Chapter 11
Hunter
The next day, I’m a bundle of nerves as I drive one of the production vans to a musher’s camp on the outskirts of Nome. I know the way. It’s my second time visiting the Garrison’s ranch today.
This morning, at the crack of dawn, Isabella, Beto, and I hitched a ride out there. We wanted to meet the dogs in advance, and maybe get a few tips on how to harness them.
Upon arrival, we found the Garrisons already hard at work, feeding breakfast to their twenty-two boisterous huskies. Cody Garrison, a veteran who lost several of his fingers while serving in the military, bought this place outside of Nome when he was honorably discharged from the Marines. He met his wife a few years ago when she answered a personal ad, agreeing to be his teammate for a co-ed sled dog race.
I liked the Garrisons the minute I met them. I liked the way Cody and his wife, Juliet, a veterinarian originally from Montana, treated the dogs more like kids than pets, doting on each pup like a treasure. And I liked the way they took time to introduce six of the dogs to Isabella and Beto, giving them a quick crash course on hitching sled dogs to mushing harnesses. We could only stay for an hour, but I’m hopeful that Isabella and Beto meeting the dogs in advance will help them at the roadblock.
Now, with the morning detour challenges and lunch finished, all three teams are headed to the Garrison’s for the big challenge of the day: Mush to Glory!
All three teams will be expected to drive their teams to a predetermined location about two miles from the Garrison’s ranch and back again. Teams Brady and Newlyweds, who have no penalty, can jump into their golf carts and yell “Mush” the moment they arrive at the Garrison’s ranch. But without any extra time allotment, Team Primos will have to harness their six dogs, attach them to their golf cart, and then race them two miles and back to the pit stop.
If they can harness the dogs quickly, they shouldn’t lose too much time. But the chances of two people with no mushing experience harnessing six excited dogs quickly is next to impossible. I don’t see how they can win, and the hope they’re trying to keep alive is gutting me.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fucking fair.
Isabella and Beto have emerged as the strongest team of the three. They would have won the race. They would have had first place cinched and a million dollars in the bag, if I hadn’t fallen in love with Isabella Gonzalez.
But I did fall in love with her, and by God’s grace or some existential act of mercy I never saw coming, she didn’t reject my declaration of love last night. I half expected her to turn and walk out of my room when I confessed my feelings to her. Instead, she leaned into me, she caressed my face, she called me her heart and her life, and she asked me to make love to her.
My god, how will I ever say farewell to her at the end of the summer?
It’s a question that weighs on me, that tortures me, that steals the joy from the time we have together. Once we get back to Skagway, I need to start looking for a solution because I’m more and more certain that letting her go is something I won’t be able to bear.
I get out of the van, shaking Cody’s gloved hand and saying hello to Juliet.
“The dogs are totally overstimulated,” she tells me. “So many people here. Vehicles. Cameras. They’re all cuckoo.”
Cody grimaces. “Gonna be a tough job for your girl and her cousin to get them hitched up.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help them,” promises Juliet before heading back to Team Brady’s golf cart, where six of the Garrison’s sled dogs are ready to race, howling and barking, eager to get started.
Teams Brady and Newlyweds get a quick lesson on mushing from the Garrisons, hop into the front seat of their golf carts, and take the reins, trusting their lead dogs to take them safely around the two-mile-long circuit and back here to the pit stop.
Meanwhile, Isabella and Beto are in a small enclosure, trying to wrangle the six overexcited dogs they met this morning into harnesses. They’re working together to hold one dog in place, but the other five are barking like crazy, which makes the one they’re trying to harness all the more upset and excited.
As the other two teams disappear from sight, Juliet Garrison rushes over to Beto and Isabella, shooting a quick look at the cameraman.
“Can I get in there and help them?” she asks.
“Not a good idea. Could get them eliminated,” he says. “Best stay out there.”
Juliet squats down between two split rails outside of the enclosure, just a few inches away from her writhing, wiggling dog.
“Cheyenne,” she says, her voice soft and sweet, “come on, baby. Let Bella hold you while Beto gets you harnessed.”
