Iditarod Nights (6 page)

"You cheated."

"Did not." She finished shuffling – her long
fingers with their blunt nails never missing a beat – and placed
the stack in the center of the table.

"You pretended not to understand the game
when Andy and his folks were playing with us." Dillon cut the
cards.

Claire began dealing. "I asked questions I
thought would help Andy pick up on the game quicker. That's not
cheating."

"You played dirty then."

She gave a low laugh and tossed in her ante.
"There's no law against that."

"There ought to be."

And there ought to be a law against the way
she made him feel when she laughed. Much of her honey-blond hair
had come loose from the braid at the back of her head. It framed
her face, giving her a disheveled look. As if she'd been thoroughly
made love to. Dillon felt an ache so intense his lack of
concentration on the game didn't surprise him.

He tossed a match stick in with hers and
picked up the cards she'd dealt him. He tossed ten more matches on
the pile. "Give me two."

Claire met his bet and took three cards for
herself. "You give yourself away when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Tap your heel."

Dillon's foot froze in mid tap. "Anything
else?"

"The left corner of your mouth twitches."

"I'll keep that in mind. Play cards."

He won that hand and the next, then lost four
straight. Claire laid down a full house, beating his three aces and
he uttered a disgusted curse, genuine and colorful.

She added her winnings to the pile of matches
on her side. "You didn't think I'd give away all my secrets, did
you?"

It had crossed his mind. "You can't tell me
you aren't dealing off the bottom."

"A lawyer's greatest asset is her ability to
read people."

"What was I doing this time?"

"Nothing."

"You just said – "

"You started to tap your heel, then caught
yourself and stopped. You reached up to scratch your jaw, then
stopped. Frankly, you were making me nervous with all your
fidgeting."

"Deal the cards." Within minutes, he lost two
more hands and the last of his matches. He tossed in his cards. "I
give."

"How about some hot chocolate?"

"Trying to soothe my wounded ego?"

"Not really. I'm going to fix myself some and
thought it only polite to offer."

"Hot chocolate sounds good."

Claire heated two mugs of milk in the
microwave while Dillon found the chocolate mix and spoons. The
edginess returned. He felt it like a live electrical wire stretched
across the room between them. Standing next to her at the counter,
he watched her pour a packet of chocolate into each mug.

"You're trembling," he softly observed.

Her spoon clattered against the rim of her
mug. He couldn't read her face because she held her head tipped
away from him. "I haven't been sleeping well," she said, a
tightness in her voice that hadn't been there a minute ago. "I
guess the race being so close has made me jumpy."

Dillon figured her comment was a diversion
and played along. "Did you get your booties done?"

She gave a wan smile. "Only half a bazillion
more to go."

He raised his mug in a toast. "Here's to dog
booties."

"To dog booties." She touched the rim of her
mug to his and took a cautious sip.

Dillon did the same. Once she lowered her
mug, he took it from her and set it on the counter next to his own.
Her eyes met his, wide and too damn vulnerable. He slid an arm
around her waist and coaxed her to him. She was slender beneath her
chunky sweatshirt, but not fragile. He imagined the feel of her
long legs wrapped around him. He risked brushing his lips over her
cheek and heard her breath catch. Her lack of resistance compelled
him to kiss her.

***

Claire thought she'd be ready for the impact.
She was wrong. Heat rushed through her and made her knees feel like
she'd stepped backward off the runners of a speeding sled. The
taste of chocolate enticed as his tongue persuaded her to let him
in. She did. His hand at her back pressed her closer. The
difference in size, the way their contrasting shapes fit together,
the smell of him. She sank her fingers in his hair as his mouth
drove her breathless.

He cupped her bottom and pulled her deeper
into him. What little breath Claire possessed escaped on a rush.
I'm lost
, she thought, even as her body craved more.

"Gross!"

Claire tore her mouth from Dillon's. Andy
stood at the edge of the light from the kitchen, his Transformer
pajamas rumpled and a look on his face like he had a mouthful of
cooked cauliflower. She met the latent desire in Dillon's gaze, his
arousal still strong between them, his heart beating a wild rhythm
that Claire felt through his entire body. He gave a half-smile of
regret and looked past her to Andy. "Did we wake you, sport?"

