“Scarlett? What are you doing calling this number? Why didn’t you just text?” Liz was short of breath, presumably from running to get to the phone.
“I must have pushed the wrong button in my call history,” Scarlett lied. The last thing she needed was a lecture about Henry Mitchell, III. She’d need to find another way to get in touch with Ben.
“Weird,” Liz said as Samson barked in the background. Normally a well-behaved dog, Liz’s Akita always threw a fit whenever they were on the phone. “Hey, so when can I come out to see the puppies? And, more importantly, when will you come to the city to visit me?”
“You miss me that much?”
“Of course, I do. Anchorage misses you, too.”
“Awww. The entire city misses me?”
“How could it not? You belong here. Please tell me you’ll come into town soon. There’s a new bar and grill I really want to try out, and I want you to come with me.”
“I’m sure we’ll find the time soon,” Scarlett answered dismissively, but Liz saw right through her.
“Scar-Scar, I mean it. It’s like you ran away. I never see you anymore.”
“You just saw me…” Scarlett counted back to the night they’d spent with Oscar and Lolly and Lauren’s ridiculously huge feast of a dinner party.
“Three weeks ago… Okay, maybe it has been a long time… Tell you what,” she continued. “There’s a race at the Tozier Track next week. Shane and Lauren weren’t planning to enter, but maybe it’s not too late for me to put a team together and go myself.”
“Okay.” Her friend sounded annoyed.
“Come and meet me there, and we’ll go out afterward.”
Liz’s voice returned to its usual cheer. “You promise?”
“Of course I do. I miss you like crazy, too,” Scarlett said, even though, in truth, she’d been far too busy in her new life to think about the one she’d left behind in Anchorage.
And every spare moment beyond all that, she thought of Henry.
When Scarlett told Shane and Lauren her intentions to run the Tozier Track race, they both lavished her with encouragement.
“Of course, you should do it! Why hadn’t we thought about that?” Lauren asked her husband.
“We’ll come with you and make sure everything goes off without a hitch,” Shane offered. “Then you can go out with Liz after, and I’ll get the dogs home. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect,” Scarlett said, giving them each hugs. “How did I get so lucky to have you two in my life?”
“Stop with the sentimental mush,” Lauren scolded. “We’re all about the other kind of mushing in this family. Now hike, girly! We’ve got some training to do.”
Lauren drilled her friend extra hard in the coming days, and Scarlett was grateful for the challenge. If nothing else, she’d know that she had given this dream her absolute all. After that, well, it would be up to God, to fate, to whatever larger plan was laid out among the stars.
The day before she was set to run her first official race, Scarlett went out for a practice run with Shane in the basket. Although he wasn’t her usual coach, he wanted to have the chance to observe her technique and offer any pointers Lauren might not have made yet. After all, he was the one who had the most experience of the three by far.
Plus, this race was even more peculiar than normal—it was going to be done on wheeled sleds. Scarlett laughed when she saw Shane next to the four-wheeled bike/sled monstrosity. “Let me guess, it’s just like learning to ride a bike?”
“Hardly. Welcome to chariot racing,” Shane joked as he gestured to the half painted collection of metal tubes. “Careful, this thing is practically an antique.”
Scarlett didn’t know whether to laugh or scream at the sight of the thing. “Please tell me this is like the regular sleds.”
Shane shook his head. “‘Afraid not. You’re going to have more traction, a greater risk of flipping and, make no mistake, you’re going to get dirty. Still, it’s a hoot!”
She laughed at his comical expression. “A hoot? What are you, fifty? Wait a minute… Did you say greater risk of flipping?” She rubbed her shoulder reflexively, remembering a past injury from this very thing—a flipped sled.
“Don’t worry. I brought helmets.” He held up two bright pink bike helmets. “Sorry we don’t have anything in your colors yet, but we hadn’t even considered this race until you brought it up.”
“My colors?” she asked as Shane slapped the helmet on top of her head and climbed into the chair at the front of the so-called chariot.
“You don’t think that I was running my team with pink jacketed dogs before Lauren, do you? It’s just a little something to give you an identity and give you pride in your racing. Now, let’s see if this thing still holds together.”
Scarlett smiled as she let off the brakes and yelled to the team. “Hike!”
The difference in this ride became immediately apparent. There were no shock absorbers in the rig, so they felt every bump full-on. The wheels dug in whenever the dirt was loose, and she had to throw her weight to the side to keep from flipping them to the ground. This couldn’t be good for Shane and his weakened legs.
Still, if he was in pain, he didn’t let on. He was all business now that he was in the coach’s seat. “Basic principles are the same,” he shouted, his voice taking on a funny, vibrato quality from the bumpy ride. “But you and the dogs work harder for it. After this race, you should probably continue training the dogs with the chariot a couple of times a week. It doesn’t fully apply to sled work, but it will keep you in fighting form.”
Scarlett nodded through clenched teeth and shouted to her leashed dogs as they came up on the turn. “Gee! Gee! Gee!” she yelled, commanding them to go right. The dogs turned as instructed, but the sled did not.
“Turn the handle bars!” Shane shouted.