Still whining pitifully, Cheyenne calms down enough to be harnessed. Once she’s securely in her harness, Beto grabs the collar of another dog and walks it over to Isabella, then grabs another harness from a shed peg.
“Hey, Augusta,” coos Juliet. “Mama’s here. Be still, sweet girl. Let Bella hold you while Beto gets you harnessed. There you go. Good girl. Good girl.”
One by one, dog by dog, with Juliet cajoling her pack, but never lifting a hand, all six dogs are finally buckled into harnesses and clipped to their mushing leads.
With fat tears of defeat in her eyes, Isabella looks over at me before clipping the final lead into place and taking her seat in the front of the golf cart. In the distance, we can already hear the other two teams returning in victory.
The Astonishing Race: Alaskais lost for Team Primos. There’s no way they can win now.
As dependable as the Grim-fucking-Reaper, Nat Keegan appears out of nowhere to share the bad news that Team Primos has been eliminated from the race…but just as he’s about to deliver the death blow, Isabella lifts her chin and cries, “Hike!” at the top of her lungs.
And the dogs, who have been waiting for that word, take off running.
Team Primos won’t win, of course.
But they won’t quit, either.
The same can’t be said for me.
As we watch them race away, I turn to Nat.
“You’re a real piece of shit. You know that?”
“Sticks and stones, my boy. Make yourself useful. Why don’t you go get the pit stop mat? We’ll set it up…just over there. Near the barn. The other teams should be here any minute.”
“Why don’t you go get the mat?” I suggest. “I fucking quit.”
***
Isabella weeps softly on my shoulder as we ride back to the hotel. Beto, sitting behind us, says nothing, but he can barely contain his fury. No matter what Isabella says to him, he ignores her, his jaw set in stone, his eyes cold.
He’s young and angry and disappointed. I get it. I’d be pissed, too.
“B-Beto,” sobs Isabella, who is beyond exhausted. “Lo siento, primo. Lo siento m-muchisimo.”
He stares out the window like he doesn’t hear her, then turns around and leans forward.
“Hey, Carlos,” he says to the driver, “when we get back to the hotel, can you give me ten minutes to get my shit and then take me to the airport?”
“Sure, hombre.”
“Where are you g-going?” she asks.
“Home,” he says. One word. The first he’s uttered to her since we left the Garrison’s place.
“But you’ll f-forfeit the t-ten thousand.”
“I don’t care,” he says softly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“B-Beto...”
Her cousin finally looks at her. He holds her eyes for a long, furious moment, then slides his gaze to me.
“Thanks for giving those guys a beating back in Fairbanks. It should’ve been me. They had no right to touch her. That was mad fucked up, bruh.”
“Don’t worry about it. You were dancing. You didn’t see what was going on.” I squeeze Isabella’s shoulder, and she nestles closer to me. “Besides, it was my pleasure to lay them out.”
As we pull up to the Nome Nugget Hotel, Beto looks at his cousin, who’s still got tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m pissed at you, Isabella, but you’re still my family. I’m flying to Ketchikan tonight. I’ll drive your car home.”
Then he jumps out of the van and stalks into the hotel.
“He h-hates me,” she wails, slumping against my chest.
“Nah,” I say. “He’s mad about what happened to you last night. He’s crazy disappointed that you two were eliminated. You should have won and didn’t. He’s just a kid. He’s doing the best he can to keep it together.”
I help her out of the van, and we walk, hand in hand, into the hotel lobby, where neither the remaining teams nor the production crew is anywhere to be seen, thank God. We take the elevator up to our floor and walk to our room. There’s no urgency in our steps. Neither of us is in the mood to make out. When we get to our room, we fall onto the bed, side by side, and stare at the ceiling in silence.
“So much changed in twenty-four hours,” she whispers after a few minutes. “My head’s spinning.”
“It’s a lot to absorb.”
“Maybe…maybe I should—I mean, should I go home with Beto?” she asks uncertainly. “My cousin Miguel is going to be so mad at me. And his father, my mother’s brother. And—oh my god—when the show comes out, and my family realizes that we lost the money because I…all because I…”
A chill passes through me as her voice trails off.