"I smelled hot chocolate."

Claire leaned into Dillon a moment longer,
her equilibrium not quite stable. She felt his lips against her
hair. "Did we just run to Nome?"

She smiled into the side of his neck. "I
think so." And then she was able to pull out of his arms, smooth
the front of her sweatshirt where it had ridden up, and turn to
face Andy. "Sit at the table, hon. I'll fix you a mug."

"Are you guys finished kissing?" he asked,
unconvinced.

Claire shot Dillon a quick, self-conscious
glance.

He winked and she felt her cheeks grow hot.
"For now," he told the boy, all the while looking at Claire. The
heat in her cheeks intensified. He pushed her hair back, tucking it
behind her ear, his calloused fingers gentle.

And not quite steady. Claire felt a tug of
panic. In spite of her resistance to the idea, she was falling for
the guy. "I'll get that hot chocolate."

Chapter 8

From the back of the crowded Millennium
Hotel's banquet room, Claire tried to focus on the veteran musher
on stage recounting an experience he had during last year's
Iditarod. But she couldn't hear anything over the dull roar in her
ears. She couldn't seem to draw enough air into her lungs to shake
off the blackness moving in on her peripheral vision.

So lightheaded
...

The room tipped and the black curtain drew
together. A strong arm circled her waist and kept her from diving
to the floor.

"Let's get out of here." Dillon's breath
brushed her ear.

Claire nodded. He grabbed their coats and
guided her out to the parking area. Bracing herself against the
side of the Land Cruiser, Claire gulped the crisp night air and
felt her head clear.

"Better?"

"Yes. Thanks." She gave a self-conscious
laugh and rubbed her arms. "I don't know what came over me."

Dillon helped her into her parka. "Too much
excitement, too little sleep. I'm having the same problem."

She cast him a skeptical look.
"Seriously?"

He shrugged into his own parka.
"Seriously."

"I just thought, since you'd done this before
– "

"I'd be used to it?" He leaned against the
side of the Land Cruiser, his shoulder pressed to hers. "If
anything, it's worse. I've been there. I know what to expect. Happy
River, Dalzell Gorge, the Buffalo Tunnels. I almost scratched at
Kaltag my first year. The wind and cold on the Yukon was
brutal."

"Then why keep coming back?"

He looked up at the night sky; Claire looked
at him. It was easy to do. "There's a raw beauty on the Iditarod
Trail you won't find anywhere else. You'll discover what you're
made of." The intensity in his eyes when he looked back at her
stole her breath. "And you'll never be the same when it's
over."

She felt it even now. Her work with the dogs.
Time spent absorbing the culture and uniqueness of Alaska. She was
already changed. Alaska had gotten into her blood.

And so had this man. She knew too little
about him, outside of a past he refused to discuss and an ex-wife
who resented his job, whatever that may have been. She didn't like
secrets, especially the kind that might pop up to bite her on the
ass when least expected.

But she could still taste his kiss.

A shiver ran through her and she glanced
away.

"You're cold," he said. "Let's get in."

Claire felt time press down on her as she
gazed out the passenger window at the waning moon. She'd heard
Iditarod nights were the worst. Bitter winds, incredible
loneliness, cold intense enough to freeze alcohol. In the past few
days, there'd been little time to worry about it, with the pre-race
veterinary check at Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla yesterday, the
dogs examined and wormed, proof of vaccinations, health
certificates and microchip ID. Brian brought the Warren truck over
and helped Dillon transport his team, while Claire and Matt took
her team in the Sommers' truck.

Then early this morning she and Dillon drove
the hundred miles to Anchorage to attend the mandatory mushers'
meeting, a chaotic assembly of rookies and veterans, officials
laying out rules, veterinarians speaking on dog care. Claire
remembered very little of what was said. The whole affair went on
for hours, with a break midday for pictures with their Iditariders.
A fifty-eight-year-old doctor from Texas paid for the privilege of
racing the first eleven miles of the Iditarod with Claire. She only
hoped she didn't dump him out of the sled on the first sharp turn.
Dillon's Iditarider was a mother of three from Fairbanks.

