Alaskan Hearts

As she turned to head for the registration desk, Ben caught a glimpse of Nugget watching him from behind the mesh screen. Just as he suspected, the tiny creature in no way resembled a real dog.

Sled dog handler?

She couldn’t possibly be serious.

Chapter Two

Clementine wiggled her toes in the comfy warmth of her UGGs and looked out the window at the blinding swirl of white.

Snow.

It was everywhere. Piled up waist-deep along the carefully shoveled streets and the labyrinth of narrow sidewalks surrounding the hotel. And to Clementine’s complete and utter delight, it was still coming down in buckets.

Buckets…that might be more of a rain-related expression.

She struggled for an appropriate metaphor as she scooped Nugget into her arms. “Look, Nugget, it’s snowing cats and dogs.”

She supposed that didn’t really work, either. But it was the best she could do, because she’d never actually seen snow before. Other than in photographs anyway.

Of course it had been snowing last night when she and her queasy stomach finally escaped the airplane and caught the shuttle bus to the Northern Lights Inn. She hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the beauty of an Alaskan snowfall at such a late hour. This morning was a different story, however. She’d never seen anything like it. The coastal Texas area wasn’t exactly known for its harsh winter weather. It had snowed only once in Houston during Clementine’s lifetime. She had been four years old, too young to carry any memory of making a snowman in her front yard into her adult life. She’d seen the photos, though, in the thick albums that filled her parents’ bookshelves. The snowman had been a full head taller than she was. But, like so many things in Clementine’s life, she knew the experience only through pictures.

Not anymore.

She looked out on the strange, white world and was struck by the purity of it all.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

She would never think of those holy words the same way again.

Thank You, Lord, for Your love and forgiveness. And thank You for bringing me here. At last.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she sniffed and blinked them back. She scooped Nugget into her arms. “How would you like to go for our first walk in the snow?”

The hotel lobby was even busier than the night before and, save for the numerous dead animals on the walls, it seemed everyone had an official Gold Rush Trail name tag hanging around their neck. Clementine almost felt naked without one. A huge banner that read “Welcome Gold Rush Trail Volunteers!” was hoisted above a smooth, lacquered counter at the foot of the staircase. Behind the counter, a map of Alaska covered the wall, floor-to-ceiling. The trail the sled dog teams would cover during the race was marked out in red dashes, all the way from Aurora to the village of Nome, close to the Arctic Circle.

Look at that! I’m almost at the top of the world!

“Can I help you?” A tall woman wearing a neon-orange skullcap greeted her from behind the desk.

“Oh, sure.” Clementine took a step closer to the counter, and Nugget followed along at the end of her pink leather leash.

“Cute dog.” The woman, whose name was Bea, according to her name tag, smiled down at the Pomeranian. “We’re all dog lovers around here, although we don’t often see ones that are so tiny.”

Clementine’s thoughts immediately turned to the handsome man she’d met the night before—Kodiak’s dad. He was so rugged, so Alaskan. She remembered with less fondness his warning about Nugget looking more like a snack than a canine. And his reprimand about her shoes. “I’ll keep a close eye on her.”

“Good idea.” Bea nodded. “Are you a volunteer? Can I help get you checked in?”

“Yes. My name is Clementine Phillips from Houston, Texas. I’m a researcher for Nature World magazine. They sent me to volunteer and report back about the race.”

Bea flipped through the box of name badges on the countertop until she found the right one. “So you’re volunteering as a…sled dog handler?”

Her gaze flitted to Nugget once again, and her lips twitched into a smirk.

Clementine tightened her grip on Nugget’s leash. “Yes.”

“Have you ever worked with sled dogs before?” Bea appeared to be putting forth great effort to not look directly at Nugget anymore.

“Um, not exactly.” Did sifting through photos of sled dogs for Nature World count? She certainly wasn’t going to mention that she’d never actually seen one in the flesh—er, fur—until last night. “But there’s a training class, right?”

“Yes.” Bea’s voice turned dead serious. “The class is mandatory if you don’t already have your sled dog handler certification card.”

“I’ll be there. I’ve already registered for the class.”

“Good. It’s mandatory.”

