Winter Dreams

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "I'm all right. Can I do anything to help here?"

  "No," Sandy said. "And neither can we, since he's not hurt. He'll get up here himself, and we need to get back on the trail. The order we arrive at the way station determines the order we'll leave in the morning."

  "I know," Laura said. "But I think I'll take this opportunity to give my dogs a little food. It's almost noon."

  "No, you won't," Sandy said flatly. "I'm not ready to stop yet, and you're not staying behind here."

  She glared at him defiantly. "I thought you told me that I'd be making my own decisions in this race. That you'd tell me what I did wrong afterwards. If I do anything wrong."

  "Yeah, well that only goes if I see you making decisions not reflecting on my obligation to Tom to keep you safe. If you're foolish enough to do things that might cost you the race but still leave you uninjured — able to make some more stupid moves — I'll keep quiet."

  She pulled in a breath, preparatory to telling him off again, but he continued, "Surely you're not too wrapped up in winning this race to realize we don't know that man down there. And to have forgotten the fact you're a woman, which will have its own disadvantages, like we discussed and you promised to remember to take into consideration. It's not a good idea for him to find you here alone on the trail when he gets back up here. He might decide there's something he wants worse than winning the race."

  Her anger made her lash out at him in retaliation without considering her words. "Oh, you mean he might decide to rape me as a consolation for losing his dogs and having no chance now of winning with a short team?"

  Sandy dragged a hand across his face, then shook his head. The instant he started to speak again, Pete stepped over to them.

  "I'm getting a little sick of this," he said. "At first it was interesting to listen to the two of you go at each other. Now we're in the middle of a race, and we ought to be helping each other out and keeping an eye on one another. So how 'bout we get the hell back on the trail and on our way to Duluth? You two can snap at each other some more after the race."

  Chagrin replaced her dissipating anger, and Laura ducked her head. "I'm sorry, Pete. You're right." She looked up at Sandy. "I apologize. And I'll wait until you decide it's safe for us to stop and eat."

  She headed back to her sled without waiting for his response.

  #

  Sandy stood there alone after both Pete and Laura disappeared down the trail. Below, he could hear the Canadian cursing as he unharnessed his dogs and started to lead the ones he had left back up the cliff. From his perusal down the cliff face to see if the man were still alive after he saw him and the team go over, Sandy knew it was climbable. It would take the Canadian some time, however, since he'd have to crisscross back and forth rather than climb straight up. Once successful, he could haul his sled up with the rope he'd probably already fastened to it. Most mushers went over at least one cliff in their lives, and those who survived knew the drill in order to get back on the trail.

  He needed to do that himself — get back on the trail. Yet the scent and feel of Laura lingered in his senses. He'd felt her pain as his own when the shots rang out. Even knowing the dogs had to be destroyed to end their suffering didn't help alleviate the agony he knew Laura experienced. Her flinch had stabbed straight into his heart.

  Yet, like his usual jackass self, he'd protected himself from his feelings for her by demeaning her — scolding her. Even snarling at her. It didn't help at all to know he couldn't think of any other way to handle his feelings. The X's on his calendar weren't adding up fast enough.

  He fisted his hands, then let fly at a tree trunk. Damn it! He cradled his hand on his chest, knowing that stupid action had reinforced his status as a jackass, although he was well aware of what prompted it. He didn't make it a practice to lie — especially to himself. What was really bothering him was those goddamned X's were adding up too damned fast! Each one of them meant one day less he had left to be around Laura. Hear her voice. Get close enough for one more touch, the memory of which he could store in his mind and take out and brush off some day in the far distant, lonely future.

  The far distant, lonely future where Tracie would have found someone to share her life with, and he might still be worrying from one day to the next whether he would have enough money to feed his dogs. And when Laura would have found a man who could give her the luxuries she expected in her life and the love she deserved.

