Teri Wilson - Alaskan Hero

As a result, dating wasn’t anywhere on the list of things that mattered most to Anya. Her life was simple. She cared about three things—God, coffee and her dog.

She had a good handle on the coffee situation. As the manager of the Northern Lights Inn coffee bar, she was given free rein to develop all sorts of lattes, mochas and espresso drinks. Whatever struck her fancy, really. She enjoyed it. And she was good at it. Sometimes—particularly on days when all she did was serve up cup after cup of plain black coffee—she wondered if there was something else she should be doing with her life. Something more meaningful. But that was normal, wasn’t it? Did people really ever feel completely fulfilled by their jobs?

The God thing was new, so she really couldn’t say how that was going. But it mattered to her. More than she ever knew it could, so it went on the list.

But the dog was another issue entirely. And that’s where Brock Parker came into the picture, or so Anya hoped. Clementine had been so sure he could help her. She’d used the word genius to describe his proficiency at training.

He sure didn’t look like a genius standing there in his doorway in that bear costume. Then again, what did Anya know about geniuses? Hadn’t she read somewhere that Albert Einstein couldn’t tie his own shoes? Maybe Einstein had a bear suit too.

She glanced down at Brock’s feet poking out from the dark-brown fur. He wore hiking boots, and they were indeed tied.

Was that a good thing? Who knew?

She inhaled a deep breath of frigid winter air and tried again. “I have a very anxious dog, and I was told you might be able to help me. I’m kind of desperate.”

She’d planned to tell him more, but suddenly her eyes burned with the telltale sting of tears. To say she was desperate was an understatement. Things seemed bad enough when she’d first rescued Dolce. The poor thing hid under the bed all the time. Anya barely saw her. Little did she know Dolce’s shyness was the least of her problems.

The tiny dog also howled at the top of her canine lungs. At first, Anya had been able to convince the people at the Northern Lights Inn—who were not only her employer, but also her landlord—to give the dog some time. Surely Dolce would settle down.

She hadn’t. Not yet anyway. And the hotel management had run out of patience. They’d finally given her an ultimatum—give up either the dog or her rent-free cottage.

The choice was hers. She had a mere fourteen days to fix the problem or lose her dog or her home. She’d pinned her last hope on Brock’s purported genius, and from the looks of things, that might have been a mistake.

She sniffed and willed herself not to shed a tear. Desperate or not, crying in front of a man dressed as a bear was simply out of the question.

She heard a sigh. Brock’s furry chest rose and fell. Then—finally—he removed the bear head, exposing his face.

Anya wasn’t altogether sure what she’d expected, but the cool blue eyes, straight perfect nose and high cheekbones that looked as though they’d been chiseled from granite were most definitely not it. The man resembled some kind of dreamy Nordic statue. Anya had to blink to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

“You say your dog is anxious? How anxious?” He spoke without cracking the slightest smile, which only made him look more like something Michelangelo had carved out of stone.

Anya swallowed. Her mouth had abruptly gone dry. The snowflakes floating against her cheeks felt colder all of a sudden, and she realized her face had grown quite warm. “Very. I rescued her from a bad situation, and unless she’s attached to a leash, I can’t get her to come out from under my bed. She even eats there and only in the dark.”

It was pathetic. Every night when Anya drifted off to sleep, it was to the sound of poor Dolce crunching on kibble.

“But that’s not the worst of it. She howls. Rather loudly.” Anya’s voice grew wobbly. “I’m about to be kicked out of my cottage.”

“I see.” Brock nodded, and a lock of his disheveled blond hair fell across his forehead.

She’d heard of bedhead, but never bearhead. It, too, appeared to have its charms.

A shiver ran up Anya’s spine—a shiver she attributed to the fact that she was still standing on his front porch and the temperature had dipped well below freezing.

Yeah, right.

“Come with me.” Still clutching the bear head under his arm, he led her inside.

Anya had been in the house once, long before she’d ever heard of Brock. She’d babysat nine-year-old twins who had lived here when she was in high school. Other than Brock’s array of unopened moving boxes, the living room looked pretty much the same—wood floors, dark paneled walls and huge floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the rugged, snow-capped Chugach Mountain range. The view was breathtaking, even to Anya, who’d seen the splendors of Alaska virtually every day of her life.

Brock strode past the window with barely a glance, leading her through the dining room and kitchen and out the back door. The snow crunched beneath their feet as they headed toward a barnlike structure about a dozen yards from the house. The barn was new—at least it hadn’t been part of the landscape when the Davis twins were nine. If there was a walkway, it wasn’t visible beneath the previous night’s snowfall. Flurries were still coming down, swirling and drifting through the branches of the evergreen trees. By the time they reached the barn, the shoulders of Brock’s bear costume were dusted with a fine layer of white.

“This is my training area.” He pushed the door open with a grizzly paw and ushered her inside.

The smell of sawdust and puppies drifted to Anya’s nostrils. A strange combination, but not at all unpleasant. In fact, she found it oddly comforting. “Wow. Nice.”

Calling it a barn wasn’t really fair. The word barn conjured up images of dirty, hay-strewn floors and farming equipment covered in layers of dust. This building had been swept and cleaned to the point of perfection. A series of short, wooden dividers separated the center of the room into four pens. What Anya assumed was leftover lumber had been stacked neatly against the wall. Brock may have been new in town, but clearly he’d been busy.

Above the excess planks of wood were a series of hooks. What looked like a ski patrol jacket hung from one of them. Anya’s gaze lingered on the bright-red parka and moved over the intersecting lines of the bold white cross printed on it until Brock spoke again, stealing her attention.

“Sit there.” He pointed to one of the square, wood-framed pens.

Anya glanced at him, wishing he would offer more of an explanation. She didn’t see a chair anywhere. What was she supposed to do? Sit on the floor? But as she approached the box, a cute, furry head peeked over one of the short walls. Then another equally adorable face popped up beside it.

“Puppies!” Anya clapped her hands.

She swung her leg over the short wall and climbed inside with the dogs, sitting cross-legged in the center of the pen. One of the puppies immediately crawled into her lap, but the other one eyed her from a foot or two away.

They didn’t look like any puppies Anya had ever seen, certainly not the customary sled dogs that populated Alaska. These were a lovely red color, with white markings on their feet and chests.

“What kind of dogs are these?” she asked. “They almost look like little foxes.”

“Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers,” Brock said, as if that mouthful of an answer made a lick of sense to Anya. He reached for a newspaper that was folded and placed neatly on one of the wooden dividers and handed it to her. “I’d like you to read this.”

She glanced at the paper, this morning’s edition of the Yukon Reporter. She scanned the front page for anything dog-related but came up empty. “Um, what exactly am I supposed to be reading?”