Fire and Ice (18 page)

Late that afternoon, when the sun dipped low toward the mountains, Rick drove from his humble office in downtown Wasilla to the Hollands’ house. Cheryl directed him around to the back. He stopped at the edge of the dog lot and smiled.

Robyn and Darby were playing with several yearlings in the puppy enclosure.

“Hello, ladies.”

“Hi, Dr. Baker,” Darby said. “Look at what Bobble can do.” She touched the puppy’s head to focus his attention then moved her hand in a circular motion. The puppy flopped on his side and rolled over.

Rick laughed. “That’s terrific. How long did it take you to teach him that?”

“This is only my third session working on it with him.” Darby took a treat from her pocket and tossed it to Bobble, who caught it neatly in his mouth.

Behind him, the back door to the house opened. “Darby, your mom just drove in,” Cheryl called.

“Thanks, Mrs. H.” Darby made a face at Robyn. “Gotta go. I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow.”

“Okay. Thanks for helping.” Robyn opened the gate just wide enough for her and Darby to squeeze through without taking any pups with them.

“Thanks for my mushing lesson,” Darby called over her shoulder as she ran around the corner of the house.

“She’s a good helper.” Robyn bent over the gate and put two padlocks in place. Her loose dark hair spilled out of her hood and hid her features from him until she straightened. “She’s going to be a great musher, too. I expect her to win the Iditarod or the Yukon Quest someday.”

“I hope I’m there to see it. Are you busy?” Rick asked. “Is it time to feed this motley crew?”

She smiled. “Not yet. In about an hour.”

“Take a ride with me?”

“A sled ride?”

Rick chuckled and reached to brush back a strand of her hair. “No, I meant in my truck. If we hurry, we can get up on the ridge behind my house and see the sunset.”

“Sure. Just let me tell Mom.” Her flicker of a smile left him with an impression of shyness as she jogged to the back door.

She was back a moment later, and he reached for her hand. They walked together in silence to the pickup in the driveway. His own property was only a quarter mile down the road, and he turned in at the gravel drive to his log home. The house was silent as they drove past it, but smoke oozed from the chimney.

Rick shifted into four-wheel drive, and they bounced up the hill behind the house on the track he’d packed with his snow machine. The shallow snow had compressed enough for him to drive to the top of the ridge without danger of getting stuck.

When he stopped the truck, he put it in park and left the engine running. The view of the town and the highway couldn’t be beat, and he traced the part of the trail he could see, where the racing teams would compete for the trophy in two weeks. But the distant mountains and snow-covered plains glistening in the late rays of sunlight drew his gaze and dazzled him. As he and Robyn watched without speaking, dusk shrouded the mountainsides in deep purple and gray. Pink, gold, and red reflected off the peaks.

Robyn sighed. “I could never leave Alaska.” She cast a quick glance his way, and her forehead crinkled, as though she feared she’d said the wrong thing.

“I love it here, too,” he said. “Especially out in the wild. I was smothering in Anchorage. That’s why I moved out here last year—to be closer to the land but still near enough to civilization that I could earn a living.”

Her expression cleared and they sat in silence, watching the colors spread and change. As the shadows of night overtook them and the mountain peaks dulled to shades of gray, she stirred. “When the race is over, I hope I’ll be able to get out on the trail more myself.”

“Maybe we can take another run together soon.” Rick smiled at the memory of their sledding adventure earlier in the week. It had started as a perfect day. Cheryl’s news of the theft had derailed it fast though. He hoped they would be able to spend more days together—carefree days. And soon.

Robyn smiled up at him. “I’d like that a lot. You’re pretty good at mushing.”

He pulled in a deep breath and decided now was the time to express the burden on his heart. “Robyn, I’ve been praying for you and your family. I want you to know that I’m confident God has some solutions for you. To your financial situation and your grandpa’s health problems. God knows all about it. He already knows how He’s going to resolve those things.”

She put her fingertips gently to his cheek. “Thank you.”

Her gaze flickered away but came back to him. “Do you think I did the wrong thing yesterday? To chase around hunting for the dogs, I mean.”

“I hadn’t even considered it. That’s not at all what I meant.”

She nodded, her eyes wide and attentive. “I was afraid afterward that I’d overstepped some boundary.”

“I don’t think so. We’d all been praying about it. God used your persistence to bring the dogs home. If you hadn’t gone looking for them, perhaps He’d have used another means. Or maybe He’d have let them all slip away and never be found. We don’t know, do we?”

“No, we don’t. You’re right—the Lord knew all along He would take us to them and let us bring them home. I’ve tried to rest in Him about Tumble and the other unresolved issues. I’m so thankful we got five of them back. And I’m glad you were there, too. When I told Mom about it, she was horrified at what I’d done. She kept saying, ‘If you’d gone there alone, that man might have killed you.’”

“I doubt that,” Rick said, but the thought sobered him. “Robyn, I love the way you are.”

Her eyelids flew up, and he chuckled.

“I love your passion for the dogs, and your confidence in your skill. But I also love the fact that you can be impulsive now and then.”

She laughed. “Are you sure?”

“Okay, not
too
impulsive. But, yeah. Yesterday I was a little frustrated when you wouldn’t give up the search. But I admired you for that, too. You’re really something, and … and I like that something.”

Her cheeks took on a becoming flush.

He held her gaze for a long moment. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

Her eager gaze encouraged him to go on.

“I’m tired of running back and forth to Anchorage.”

She frowned and her lips parted. “You … just said you love it out here. You’re not going to move back there, are you?”

“No. I need to stop working at Far North. It’s not fair to the folks in Wasilla. I want to have a full-service hospital for the animals here and be open every day, with the assurance that pets can stay there if they need recovery time and monitoring.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ve told the partners at Far North that it’s too hard for me to keep coming into town. I’m going to stop seeing patients at the clinic altogether at the end of the month.”

