Alaskan Hero

by Teri Wilson

  “How long have you had him?”

  “Since he was eight weeks old. His littermate too—Sherlock. He’s not quite ready to start training up here.” But he would be soon, if the way he was responding to Anya was any indication. “I have a breeder in Washington who I work with to select pups that look like good candidates for search and rescue dogs.”

  “That must be hard.” With Aspen flopped belly-up at his feet, Cole poured Brock a cup of coffee from the box in the center of the table and slid it toward him.

  As soon as he took the first sip, Brock knew it was from Anya’s coffee bar. It was far too good to come from anywhere else. He was beginning to understand why the Northern Lights Inn was such a draw. “What’s hard?”

  Cole shrugged and nudged Aspen with his foot. “Training the dogs as pups and then leaving them behind.”

  “I suppose.” Brock frowned. He’d never thought of it as leaving the dogs behind. Sure, it was hard sometimes. He spent almost every waking hour with the pups. Forming attachments was unavoidable. But it was his job, what he did best—train the search dogs and put them to work in the places where they were most needed.

  “Well, don’t you worry. We’ll take great care of this little fella.” Cole bent and rubbed Aspen’s belly, sending the pup into throes of delight. “And the other one too.”

  “Sherlock,” Brock said absently, still slightly thrown by the notion of leaving the dogs behind. He hoped the Tollers didn’t think of it that way. “The other one’s name is Sherlock.”

  He took another sip of his coffee. Maybe a healthy dose of caffeine would clear his head. The last thing he needed was to go soft. It wasn’t as if he were abandoning the dogs. He was putting them to work. They were helping people. He was helping people.

  Cole rose from his chair and shrugged into his parka. “Oh, by the way, I signed you up for the Reindeer Run.”

  The sudden change of subject threw Brock for a moment. Reindeer Run? Then he remembered Anya’s cute little smirk. You should do it. Actually now that I think about it, the Reindeer Run is right up your alley.

  “You signed me up?” he asked, still trying the shake the image of that wry smile. Of those eyes...

  “Yep. The ski patrol enters the race every year as a team. It’ll be fun.” Cole zipped up his jacket as he reached for the door. “I’m headed out to gas up the snow machine. We’ll meet back here in an hour or so for training, right?”

  “Right.” Brock nodded.

  Aspen sat up and swiveled his head back and forth between the two of them as if asking whether or not he should follow Cole.

  “You’re with me, Aspen,” Brock said.

  For now anyway.

  The dog scuttled over to him and rested his chin on Brock’s knee. Cole shut the door behind him, and Brock sighed.

  He laid his hand on Aspen’s head. “You get it, right? This is your home now.”

  Aspen swiped Brock’s hand with his tongue.

  “Good boy.” Brock ran the pad of his thumb over the dog’s head in lazy circles.

  Of course the dog understood. And if he didn’t, he would. He was a dog, after all. He’d bond with whoever spent time with him and fed him every day. By this time next year, Brock would be a distant memory to both Aspen and Sherlock. It was straightforward with animals. At least that’s what Brock always told himself, making it all the more easy for him to walk away.

  With people, however, things were rarely so simple. Which was precisely why Brock didn’t let himself get close—to anyone. It was also why he didn’t like the sound of the Reindeer Run.

  He wasn’t here to put down roots, so he saw no point in getting involved in community events. And a team event? It sounded even more problematic. The guys on the ski patrol didn’t need to start thinking of him as part of their team. But Cole had already signed him up, so he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. What could be the harm in running five kilometers—or whatever the Reindeer Run involved—with the guys? It couldn’t be any more dangerous than spending every evening with Anya.

  Anya.

  Something moved in Brock’s chest at the thought of her. Something warm, intangible and most definitely not invited.

  Convinced he was imagining things, he scolded himself. The thing with Anya was nothing. He was helping her out, that’s all. And, likewise, she was helping him with the pups. Wax on, wax off, just like she’d said. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  His throat suddenly grew tight, and his gaze was drawn to Cole’s Bible sitting in the center of the table.

  In Brock’s experience, it wasn’t unusual to find a Bible in a ski patrol headquarters. When the business at hand involved saving people’s lives, faith in a higher power never hurt. And Brock had always been a believer himself. It had just been a while since he’d picked up the good book. A long while.

  He reached for the Bible. The sheer weight of it felt comforting in his hands. The edges of the supple, leather cover were tattered and worn from what looked like years of use. Brock’s own Bible looked a fair bit newer and was packed up in one of the boxes back at the house. At least he thought it was. The boxes followed him from one place to the next, but sometimes he didn’t even bother to unpack them. What was the point?

  He flipped the book open and was relieved when his fingers automatically found the page and verse he was searching for—Luke 19:10.

  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

  It was the verse he’d based his life on.

  Brock certainly didn’t have a savior complex. He knew all too well he was a man, full of more than his share of flaws. He’d never felt comfortable with the label hero no matter how many times it was applied to him.

