.

  She’d misread the signs.

  She’d been so sure of God’s plan. Everything appeared to lead to her becoming part of the avalanche rescue team. She’d thought it was her destiny. The signs. There’d been so many of them—Brock’s arrival, working with the dogs, that Bible verse she’d found. What was it again?

  Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken.

  She’d been convinced she knew what all the signs meant. Now she realized she was wrong. Everything that had happened had been leading her here, to this moment when she needed to believe in God’s promises more than ever before. He wasn’t trying to steer her in one direction or another. He wanted her to know that He was faithful. She wasn’t alone at all. He was right there beside her. Even now.

  Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

  She repeated it over and over in her head, until at last she began to believe it.

  * * *

  The moment Sherlock raised his muzzle from the top of Brock’s foot, where he’d been resting it for the past hour and a half or so, Brock knew something was wrong. Everything about the dog’s body language—the pricked ears, the slight rise of his hackles and the widening of his eyes—spoke of imminent trouble.

  Brock’s knife paused midair. A single, slender ribbon of wood fell to the table. “Everything okay, bud?”

  Sherlock remained perfectly still as he emitted an eerily high-pitched whine.

  Brock had been at the ski patrol cabin since before the sun came up. He couldn’t sleep—not after that dream he’d had. When he’d awoken in the early morning hours rested and c
ontent, he realized what a toll the years of nightmares had taken on him. It wasn’t his only realization.

  He couldn’t leave Aurora. Not now and possibly not ever.

  Brock was no fool. The fact that he’d dreamed of Anya instead of Drew meant something. Even though it had only been a product of his subconscious, the sight of her in bridal white had led him to see everything with sudden clarity.

  He was in love with Anya Petrova.

  And he intended to tell her the moment he saw her.

  He’d slipped out of bed and headed straight to the ski patrol cabin, hoping to catch her alone before everyone else arrived for training. He’d considered going to her cottage instead but thought better of it as he revisited the way he’d treated her the last time they were together.

  She’d seen right through him. He’d been planning on doing the one thing that was sure to break her heart. He wouldn’t blame her if she never spoke to him again.

  He was certain showing up on her doorstep in the wee morning hours wasn’t the right way to get back in her good graces. So he’d loaded up the dogs in the truck and driven to the ski patrol cabin instead. His suitcases still sat packed by his front door, but he no longer had any intention of taking them anywhere.

  What had he been thinking? How could he have considered just up and leaving, even for a minute?

  These were the questions that had been running through his mind all morning as he waited for her. He’d turned to whittling in hopes it would pass the time quicker.

  He set the product of his work on the table and smiled. Even his hands could think of nothing but Anya. He’d whittled his best attempt at a matryoshka, more commonly known as a Russian nesting doll.

  Brock had first seen them when he’d lived in Washington state for three months in a small mountain community with a large Russian population. The dolls were usually nearly cylindrical in shape, rounded at the head, nipped in at the waist and tapered toward the bottom. The largest one opened up to reveal a smaller one inside and so on. The one Brock had crafted for Anya was unique in that the smallest piece inside was a dog rather than a doll.

  Perhaps he’d give it to her when he told her he loved her.

  Now, however, Brock’s thoughts turned to the matter at hand—Sherlock’s odd behavior.

  “What is it, boy?” he asked and ran his fingertips over the raised ridge of fur along the dog’s backbone.

  Sherlock didn’t bat an eye in Brock’s direction. Brock frowned and glanced toward Aspen, who’d been biding his time on the plaid flannel dog bed in the corner. Aspen, too, had alerted to whatever was causing Sherlock’s distress. Like Sherlock, his ears stood high on his head, and he stared into the distance with an intensity that sent a shiver up Brock’s spine.

  He strode to the window and looked outside. Everything appeared completely normal. It was, in fact, a beautiful morning. The sky was clearer than it had been in weeks—clear, crisp blue rather than the disturbing gray–green that had so worried Brock before. And for once there wasn’t a single snowflake in sight.

  But Brock knew better than to ignore such obvious signs of alarm in the dogs. They’d heard something. It was probably only a sick or injured animal hanging around the outside of the cabin. He tried to shake off the feeling that it could be something more.

  It was a commonly held belief that certain animals had the ability to predict danger—specifically, natural disasters—long before humans were aware of anything amiss. There were countless tales of elephants, cattle, dogs and all variety of zoo animals exhibiting odd behavior before earthquakes and tsunamis. Brock remembered reading an article in Nature World magazine in which scientists speculated this mysterious sixth sense was really a heightened state of hearing or had something to do with electromagnetic waves. Brock didn’t really care how they did it. The bottom line was that he simply trusted his dogs.

  And right now they were telling him in no uncertain terms that something was up.

