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

by Melissa Storm

  She planned to snap pictures later that evening while Shane slept. That way she could advance their search for Rosie while not forcing the girl’s father to face the past any more than he wanted to. She was so proud of him for finally letting go of what had been and committing to finding what could be. Lauren vowed that she would do everything in her power to help the family reach a happy ending—even if that ending didn’t include her.

  Around six that evening, a knock sounded at the door. Lauren looked to Shane for an explanation, but he just shrugged off her quizzical expression and hobbled over to answer it.

  A moment later, he was back with a tall paper bag full of something that smelled absolutely wonderful. “Ready for some dinner?” he asked as he carried the delivery toward the table. Right on cue, Lauren’s stomach growled loudly enough for both of them to hear.

  “I’m famished,” she admitted, “but let me get Briar first. I’m sure she’d love to lie under the table and beg for scraps while we eat.”

  “Lauren…” he warned.

  “Hey, I kept my end of the deal. Now you need to keep yours.” She continued toward the door, unwilling to negotiate this point.

  Shane called after her, “Don’t give her any scraps, though. She hasn’t had people food for years, and having it now could make her sick. Besides, this meal is supposed to be special. For us.”

  “You worry too much,” Lauren teased before slamming the door behind her and racing out to the kennels to untie Briar Rose—whom she would now call just Briar, to avoid making Shane uncomfortable—and bring her inside.

  “He says it’s special,” Lauren told the dog as she undid the latch on her lead. “What do you think that means?”

  Briar howled and jumped up to give Lauren kisses the moment she was free, and Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if those weren’t the only kisses she might receive that evening. For try as she may, her feelings for Shane Ramsey refused to abandon her. Instead, they continued to grow rapidly. With each new confession of truth, each new kind gesture and friendly heckle, she found herself falling deeper and deeper under his spell.

  Still, he’d been hurt—and badly. She cared too much for him to rush him into anything that would open the wounds of his broken heart before he was ready.

  One day, perhaps, the timing would be right, and she’d just know.

  And he’d know.

  And they’d live happily ever after. The end…

  Or something to that effect.

  Today was not that day, could not be that day, because they still had so much to do, so many dragons to slay before declaring any type of victory. They’d start with finding his daughter, and then they’d find the truth about her father. Both mysteries needed to be resolved so that the pair of friends could heal and truly examine their futures, decide if those futures should intertwine.

  Oh, she hoped it could work out for them.

  Ultimately, though, Lauren’s father had raised her to be a practical woman, with her head glued firmly to her shoulders rather than floating up in the clouds. As much as she loved to envision fairytale endings, life had already proven that it enjoyed writing a different kind of story for her.

  Loss, guilt, grief, settling for what was more than striving for what could be. It was a tale as old as her time on this earth. It was why she’d settled for a job at data corp rather than taking the time to uncover her true passion, and it was probably why it had been so easy for her father to keep his past hidden from her all these years.

  Not anymore, though.

  Lauren finally knew what she wanted from life, and Shane had been a huge part of that, whether he’d tried to be or not.

  When she and the red husky came back inside, they found Shane setting the table with china plates rather than the usual disposable ones. He’d even brought out a bottle of white wine she’d spied in the fridge earlier that day.

  “What’s all this?” she asked with a sly smile as Briar bolted through the doorway and pushed Shane back against the wall in a flurry of tail thumps that actually wagged her entire body.

  “Easy, girl!” He laughed and stroked the dog’s head.

  “You talking to Briar or me?” Lauren quipped.

  “Maybe both,” he said, commanding the dog to sit with a quick hand gesture.

  “What are we celebrating tonight?” Lauren asked, pointing her chin toward the chilled wine and elegant flatware. “Your fresh start?”

  Shane crossed the kitchen to retrieve a bottle opener from the neat and tidy junk drawer, then came to stand right before her as he tossed the tool up and down in his palm. “Actually, we’re celebrating yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yep.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Nope.”

  She fixed him with a stern glare.

  “Just kidding,” he said with a chuckle. “Sit down and try the best halibut in the entire state of Alaska for yourself. I promise to explain everything.”

  She did as told, removing one of the takeout boxes from the large delivery bag and serving herself some of everything. “What is all this?” she asked, pulling out box after box from the bag, wondering why he’d ordered enough to feed ten people at least.

  “It’s from that little cafe in town, Maurice’s. Everything is so good that that’s what I ordered.”

  “Come again?”

  “Everything. I ordered everything on the menu,” he declared proudly as he opened another container and showed her what was inside. “Try the creamy stuff first. It’s delicious.”

  Lauren popped a spoonful of the light, creamy dish into her mouth and immediately moaned with pleasure. “You weren’t kidding. Except now I wonder if you ordered enough!”

  Shane laughed as he transferred the various cuisines to his plate as well.

  “Okay, so this is definitely how you celebrate,” Lauren mumbled between bites. “Good food, good wine, good friends. Just need to know if we have a good cause.”

  “Of course we do. We’re celebrating your official start as a musher.” He raised his glass in toast, but she stared at him slack-jawed rather than return the gesture.