  But he’d always considered what he did to be a calling—finding those who’d been swallowed up by the snow, and teaching others to do the same. His parents, particularly his mother, worried over him and his obsession, as they called it. Was it an obsession? Maybe. Brock had devoted his life to it, to the exclusion of everything else.

  And everyone else.

  It demanded everything from him, and he was freely willing to give it. The thought of sharing his life with someone, of loving someone, only filled him with dread. Without warning, people vanished. Even loved ones. He knew that only too well.

  But that was okay because without his calling, the disappearance of his brother would have been for nothing. And that would have been unacceptable. At least he’d made something meaningful out of all that pain.

  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

  He was doing God’s work. No one would be hurt by it. Not him, not Anya and certainly not the dogs.

  At least that’s what he told himself as he closed the Bible and pushed it away, out of arm’s reach.

  Chapter Five

  “Hi Mom, it’s me.” Anya followed the whirring sound of her mother’s sewing machine through the darkened living room of her childhood home, down the hall and to the sewing room.

  The sewing room, formerly Anya’s bedroom, was where her mother could most often be found, bent over the Singer, stitching together brightly colored suedes, velvets and sometimes even furs. Today, like most other days, an array of traditional Inuit anoraks and parkas hung across the length of the curtain rod. Some were complete, ready to be shipped off to the native arts cooperative gallery in Anchorage, where her mother’s work was sold. Others still needed finishing touches here and there. But they were all beautiful, even in their various stages of completion. Beautiful and one of a kind.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Her mother glanced up from the machine but kept feeding fabric toward the needle. “Give me just a minute. I’m almost finished with this sleeve.”

  “Sure.” Anya sat on the foot of the bed—th
e same twin mattress she’d slept on from first through twelfth grade—and watched.

  As always, her gaze was drawn toward her mother’s hair, twisted into a thick braid that ran down the middle of her back. When she was a girl, Anya had wanted nothing more than to look like her mother. Or any of the other women in her family, really. They all had warm mocha skin, dark, mysterious eyes and long hair as black and shiny as raven’s wings. Anya’s mother may have only been part Inuit, but she looked every inch a native Alaskan, as did her aunts and cousins.

  Anya’s appearance couldn’t have been more different. With her gangly limbs, ivory complexion and ribbon of chestnut hair, which glowed almost amber in the sunshine, she resembled a tourist from the Lower 48 more than any of the native Alaskan children in her classes at school. But it was her eyes that really set her apart.

  Who had violet eyes?

  No one Anya had ever seen, other than the strange-looking girl she saw in the mirror every day. As if her name wasn’t awful enough: Anya Petrova. A fleeting glance at her mother was sufficient to tell anyone who wondered about such things that the Russian name was solely her father’s doing.

  Like most girls, all she’d wanted was to fit in, to be like everyone else. But she wasn’t like everyone else, not even her own mother. The differences between them were written all over Anya’s face.

  “What brings you by, Anya?” The sewing machine slowed to a stop. Anya’s mother took her foot off the pedal and swiveled to face the bed.

  Anya shrugged. “I just wanted to stop by and visit for a minute. I can’t stay long, though.”

  She didn’t get into the reason why—Brock’s field trip. Because it was a nonevent as far as she was concerned. Not worth mentioning.

  Then why is just the thought of it making me nervous enough to break into a sweat?

  She shrugged out of her parka. “It’s warm in here.”

  “Is it?” Her mother frowned and glanced at the window, completely obscured by the parkas hanging from the rod. “It’s snowing again, right?”

  “Yes, it’s really coming down. I brought you a coffee.” Anya thrust a cup toward her. “An Almond Joy latte. Today’s special.”

  She took the cup and gave the tiny hole in its plastic lid a wary sniff. “You know I can’t sleep when I drink this stuff.”

  “It’s decaf, Mom.”

  “Okay.” She took a dainty sip. “Mmm. This is really good.”

  Anya smiled a relieved smile. She hadn’t actually stopped by for a simple visit. The flavored coffee was the buffer—bribe had a rather ugly ring to it—she hoped would help her mother accept the news she had to share.

  She took a deep breath and prepared herself to spit it out, to just say it. Time was ticking, and Brock would be at her cottage in less than an hour. “A group of people at my church is getting together for a local outreach project in a couple weeks.”

  “Oh?” Her mother’s mouth turned down in a slight frown.

  Not a good sign. Anya plowed on anyway. “I signed us up.”

  “What does that mean? You’ve signed us up to do chores for people? With your church?” Her mother couldn’t have looked more horrified.

  If Anya had once been uncomfortable with the notion of God, her mother’s resistance could only be described as Alaskan-sized in its scope. After Anya had first heard those words—never will I leave you—she recounted them earnestly to her mother, struggling to explain how it had felt like God Himself had dropped down from the rafters of the sanctuary and whispered them in her ear. Her newfound faith had been a source of mystery to her mother. She was still reeling from the desertion of her husband, even after twenty-six years. The idea of a faithful God was too foreign for her to comprehend.

  Anya sat up a little straighter, wishing they weren’t having this conversation in her childhood room. Sitting on the narrow twin bed made her feel like a five year old instead of a grown woman. “No. I put our names on the list of people who need help with certain projects. I was thinking mainly of the roof. There’s a good four inches of ice up there, Mom. All that weight can’t be good for the house.”