“I understand.” What was her problem?

“Even if you have a Ph.D. in dog, you’ve got to take the class.” She held out Clementine’s name tag but didn’t appear willing to let it go.

Clementine tugged on it a few times until she finally managed to wrestle it out of Bea’s reluctant fingers. Good grief! “Thanks again for the reminder. I’ll be at the class. It’s tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“Tomorrow at noon.” She glanced down at Clementine’s pink UGGs. “Dress warm. You’ll be spending an hour or two outside in the parking lot.”

Clementine resisted the urge to salute and say “Yes, ma’am.” She said a silent prayer of thanks for Bea’s neon hat. At least she would be able to see her coming from a distance, and she could run in the other direction. “Okay.”

“Here’s your volunteer hat and T-shirt.” She slid them across the counter with no small amount of reluctance.

Clementine took the items and slipped her lanyard over her head, with her name tag facing outward. There! She looked as official as all of the other people milling about. “Thank you.”

“You know…” Bea called out to her as she turned to go. “You can always change your mind. We have plenty of other volunteer jobs. Like filing. Or answering phones.”

Clementine’s face burned, and it was a struggle to keep her voice even. “No, thank you. I’m here to work with the dogs.”

Honestly. Filing? Answering telephones? Those wouldn’t exactly make fascinating topics for an article in the magazine. She might as well be sitting back in her cubicle in Texas.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and examined the screen.

Sure enough, her cubicle had managed to follow her to Alaska.

She cleared her throat, just in case it was her boss. If she didn’t come off as confident, he’d never send her anywhere again. He most certainly didn’t need to know the race personnel were trying to talk her into answering phones. “Hello?”

“Clementine, thank goodness. You made it in one piece.” Natalie Marshall, her officemate, sighed into the phone.

Clementine’s heart lifted at the sound of her voice. In addition to sharing a cubicle, she and Natalie were good friends. As close as two people who spend forty-plus hours a week within five feet of one another could be.

She settled on one of the brown leather sofas in the lobby and scooped Nugget into her lap. “I’m here.”

“Are you frozen solid?”

Clementine laughed. “Almost.”

“You asked for it. Remember? Over and over and over again, as I recall.”

“Oh, I recall.” Clementine’s voice turned wistful as she thought about all the times she’d begged to go on one of the plum research assignments out in the field, and the grim look on her fiancé’s face last year when she told him she’d finally gotten the one in Alaska.

It hadn’t been the first sign of trouble in their engagement, but it had been the one that really got her attention. Then, six short months later, there was no engagement.

Natalie whispered into the phone, signaling her call wasn’t all about work. “Listen, you will not believe what I saw driving down Memorial Drive this morning.”

Clementine took a wild guess. “A car?”

“No. I mean there were cars, obviously, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” Natalie huffed.

Clementine could almost hear her eyes roll from a thousand miles away. “What did you see driving down the street that was so interesting?”

“A motorcycle, complete with red flames on the side. I think it might have been a Harley. And guess who was riding it?” She didn’t wait for Clementine to speculate. It was a good thing because in a million years she never would have guessed the identity of the bike’s rider. “Mark!”

“Mark?” Clementine paused, trying to absorb this information. The pause served no purpose, however. She would never be able to wrap her mind around Mark on a Harley. Unless Harleys suddenly came in beige. “As in my ex-fiancé, Mark?”

“The one and only.”

Impossible.

Mark didn’t believe in motorcycles. Or any other type of vehicles with flames. Mark was safe. He wanted to live his life in a harmless little box.

He’d certainly wanted to keep Clementine in a box.

“What a hypocrite.” Natalie’s voice rose above a whisper with this proclamation. “Can you believe him?”

“Mark doesn’t concern me anymore.” Even faced with the literally flaming evidence of his double standard, she honestly meant it. She felt nothing at the mention of his name. A fact that spoke volumes.

Although a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been right about Alaska. The attitudes of the people she’d met so far weren’t exactly encouraging.

Clementine gulped. “I’m in Alaska and I’m about to go enjoy my first snowfall.”