“What did they say?”

Rick toyed with his key ring. “Hap and Bob aren’t thrilled with that, and I admit I’ve enjoyed working with them. I learned a lot during the five years I was in practice with them. But it’s time.”

“Will they bring in a new doctor to take your place?”

“They’ll have to,” Rick said. “Bob plans to retire next year. But I’m not going back.”

Her smile reached deep inside him, and he blurted the rest of his plan. “I’m thinking of advertising for a partner, too.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “There’s enough business, and if we have two doctors, one of us could always cover emergency calls. I’d need a bigger building. I’ve looked around some, but I haven’t found anything suitable that I could rent, and my current landlord doesn’t want to add on to the building I’m renting.” He hesitated then shrugged. “I’m thinking of building an animal hospital beside my house.”

“Wow. Are you sure you’d want to be that close to it?” Robyn sat up straighter and gazed down the hill toward his log home.

“I don’t know. It would be convenient, but I can picture it becoming burdensome, too. I’m praying about it. I’d like to have a place big enough for some kennels and an area where I could treat large animals.”

Her face took on a glow of excitement in the twilight. “That would be terrific. But expensive.”

“I know. I think I can swing it within a couple of years. And I know exactly what I want for the building.” He pointed down the hill to a flat area across the driveway from his house. “Right down there. That’s where I want it. The bank is looking at my loan application. This is my home now, and I want to build my business here, too.”

“I think that’s wonderful.” Her dark eyes caught the gleam of the last rays of sun off the snow.

Rick reached for her without another twinge of hesitation. As the long darkness settled about them, he kissed her, delighting in her response. He no longer wondered if she might be the right woman for him. Rick had found his home and the one he hoped would share it with him.

The
Anchorage Daily News
ran its article about the Fire & Ice race on the following Wednesday. Robyn had granted permission for them to lift photos from the Holland Kennel’s Web site.

“Hey, this looks great,” her mother said as Robyn came in from giving the dogs their breakfast.

Robyn poured herself a cup of coffee and joined her at the kitchen table. “Let me see.”

Together they perused the article.

“That’s one of their pictures from last year’s race.” Robyn pointed to a photo of Pat Isherwood crossing the finish line with his arms raised over his head in victory.

“They took the one of you from our site,” Mom said. “I’ve always liked that one.”

Robyn grimaced. “I should put some new ones up, I guess. That picture’s about three years old. Oh, look here. They pulled the one off the ‘puppy page.’” The photo near the bottom of the story showed Grandpa Steve in the dog lot, his arms brimming with husky puppies.

“This is a fantastic article,” her mom said. “They never gave us this much publicity before.”

“Maybe the news about the dog theft last week helped.” Robyn shuddered. “Makes me feel kind of weird.”

Robyn’s phone rang, and she answered it.

“Hey, Robyn,” Darby squealed in her ear. “Did you see the paper?”

“We’re looking at it now.”

“Isn’t that Bobble on the right in the picture with your grandfather?”

Robyn laughed. “It sure is. Coming over after school?”

“I’ll be there.”

Darby clicked off and Robyn closed her phone, but her mother’s phone rang almost immediately.

“Hello? Who?” She made a face at Robyn. “I think you want to speak to my daughter.” She held her phone out and hissed, “It’s someone from the
Seattle Times
.”

“The Seattle …?” Robyn gulped. She’d half expected to hear from the weekly papers or the
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
, but not the huge daily paper in Seattle. “May I help you?”

A woman’s voice said, “I saw the story in the
Anchorage Daily
, and I’d like to interview you.”

Robyn stared at her mother and said into the phone, “You want to know about next week’s race?”

“Well, sure, you can tell me about that, but I mostly want to know about you. The woman who runs Holland Kennel and chased down the thugs who stole her sled dogs.”

“Uh …” She held the phone away from her face. “Mom, they want to interview me.”

Her mother pushed her chair back. “Go for it, honey. People outside Alaska will hear about the race.”

Any publicity would be good for the business, Robyn told herself, though she disliked having the spotlight shine on her. She gulped and smiled. “I guess that’s all right,” she told the reporter. Of course, it was silly to wear this plastic smile when the woman was fifteen hundred miles away. She felt like an idiot. She lost the smile in a hurry, before Mom turned around and saw it.

Rick closed the door of his small veterinary office at five o’clock on Saturday. He checked his hair in the rearview mirror before heading for the Hollands’ house. Maybe he should stop at home first and clean up a little. But Robyn had said to come as early as he could. Her brother, Aven, and his wife had arrived, and Rick was invited to share supper with the family.

Robyn met him at the door and drew him into the house. A tall, dark-haired man in uniform rose and waited for her to introduce them.

“Rick, this is my brother, Aven,” Robyn said with a smile and a fond glance toward the young man.

Rick extended his hand and shook Aven’s, feeling as he did so that Robyn’s brother was assessing him.

“Glad to meet you,” Aven said. “Mom and Robyn have told us a lot about you.”

“Nothing bad,” Robyn said quickly.

Rick smiled. “I’ve heard a few tales myself. I think the family’s glad to have you home.”

“They’re staying all week, until after the race.” Robyn couldn’t seem to stop grinning. Rick loved seeing her so happy. She looked toward the hallway as a pretty young blond woman wearing black pants and a red sweater entered the room. “Oh, and this is Caddie, my sister-in-law. Caddie, this is Rick Baker.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Baker.” Caddie took his hand.

“Oh please, let’s not go all formal or I’ll have to learn your ranks,” Rick said.

Aven and Caddie laughed.

“Agreed,” said Caddie. “Let’s not go there. I just changed out of my uniform, and I’m ready to relax for a few days and be just plain Caddie.”