Across A Thousand Miles

Across A Thousand Miles
Nadia Nichols

Heart-stopping action…and heartwarming romance!Rebecca Reed and Bill (Mac) MacKenzie have nothing in common…except their desire to run the Yukon Quest.She's an experienced musher who knows only too well how humbling the northern landscape can be. She understands that the Quest–from Whitehorse, in the Yukon, to Fairbanks, Alaska, across a thousand miles of frozen trails–will take every ounce of strength and skill.He's a cheechako, who doesn't know a dog harness from a doghouse. He's come north for a year to take care of his brother's dog team–and to escape his past. To Rebecca, his decision to run the Quest is not only arrogant, it's dangerous.Race day arrives, and Mac and Rebecca struggle against the harsh elements. One night, in a fierce snowstorm, Rebecca and her team are blown over the mountain, and only the courage of the cheechako–the man she's beginning to love–can save her.

Rebecca was in trouble

Mac was as sure of this as he’d ever been sure of anything. She was in terrible trouble somewhere up ahead.

Sled dog racing! he fumed. Whoever thought up such a ridiculous sport? “All right,” he bellowed to his team. “Get up.” His voice had an edge to it that he’d never used with his dogs before. They struggled valiantly against the ferocious wind and swirling snow.

Where the hell was the summit? They must be getting close. Mac looked ahead into the stormy darkness. Was that a sled in front of him? He reached out, and his hand connected with the solid wood of the driving bow. “Hey,” he shouted. “Rebecca?”

The top line of the sled bag ripped open in the fierce wind, and a man sat up. “Rebecca’s somewhere down below. She and her whole team got blown over. I don’t know how far they fell.”

Mac stared at the bottomless void. She could be anywhere along this slope or she could have tumbled clear to the bottom. How in God’s name would he ever find her in this whiteout?

He turned and plunged through the snow to the front of his team. He unhooked his lead dog from the gang line.

“Merlin, come!” he shouted over the howl of the wind. Then he turned his back on the dog and began a careful, step-by-step descent of the slope, panning his headlamp back and forth as he went.

He had to find Rebecca!

Dear Reader,

The Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race is without a doubt one of the toughest in the world—an epic journey covering one thousand miles of rugged wilderness terrain in temperatures that often reach minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit. It is the ultimate proving ground for mushers and their teams, and the cumulative effort of race volunteers, veterinarians, sponsors, handlers, families and friends. All of the characters in this story are fictional. I have taken a few liberties with both the race route and the rules, but have tried for the most part to give you, the reader, a sense of what it’s like to travel down a long trail behind a team of incredible canine athletes. And a hint of the camaraderie that can develop between the mushers themselves.

The history of the north country is written in the paw prints of the intrepid sled dogs who hauled freight, food, medicine and mail over thousands of miles of winter trails in some of the worst conditions imaginable, for the benefit of mankind. We owe them our esteem.

Nadia Nichols

Across a Thousand Miles

Nadia Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

GLOSSARY OF MUSHING TERMINOLOGY

To my beloved sled dogs, past and present, my heroes and my best friends, who have taken me on some of the greatest adventures of my life and who have always brought me safely home.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

Now promise made as a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code…

Robert Service,

from The Cremation of Sam McGee

THE MAN WHO DROVE his truck up Rebecca Reed’s rutted dirt drive was a stranger, and her dogs let her know it long before she stepped out of the arctic entry to her small cabin and onto the front porch. She shrugged into her parka which had been hanging in the small pre-entry room as she watched his approach. The afternoon was chilly in spite of the sunlight, and the limbs of the aspen and willow were silvery and bare. Ravens were calling along the river and the wind played a lonesome song through the spruce behind the cabin. It was late autumn and the taste of snow was in the air.

He was tall. She could see that quite clearly as he climbed out of his truck. Even if his truck—with the dog box bolted to its rusting bed—hadn’t given him away, his clothing would have. “Uh-oh. Another crazy dog driver,” she commented to Tuffy, the small black-and-tan Alaskan husky who had followed her onto the porch. In her prime, Tuffy had been Bruce’s favorite lead dog, but she was old now, her muzzle graying, her movements stiff, and her eyes a bit cloudy. “I’ll lay odds he’s after a load of dog food and he’ll want it real cheap,” Rebecca said. “But how on earth did he get past my truck?” Tuffy looked at her quizzically and flagged her tail.

The stranger was dressed like a typical musher, and as he walked up the path toward the cabin, he paused for a moment to brush the worst of the mud off his drab-colored parka. His clothes were dog-eared, dog-chewed and dog-dirty. His insulated boots were patched with rubberized tool dip, his tawny shock of hair needed trimming, he was at least two days unshaven, and heaven only knew when he’d last had a decent bath. A bush dweller and a musher. A dangerous combination. He walked to the foot of the porch steps and paused there, looking up at her. “Hello,” he said with a nod and the faintest of grins. “Your truck was blocking the road and I moved it. Hope you don’t mind, but the hood was left up as if something was wrong so I took a quick look.”

“I went out to get the mail yesterday and it stalled on me,” Rebecca explained. “The battery went dead, but it shouldn’t have. It’s fairly new.”

“Well, your battery was fine, but the ground-wire connection was loose. I tightened that up, and she started like a champ, so I moved her down the drive a ways into that little pullover near the blowdown. I’ll drive her in for you if you like.”

Rebecca was taken aback. “No, thank you. I’ll walk out and drive back. Thank you very much for fixing it. My wallet’s inside. Hold on a moment, I’ll get it.”

He grinned and shook his head. “No, you won’t. I was glad to help and that was a real easy fix. The reason I’m here is that Fred Turner told me you sold dog food. He said you had the best prices in the Territory, so I thought I’d swing by your kennel on my way into Dawson.”

“I do sell dog food,” Rebecca said warily. “But it’s good dog food. I don’t sell the cheap stuff.”

“Good dog food’s what I’m looking for,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced around her yard. “You’ve got quite a few dogs yourself,” he said.

“Forty,” she said.

“Forty!” He glanced up at her, and she noticed that his eyes were exceptionally clear and bright, a shade of gray that hinted at blue or green, she couldn’t tell which. “My name’s Bill MacKenzie. Most folks call me Mac.”

“Rebecca Reed,” she said, with a curt nod. “How much food were you looking to buy?”