  Hell, if love were the only thing necessary for happiness, he could give her plenty of that. He didn't remember which desolate night he'd come to terms with his love for her, but it had been after their overnights on the trail. Try as he might, he couldn't deny his jealousy over her easiness with Pete during those three days and nights, even though the other man was married. Hell, he could admit Laura and Pete's relationship was no more than a deep friendship, but he was jealous of that, too. He couldn't have friendship with Laura, either, since he needed to hold back his admission of love for her.

  The best thing he could do for Laura would be to get the hell out of her life and forget her. Sure, there was something between them, which maybe would grow. Undoubtedly would grow, from the strength of the feelings on his side. It would also quickly disintegrate if he were forced to accept her father's charity in order to give Laura the comfortable life she deserved. He would resent her, and she in turn would come to hate him.

  He'd rather never have her love than get it and then watch it turn to disillusionment and ashes of its former embers. Two of the insurmountable barriers between them had already fallen. She'd walked away from her engagement to David, and the judge at the court hearing assured him that he wouldn't be considered a criminal as long as he stayed out of Alaska. He didn't have to consider himself on the run any longer to keep Tracie from being taken from him.

  His shattered career and loss of everything he'd worked for all his life remained the biggest obstacle, and one he could never overcome in the foreseeable future. George Dyer had stripped him of his hard-earned financial security with forged documents, with Sandy having no recourse against the man's heavy influence in Juneau. It had taken Sandy fifteen years to build that security.

  His parents had died before he had to tell them the money he'd been sending them to make their lives more comfortable would no longer be forthcoming. Cristy understood, although he promised to always see to her needs. She had David now for that.

  If he still had the money George Dyer stole from him to offer Laura, he would gladly pursue her heart. However, he would never offer her less than she had now — less than he had been able to offer Colleen.

  Keever growled, and Sandy glanced up to see the Canadian a few dozen yards away, leading his team over the edge of the cliff. Shaking off his thoughts, Sandy pulled his snow anchor free. The other teams would be far ahead by now, but none of them could get a huge lead in the deep snow.

  "Kra!" he called, stepping onto the runners. He gave the dogs their head for the first time today, taking advantage of the packed trail, which had already been traveled by eighteen other teams. The wind whistled by him, and the trees closer to the trail blurred on the edges of his vision. Yet her name stayed safe inside his mind, the wind unable to blow it away.

  ***

  Chapter 17

  As the sun was setting, Laura pulled into the way station, and secured her dogs before checking in with the race officials to find out her position. She'd lost count of how many times the lead had changed in the race and which teams were ahead of her — which behind. Except she did know Sandy was ahead of her.

  "Your time puts you in tenth place right now, Miss Goodman," the official informed her. "That'll be your starting position in the morning."

  "Then ten teams are still out?"

  "Yeah, but here come several now."

  A scattered group of six more teams arrived within seconds of each other, including Pete and Buck, and the officials carefully noted the times. Concerned for the missing teams, Laura cared for her dogs on in
stinct alone, staying aware of the conversation around her. Soon she realized the remaining teams were well overdue and the officials began commenting about heading out to check on them before total darkness fell.

  The Canadian with the short team came in before a search could be organized, and when questioned, he said the last team he had passed was well over half an hour earlier. But he hadn't checked behind him since then, to see how close the other team was traveling to his.

  Another team appeared down the trail, but when it came in, a couple of the dogs left bloody paw prints in the snow. The officials pointed this out, and the musher shook his head.

  "I took a shortcut back there across a lake. They must've cut their feet on some sharp ice."

  "You can't run those dogs tomorrow," the official told him.

  "I won't. I think too much of my dogs for that. Consider me withdrawn from the race. I'll head back to Grand Marais tomorrow instead, and carry them on the sled. Get Doc Sawbill to fix them up for me so I can get back home."

  The official made a mark on the list in his hand.

