Alaskan Hero

by Teri Wilson

  It was the cruelest of ironies.

  Not to mention the fact that if Anya was a member of the avalanche search team, he would be leaving her in harm’s way. She wouldn’t just be training the dogs, practicing for a potential disaster. She’d be right there in the center of things.

  “Brock?” Cole raised his brows. “How about it? Don’t you think Anya would be a perfect addition to the team?”

  Yes. Brock swallowed. Yes, she would. Just say it.

  Anya gazed up at him, her violet eyes wide with hope and expectation. Brock wondered what those eyes would look like a year, five years, a decade from now, after she’d pulled her share of lifeless bodies from underneath the hard-packed snow of a slide.

  He looked away.

  He couldn’t do it. Maybe it made him her hero. Maybe it made him a coward. Either way, he wouldn’t be the one who took that innocent sparkle from her eyes.

  In as calm a voice as he could manage, he said, “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

  * * *

  Anya couldn’t possibly have heard Brock correctly. “Excuse me?”

  Brock hadn’t so much as spoken to her since their encounter in the snow cave. Anya didn’t know what to make of it. One minute he was leaning in to kiss her, and the next he was pretending as though she didn’t exist. And now he was telling Cole she shouldn’t be a part of the ski patrol.

  He cleared his throat. “I said I’m not sure if making you an official member of the ski patrol is the best idea.”

  “Of course it’s not the best idea. As Cole just said, the best idea would be if you agreed to stay on.” She swallowed. “But you’ve made it clear that’s not an option.”

  Brock’s gaze dropped to the table. For a moment, Anya felt guilty about reiterating the fact that Cole’s first choice for the job was Brock himself. Now that she knew about the disappearance of Brock’s brother, she could understand that things were more complicated than she’d initially thought. Even after all she’d been through, she couldn’t quite bring herself to feel betrayed by the fact that he was leaving.

  But she could feel betrayed by Brock’s reaction to Cole offering her a real job on the team.

  It was one thing to go about his business, ignoring her as though they’d never shared a moment of tenderness. But it was another thing entirely for him to try to steal this opportunity from her. How dare he?

  “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”

  Brock leveled his gaze at her once again. “That’s not at all what I said.”

  Cole intervened. “Let’s all slow down for a minute.”

  His gaze swiveled back and forth between the two of them before finally resting on Brock. “I must say, Brock, I’m surprised. Making Anya an official part of the team seems like the obvious solution. I assumed you’d be on board one hundred percent. You said yourself she’s a natural.”

  He’d said that? About her?

  She searched his expression and could tell it was true by the softening of his chiseled features.

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Yes, I did.”

  Anya’s anger ebbed somewhat. Just a bit. She was reminded of what he’d told her in the snow cave—about how she possessed a gift for the work they were doing. Those words had settled in her soul with a sweetness she could almost taste, like honey. No one had ever said anything of the sort to her before. She knew full well she could make a great cup of coffee, but this...this was different.

  “Then what’s the problem?” she asked, her voice growing wobbly. “I don’t understand.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. She would not cry. Not here in front of Brock and Cole. When she got back home to the cottage, she could cry all she wanted. She could wrap her arms around Dolce—who’d at last progressed to spending all her time right on Anya’s heels—and sob her heart out. But she would not do so here. She wasn’t about to give Cole any more reason to question her suitability for the job.

  Brock took a long, slow inhale. “Training the dogs is one thing. Doing the work itself is another entirely. There are many other facets to avalanche rescue work besides dog handling.”

  Anya lifted her brows. “Such as?”

  “You’d need helo training,” he said cryptically, as if trying to use lingo she was unfamiliar with on purpose.

  The joke was on him. She knew exactly what it meant. “I’ve ridden my fair share of helicopters. I live in small-town Alaska, remember? Small aircraft transportation is more common here than riding in a car.”

  “She has a point,” Cole said. Anya got the distinct impression he was stifling a grin.

  “What else?” she asked, focusing all her attention once again on Brock.

  “Well...probe poles. You’d need to learn how to use probe poles.” He crossed his arms and settled back in his chair.

  Was he just looking for excuses? Anya was well aware of what a probe pole was. She’d seen groups of them lined up along the wall in Brock’s barn back on that very first day. The day of the bear suit, as she’d come to think of it. She’d even Googled their use back when Brock was still Mr. Miyagi-ing her on a daily basis.

  Brock, of course, didn’t know this. Well, he would now. “I think I understand the theory behind probing—doesn’t common sense dictate you’d start at the bottom of the slide and work your way up?”

  At this, Cole laughed. “I knew this was a good idea. She’s done her homework, Brock. There’s no denying it.”

  Brock’s eyes flashed. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and pinned her with a grim look. “You’ve done your homework? Then surely you know the only options searchers possess for locating avalanche victims are dog teams, pole teams and beacons?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin.