“Good for you. Forget about all of us back home, Mark included, and enjoy your trip. This is the adventure you’ve been waiting for.” Clementine could hear the hum of a computer monitor in the background and the familiar clickety-clack of Natalie’s fingers flying over the keyboard. “I’ve got to run. Duty calls. You take care.”

The line went dead. Clementine stared at the darkened screen and made a mental note to make sure to buy Natalie a souvenir before she went home. Something nice. A little piece of Alaska. She deserved it for holding down the fort in their cubicle while Clementine was off on her adventure.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket and headed toward the revolving door, anxious to get outside and sink her feet into the snow. Before she pushed her way through, she paused and pulled four tiny shoes from the other pocket of her parka. Correction—booties, not shoes. That’s what they called them here in Alaska. All the sled dogs wore them, and even dogs who weren’t professional athletes. They protected canine feet from the hazards of exposure to ice and snow.

It just happened to be an added bonus that the ones she’d found online for Nugget were beyond adorable.

She taped them into place. The little Pomeranian was remarkably cooperative, considering she’d never actually been a shoe-wearing dog before.

Bootie-wearing, not shoe-wearing.

With the booties firmly fastened, Clementine stood and admired them. Nugget pranced for a few steps and spun in a quick circle.

“Good girl,” Clementine cooed.

This was going so well that she’d have to consider the possibility of using them back home. Surely somewhere in Texas there existed a logical reason for a dog to wear booties. She’d lived there her entire life and never stumbled across such a reason, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. Right?

“It looks like we’re ready to brave the cold. Let’s go, Nugget.” She headed outside with a booty-clad Nugget bobbing at the end of her leash.

The revolving door had barely spun them out on the snowy pavement when a blast of frigid air hit Clementine in the face. It was cold. Biting cold. Arctic cold. Colder-than-her-parents’-fancy-subzero-refrigerator cold.

Despite the burning sensation in her lungs when she inhaled, Clementine smiled into the wind. This was her first day in Alaska, her first snow-covered morning since that long-forgotten day chronicled in her family photo albums. And she knew exactly how she was going to spend it.

* * *

Ben snapped the lens cap on his camera and slid it into his shoulder bag. His fingers ached from the cold, and as soon as the camera was put away, he stuffed his hands back into his pockets for the comfort of the hand-warmer packets he always kept inside. Comfort might have been a stretch, but they helped a little. As much as he could expect anyway.

Reggie walked silently beside him, his dark eyes tracing Ben’s every move. Between them, Kodiak moved in a relaxed lope. He panted softly, his breath coming out in soft clouds with each step.

“Your hands still giving you trouble?” Reggie raised his brows.

Ben shrugged. “Sometimes. Nothing I can’t handle.” He knew Reggie had noticed. His keen eyes didn’t miss much, an attribute that made him a fine dog musher.

Reggie shook his head. “You need some mittens. Good ones. Beaver or moose hide.”

Ben laughed to himself. Good old Reggie. If he couldn’t turn Ben into a musher again, he would at least make sure he looked like one. “I’ve still got my old ones, but it’s a little hard to take photographs with my fingers encased in moose hide.”

“You and your pictures.” An eye roll followed. “You make sure and keep those hand-warmer people in business. It’s hard to booty a dog without any fingers.”

Ben didn’t bother reminding Reggie there would be no dog-bootying in his future. It was a waste of breath. His energy was better spent trying to change the subject altogether. “Thanks for letting me get some shots of your dogs this morning. I think we got a few good ones.”

“No problem.” Reggie’s dark face creased into a grin. The pride he felt in his team showed clearly in his expression. “Although you’d probably get more money for those pictures if they were of Mackey’s dogs.”

“Every other photographer here is taking photos of Mackey’s dogs.” Ben squinted into the distance. He could see clear across the parking lot to where the throng of photographers clustered around the three-time champion’s truck with its musher box on top. “No, thanks.”

Mackey was the musher to beat, the sport’s greatest champion. Once upon a time, Ben had been the musher to beat.

He pushed the thought away and concentrated instead on the comfort of the hand warmers.

“You might want to get that camera out again, friend. Here’s something else your competition is missing out on.” Reggie slowed to a stop.

