Alaskan Hearts

“Good girl,” Clementine cooed.

This was going so well that she’d have to consider the possibility of using them back home. Surely somewhere in Texas there existed a logical reason for a dog to wear booties. She’d lived there her entire life and never stumbled across such a reason, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. Right?

“It looks like we’re ready to brave the cold. Let’s go, Nugget.” She headed outside with a booty-clad Nugget bobbing at the end of her leash.

The revolving door had barely spun them out on the snowy pavement when a blast of frigid air hit Clementine in the face. It was cold. Biting cold. Arctic cold. Colder-than-her-parents’-fancy-subzero-refrigerator cold.

Despite the burning sensation in her lungs when she inhaled, Clementine smiled into the wind. This was her first day in Alaska, her first snow-covered morning since that long-forgotten day chronicled in her family photo albums. And she knew exactly how she was going to spend it.

* * *

Ben snapped the lens cap on his camera and slid it into his shoulder bag. His fingers ached from the cold, and as soon as the camera was put away, he stuffed his hands back into his pockets for the comfort of the hand-warmer packets he always kept inside. Comfort might have been a stretch, but they helped a little. As much as he could expect anyway.

Reggie walked silently beside him, his dark eyes tracing Ben’s every move. Between them, Kodiak moved in a relaxed lope. He panted softly, his breath coming out in soft clouds with each step.

“Your hands still giving you trouble?” Reggie raised his brows.

Ben shrugged. “Sometimes. Nothing I can’t handle.” He knew Reggie had noticed. His keen eyes didn’t miss much, an attribute that made him a fine dog musher.

Reggie shook his head. “You need some mittens. Good ones. Beaver or moose hide.”

Ben laughed to himself. Good old Reggie. If he couldn’t turn Ben into a musher again, he would at least make sure he looked like one. “I’ve still got my old ones, but it’s a little hard to take photographs with my fingers encased in moose hide.”

“You and your pictures.” An eye roll followed. “You make sure and keep those hand-warmer people in business. It’s hard to booty a dog without any fingers.”

Ben didn’t bother reminding Reggie there would be no dog-bootying in his future. It was a waste of breath. His energy was better spent trying to change the subject altogether. “Thanks for letting me get some shots of your dogs this morning. I think we got a few good ones.”

“No problem.” Reggie’s dark face creased into a grin. The pride he felt in his team showed clearly in his expression. “Although you’d probably get more money for those pictures if they were of Mackey’s dogs.”

“Every other photographer here is taking photos of Mackey’s dogs.” Ben squinted into the distance. He could see clear across the parking lot to where the throng of photographers clustered around the three-time champion’s truck with its musher box on top. “No, thanks.”

Mackey was the musher to beat, the sport’s greatest champion. Once upon a time, Ben had been the musher to beat.

He pushed the thought away and concentrated instead on the comfort of the hand warmers.

“You might want to get that camera out again, friend. Here’s something else your competition is missing out on.” Reggie slowed to a stop.

Ben turned away from the Mackey hoopla and followed the direction of Reggie’s gaze toward a snowy embankment off to the side of the hotel. The area was deserted, save for a lone woman, with a tiny creature yapping and dancing around her feet. Ben knew in an instant it was the same woman from last night—the one who referred to him as “Kodiak’s dad.” The tiny ball of fur beside her must be Nugget, even though Nugget resembled a squirrel more than any dog Ben had ever seen. A lopsided tower of snow was heaped next to them and looked as though it might topple over at any moment.

Ben resisted the nonsensical urge to run over, sweep her out of the way and into his arms. He cleared his throat. “Would you look at that?”

“Pink booties.” Reggie shielded the sun from his eyes with his hands, probably to get a better look. “She’s got pink booties on that dog.”

Ben pulled his camera from his bag and looked through the telephoto lens. He told himself it was only to verify that Nugget was in fact a member of the canine species. “They’ve got ears.”