Scarlett yanked at them sharply, and the rig rose up on two wheels. She jumped to the high side of the sled, and thankfully her weight slammed it back down to the ground. “You might’ve said something before!” she chastised Shane.
“Sorry, didn’t think about it. It’s been a long time.”
She laughed and did her best old man impression. “Back in my day, we had to carry the dogs, uphill the whole way, barefoot while being chased by a moose.”
They both laughed and continued to take jabs at each other as they finished Scarlett’s first run with the chariot.
“Thanks for that, coach,” she told Shane after returning the dogs to their kennels.
“No problem,” Shane wheezed.
“You’re hurt!” she cried, rushing to lend Shane a hand.
“I’ll be fine. Besides, it was worth it. I’ve really enjoyed watching you and Lauren come into your own with the dogs,” he said wistfully. “It lets me relive my own glory days.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Constantly,” he confessed. “But I’ve also found a different kind of fulfillment in helping the both of you. It’s nice to just enjoy the sport without all the drama, you know?”
She found the cane and returned it to Shane, but stayed closed in case he needed extra help tracking his way back to the cabin. “Actually, I don’t. You haven’t told me much about your early days.”
He laughed. “Haven’t I? You know the basics. Evil ex-wife, disappointed family, the works. I had to give up a lot for my love of the sport. You and Lauren are both so lucky that you haven’t, and that makes me happier than you could possibly imagine.”
Scarlett knew about Shane’s background as an oil baron. She knew about his evil ex Isabel, too. It was only now, though, that she realized how much he and Henry actually had in common.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked, needing to share with someone before her secrets ate her alive.
“You can tell me anything,” Shane said with a concerned look taking over his eyes.
That concern grew when she said, “But you can’t tell Lauren.”
“Ouch, that w
ill be a hard one.”
“Please, Shane? I really need to get this off my chest, and I promise I will tell Lauren as soon as I can. I just can’t… not yet.”
“Okay, I can see you’re upset. Tell me what’s going on.”
They stopped walking and stood together in the snow.
“It’s about Henry Mitchell, III,” Scarlett said as soon as she was sure Lauren was nowhere near. “He came back after that day that Lauren chased him away with a snow hook, and we talked.”
Shane nodded. “I suspected something was up, but didn’t want to say anything. I can see the way you tense up whenever he comes on the screen, but I can also tell that it’s not an angry tension. It’s something else.”
“You’re too smart for your own good, Shane. You haven’t said anything to Lauren about that, have you?”
“I didn’t know for sure, and now you’re telling me not to. So no, I haven’t and I won’t. But please never ask me to keep secrets from my wife again.”
“I won’t.” She shook her head adamantly, then sighed. “Henry’s not what people think he is, Shane. It’s all his family. They’re forcing him. He doesn’t want any of this. He wants to be a doctor, not a celebrity businessman.”
“He puts on a good show, doesn’t he? He certainly had me fooled. Are you sure he wasn’t lying to you when he said all this?”
“No, I know somehow deep down, I just know he’s telling the truth. And I feel bad for him, Shane.”
“Well, I can certainly understand where he’s coming from, having been there to a lesser extent myself.”
Her face searched his for an answer, but found none there. “So what can I do?”
“What do you mean what can you do? You have to respect his wishes.”
“Even if it’s not who he really is?”
He frowned and placed a hand on her shoulder in a paternal gesture. “Scarlett, let me tell you something important. Sometimes people are exactly what you think they are, but sometimes they’re someone else entirely. Sometimes our families define us, and sometimes all they give us is a name. And what’s in a name? It’s just a word, a sound.”
“Words have power,” Scarlett whispered, believing that with every fiber of her being.
Shane nodded before saying, “But so do feelings. Trust what yours tell you, and let the rest of it be damned.”
Rocks pinged and tinked off the underside of the truck as they pulled into the race area. Scarlett watched out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Henry. Would he have opted to compete in this non-traditional race, too?
Sure enough, it didn’t take long to find him, though he was hard to make out through the giant wall of cameras that flanked him in an arc. He talked and smiled while struggling to set up his sled under the watchful eye of Ben Benjamin and thousands of viewers alike.
Scarlett breathed a sigh of relief now that she finally knew firsthand that Ben had followed through on their conversation. Henry had a good man on his side. Perhaps that would be enough.
“Nervous?” Lauren said, patting her on the knee. “I’m sure you’ll do better than I did here on my first race.”
Scarlett blushed but tried to hide it as jitters. “Yeah, I was just saying to myself, I hope I don’t flip the chariot.”
“Chariot? Has Shane been trying to convince you to call that hunk of junk a chariot?”
“Guilty as charged,” Shane called from the backseat. “I even offered to put those spiky things on the wheels to give her an edge if she had to pass someone, but she turned me down.”
“You didn’t!” Lauren acted scandalized.
“Nah, but I still put in the other James Bond-style gadgets. Remember, the red button is the ejector seat.” Shane laughed.
Lauren rolled her eyes and pushed Scarlett away from Shane and the truck. “Let’s get you checked in.”
