Alaskan Fantasy. Elle James

first she’d resented his inference that she was falling apart. Forced into taking leave, she headed to the only place she knew Marty had never been. It still struck her as ironic that Marty had never seen her home. Paul had always come out to visit them and, with their jobs being so demanding and dangerous, they never got around to doing anything other than brief trips into the North Carolina mountains to bike or backpack. They’d both been dedicated to their jobs and loved the thrill of being Stealth Operations Specialists—ultra-secret agents. But after Marty’s death…

      “Is that your house?” Tazer leaned over the back of the seat, staring ahead.

      The two-story log cabin perched on the side of a hill, the roof banked in a foot of snow, warm yellow light streaming through every window. Kat’s heart lodged in her throat and tears burned behind her eyelids. She would not cry. Having been raised in a malecentric household, tears were considered worse than the plague. On top of her upbringing, she’d spent time in the army as a criminal investigator and in Washington, D.C., on the Capitol police force before she was recruited to be an S.O.S. agent. Everywhere she’d been tears were taboo.

      Kat wasn’t a woman prone to waterworks. At first she’d been glad Tazer had asked to go along with her to Alaska, but now she wished her friend was back in D.C. The homecoming would be twice as hard if she had to wear a game face all the time.

      Vic pulled up in the driveway and all three climbed out of the SUV. “I’ll take your luggage in. Loki is around back. He’ll be glad to see you.”

      “Loki?” Tazer pulled her collar up around her neck, hunching her shoulders against the frigid breeze.

      Kat’s tears pushed closer to the surface as she managed to choke out, “My lead dog.”

      “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go in and climb into a cup of really hot coffee.” Tazer stamped her feet in the snow.

      “No, please. Vic will show you to your room. I’ll join you for coffee in a few.” Kat took off around the side of the house, knowing if she didn’t, she’d break down in front of Tazer.

      As she approached the rows of doghouses, a light sensor triggered the outside flood lamp and a familiar, furry face lifted from his paws. As soon as Loki saw her, he leaped to his feet and barked, his body twisting and shaking in his excitement.

      Kat dropped to her knees before the Alaskan husky launched himself into her arms, licking her face and whining at the same time.

      Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Kat couldn’t hold back any longer. She wrapped her arms around Loki’s neck, buried her face in his thick black-and-white fur and let the past year wash over her in a tsunami of emotions.

      Visions of Marty laughing among the group at the S.O.S. office in D.C., Marty on their wedding day when they’d flown to Atlantic City to get married, and the last time she’d seen him alive as he boarded the plane to Dindi. He’d kissed her goodbye and tapped her beneath the chin. “See ya in a few.”

      The only time he’d ever mentioned the L-word had been when he’d promised to love, honor and cherish her until death do us part. And death had parted them only a year after their whirlwind courtship and marriage. Sometimes Kat wondered if they really had been married. A year in the life of an S.O.S. agent was short. With the dangerous work they did, flying all over the world, they’d barely seen each other.

      She’d loved him hard, as if each day would be the last. And she felt the pain of his loss no less than if they’d been married fifty years. But she’d learned one thing. Love hurt too much to invest in a second time. “Oh, Loki, it’s so good to be home.”

      “Hey!” A voice called out from somewhere down the hill at the rear of the house. “Hey! Help!”

      Kat’s head jerked up and she scrubbed the tears from her eyes before she could see a team of dogs and a sled in the moonlight coming across the clearing behind the house. The team was twice as long as the usual team. The sled had a large lump sprawled across it, and a man with a voice she didn’t recognize behind it.

      From across the clearing, the man yelled, “Call an ambulance! Paul’s hurt!”

      Chapter Two

      Sam leaned against the wall of the crisp, clean hospital room, awaiting his chance to speak to Paul alone.

      Kat leaned over her brother and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her dark hair slid across his chest in a cloud of ebony waves. “I’m going to get some coffee.” Kat tucked the blanket up around Paul’s shoulders.

      “About time,” he grumbled. “You’d think I was dying or something with everyone hanging around like vultures ready to pick my bones clean.”

      “Come on, Tazer. Let’s get that coffee we promised you hours ago before my inconsiderate brother decided to play the kamikaze musher.”

      Paul threw an empty pill cup at her. “Out!”

      Kat grabbed Tazer’s arm and ducked through the open door.

      “See what I have to put up with? I practically kill myself and she thinks I did it on purpose.” Paul shook his head, a grin teasing the corners of his lips.

      Sam envied the camaraderie between brother and sister. He let the good vibes chase away the bad as he steeled himself to tell Paul what really happened back on the trail.

      By the time Emergency Medical Services arrived, Paul had regained consciousness and insisted he was fine. But because he’d been unconscious and there seemed to be damage to his ankle, they’d hauled him to the hospital. Kat rode alongside him in the back of the ambulance.

      Sam stayed behind, insisting Vic and Tazer join Paul at the hospital. He’d taken the snowmobile and gone back out on the trail to retrieve his sled.

      When he brought it back to the barn and gotten a good look at it, his heart ran as cold as the frozen river Paul had fallen on.

      “What’s wrong?” Paul asked, breaking into Sam’s reverie. “Look, I must have been too close to the edge. It’s not your fault I crashed.”

      “In a way it was.”

      Paul shook his head, a teasing look lifting the corners of his mouth. “I insisted on taking your sled. Apparently I wasn’t ready for its superior speed and maneuverability.”

      “Paul, you don’t understand.” Sam held up a hand, stopping Paul’s attempt to make him feel better about something that should never have happened. “That crash was no accident.”

      “What do you mean?” Paul punched the button adjusting the head of the bed upward.

      “The stanchions had been cut clean through.”

      Silence followed as Paul’s forehead wrinkled into a deep frown. “You sure they didn’t break in the crash?”

      “No, they were sawed at the base except a tiny piece to hold it temporarily.” Sam’s mouth tightened. “Someone did it deliberately. Someone who knew what to cut that wouldn’t be obvious.”

      “Why?” Paul pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

      “I don’t know, but that crash was intended for me, not you.” Sam jammed his hands into his pockets and paced across the room and back.

      “Assuming you’re right and someone actually sabotaged your sled, it could just as easily have been mine. Yours sits next to mine in the barn.”

      “Correct, but everyone in Anchorage likes you.” It was true. Sam hadn’t met a soul in the city who had a bad word to say about Paul. “I’m the outsider stirring up trouble for the state.”

      “I bust people all the time. It could have been someone I put in jail,” Paul argued.

      “Yeah, but you don’t have an entire political venue riding on your work.” Or a past that might have caught up to him. Sam shrugged the thought away. No. He’d assumed a different identity