Alaskan Hero

“I should probably get going. There are two puppies at Brock Parker’s house that are probably waiting for me to read them the paper. Or War & Peace maybe.” Anya rolled her eyes.

Clementine led the way as their trio headed toward the register. “I don’t understand. Isn’t the whole point to help people? What could your mother have against someone helping her?”

“She’ll find something. Trust me.” Anya lined up her balls of yarn on the counter, catching the lime-green ball just as it was about to roll off the edge.

“If you’re really worried about it, I could talk to the committee. We could get her name taken off the list and it would be no problem,” Sue said.

She had a point. Zoey was heading up the committee. Anya could just ask her to remove her mother’s name from the list, and she wouldn’t have a thing to worry about. Other than the pesky matter of the six inches of ice that had accumulated on her mother’s roof.

“No. Believe me, she could use the help.” Anya shook her head. “Convincing my mother just how much she needs it is the tricky part.”

Both the Dolce problem and what to do with the random assortment of yarn she’d just purchased paled in comparison.

Chapter Four

“Aspen and Sherlock are all caught up on the local happenings. Now what?” Anya handed the newspaper to Brock. Thankfully, he’d asked her to keep an eye on the clock this go-round. Just as she suspected, thirty minutes was enough time to cover most everything that went on in Aurora.

It was also apparently enough time for Brock to turn yesterday’s smooth sphere of wood into something vaguely resembling a dog.

“Oh, wow.” She plucked the tiny figure off the workbench, where it sat amid a small pile of wood shavings. “This is really great. Where did you learn how to do this?”

“My grandfather taught me years ago. It kind of stuck with me.” He frowned slightly as he watched her handle the little wooden dog, as if he himself was surprised at what he’d accomplished while she read to the pups.

Anya was surprised herself—surprised he’d actually answered her question. He was a man of few words, after all. She’d finally broken down and asked him about the puppies’ names this time, too, because he’d never mentioned them during her first “lesson.”

What didn’t surprise her, however, was the pair of antlers protruding from the sides of Brock’s baseball cap. They were soft and squishy, crafted of brown felt and ridiculously oversized. The get-up wasn’t quite as elaborate as his bear suit, but it made a statement nonetheless.

She ducked as he turned his head. “Watch it. You almost poked my eye out with one of your antlers just now.”

“Sorry,” he said to her forehead.

Anya tried not to think about the fact that he looked so ridiculous in the hat that he bordered on adorable. “So what next?”

“I’d like you to feed them.” He nodded toward a large plastic bin situated neatly beneath the workbench. “The kibble is in there. They get about two handfuls each.”

She reached down and lifted the lid of the bin. “Where are their bowls?”

He shook his antlered head. “No bowls.”

“What do you mean no bowls?” Anya frowned at the tiny pieces of kibble. “You want me to feed them by hand?”

“Piece by piece,” Brock called over his shoulder as he left the training room to do who knows what in the house. Perhaps he was going to tackle those untouched moving boxes that still littered his living room. “See? You’re learning already.”

Perhaps.

Anya was pretty sure she was on her way to figuring out the method to his madness, as Clementine had put it. After she’d gotten home from church the night before, she’d sat down right next to Dolce’s hiding spot. If Brock wasn’t going to tell her what she should do, she’d just have to emulate what she did at training class.

She hadn’t had it in her to read the paper again, so she’d worked on the hat she was knitting instead. After a quarter of an hour, Dolce’s anxious whimpering had quieted down. By the time Anya had knitted the final row—nearly two hours after she’d gotten home—she was rewarded with the sight of Dolce’s little black nose poking out from beneath the edge of the duvet. It was a first. Most would consider it a small victory at best, but Anya had been delighted.

Now, as Aspen’s soft muzzle tickled the palm of Anya’s hand in search of more food, she wondered how on Earth she could manage to hand-feed Dolce. She’d probably have to stick her hand under the bed. And turn the lights off. It sounded complicated. But do-able. Definitely do-able.

Brock strolled back in just as the dogs finished the last of their kibble. “How’s it going over there?”

“All finished.” Anya rose and climbed out of the pen. “For the record, I know what you’re doing.”

This seemed to get his attention. He angled his head toward her, antlers and all, and looked her square in the eyes. Anya had to remind herself to breathe. It was ridiculous. Men in silly hats shouldn’t be able to make women breathless.

“And what is that?” he asked.

“You’re Mr. Miyagi-ing me.” She wiggled her nose and realized she smelled like dog food.

“Mr. Who?”

“Mr. Miyagi,” she repeated. “You know—wax on, wax off.”

She waved her hands in the universal wax-on, wax-off gesture. At least, she thought it was universal. The look on Brock’s face told her otherwise.

He crossed his arms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Wax on, wax off.” She circled her hands in the air again. “From The Karate Kid movie.”

He narrowed his gaze at her. “The one from the eighties, or the one with Will Smith’s kid?”

“The one from the eighties, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Please. You don’t remake perfection.”

He laughed. Anya was fairly certain she’d never heard him laugh before. Surely she would have remembered the way the deep, rumbling sound of it seemed to tickle her insides.

She straightened. “You know the story of the Karate Kid, right? The old man uses household chores to teach his young protégé karate skills and valuable life lessons.”

“Am I to assume that I’m the old man in this scenario?”

“Of course.” Anya nodded as if the answer was obvious. As if Brock resembled an old man in any way, which he most definitely did not.

He took a step closer to her. “And you’re the young, cute protégé, I take it?”

She’d never said cute. She was sure of it. “Y-yes.”

“And what about the bear costume? And the hat?” He gestured toward his head. “How do they come into the picture?”

“Um...” Anya opened her mouth and promptly closed it. She was still stuck on the matter of Brock’s choice of attire.

“They’re socialization tools.”

“Socialization tools,” Anya repeated.

He gestured toward Sherlock and Aspen. “Search and rescue dogs see all sorts of things on the mountain. They need to be unflappable, prepared for anything.”

Like men dressed as bears? Right. “Yeah, I doubt that.”