  Of course she knew about beacons. Brock never let her set foot on the mountain unless she was armed with one. In the event of a slide, its signal could be activated at once, letting rescuers know her exact location. Skiers on avalanche-prone slopes were encouraged to carry beacons at all times.

  Brock’s gaze bored into her, unrelenting. “And I suppose you also know that the first fifteen minutes are the most crucial for locating victims?”

  She nodded.

  He angled his head toward her. “Remind me why that is, if you would.”

  Her heart clenched ever so slightly as she began to realize what he was getting at.

  “The sooner the victim is found, the more likely they are to survive,” she answered softly.

  Brock wasn’t finished making his point. “The survival rate for an avalanche victim drops to a mere thirty percent at the thirty-five-minute mark. Did you know that?”

  She hadn’t known that. Not exactly. She knew that the longer a person was buried, the more dangerous the situation became. But she hadn’t thought enough about it to put exact numbers on the odds. Now that Brock did, she began to realize how daunting they actually were.

  “After thirty-five minutes, the odds drop rather drastically.” Brock turned his attention to Cole. “She needs to understand that searches—real searches—don’t always end successfully like they do in training. Before you ask her to make a decision about her future, you owe it to her to make sure she understands that someday Sherlock will be helping her uncover a body under the snow. A dead body.”

  Brock pushed out of his chair and began to pace around the small cabin. In a move that spoke of pure frustration, he jammed a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends. He looked more like a Viking than ever before—cold, stony, like he was ready to go to battle.

  So he was frustrated. Fine. He wasn’t the only one.

  “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about me like I’m not even in the room. I’m sitting right here.” She slammed her hand on the table for added emphasis.

  Brock cast Anya a tor
tured glance that told her he was well aware of her presence. As if he felt her nearness down to the marrow of his bones, the way she always did around him.

  She blinked. Of course he didn’t. That was absurd. He wasn’t even speaking to her.

  Cole cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should all sleep on this for a night or two. Anya, the offer stands. Let me know when you’ve had a chance to think it over.”

  “I don’t need to sleep on it,” she said to Cole and Cole alone. “I’d love to be a part of your team.”

  “Okay then. We’ll be lucky to have you.” Cole winced. “Oh boy, half the town will be after my head once they hear you’re leaving the coffee bar.”

  Anya laughed. She wished Brock would laugh with her. Or at the very least crack a smile.

  He didn’t. He crossed his arms and looked down at her with a sadness in his gaze that reached into her chest and squeezed like a vise.

  “Congratulations,” he said with a bittersweet smile.

  And for a moment—a sweet, naïve moment—Anya thought that was the end of it, that everything would go on as it had before, that the two of them would somehow find the tenderness they’d lost over the course of the past few days.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Brock turned to Cole. “I suppose this clears the way then.”

  Clears the way? What was he talking about?

  Cole nodded. “If you say so. As you mentioned, there’s still quite a bit of training to do. How much time do you think we need?”

  Brock glanced at Sherlock and Aspen. Both dogs were curled on the floor sound asleep, oblivious to all that had just transpired. “A few weeks. Two, maybe three?”

  Dread pooled in the pit of Anya’s belly. Surely he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. It was too unexpected, too soon.

  “Very well, then.” Cole rose, walked to the desk beneath the window overlooking the ski mountain and jotted something down on a legal pad. “I have your exit date marked down as three weeks from today.”

  Exit date?

  Exit date!

  Anya was panicked to her core. She didn’t dare try to speak or stand, afraid she would say the wrong thing or break down like she had at the Reindeer Run. She concentrated all her efforts on keeping herself together. Once she could breathe without consciously reminding herself to do so, she lifted her gaze to Brock and found him watching her with an earnestness that felt as if it might tear her in two.

  He turned to go. Both dogs scrambled to their feet and followed him to the door. As Anya watched him go, a lump rose to her throat. She couldn’t help but wonder if the real reason he’d been so reluctant to name her as Sherlock’s permanent handler was that he knew such a change would pave the way for his departure. Did the idea of his leaving strike him straight in the heart as it did her?

  Deep down she knew it didn’t, no matter how badly she wished it were so. Brock had always known he’d leave. Even if he was tempted to stay, as he’d confessed to her in the snow cave, he wouldn’t.

  Or couldn’t.

  Either way, in a matter of weeks he’d be gone forever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “There’s a head poking out of your backpack,” Anya’s mother said as she stood in the doorway and frowned.

  Anya paused on the threshold. It wasn’t as if she could take a step inside the house with her mother guarding the entrance like that. She swallowed a sigh. She’d still harbored the desperate hope that today wouldn’t be as stressful as she’d imagined. The crew from church was due to arrive in fifteen minutes. Surely her mother wasn’t planning on standing guard like that all morning.

  “This is Dolce.” Anya slid the backpack from her shoulders. “She’s my dog—the one I rescued. Remember?”

  Her mother’s lips turned up in a slight smile. The wary look still lingered in her eyes, but Anya was grateful for the shift in her demeanor, no matter how subtle. “This is the shy little thing you told me about?”

