Alaskan Hearts. Teri Wilson
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.
Ben nodded toward the dogs. “Nice bunny slippers, by the way. I took a few pictures of Nugget. I hope that’s all right.”
“Thank you.” Clementine glanced at his name tag. “Media? Are you a reporter?”
“Photographer. For the Yukon Reporter.” He averted his gaze away from Kodiak. He was a photographer now. That’s all. No matter how fervently Reggie, along with the other mushers, tried to tell him otherwise.
Clementine simply smiled. For all she knew, he’d always been a photographer. It was a welcome relief. “You work for a paper? Really? I work as a media researcher back in Texas.”
“Is that right? For a newspaper?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked down at her feet, clad in the same pink sheepskin boots she’d worn the night before. This woman clearly had a thing for slippers. “Nature World.”
“Nature World. That’s impress…” Before Ben could finish his thought, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head to the right, just in time to see Nugget and Kodiak barrel into the side of Clementine’s snowman.
Snow flew in every direction, but somehow the majority of it landed on Clementine’s face. At first, she stood completely still. She seemed too shocked to do or say anything. Then, just as Ben reached to brush some of the snow away, she started giggling.
Soon she was laughing so hard that she could barely stand up straight. Kodiak joined in, barking at the top of his lungs, until he resumed digging at a pile of snow in search of a halfway-buried Nugget.
“Are you okay?” Ben wiped a wet blob of slush from her cheek. The cold water stung his thumb, but not so much that he failed to appreciate the softness of her skin.
Her cheeks flushed pinker than ever. “I’m fine. I’m a mess, but I’m fine.” She wiped her laminated name tag against her parka to dry it off.
It was then that Ben noticed the words printed beneath her name and hometown. Sled Dog Handler.
He stiffened. He’d nearly forgotten why she was here. “So you’re still planning on handling dogs for the race?”
“Of course. The magazine sent me here for that explicit purpose.” The giggling abruptly stopped. He thought he spotted a flicker of worry in her bright green eyes, but it vanished in an instant. “You thought I’d changed my mind since last night?”
Ben made a feeble attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “There are other things you can do, you know. I could probably get you involved with the group that’s getting together to make the ointment for the dogs’ paws.”
“Why does everyone keep saying things like that?” She threw her hands up in the air. Snow flew off a few of her fingertips.
“Well, you…”
She refused to let him finish. “I didn’t come all the way to Alaska to make foot lotion. I want to work with the dogs.”
“Paw ointment,” he spat. “And it’s a very important part of the race.”
“I’m sure it is.” She jammed her hands on her hips. Her blond curls whipped around her face in the cold wind. Even in her angry, disheveled state, she still looked like a princess. “But I’m here as a sled dog handler. I know I can do it.”
Ben wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince—him or herself.
“Clementine, it’s not an easy job. You could get hurt.” And what if I can’t save you? The thought hit him like a cold slap in the face.
“So what if I do? At least I’ll get hurt doing something with myself. Something amazing.” Stars twinkled in her eyes. Naive, dangerous stars.
Ben’s stomach tied itself in a familiar knot. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m saying that I’m going to handle sled dogs.” She crossed her arms and lifted one perfect brow.
Ben clenched and unclenched his fists. He could barely feel his fingers anymore. The numbness was a reminder of everything he wished he could forget. “Fine, go ahead. Get yourself trampled. Or run over by a sled. That would be a lot more fun than making paw ointment, wouldn’t it?”
He let out a sharp whistle and, when he was certain Kodiak was bounding toward him, he turned on his heel to walk away.
“Oh, Ben, guess what else I’ve never done before?” Behind him, Clementine’s voice rang like a bell. Innocent, sweet.
Still, he knew better than to think she’d changed her mind.
Everything within him told him to keep walking. He couldn’t protect Clementine. He couldn’t even protect her silly dog. Experience had taught him that much, in the cruelest way possible.
But he was helpless to resist the strange pull he felt toward her.
Against his better judgment, he turned around. He barely had time to notice the snowball whizzing toward him before it hit him square in the forehead.
Chapter Three
Clementine watched in horror as the snowball flew toward Ben. With a squishy-sounding splat, it made contact with his forehead. His eyes widened as a blob of slush ran down his face and lodged in his closely trimmed beard.
Clementine was mortified to her very core.
Dear Lord, what has gotten into me?
She blamed it on Alaska. She’d gone wild. Just like the salmon.
“Your first snowball, I take it?” Ben wiped the slush from his beard and leveled his gaze at her.
“I was aiming at your back.” She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I promise.”
“Unbelievable.” He shook his head and one corner of his mouth tugged up into a crooked grin.
It was only half a smile, but she’d take what she could get. At the sight of it, Clementine released a relieved lungful of air. She stopped breathing again when he bent down and scooped a generous blob of snow into his big hands.
“I can’t remember the last time I was part of a snowball fight.” The gleam in his eyes was positively wicked as he went to work packing the snow into a perfect, round ball.
Clementine looked at the snowball with envy. Wow, he’s good.
“Fortunately, it’s like riding a bike. Some skills seem to stick with you.” He came toward her and launched the snowball in one swift movement.
She squealed and ran toward the makeshift shelter of the pitiful remains of her snowman, but not before Ben’s snowball hit the back of her parka with a thud.
“Wait!” she wailed, as she plunged her hands in the snow.
Ben pelted her with three more snowballs in rapid succession before she could even form one of her own. She wasn’t sure if hers even qualified as a snowball. It wasn’t quite round, if truth be told. It was shaped more like an amoeba.
She threw it as hard as she could and jumped up and down in delight when she discovered that snow amoebas were every bit as effective as snowballs. Ben’s beard was once again covered in snow. He looked like Santa Claus.
Wild Alaskan Santa.