Oh my god.She’s leaving. She’s leaving, and that will be the end of us.
Just like last time.
She’s leaving.
After all of our plans to spend the rest of the summer together.
She’s leaving. Again.
And if it hurt last time, this time it’s going to break my fucking heart in half.
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, telling myself not to be so selfish. She’s been through so much over the past two days. And I care about her too much to add to her pain and confusion by guilting her into staying. I sit up and swing my legs over the bed, keeping my back to her. My eyes burn from exhaustion and bitter, useless tears.
I’ll go downstairs and tell Carlos to wait for her. I’m about to tell her to get packed when—
“…all because I fell in love with you,” she says softly.
The words stun me. It takes me a second to process them. When I finally do, I look at her over my shoulder.
“Wait. What did you say?”
“We lost our chance at a million dollars,” she says, her lips tilting up just a touch, “because I fell in love with you.” Her eyes soften with tenderness as she rolls onto her side. “Lie down next to me, Hunter. Please.”
“Are you leaving?” I ask first.
“No,” she whispers. “I’m not. I promise.”
***
Isabella
Hunter lies down on his side, facing me, the blue of his eyes surrounded by a pale ring of red.
I upset him. I worried him.
I need to be more careful of his heart.
As soon as he sat up, I recognized my mistake, and further still, its consequence: that if I left him again, choosing Beto’s feelings over his, there was no guaranteed third chance for us. I quickly realized that I’m not willing to risk the second chance we’ve been given. He means too much to me now.
Besides, spending more one-on-one time with Beto wouldn’t help or fix anything. Time apart to gain perspective and cool down will serve us best for now. September will be here soon enough.
I reach out to cup Hunter’s cheek. “I’m sorry I said that…about going home with Beto. I didn’t mean it. I was just thinking aloud.”
“I won’t try to keep you here if you want to go,” he says, rotating his head a touch so his lips press against my palm. “It’s not going to work unless you want to stay…unless you want to be with me.”
“I do,” I tell him. “I choose you.”
For now. The words slide through my mind, the inevitable end of the summer taunting me. What about then?
“Hey,” he says, the heaviness in his eyes abating, “what was that you said about falling in l—”
“You’re going to be impossible now, aren’t you?”
He grins at me. “Say it again.”
“No.”
“Please?” he begs.
“Falling in love…” I scoff. “I hate that expression so much.”
“I know,” he says, putting his arm around my waist to pull me closer. My breasts push against his chest, my nipples pebbling on contact. “Which makes it all the more awesome that you said it.”
“Don’t expect me to get all mushy now,” I warn him. “I’m not the lovey-dovey type.”
He brushes one of my errant curls off my forehead. “What type are you?”
“Honest,” I say, thinking of the traits I value most in myself. “Loyal.”
“Smart.”
“Ooo. I like that.”
“Sexy,” he says, rocking his hips into mine, his arousal hard against my thigh.
I can’t help smiling as he leans forward to kiss my throat. His lips are soft and hot against my skin. He turns me on like a light, and I immediately want more.
“And…dusty,” he grumbles.
“Dusty?”
“You’re covered in dust and dirt from your race,” he says, leaning away from me with a slow, sexy smile. “Wanna take a shower?”
“Mmm. We haven’t done that yet,” I say, rolling away from him to stand up and get naked. “Sounds perfect.”
***
The next morning, we sneak out of our hotel before we run into anyone from the show. We’re both anxious to get back to Skagway.
Our journey takes us from Nome to Anchorage to Juneau to Skagway, and it takes almost nine hours.
What people from the Lower 48 don’t necessarily understand about a state as big as Alaska is that flying from one Alaskan city to another is like flying halfway across the continental United States. Point in fact, even though Nome and Skagway are in the same state, it’s approximately the equivalent of flying from Rapid City, South Dakota, to Atlanta, Georgia, in scope, distance and direction.