  The search team left a short while later, carrying lanterns on the sled. The next to the last missing team came in as Laura worked with Pete to set up the tent they would share. The official who stayed behind checked off the man's name, noted his time, then asked where he'd been.

  "Just enjoyin' the run," the musher said, squirting a stream of tobacco into a nearby snow bank. "Shoot fire, I been almost last this here whole race, and I know I ain't a'gonna be anywheres near winnin'. Decided not to kill my dogs tryin', and rest up for the celebration party tomorrow night. I can get drunk just as well a loser as a winner."

  "There's still one team out," the official said, chuckling.

  "Ole Sourdough's the only one I passed after my dogs got all wore out breaking trail," the musher said with a shrug. "But he shouldn't of been that far behind me."

  Laura ate her supper — a healthy helping of Katie's stew — before the search team came back in, a second team following them. She could hear the man on the sled moaning in pain. Curses intermingled with the moans when the men who had brought him in carried him into the large tent the officials had for their comfort. As soon as she repacked her supplies, she walked over to see if she could help.

  A scream split the air as she approached the officials' tent, and Sandy reached there the same moment she did.

  "You don't need to go in there, Laura," he said quietly. "They've got plenty of help."

  "Probably, but I'd feel better myself if I saw whether or not there was anything I could do."

  He shrugged and held back the flap for her to enter first. She brushed by him, feeling the contact through the layers of her clothing. He could have asked her how her day had gone, she thought with a mental pout. Then the musher screamed again, and she glanced over at him, paling. In the lantern light she could see the end of a bone sticking through the skin on the man's arm.

  One of the officials looked up and saw her standing there. "There's no need for you to be here, Miss Goodman. Red's got a little medical knowledge and he'll patch him up until we can get him into Duluth tomorrow."

  "What happened?" she murmured, aware with every inch of her body that Sandy had slipped a steadying arm around her waist when she gasped in horror at the sight of the bone.

  "He tripped and fell on the trail," the official said. "Broke his arm, and strapped it to his chest himself. His dogs were bringing him in when we found him. We'll dose him with painkiller and keep him here on a cot tonight."

  "Can't you set the arm?"

  "Red's afraid to try. The break's too bad."

  "Come on," Sandy said in her ear. "Let's get out of here."

  Willingly she allowed him to guide her from the tent. She breathed in the icy air, and the roiling in her stomach calmed. Sandy led her over to a small, fallen tree trunk nearby and gently pushed her down on it.

  "Sorry," she murmured, hunching her shoulders and curling her arms around herself. "Another failing of my being female, I guess."

  "I've seen men get shaky at a sight like what's inside that tent," he said, telling her that he understood her without further explanation. "Fact is, I doubt I'd have been any help in there without a half a bottle of whiskey in my belly first. And any whiskey tonight needs to be in that fellow's belly."

  "Thanks, Sandy. I don't know if I could take your rubbing my nose in my being female and lacking a man's attributes to make it in a race right now."

  "Oh, God, Laura. I don't mean to do that."

  He sat beside her, throwing his head back and staring up at the black sky. She followed his gaze, scanning the clear, inky blackness studded with dagger-bright stars. Someone began playing a harmonica in one of the camps, and the slow, lazy tune kept time with a breeze playing through the towering tops of the pines. Far away a wolf howled several melancholy notes, which she recognized as a call to its lost mate.

  "I only point out what you do wrong for your own safety, Laura," Sandy said insistently, keeping his gaze on the sky. "You know I still feel the same way. You've got no business going to Alaska. I doubt we finish up this race tomorrow without losing a couple more drivers and teams to something or the other, and this race is tame compared to the ten-day-long ones in Alaska."

  "If I ever have children, I hope I train them differently than the way you're trying to train me." He stiffened, and she hastened to explain, "I don't mean that you haven't done a wonderful job with Tracie. But then — " She sighed. " — that's exactly what I do mean, I guess. In a way. I've listened to how you handle her, and you praise her when she does commendable things, discipline her when she does wrong. You've never said one nice thing about me or how well I've been learning from you. I have no idea — despite your insistence on how good a trainer you are — whether I've learned enough to hold my own in that race."