  “Umm, hello, I’ve been doing this for almost two months now,” she argued.

  “You’ve been a handler for almost two months. Starting tomorrow, you’re a musher.”

  “Like a promotion?”

  “Sure, if you want to think of it that way. I’ve signed you and the dogs up for your first race.”

  Oh, this was welcome news! She raised her glass at last and clinked it to Shane’s. They both took sips of the sweet white wine and smiled across the table at each other.

  “Is it the Iditarod?” she asked, apparently ruining the moment with her naivety.

  “Are you kidding? No way. You don’t jump straight to the big race, Lauren. You need time to really get your bearings before taking it all the way.”

  She frowned and set her fork down after finishing the entire serving of the gray dish she’d plopped onto her plate. “I don’t know… Are you sure I can do this?”

  “You mean because you fell off the sled and lost the dogs during your practice run?”

  Her face turned beet red. At least, she assumed it did, because it felt like her cheeks were on fire from the embarrassment. “How did you—?”

  He laughed again, and now she was certain she’d heard Shane laugh more that one day than all the rest of the time she’d known him. “Word travels fast. It’s a small community, remember? Anyway, yes, falling off is almost like a rite of passage. Just like having your first race is an important rite for any new musher.”

  “You really think I can do it? That I can be good?”

  “I know you can.”

  “Well, if Mr. Grump believes in me, then I believe in me, too.”

  They both laughed together.

  “Back to Mr. Grump, I see?”

  She shrugged. “Old habits die hard. Just promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?” He quirked an eye
brow at her.

  “Please don’t make me race against you anytime soon. Give me the chance to win one or two first, eh?”

  Shane patted his leg and called Briar over to his side, then handed her a piece of fried, breaded moose meat, which the dog accepted with relish.

  It was only after the dinner and wine were both polished off and the dishes had been cleaned and dried that Lauren realized he’d changed the topic.

  The next morning found Lauren hard at work, scrambling to follow Shane’s instructions as he barked them into the cold pre-dawn air. Although he generally seemed happier in life now, it was easy to forget this change during his military-like training drills.

  Lauren no longer ran the dogs alone, but with Shane in the basket of the sled, calling out adjustments she needed to make now and jotting down notes he planned to share with her later. Work no longer ended with the day, but now they discussed technique over dinner and well into the night. He even had her reading his old copy of Jack London.

  At first she thought it might be overkill, but then she noted that the sled had more give when she used the techniques Shane had drilled into her. Whenever she tried to lean into a turn, the sled moved with her, like they were becoming one.

  “With more give, there’s less likelihood that you’ll get bounced off when you lean into your turns. Just try not to get to low, or you’ll squish me in here,” Shane shouted from his new seat of honor inside the basket.

  At the end of every day, the dogs would pant happily and curl into little fluff balls as they went to sleep, and Shane would down a few pills to deal with the pain rattling around in the sled caused.

  Lauren tried to suggest that he didn’t need to come on every run, but he shrugged off her concerns, showing up the next day with pillows.

  “No chance of my squishing you now that you’re bundled up like the Michelin man,” she joked, but he did not laugh. The business of sledding was far too serious for him to ever laugh at the jokes she made out there.

  As the days continued to pass in a productive blur, Shane wasn’t the only one whose comfort was pushed to the limit. As soon as Lauren felt like she was getting used to a particular trick or technique, he would change the game on her. Once she’d managed a good time on one trail, he’d remove two of the dogs from her team and have her run it again, telling her she needed to manage the same time with the reduced team.

  “Strength training,” he called from the basket. “We started with all of them pulling the two of us. We cut down slowly so they get used to pulling more. Normally we’d use the snow machine for this, but… well, you know.”

  When the lead dogs got used to her commands, he’d switch up the pair, sometimes even putting a team dog next to a normal lead dog.

  At night, as they ate dinner, Shane would regale her with tales from the trails, as he called them. Times he’d fallen, times he’d had to use his body as a snow hook, even the time he’d gotten soaked falling into a lake during a summer run.

  “One thing you’ve got going for you, Lauren, and it’s going to make you a great musher: you know how to roll with the punches. Out there, nothing goes as planned,” he said, tapping his knee with the cane he now used.

  “Being able to adapt and move quickly will save you and your team. It’s why I keep messing with your team setup. You can’t rely on just a few dogs. If one gets hurt and you need to drop a dog at a checkpoint, you need to know how to adjust your team accordingly. It’s just you and them out there. They depend on you just as much as you depend on them. That’s why they’re a team. You all are.”

  “We all are,” Lauren said, shooting him a smile.

  “I like the sound of that,” he said before stuffing his mouth again.

  Lauren invited Scarlett up to Puffin Ridge for a ride on the sled. It would be her first time running with someone other than Shane in the basket, and no one deserved that honor more. Scarlett had been working hard toward the mysteries of Edward Dalton and Rose Ramsey, and Lauren wanted to make sure she was properly thanked.

  Her guest came to the door bundled tightly in every possible article of winter wear and then some. She even wore hot pink snow pants, which made Lauren and Shane both laugh.