It’s a little before seven o’clock in the evening when our plane touches down in Skagway, but the sun is high, so it’s as bright as early afternoon. We wait for our luggage before stepping from the terminal building to find Tanner and McKenna waiting for us.
“Iz!” yells McKenna, jumping out of Tanner’s truck. “You’re here!”
“I’m here!” I say, abandoning my suitcases by the curb to get a hug from my friend. She smells familiar and feels solid, and after the last few weeks of racing and falling in love with Hunter and falling out of grace with my cousin and being eliminated this morning, I’m so grateful for her. “It’s good to see you. I need this.”
She leans away. “Hey. You okay?”
I haven’t told her everything. She doesn’t know what happened at the Spur, or how Beto and I were finally eliminated due to a bullshit roadblock that made it impossible to win. Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them away.
“Don’t make me cry, Ken.”
“I won’t,” she vows, lifting her chin. She looks at me sternly, as she’s seen my mother do a million times. “Oye, chica. Anímate.”
Listen, girl. Cheer up. God, I love her.
“You’re the best.”
“And you’re telling me everything later,” she says.
“Will do,” I promise.
Hunter and Tanner are catching up as they load our bags into the bed of the truck, and when they’re done, they open our doors for us.
“These Stewart guys sure are gentlemen,” I say.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” says McKenna, leaning over to kiss her husband on the cheek as Hunter slides into the back seat beside me.
“You doing okay?” he asks me, scooching in next to me and putting his arm around my shoulders.
I nod. “I’m glad to be here.”
“Tan,” says Hunter, “what’s the rooming situation?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did Sawyer move into the lodge?”
“Huh?”
“So Bella and I can have the cabin?”
“I don’t know. Did you ask him to?”
“Hell, yes, I did.”
“Oh. Well. I don’t know if he got the message.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” says Tanner. “Last I saw, Sawyer was still living the bachelor life at your place.”
“Fuck,” mutters Hunter. He turns to me. “Sorry about this. We’ll get it sorted out as soon as we get home.”
I’m so tired, all I want to do is fall into bed and sleep for a thousand years, but I’m also anxious to fit in with the Stewart clan. I don’t like the idea of arriving at the campground only to evict Sawyer from his home.
“We can just stay in the lodge,” I say. “Can’t we? Or get a hotel room in town?”
“Rooms will be hard to come by at this point,” says Tanner. “All the seasonal workers got here a month ago, and we get thousands of tourists a day.”
“And the lodge is full,” McKenna adds, peeking at us over her shoulder. “It’s high season. But don’t worry! We’ll figure out something!”
I put my head on Hunter’s shoulder and let my eyes flutter closed. I don’t care where we end up tonight as long as it has a bed big enough for two; and since we managed to share a twin bed on the cruise ship once or twice, pretty much anywhere will work for us.
A second later I’m asleep, and two seconds after that, I wake up at the campground. The truck rolls to a stop in front of Tanner and McKenna’s place.
“Hey,” says Hunter, jostling me gently. “We’re here.”
I blink my tired, burning eyes, fighting to keep them open and look around.
“Come on,” he says. “Tanner has something to show us.”
He gets out of the truck, then helps me down. I’m so disoriented from my mini-nap, I still feel like I’m dreaming as we walk the path through the woods in the direction of Hunter’s future home.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he tells me. “They won’t give me any details.”
“The house won’t be here for a few weeks, right?”
“That’s right,” he says.
We follow Tanner and McKenna down the woodland path, solar lights now installed on either side, a nice, new addition to our walk. As we approach the clearing, I can see fairy lights—white twinkle lights—through the trees.
“Wait. Did your house come early?”
“No,” he says. “No way. Let’s find out what’s going on.”
When we get to the concrete foundation, I understand why Tanner and McKenna were so cagey about accommodations in the car—there’s a wonderful surprise waiting for us. All of the Stewarts—Gran, Paw-Paw, Gary, Harper, Joe and baby Wren, Sawyer, Parker, and Reeve—are standing on Hunter’s concrete foundation, in front of the most beautiful tent I’ve ever seen.
