Page 70 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

Maren drops to her knees in the snow beside me.

Her breathing comes in ragged plumes. Frost coats her dark lashes, but her winter-blue eyes burn through sleet with the fierce clarity of a woman who fought death across thirty thousand miles of sky and refused to lose.

"You're in the lee." Her leather gloves come up to frame my frozen jaw. Her thumbs press into the hollow beneath my cheekbones, hard and steady, grounding my consciousness against the dark. "Core temp is dropping. We have the sled."

Through the blinding curtain of snow, the rest of the pack crests the drift.

Wyatt Calhoun hauls an emergency litter on steel runners, his beard white with ice. Griff Reed steps beside him, uninjured arm locked on the towline while Chief bounds at his boots with his black coat dusted in snow. Nadia Vega flanks the sled with Zip alert at her knee, cold-weather trauma bags slung across her chest. Brody Gavin drives snowshoes through powder with Babe tight at his hip, and Sarah Garrison anchors the rear with Tank, the ninety-pound mastiff mix breaking a wide trench through waist-deep drifts.

"Let's get you home." Wyatt drops emergency hypothermia wraps onto the hood, his voice carrying over the gale.

I look up at Maren.

Her hands never leave my face. The leather of her gloves is cold, but the heat of her palms beneath the hide burns into my skin like sunlight.

No anger remains in her eyes.

Only the stubborn truth of a woman who walked up a frozen mountain on a broken knee because she refused to let me die in the dark.

My right arm feels like frozen lead, but my fingers force their way forward. They lift from Radar's scruff, closing around Maren's wrist to catch the miraculous thud of her pulse under my palm.

"Maren." The name tears out of my chest, stripped of armor, stripped of pride, stripped of every debt ever carried.

"I'm here." Her forehead touches mine in the roaring wind, breath warm against my mouth. "I'm right here. You're coming home."

My eyes close, letting the weight of her hands hold the floor beneath my heart, and for the first time in thirty-eight years, I let myself be saved.

NINETEEN

Steady

MAREN

The heavy cedar door slams shut.

The blizzard cuts out in a single hard latch. The roar of the mountain gale dies to a dull vibration under the floorboards.

Heat hits my face like a wet wool blanket. Smells of cedar shavings, damp wool, pine resin, and hot iron. Across the threshold, the cast-iron stove in the center of the exam room glows cherry-red behind its grate. The sudden warmth makes the room spin. My temples throb with a sharp, sickening pulse.

Wyatt unclips the towline from his chest harness, slush dropping from his beard onto the rubber mat. Behind him, Griff and Brody guide the emergency sled across the threshold, Nadia and Sarah flanking the runners with their dogs. Barnaby trots beside Jason with snow caking his golden coat, his gray muzzle held low.

Bella hurries out from behind the pharmacy counter with a stack of heated wool blankets in her arms.

"Exam table one is clear. Saline is warmed to ninety-nine degrees. Wyatt, take the pup. Griff, get the team and the dogs down to the kennel. Towel them off, strip your wet gear, and get into the bunkhouse. There's hot stew on the range."

Her voice has the crisp cadence of someone managing a crisis ward. No panic. Just work.

Griff nods, signaling the others. Boots stomp across the pine planks as the trainees herd Chief, Babe, Zip, and Tank down the breezeway corridor. The heavy fire door swings shut behind them, cutting off the noise and leaving the room quiet.

Wyatt drops to his knees beside the sled, peeling back the fleece lining of Jason’s coat to check Radar’s gums. Radar’s tail gives one weak thump against the canvas. Dark eyes locked on Jason.

I reach down to unclip Juno’s tracking lead.

My fingers are numb, wooden sticks inside frozen gloves. The brass snap bites into my skin.

The cold adrenaline drains from my bloodstream all at once. Four miles through waist-deep drifts across the ridge, burning through reserves I didn't have. It all disappears the second the latch releases.

My right leg gives way.