Ben turned away from the Mackey hoopla and followed the direction of Reggie’s gaze toward a snowy embankment off to the side of the hotel. The area was deserted, save for a lone woman, with a tiny creature yapping and dancing around her feet. Ben knew in an instant it was the same woman from last night—the one who referred to him as “Kodiak’s dad.” The tiny ball of fur beside her must be Nugget, even though Nugget resembled a squirrel more than any dog Ben had ever seen. A lopsided tower of snow was heaped next to them and looked as though it might topple over at any moment.

Ben resisted the nonsensical urge to run over, sweep her out of the way and into his arms. He cleared his throat. “Would you look at that?”

“Pink booties.” Reggie shielded the sun from his eyes with his hands, probably to get a better look. “She’s got pink booties on that dog.”

Ben pulled his camera from his bag and looked through the telephoto lens. He told himself it was only to verify that Nugget was in fact a member of the canine species. “They’ve got ears.”

“Of course they have ears. Although if she doesn’t cover hers with a hat, she might just lose ’em. Like you and your fingers.” Reggie laughed aloud at his own joke.

“Not the woman…the booties.” Ben handed Reggie his camera. Someone else had to get a look at this. “This doesn’t make a bit of sense, but I think they might be bunny slippers.”

“What? Bunny slippers?” Reggie furrowed his brows and peered through the camera. He shook his head and handed it back to Ben. “Well, I’ll be. What do you suppose she’s doing out there anyway?”

Ben watched her grab an armful of snow with her bare hands and add it to the heap. Her cheeks and nose glowed bright pink from the cold, which didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. She bounced around her snowy creation and scrutinized it from all angles.

A slow smile found its way to Ben’s lips. “I think she’s making a snowman.”

Reggie snorted with laughter. “Cheechako. It figures.”

Irritation pricked Ben’s nerves. He couldn’t say why. He’d used the same word to describe newcomers to Alaska countless times. Everyone did. There wasn’t anything inherently disrespectful about it.

Still, he wasn’t laughing. “You go on ahead. I’m going to get a few shots of the dog.”

“That dog?” Reggie nodded his head toward Nugget. “Seriously?”

Ben shrugged and looked through the viewfinder again. “You never know, my editor might use it as a human interest–type piece.”

“I can see it now. My sled dogs are going to get upstaged by a puffball that wears bunny slippers.” Reggie shook his head and wandered toward the hotel. “I’m off to the mushers’ meeting.”

“Later,” Ben muttered, entranced by the sight of the woman through his zoom lens. There was something about the way she seemed to glow from the inside out…he found it fascinating.

What am I doing? I’m supposed to be getting shots of the dog, not acting like some sort of stalker.

He redirected his lens to the little dog, who was busy kicking up a fine dust of snow with her pink booties. It didn’t take long to get a dozen or so shots, the majority of which were guaranteed to make the most hardened sourdough crack a smile. Even one like Reggie.

Just to be on the safe side, he snapped a few more. Kodiak waited by his side, with his paw resting on the top of Ben’s left foot, until the camera was packed away again.

Ben patted Kodiak between his pricked ears. “Let’s go say hello and let her know I took some photos.”

If only to assure himself he was a journalist, and most definitely not a stalker, he needed to get permission to use the pictures. He snapped Kodiak’s leash in place and headed over to the trio—woman, dog and snowman.

The closer they got, the more excited Kodiak became, until he let out a prolonged woo-woo. Nugget responded by pawing frantically at her owner’s shins.

“Good morning, Kodiak’s Dad.” She scooped the little pup into her arms and directed her blinding smile at Ben.

A smile so bright that it almost hurt his eyes to look directly at it. “Hey, there, Nugget’s Mom.”

“It’s Clementine, actually.” Ben wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her smile to grow wider, but it did.

“Nice to meet you, officially. I’m Ben.” He glanced at the name tag dangling from the lanyard around her neck. Sure enough, it indicated her name was Clementine Phillips, from Houston, Texas. Texas. That explained her unabashed glee at the freshly fallen snow. “Something tells me this is the first time you’ve seen so much snow.”

She laughed and cast a sheepish glance toward the lopsided snowman. “How could you tell?”