  “Oh, I brought the mail your friend from the lower forty-eight sent up. It’s on the front seat of my car. Should I go grab it?” Scarlett asked as she stomped the snow from her regulation-standard bunny boots, making it clear she’d done her research when it came to this sport.

  Lauren gave her friend a hug hello. “Sure. Can you set it on the table, then meet me around back? I’ll start prepping the sled.”

  “Have fun out there,” Shane said as he settled into his recliner.

  “Wait, you’re not coming with us?”

  “Don’t need to. Besides, I’ll only get in the way.” He grimaced as he shifted in his chair and propped his cane on the arm.

  “If you’re sure…”

  He waved her off. “I’m sure. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

  She laughed and shook her head. Shane needed a serious slang update, but she’d work on that later. Right now, the excitement of having her friend at the cabin and running her first full team—she decided not to count the unfortunate time she’d fallen from the sled—were more than enough to hold her focus.

  “Here I am!” Scarlett sang as she skipped through the snow and made her way over to the dogs. “I can’t believe I’m here at Shane Ramsey’s and going to take a ride with his team.”

  “Today,” Lauren said, hooking Fred on, “they’re my team.”

  “You know what I mean!” Scarlett looked back toward the house. Shane’s silhouette was just visible through the large front window. “He seemed nice today. Are you two getting along better?”

  Lauren felt heat rise to her cheeks and hoped her friend would attribute it to wind burn rather than embarrassment. “Yep. He’s really turned over a new leaf.”

  Scarlett looked across the snowy valley. “Funny, I don’t see any leaves anywhere.”

  “I love you to death, Scar, but maybe you should stop trying so hard to be funny.”

  Scarlett stuck out her tongue and then immediately drew it back in. “Ack, that’s cold!”

  Lauren finished securing the bungie cords and even added one of Shane’s pillows to the basket for her friend. “You ready?”

  “Darling, I was born ready.”

  They high-fived through their thick mittens.

  Lauren couldn’t tell who was more excited. “Then hop in the basket, and let’s do this thing.”

  She pulled up the snow hook and shouted to the team, “Hike, hike!” Holding tight to the handlebar, she ran behind the sled, helping as the dogs got up to speed. With a quick hop and a stumble, she managed to wrestle her way back on to the footboards.

  Scarlett oohed, ahhed, and even raised her hands in the air as if she were on a rollercoaster ride. Lauren loved every second of it.

  After three hours, when the dogs were tuckered out and the cold had seeped deep into both of the girls’ bones, Lauren directed them back toward the kennels so the two of them could get inside and get something hot in their stomachs.

  “That was… ahh-mazing!” Scarlett cheered. “When can we do it again?”

  Lauren laughed, thankful she had managed to make such a wonderful friend. “Soon, soon, I promise.”

  “What I don’t get is how Shane ever gave this up. It’s like flying, you know. Light gliding across the heavenly plane.”

  “Somebody’s been hitting the purple prose hard, I see. And you know Shane had to stop for a little while because of his injury.” She patted Fred on the head and told him what a good boy he was as she hooked him up to his house.

  Scarlett helped tie up the other dogs, but Lauren still checked each latch, knowing how badly her friend would feel if a dog got loose because of her.

  “But Lauren, how long has it been now?” Scarlett watched as the musher checked each dog, even those that hadn’t been run that afternoon. “You’ve been he
re for three months, right?”

  “Yeah. So?” She finished with Zeke and stomped back through the snow toward the cabin.

  “So… What if he never gets better?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No, you don’t see how hard he works at his physical therapy. You don’t know how much he loves the sport.”

  “But I love it, too, and I’m not out there running my own team. Sometimes life doesn’t give you what you want.”

  “Scar, please. Shane is going to get better, and if you ask him nicely, he may even give you an autograph.”

  Just like that, the mood lightened again as Scarlett asked, “Oooh, really? You think so?”

  “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s go inside. I have a stew that’s been slow cooking all day, and it has our names on it.”

  Still, Scarlett’s words nagged at Lauren. Was she really so optimistic about Shane’s recovery that she’d ignored certain signs?

  No, impossible.

  Shane was a fighter. Just like her. He would get better.

  He had to.

  Lauren and Scarlett burst into the kitchen, still high from the thrill of the track. They found Shane standing in front of the counter with a look of displeasure on his face.

  “Were we too loud?” Lauren asked, hoping he hadn’t truly returned to his Mr. Grump ways.

  He shook his head and pointed to the opened box on the counter.

  Lauren followed his gaze, spying a rectangular box by the knife block. “Did you get a package? What is it? Why are you so upset?”

  “Not me. You.”

  “You opened her mail?” Scarlett asked, placing a mittened hand on each hip. “That’s kind of illegal, right?”

  “I was expecting a package from Amazon, and when I saw the smile logo, I thought it was mine. I didn’t realize until I had already…” He lifted his eyes from the box and moved them over to Lauren without blinking. “You need to see this.”

  Lauren stepped toward Shane. If this was his reaction to the box’s contents she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know what was inside.

  “Go on,” Scarlett nudged her. “I’ve been hanging onto that thing for weeks. I’d love to know what’s inside.”