Scarlett glanced back as her friend led her away. “But what about the char—”
“I want Shane to get that thing down. I can’t have you needing a tetanus shot before your first race,” Lauren answered. “Speaking of things that make you sick…”
Scarlett followed her friend’s gaze and found that it was glued right on Henry. She laughed nervously rather than say anything to chastise Henry or come to his defense.
“The sport deserves more attention, but I hate that it’s coming like this,” Lauren growled only part under her breath.
“Let’s just get checked in.”
“Yes, don’t let him ruin your day. You’ve got this, girl.”
Scarlett chose not to mention that seeing Henry close up like this was actually a bright spot in the day.
Lauren pushed through the reporters and strode up to Ben Benjamin while Scarlett stumbled behind. “Checking in the winning racer, Scarlett Cole,” she projected so all the nearby members of the press could hear, too. “Write that in your articles!”
“Good luck out there today, Scarlett,” Ben said as he made a check on his list. “This will be a fun one.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right. You’ll see,” he said with a wink. “Oh, Lauren, it looks like Shane may need a little help corralling the dogs.” He motioned with his chin toward the parking lot where Shane struggled to hook up Fred.
“Oh, shoot! I told him not to… Grrr.” Lauren pushed her way back through the reporters, leaving Scarlett alone with Ben, and also Henry, who continued to work nearby.
She had so much to say but knew it would all be picked up by the cameras and likely replayed ad nauseam. “Good luck today,” she called to him.
He looked up, smiled, waved in a way that suggested he’d been keenly aware of her presence this whole time. Then the sincerity slipped away, and he said, “I don’t need luck. Enjoy coming in second!”
A series of flashes followed as the press took their pictures—probably overjoyed with this new rivalry angle for their stories.
Ben put an arm around her shoulder and turned her away from the media. “Liz is running late, but she told me she’d be here by the time you finish.” He glanced toward Henry for a moment before adding, “And then from there, you can ride together to the Otter’s Drop.”
“Okay, got it,” she answered before trotting over to help Shane and Lauren ready her team. Had Henry said something to Ben? Was he helping them conspire to meet? Would she see more of him later that day?
Unfortunately, she didn’t have long to mull these questions over.
She had a race to win.
Scarlett felt a rush even before she’d started moving. The chariot stood much higher off the ground than her usual sled, and she’d been able to wear a cute warm weather outfit instead of her usual layers upon layers to keep the cold out. Even with a light jacket on, she felt overdressed in the balmy fifty degree spring air. Yup, she’d definitely toughened up over the last month with Lauren and Shane. She was a real Alaskan now, and a real musher, too.
She waited as Ben Benjamin signaled the start for each individual team. The first to pull away hit a huge puddle directly, which shot a spray of mud toward the waiting teams.
Shane was right. This was going to get dirty.
Henry started before her, and she silently cursed her bad luck. If he started before her, he’d probably finish before her and could very well be gone by the time she finished… So much for finally getting to talk to him again.
Before she had too much time to wallow in self-pity, Mr. Benjamin gave her the signal to start.
“Hike!” she cried, then hung on for dear life.
The team was in top form today, rushing the track like they’d been waiting for this forever and a day. She wondered if they still felt Nome in their bones, if they longed for another big race like the one Lauren had taken them on for the Iditarod.
Almost a mile into the track now, the dogs had become more mud than fur, happy little golems charging forth like Shakespeare’s proverbial dogs of war. Scarlett hazarded a glance down at herself and found that she herself had b
ecome a mermaid of mud. What a sight they must be!
“Haw!” Scarlett called as they reached their first turn, then she whistled and clicked like a crazed bird.
Her wheel dogs were her favorites, and she knew just how to get them to perform for her. Wendy liked when she would occasionally say their name and click her tongue. Fred enjoyed a quick whistle. Seeing the bond Scarlett had formed with them already, Lauren had insisted Scarlett use them as the basis for creating her own team. She’d said she could easily pick two more dogs to balance her team, but Scarlett needed to find at least sixteen, which would be much harder.
If only Fantine and her puppies would be ready, that would be another seven right there. But the idea was ludicrous, of course. Fantine would never be strong enough, and her puppies needed more time to grow and train—along with some time to enjoy being puppies, of course. And Scarlett had already decided that, no matter what happened with her future as a musher, she’d be adopting both Fantine and her runt, Cosette, and giving them a forever home.
Her team continued to fly across the track, and soon another musher came into her sights ahead. Oh, this was new. How did she pass? She’d never done this before.
With all the practice and grace of a newborn moose, she held on harder and tried to remember the proper command for overtaking another sled. She had to figure it out fast, too.
“Umm, keep going?” she called, barely above a whisper.
Her Malamute Fred looked back, seemingly disappointed in her.
“I’m new, buddy, I don’t remember what to say to get you guys to go on by the— Right! On by! On by!” she shouted out and was pleased when Fred pick up his pace. His pink flapping tongue hung out from the side of his mouth. She’d made him proud, or at least she liked to think so.
As they passed the other teamed, she glanced over to offer a friendly smile, only to see it was Henry who would soon be eating her dust… or rather mud.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she called.
“Come here often?” he called back.
Let There Be Light Page 8
