Alaskan Hearts. Teri Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

       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 СКАЧАТЬ