The banquet began at 6:00. Mushers dined on
boneless beef ribs and drew for their starting positions. Out of
almost seventy mushers participating in the race, Claire would be
the twenty-second team to leave Anchorage Saturday morning. Dillon
drew number eighteen.

Saturday morning. The day after tomorrow.
Claire felt like a green rookie, with the emphasis on green. Nerves
churned the contents of her stomach. She'd come close to fainting,
for God's sake. She cast Dillon a look from the corner of her eye.
The Land Cruiser's dash lights shadowed the angles of his face,
sharpening his features. He drove with both hands on the steering
wheel. Strong hands. Her body suffused with heat, remembering their
heart-stopping tenderness.

"You alright?" he asked.

The intimacy in his voice threw her
already-busy hormones into overtime. She cleared her throat. "I'm
fine. Did you get your shopping done this afternoon?"

"Yeah." He pulled a small paper bag from a
pocket of his parka and tossed it in her lap.

She looked inside. "A box of matches?"

"I always pay my debts."

"There's three hundred here. The debt was
only two fifty."

"Interest."

"Twenty percent? Steep. Generous, but steep."
Claire put the matches in her pocket. "About the other day – "

"I don't regret it."

She stared at him, felt her face grow warm
when she realized he was referring to the kiss. "Nor do I," she
admitted.

"But that's not what you wanted to talk
about, is it?"

"I..." She tucked at her hair. "No." That
doesn't mean I haven't thought about it, she wanted to tell him,
but fear held her back. The emotions were too raw yet, too
uncertain.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"When I told you about the murder case, how
did you know?" Then at his confused look, "That I regretted my
client's life sentence, while his victims got death."
They were
tortured before they died.

Don't personalize the case, Claire. Let it go
and move on.

"It's how I would have felt. The need to
avenge the innocent. It eats at you."

Yes. It ate at her. Haunted her in spite of
all the well-meaning advice.

The night sky shimmered to life, a curtain of
greens, swirling and waving like colored sheets hanging from the
line on laundry day. Dillon pulled to the side of the road and
stopped. He left the engine running, the heater fan blowing warmth
across their faces. The green waves of light shifted direction,
took on a reddish hue at the edges.

"I never get tired of seeing that," Claire
whispered, as though saying it too loud might cause it to
disappear.

"The first time I saw the Northern Lights, I
was on some back road, lost, trying to read an Anchorage city map."
He grinned, the lights turning his teeth an eerie green. "I was a
cab driver at the time."

Claire burst out a laugh.

"I didn't have the job very long. Then I took
a job selling snowmachines, but I sucked at sales." He paused, as
though drawn inside a memory. His smile flattened. "The only thing
I was ever good at was being a cop," he said in a subdued voice.
"But I fucked that up too."

While Claire grappled for a response, the
Northern Lights faded and Dillon put the Land Cruiser in gear. The
hard set to his profile didn't encourage questions. He'd closed
himself off again. It was evident he hadn't intended to reveal as
much as he did, that if he could take it back, he would. In a
heartbeat.

Okay, she'd guessed right about the cop part.
Now what? That it hadn't worked out for him could mean just about
anything. Maybe avenging the innocent, as he put it. At least now
she understood his animosity toward lawyers. She'd butted heads
with her share of disgruntled officers over legal issues,
especially when she got between them and a confession.

"So," she said, reminded of her vow not to
grill him for details, "given your habit of fucking things up,
should I avoid eating at the Bering West when I get to Nome?"

His startled laugh released the tension
between them. "You're safe," he told her. "I've got an outstanding
cook."

***

It was almost midnight when Dillon pulled
into Sommer Kennels. He shut off the Land Cruiser's engine and
Claire's head came up. She frowned as if disoriented, then yawned
wide.