“Of course they have ears. Although if she doesn’t cover hers with a hat, she might just lose ’em. Like you and your fingers.” Reggie laughed aloud at his own joke.

“Not the woman…the booties.” Ben handed Reggie his camera. Someone else had to get a look at this. “This doesn’t make a bit of sense, but I think they might be bunny slippers.”

“What? Bunny slippers?” Reggie furrowed his brows and peered through the camera. He shook his head and handed it back to Ben. “Well, I’ll be. What do you suppose she’s doing out there anyway?”

Ben watched her grab an armful of snow with her bare hands and add it to the heap. Her cheeks and nose glowed bright pink from the cold, which didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. She bounced around her snowy creation and scrutinized it from all angles.

A slow smile found its way to Ben’s lips. “I think she’s making a snowman.”

Reggie snorted with laughter. “Cheechako. It figures.”

Irritation pricked Ben’s nerves. He couldn’t say why. He’d used the same word to describe newcomers to Alaska countless times. Everyone did. There wasn’t anything inherently disrespectful about it.

Still, he wasn’t laughing. “You go on ahead. I’m going to get a few shots of the dog.”

“That dog?” Reggie nodded his head toward Nugget. “Seriously?”

Ben shrugged and looked through the viewfinder again. “You never know, my editor might use it as a human interest–type piece.”

“I can see it now. My sled dogs are going to get upstaged by a puffball that wears bunny slippers.” Reggie shook his head and wandered toward the hotel. “I’m off to the mushers’ meeting.”

“Later,” Ben muttered, entranced by the sight of the woman through his zoom lens. There was something about the way she seemed to glow from the inside out…he found it fascinating.

What am I doing? I’m supposed to be getting shots of the dog, not acting like some sort of stalker.

He redirected his lens to the little dog, who was busy kicking up a fine dust of snow with her pink booties. It didn’t take long to get a dozen or so shots, the majority of which were guaranteed to make the most hardened sourdough crack a smile. Even one like Reggie.

Just to be on the safe side, he snapped a few more. Kodiak waited by his side, with his paw resting on the top of Ben’s left foot, until the camera was packed away again.

Ben patted Kodiak between his pricked ears. “Let’s go say hello and let her know I took some photos.”

If only to assure himself he was a journalist, and most definitely not a stalker, he needed to get permission to use the pictures. He snapped Kodiak’s leash in place and headed over to the trio—woman, dog and snowman.

The closer they got, the more excited Kodiak became, until he let out a prolonged woo-woo. Nugget responded by pawing frantically at her owner’s shins.

“Good morning, Kodiak’s Dad.” She scooped the little pup into her arms and directed her blinding smile at Ben.

A smile so bright that it almost hurt his eyes to look directly at it. “Hey, there, Nugget’s Mom.”

“It’s Clementine, actually.” Ben wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her smile to grow wider, but it did.

“Nice to meet you, officially. I’m Ben.” He glanced at the name tag dangling from the lanyard around her neck. Sure enough, it indicated her name was Clementine Phillips, from Houston, Texas. Texas. That explained her unabashed glee at the freshly fallen snow. “Something tells me this is the first time you’ve seen so much snow.”

She laughed and cast a sheepish glance toward the lopsided snowman. “How could you tell?”

Ben followed her gaze and took in Frosty’s egg-shaped head and his drooping stick arms. “Lucky guess.”

“My first snowman, too. Well, sort of.” Nugget wiggled in her arms and craned her tiny head toward Kodiak. Clementine looked at Ben, with questions shining her eyes. “Can I let her down? I think she wants to play.”

“Sure.” Ben unsnapped Kodiak’s leash and ruffled the fur behind his ears. “Try not to step on your new friend, okay, buddy?”

Nugget barked and took off running, a sure invitation for Kodiak to chase her. The two dogs cut a path through the snow and made a big loop around Ben, Clementine and the snowman.