More a luxury yurt than a mere tent, it’s at least ten feet tall and wrapped with two strings of fairy lights. The front flaps are open to show a lavishly decorated interior, complete with two easy chairs, a mini-fridge and a plush, queen-sized bed, covered with fuzzy blankets and velvet throw pillows in white, cream and gray. On one end table, there are flickering candles and on the other, a vase of wildflowers. It’s so beautiful, it looks like something straight out of a fairytale, and I gasp with surprise, touched by the incredible thoughtfulness of this family.
“It’s…so gorgeous,” I say, stopping in my tracks to admire Hunter’s and my temporary home. After I’ve drunk my fill, I slide my gaze to the left and look at the Stewart family’s faces, their smiles blurred by my tears. “You’re all so kind.”
“Welcome home!” cries Reeve, jumping off the foundation and running to me and her brother. She hugs us both together, then leans back to grin at us with sparkling eyes. “It was Harper’s idea, but Dad, Joe, Sawyer, Parker, and I helped. And then McKenna ordered stuff she knew you’d love, and she and Tanner decorated it. You can keep everything when the house gets here. We all chipped in! Think of all the stuff as your housewarming gift, Hunt.”
Hunter gulps, and his voice is wobbly with emotion when he grates out, “Thanks, everyone. I don’t know what to say. This is totally amazing.”
Harper steps forward with baby Wren asleep in a sling across her chest. Her smile is gentle and kind. “Welcome home, Isabella.”
“Th-thanks, Harper,” I say, trying to hold it together. These people are among the most loving and generous I’ve ever known. I don’t feel worthy of so much kindness. I don’t want to let them down now that they’ve offered it. “Thank you, everyone.”
The Stewarts climb down the concrete stairs, and we’re greeted and hugged one by one, amid tears and laughter. Gary, who’s been hiding a bottle of bubbly behind his back, cracks it open with a festive POP! He takes a sip, then passes it around so we can all have a celebratory slug of the good stuff.
“I guess you two are probably pretty knackered,” he says as the bottle reaches us. “We’ll clear out and let you get some zzz’s.”
McKenna is the last to give me a hug—a big, bear hug that lasts a while and feels like a little bit of home-away-from-home.
“I’m so glad you decided to stay,” she tells me, pressing her forehead to mine.
“It’s just for the summer,” I remind her.
“I know,” she tells me, her smile fading a touch. “But I’m not going to think about that right now. I have you here for two whole months! I’m going to make the most of it!”
“Me too,” I tell her. “Love you, Ken.”
“Love you, Iz,” she responds. “See you tomorrow.”
As Tanner and McKenna follow the rest of the Stewart clan back to the main campground, Hunter and I climb up the concrete steps to the yurt and step inside.
“What do you think?” he asks, his eyes alight with happiness.
“I think your family is amazing.”
“Yeah,” he says. “They’re pretty great, I guess.”
I sit down on the edge of the bed only to find it’s just as comfortable as it looks.
“You know,” he says, standing in front of me, “we weren’t supposed to get back until Sunday. We still have three days off before either of us need to go back to work. A whole weekend to ourselves.”
I look up at him, suddenly feeling a lot less tired.
“Can you think of anything to fill that time?” I ask him, licking my lips and tilting my head to the side in thought.
He chuckles, which makes his blue eyes sparkle and shine. “I can think of a few things, baby.”
I push a pretend pair of glasses up the bridge of my nose. “It’s time for Show and Tell, class. Hunter, do you want to start with show…or tell?”
“Naughty school teacher is one of my fantasies,” he tells me, kneeling down in front of me and parting my knees. Gently, he pushes my dress up over my thighs until it’s bunched around my waist. His thumbs hook into the waistband of my panties, and I lift and shift slightly so he can tug them over my hips and down my legs. “And now that I’ve told you that, Miss Gonzalez, let’s skip to show, huh?”
I lie back on our new bed and close my eyes just as his tongue, warm and soft, slowly laps the length of my slit.
Oh. My. God.
Show and Tell will never be the same again.