  “My house. Not the house. You haven’t lived here in six years. So when you say you put our names on the list, you really mean my name, don’t you?”

  “Sort of,” Anya said under her breath. “If you want to get technical about it.”

  Although if things didn’t change with Dolce soon, she might be living in this small room once again. Moving back home wasn’t exactly an ideal scenario, but where else could she go?

  Anya wasn’t about to admit that the outreach project was designed mainly to help the widows of Aurora. A technicality, in her opinion. Her mother might as well have been a widow. Actually, though Anya hated to admit it, she could already be a widow.

  She hadn’t considered the idea before, even when she’d written her mother’s name and address on the list. But there was no guarantee her father was still alive, wherever he was. Anya blinked and waited for a wave of grief to wash over her at the prospect. The wave never came. Instead she felt a familiar, icy numbness in her chest.

  “I don’t need any help from your church, Anya. I can take care of my own roof.” Her mother turned back toward the sewing machine, her wrist flicking angrily while she wound the bobbin.

  “Mom, let them come help. They want to do this.”

  “Then what? What happens after they deice my roof? They’ll expect me to show up at church, that’s what.”

  “No, they won’t.” And even if they did, would that really be so bad? “It’s not like that, Mom. No one will expect anything of you in return. They’re just nice people who want to help.”

  Her back may have been turned, but Anya could sense her mother’s skeptical eye roll, could feel the bitterness behind it.

  Anya rested a hand on her shoulder. “I want to help. Please let me take care of this for you.”

  Her mother stiffened, saying nothing, and the sewing machine purred to life once again.

  Anya would have preferred a spoken agreement, but she figured this was as close as she was going to get. Before her mother had a change of heart, Anya gave her shoulder a final pat, then slipped from her old bedroom and back out into the snow.

  * * *

  “Where are we going again?” Anya asked as she climbed onto the passenger seat of Brock’s truck.

  “Nice try.” He cast her a quick glance as she got settled. Then he closed the passenger door and jogged through the snow to the driver’s side, pausing on the way to check on Sherlock and Aspen situated in their crates in the back.

  “We’re going on a field trip,” he said again as he settled himself beside her and cranked the ignition to life.

  “That doesn’t really answer my question.” Anya couldn’t help but grin despite Brock’s refusal to be more specific.

  He’d worn another crazy hat. Instead of antlers, this one sported pointy wolf ears and a comically long toothy muzzle that stuck out over his head. He looked utterly ridiculous. Why Anya found it charming was a mystery she would never understand.

  “You look like a caricature of the Big Bad Wolf. Should I have worn my red hoodie?”

  “You look fine.” He cracked one of his rare smiles.

  Anya’s stomach fluttered, and she looked away. “So I shouldn’t expect to see anyone else in costume?”

  “It’s a socialization tool, not a costume,” he said dryly.

  Anya snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Brock’s response was little more than an amused grunt and a shake of his head. He said nothing and kept his eyes glued on the road.

  For that, Anya was grateful. On the rare moments he locked his icy-blue eyes on hers, she went all soft inside.

  It was annoying. But she really couldn’t help it. She was only human. She might have
had her heart broken a time or two, but she could still recognize a handsome man when she saw one. And Brock certainly fit the bill in that regard. That strong jaw and those cheekbones would have looked more appropriate on a marble sculpture in an art museum somewhere than they did in Aurora, Alaska. Not that she was complaining...

  She scooted farther away from him on the bench seat of the truck and put an extra inch or two of space between them. It wasn’t much, but it couldn’t hurt.

  It was then that she refocused her attention on the road and realized where they were headed.

  She frowned. “Are we going up to the ski mountain?”

  “Yep.” He nodded at the familiar wooden sign nestled among a cluster of evergreens on the side of the road advertising the entrance to Aurora Ski Resort.

  Great.

  She hadn’t been up on the mountain since the day of Speed’s infamous interview.

  “Is that okay?” Brock asked, cruising past the sign and unknowingly toward the scene of her humiliation.

  A lump lodged in her throat. She did her best to swallow it. “Sure. I thought you were giving me another dog training lesson, that’s all. That is why I show up at your house every afternoon.”

  Her words came out with a little more bite than she’d planned. Brock either didn’t notice, or he didn’t care. He slid the truck into a parking place and unclicked his seatbelt. “Patience, grasshopper.”

  She sighed and let herself out of the truck before he could come around and open her door for her. This wasn’t a date, after all. And it was beginning to look less and less like a dog training class. Not that her previous lessons had been all that conventional. But still. She would have liked to know exactly what they were doing here. She wasn’t altogether thrilled to be back on the mountain, but she was undoubtedly intrigued.

  Brock made quick work of unloading Sherlock and Aspen from their crates. Once free, Aspen sat calmly and professionally at Brock’s feet awaiting a command. Sherlock, however, bounded straight toward Anya.

  “Good boy,” she cooed and scratched Sherlock behind his ears.