  “Yes.” Dolce’s eyes darted between Anya and her mother, but she kept her head exposed. The first few times Anya had carried her out and about in the backpack, the little dog had ducked down inside like a baby kangaroo.

  Baby steps. “She’s really come a long way in the past month or so.”

  Her mother’s expression softened a bit more. “Why are you carrying her in a bag like that? Can’t she walk?”

  “Yes, she can. But she’s still quite timid. She feels safe in the backpack, though. This way she can still go places with me. It helps with her socialization.”

  “Socialization?” Anya’s mom shook her head and rolled her eyes, as though it were a foreign language.

  Good grief. She’d sounded just like Brock, hadn’t she? What was next? Romping around town in a bear suit?

  Absolutely not. Brock might be brilliant. And he might look surprisingly cute in the shaggy thing, but Anya doubted she could pull it off with the same panache. Besides, she might be his protégée, but she had to draw the line somewhere.

  “Why don’t we go inside? It’s freezing out here.” Anya nodded over her mother’s shoulder toward the living room.

  With a touch of reluctance, she opened the door wider. “I suppose all your friends are going to want to come inside, too?”

  “They’re coming here to work, Mom. On the roof, and out in the yard shoveling snow. No one’s going to force their way inside. I brought along a big box of coffee to share, though.” She set the coffee and a stack of paper cups from the Northern Lights Inn on the butcher block counter separating the kitchen from the living room. “It wouldn’t kill you to invite them in. They’re here to help, remember?”

  Her mother glared at the box of coffee. “I knew they would expect something in return.”

  As if the worth of a cup of coffee was roughly equal to deicing someone’s roof. Ridiculous.

  “That’s not what this is about.” It was a struggle to keep her voice even. Why did she bother? Maybe she should have taken her mother at her word and stayed out of it—just let the roof cave right in. Would that have really been better than accepting help from a handful of well-meaning strangers?

  Her mother peeled back the lace curtain from one of the living room windows and peeked outside. Anya sank onto the sofa and cradled Dolce in her lap, backpack and all. She ran her hand over Dolce’s petite head and was struck with the realization that, odd as it might seem, her dog and her mother had a few things in common. Both had been hurt in the past. Through circumstances out of their control, both of them had become distrustful of people. Her mother all but hid inside her house much the way Dolce had hid under the bed for almost a year.

  It was a sobering comparison. After all, one of them was a dog and the other a person. Not just any person, but her mother. And while her mother certainly had her share of faults, she’d always been there for Anya—which was far more than could be said of her father. But Anya was suddenly very aware that she had a choice to make.

  “Here they come.” Her mother rearranged the curtain back into place, crossed her arms and promptly uncrossed them. “Why don’t you answer the door?”

  Anya suppressed a smile as she realized her mother wasn’t upset about the volunteers coming to help out. She was nervous. As nervous as Dolce had been when Anya first brought her home. It would have been cute if it weren’t so sad.

  As Anya rose to answer the door, she wondered about the choices she’d made in the years since Speed had left. Was she destined to end up like her mother? Or even Dolce? Had her efforts at self-preservation meant that she’d been living her life under the bed, as it were?

  And if Dolce could start over after all she’d been through, did that mean Anya could too? Or would she wait until she was her mother’s age to finally let someone in?

  Her father had left. Speed had left. And no
w Brock was leaving. His departure date loomed over her like a black cloud heavy with snow—not the kind of snow that blanketed everything in a charming layer of glistening white, but the kind that thickened the air, making it impossible to see or breathe. But in the end, Anya would still have a life to live. Even after he was gone.

  She opened the door and found Zoey standing on the other side, along with a few other people she recognized. Among them was Cole, who waved at her as he went to work pulling a ladder out of the bed of someone’s pickup truck.

  Zoey greeted her with a broad smile. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” Anya swung the door open wider. “Thank you so much for bringing all this help. Come on in.”

  “Did you know you have a dog in your backpack?” Zoey’s eyes danced as she peered over Anya’s shoulder and stepped inside. “Is that Dolce, your dog I’ve heard so much about?”

  “Yes, this is Dolce.” Anya’s voice was laced with pride.

  “She’s so cute! Can I pet her?”

  “Yes, but move really slowly. She’s still very timid around new people and places.”

  Anya watched and murmured words of encouragement to Dolce as Zoey ran gentle fingers over the dog’s little muzzle. Dolce responded with a tiny wag of her tail, a movement so subtle Anya scarcely felt it through the padding of her backpack. More baby steps.

  “Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” Anya asked.

  “Sure. Thank you.” Zoey stomped the snow from her feet and stepped inside, giving Dolce a wide berth, a thoughtful gesture that made Anya smile.

  Anya introduced Zoey to her mother and went to pour her a cup of coffee. And it was amazing—Zoey managed to engage her mom in conversation. They were talking to one another—far less awkwardly than Anya would have imagined—when the doorbell rang.