  "You're very good, Laura," he said in a grudging voice. "Excellent, in fact." After a second's hesitation, he gave her praise that filled her with warmth. "I wouldn't hesitate to have you as a trail partner if I were running another Alaskan race."

  "Thank you. You don't know how much that means to me."

  He glanced sideways. "Why do you want to do it? You don't need the money."

  Shifting around on the log, she said, "How come you've never asked me that before, Sandy? You've told me ten thousand reasons why I shouldn't go, but you've never asked me why I wanted to."

  He waited a minute, then said, "Why do you want to do it, Laura? Is it because . . . ."

  "Oh, poop!" she said. "There you go ruining it. You've already made up your own reasons, and you're ready to list them rather than being truly interested in my feelings."

  "Poop?" he said with a chuckle. "Poop, Laura?"

  The log quivered, and she realized he was shaking with silent laughter. The yearning to hear his full-fledged laughter once more filled her, and she stuck her face up close to his.

  "Yes, poop, Sandy Montdulac! You told me once not to curse, but poop isn't cursing."

  The log shook harder, and he snickered. "That sounds like something Tracie would try to get away with."

  "Oh, she's got more imagination than that." Laura waved a hand, trying not to be too elated over him not drawing back from her. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on her face. She wished for a lantern in the trees above them, but she could imagine the blueness caressing her with warmth, rather than chill, for once.

  "Tracie would say something like 'poop-de-doodle-do.'"

  His guffaw rang like a clarion on the night air. She grinned, satisfied with herself, then joined him. The log shook a little harder, then an ominous crack sounded. The log broke, and she lurched into Sandy, tumbling them both to the ground before either of them could stop themselves.

  She landed full length on him, amazed in one corner of her mind when he didn't immediately fling her away and scramble up. Instead, he laughed for another few seconds, wrapped his arms around her and asked, "Are you all right?"

  She wasn't at
all, but she had no idea how to explain the problem. The weeks of depriving herself of his touch all piled in on her senses and she couldn't move. Layers of heavy coats and shirts separated their upper bodies, and she knew he had to be wearing long underwear beneath his trousers, the same as her. Yet the barriers between them melted away in her mind so fast she listened to see if the snow around her was sizzling as it thawed. She recalled his body from the night in the kennel as clearly as though she hadn't sent the image into a closet of her mind so many weeks ago and ordered it never to emerge again.

  "Laura?" he asked softly.

  "No. No," she said. "I'm not all right."

  He tightened his arms around her. "What's wrong? Where did you get hurt when we fell?"

  "It wasn't the fall, Sandy. I think you know that."

  She pushed against his chest, embarrassed at what she'd said and determined not to make a further fool of herself. He'd made it as clear as a man could that he didn't want anything more to do with her than a trainer-trainee relationship, and her pride couldn't stand another shattering. But her body slid between his legs, and maybe Sandy didn't want her with his heart, but she'd bet his body sure would enjoy the chance to soothe the aching wetness instantly flooding between her thighs.

  She gasped in mortification mixed with need, the sound intermingled with a guttural groan from Sandy, which spread her ache upward, pebbling her breasts and trapping her breath in her chest. She dredged up the willpower somewhere to try to move away from him, only making it an inch or so before he grabbed her hips and held her in an iron grip.

  "Don't! Ah, God, Laura, don't move. If you do . . . ."

  She blinked in confusion. Of course she knew the problem. As soon as she'd began her breeding program — long before she became involved with David as a man rather than a friend — Katie had sat her down for a talk. The elderly woman had been frank, telling her if she planned on raising puppies, she needed to know the whys and wherefores of how they would come about. And be aware of the lure to mate between animals — between a man and woman.