“You really meant it,” Lauren whispered as they exited the truck and made their way back toward the cargo hold to get the dogs. “You weren’t just saying it to make Dr. Rockwell happy. You’ve brought me to an actual race.”
“When do I ever do anything with the express intention of making someone happy? Besides, this isn’t a race. It’s how mushers normally train. Welcome to the big leagues.” She felt his eyes roving over her as he tried to gauge her reaction. “You got this?”
“I sure do,” she answered on an exhale. “Thank you so much for this!” And before she could stop herself, she leapt into his arms and gave him a giant, enthusiastic hug.
He looked down at her. His face wore a mix of shock and pleasure. That was the moment Lauren knew for sure. Shane cared for her, too. His tough guy exterior wasn’t the real him. The real Shane was the man she’d seen occasional glimpses of between all the heavily guarded moments that made up their life together.
He brushed her off and forced a laugh. “That’s enough of that.”
She almost said sorry before realizing she had nothing to apologize for. Instead, she gave him a second, quick followup squeeze and said, “Thank you so much. I won’t let you down.”
His cheeks turned red behind his new beard, and she wondered if it was from the cold or for something else. Were her cheeks red, too?
“Well,” he said, kicking at a block of ice on the road. “Let’s get the dogs hooked in. Go too slow and you’ll be stuck out here all day. All night, too.”
Shane tied the sled to a bent metal pipe sticking out of the ground and pulled out the snow hook, setting that in the ground, too.
“Worried the sled will slide away?” Lauren laughed.
He just smiled, a bit of a gleam in his eyes.
They worked together to place the ten dogs into a formation before the sled. Fred and Wendy were the biggest, so they were stationed closest to the sled.
“Our wheel dogs pull the hardest,” Shane explained as each dog was tied into place. “These are the team dogs, the swing dogs, and finally the lead dogs. Your leads…” He pointed toward Lewis and Jack at the front of the line. “Will take care of you if you tell them the way to go. Gee is right, and haw is left. Got it?”
“Yup.”
“Ready?”
She took a deep breath, and when she blew it out, tiny crystals formed in the air. “As I’ll ever be.” She glanced from the track back toward Shane, and he gave her a thumbs up.
Together, they guided the team toward the starting point. A few other racers lingered with their sleds, but it didn’t seem like enough to offer a proper race.
She looked toward Shane.
“This is a training run to get our blood pumping, but mostly for us to check in with the competition. Make sure you hang a left at every fork in the trail so that we can give these dogs a good run. That should make about twenty-two miles. On this track, I average about two-forty-five to three with ten dogs. That’s the time I want you to shoot for, too. These dogs can handle it. The question is, can you?” He pulled up the snow hook and placed it on the back of the basket.
Why did he keep asking her if she could do this? Hadn’t she made that obvious already? She nodded up at him, and he clapped her on the back.
“Great. Now, step onto the foot boards and hang on tight.”
The dogs whined and shifted in their harnesses, waiting for the command from Shane.
“By the way,” he said. “I’ll be at the tavern to catch up with some old friends. When you’re done, get some of the men here to help you load up the truck, then head home. I’ll see you there later tonight. Okay?”
He gave her another clap on the back, then untethered her sled from the starting pole. “Hike!” he shouted from behind her.
Just like that, the dogs, led by Jack and Lewis, pulled forward and the sled took off down the trail, picking up speed quickly as they approached the first bend in the trail. The wind whipped past her cheeks, blowing the little tendrils of hair that had escaped from beneath her knit cap. This was as close to flying as a person could get, she knew it—and loved it.
While working with the dogs back at the cabin, she’d only ever taken one out at a time, so she wasn’t quite prepared for the intense speed, for how fast the world moved around her.
Prepared or not, the best way to learn was by doing. She gripped the handlebar tight and shifted her weight to the left or right as needed, occasionally stepping on the foot brake to slow the dogs at a turn and keep the line tight. She’d spent so much time practicing for this that her body seemed to know what to do before her brain had the time to figure it out.
Faster, faster, freer, freer.
Now she saw the outline of another musher farther up the trail. She was gaining on him. Could she actually match Shane’s time—or better yet, beat it?
She was going to try.
She shouted “Hike, hike, hike” over the wind to encourage the dogs to pull harder, then hunched down low to minimize any wind resistance caused by her erect posture. She was smaller than the other racers, which meant the dogs could devote less energy toward pulling and more toward reaching top speeds.
“Mush, mush!” she cried to encourage the dogs further. She didn’t know if that was the right command, but her words encouraged the dogs nonetheless.
They reached another turn in the trail and she leaned into the turn like she’d seen motorcycle riders do to help the sled take a sharp turn and maintain as much of their speed as possible on the curve.
Whack!
Lauren landed on a fresh bed of snow, her cheek and side stinging from the impact, but more than that, her ego. She watched as the dogs continued to pull the sled down the trail—not needing her to continue on their path.
Her entire side ached from the impact, but it didn’t matter. She had to catch that sled!
She ran as hard as she could, but it was difficult in all the thick layers she’d bundled herself in, especially considering how much of her energy she’d already used on the sled.
The dogs rounded the track. The last trace of the sled, disappearing around the bend.
Shane was going to kill her.