  He grabbed his parka off one of the hooks by the door and shrugged into it. His plan was to take a look around the perimeter of the cabin for signs of an animal in distress. He was sure he’d find a moose that had stepped in an illegal trap somewhere in the woods or perhaps an orphaned fox. He hoped it wasn’t a wolf.

  But as he gripped the doorknob, it trembled slightly in his hand.

  He gripped it tighter, convinced he was imagining things.

  It trembled again. And then came the noise.

  No matter how many times he heard it, the sound of an avalanche never failed to fill him with equal parts awe and dread. Before he’d ever witnessed such a spectacle firsthand, he’d heard it described as sounding like rolls of thunder. In actuality, it was far more intense—like being inside thunder. And the rumble was typically preceded by a single, earsplitting explosion—the snowpack cracking under the pressure of whatever had weakened it to the point of giving in.

  This time was no exception.

  When the snowpack broke, Brock’s ears rang. Sherlock and Aspen ran around the cabin in frantic circles, foaming at the mouth and barking. Not that Brock could hear them over the roar. It was so strange watching them bark like that, as if they were mute.

  It’s close, he thought, gripping the doorframe as the walls of the cabin shook. Too close.

  He fought the powerful urge to run outside, and instead waited for the slide to end. After all, he couldn’t help if he was buried himself. Still, he hated the wait. It felt like an eternity, even though in reality it was likely less than a minute.

  The trophy he’d won in the Reindeer Run bounced right off its shelf and crashed to the floor, but then the earth stilled beneath Brock’s feet and a deadly hush fell over the mountainside.

  “Sherlock, you’re coming with me.” The dog sprung to Brock’s side. “Aspen, stay. With any luck, Jackson will be here soon and he’ll bring you out.”

  He pulled on his gloves, grabbed the ready-pack with his collapsible probe poles and snow shovel and did his best not to become weighed down by the pressing feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

  As he crunched through the snow with Sherlock at his feet, he concentrated on the positives. It was still early morning—the ski area wasn’t even up and running yet. The timing of the slide couldn’t have been better. Chances were no one had even been on the mountain.

  Then why did he have such a sickening feeling in his gut, as if none of these things mattered at all and he was about to face the absolute worst the snow had to offer?

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the distance, just beyond the trees, Brock spotted the debris field. It cut a wide path through the clearing at the base of the Black Diamond slope. A powder cloud hung over the area but was quickly dissipating, settling over the upturned snow in a fine layer of white dust.

  He wove his way through the evergreens toward the clearing. He’d only taken two or three steps when Cole appeared at his side, puffing and wheezing for breath.

  “What just happened?” Cole asked, his face ashen.

  “Avalanche.” Brock kept walking, unwilling to pause for even a moment, although it looked as if Cole needed a good shake.

  “I don’t understand. We’ve never had an avalanche here before.” He shook his head, his eyes widening at the sight of the slide.

  “Cole.” Brock rested his hand on Cole’s shoulder. The gesture was meant to both reassure him and bring him back to the present—away from the jolt of what he’d stumbled upon. “This was inevitable. We’re prepared. This is what we’ve been training for. This is why you brought me to Alaska. Right now, you need to get to the cabin and grab a ready-pack and Aspen. Got it?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, the color returning to his face slowly. “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Hurry and get Aspen, then do everything exactly as we did in training.”

 
Cole nodded. “Scan the area for clues first, then let the dog do his job. If he alerts, start digging. I’m on it.”

  Brock breathed a sigh of relief that another pair of able hands had shown up. He had no doubt Cole was more than capable of acting as Aspen’s handler in Jackson’s absence, especially now that he’d gotten over his initial shock.

  As Brock had suspected, the entire area appeared quiet, as if the ski mountain had not yet climbed out of bed for the morning. Besides Cole, he’d yet to catch a glimpse of another person. The lift wasn’t running, and though he could barely see the parking area from where he stood, it appeared to be empty. But just as he reached the edge of the tree line, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Something small, close to the ground. Beside him, Sherlock shimmied with awareness.

  Brock hastened his steps in the direction he’d spied the activity. And when he grew close enough to discern the outline of a small dog, he tensed.

  No. The bitter taste of stone-cold fear rose up the back of this throat. No, it can’t be.

  “Dolce?” he whispered, the word sticking in his throat.

  The dog quivered from her nose to the tip of her tail, which was tucked snugly between her two back legs. But her tail gave a tiny hint of a wag of recognition at the sound of his voice. And with that smallest of movements, Brock’s world crumbled around him.

  This was unquestionably Anya’s dog.

  Dolce’s leash was attached to her collar, and it had somehow gotten snagged on an evergreen, leaving the poor dog cowering beneath the tree’s low-hanging branches. But Anya was nowhere to be seen.

  Brock struggled to catch his breath. His heart was beating nearly out of control. Anya had to have been there when the mountain gave way. As much as he didn’t even want to consider it, deep down he knew it was true. She loved that dog. If Dolce was there, so was Anya.

  Do something.