Ben followed her gaze and took in Frosty’s egg-shaped head and his drooping stick arms. “Lucky guess.”

“My first snowman, too. Well, sort of.” Nugget wiggled in her arms and craned her tiny head toward Kodiak. Clementine looked at Ben, with questions shining her eyes. “Can I let her down? I think she wants to play.”

“Sure.” Ben unsnapped Kodiak’s leash and ruffled the fur behind his ears. “Try not to step on your new friend, okay, buddy?”

Nugget barked and took off running, a sure invitation for Kodiak to chase her. The two dogs cut a path through the snow and made a big loop around Ben, Clementine and the snowman.

Ben nodded toward the dogs. “Nice bunny slippers, by the way. I took a few pictures of Nugget. I hope that’s all right.”

“Thank you.” Clementine glanced at his name tag. “Media? Are you a reporter?”

“Photographer. For the Yukon Reporter.” He averted his gaze away from Kodiak. He was a photographer now. That’s all. No matter how fervently Reggie, along with the other mushers, tried to tell him otherwise.

Clementine simply smiled. For all she knew, he’d always been a photographer. It was a welcome relief. “You work for a paper? Really? I work as a media researcher back in Texas.”

“Is that right? For a newspaper?”

“No.” She shook her head and looked down at her feet, clad in the same pink sheepskin boots she’d worn the night before. This woman clearly had a thing for slippers. “Nature World.”

“Nature World. That’s impress…” Before Ben could finish his thought, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head to the right, just in time to see Nugget and Kodiak barrel into the side of Clementine’s snowman.

Snow flew in every direction, but somehow the majority of it landed on Clementine’s face. At first, she stood completely still. She seemed too shocked to do or say anything. Then, just as Ben reached to brush some of the snow away, she started giggling.

Soon she was laughing so hard that she could barely stand up straight. Kodiak joined in, barking at the top of his lungs, until he resumed digging at a pile of snow in search of a halfway-buried Nugget.

“Are you okay?” Ben wiped a wet blob of slush from her cheek. The cold water stung his thumb, but not so much that he failed to appreciate the softness of her skin.

Her cheeks flushed pinker than ever. “I’m fine. I’m a mess, but I’m fine.” She wiped her laminated name tag against her parka to dry it off.

It was then that Ben noticed the words printed beneath her name and hometown. Sled Dog Handler.

He stiffened. He’d nearly forgotten why she was here. “So you’re still planning on handling dogs for the race?”

“Of course. The magazine sent me here for that explicit purpose.” The giggling abruptly stopped. He thought he spotted a flicker of worry in her bright green eyes, but it vanished in an instant. “You thought I’d changed my mind since last night?”

Ben made a feeble attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “There are other things you can do, you know. I could probably get you involved with the group that’s getting together to make the ointment for the dogs’ paws.”

“Why does everyone keep saying things like that?” She threw her hands up in the air. Snow flew off a few of her fingertips.

“Well, you…”

She refused to let him finish. “I didn’t come all the way to Alaska to make foot lotion. I want to work with the dogs.”

“Paw ointment,” he spat. “And it’s a very important part of the race.”

“I’m sure it is.” She jammed her hands on her hips. Her blond curls whipped around her face in the cold wind. Even in her angry, disheveled state, she still looked like a princess. “But I’m here as a sled dog handler. I know I can do it.”

Ben wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince—him or herself.

“Clementine, it’s not an easy job. You could get hurt.” And what if I can’t save you? The thought hit him like a cold slap in the face.

“So what if I do? At least I’ll get hurt doing something with myself. Something amazing.” Stars twinkled in her eyes. Naive, dangerous stars.

Ben’s stomach tied itself in a familiar knot. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m saying that I’m going to handle sled dogs.” She crossed her arms and lifted one perfect brow.

Ben clenched and unclenched his fists. He could barely feel his fingers anymore. The numbness was a reminder of everything he wished he could forget. “Fine, go ahead. Get yourself trampled. Or run over by a sled. That would be a lot more fun than making paw ointment, wouldn’t it?”

He let out a sharp whistle and, when he was certain Kodiak was bounding toward him, he turned on his heel to walk away.