Now that routine was shattered. The message from his sister, Freya, had been short and to the point.
Their father was in hospital. He had suffered another stroke and, although it was a small one and the doctors said that he should make a good recovery, his father wanted to talk to him. Urgently. Come home, Scott. We need you here.
Scott rolled his shoulders and fought back a sense of guilt at his resentment at having to go back to what passed for civilization a week earlier than he had planned.
They needed him. Well, that was new!
It had been two years since his father had handed over the management of their family business to his stepbrother, Travis. And look how well that decision had turned out! Now Travis was long gone and his father had been fighting for months to save what was left of Elstrom Mapping.
For their father to even admit that he needed Scott was astonishing.
That was why Scott had taken the decision to cross the open water instead of travelling inland and taking the slower route through the frozen forest and rivers to the station where he would find a snow machine and a lift to the local airstrip.
There was no other choice. He had to cross the frozen sea ice to get to the base camp to the airbase in time to catch the weekly cargo plane—it would take too long any other way.
But crossing open salt water ice was a serious commitment. The sea froze in huge cracked and floating plates which moved and heaved under the sled, making progress slow and dangerous. The ice was always unstable and never more so in the unusually mild Alaskan February.
Scott looked over the sled and, to his horror, he could see the ice ridges flexing and cracking. A giant piece of ice had broken away and was floating out to sea. He was driving across the frozen-over thinner layer.
One crack in a weak spot and the weight of the sled would drag him and the whole dog team underwater to their deaths, never to be found again.
There was a low grunt from his lead dog, Dallas, as she picked up a scent and set off at a steady pace onto the thicker ice, the other eight dogs behind her panting and settling into a trot from months of training and working together. They would run all day if he asked them, without complaint.
* * *
The blinding sunlight made Scott squint and glance sideways towards the open water of the sea.
For the last twenty-four hours he had been travelling and had barely dozed in the wooden trappers’ cabin for the the four or five hours while the dogs rested. Now, as the sun rose higher and warmed his skin, and the dogs moved steadily forwards, his mind drifted seawards.
The only sound was from the movement of the sled on the ice and the comforting panting noises of nine dogs moving as a team.
Beautiful. Unique. Mesmerising.
This was his life now. Not central London and everything that went with it.
He had waved goodbye to that world two years ago and would quite happily not see it again unless he had to. The technology he was using for his mapping and surveying meant that he could talk to his sister and his father, if he chose to, most days and at least once a week.
Of course Freya had tried to persuade him to come home for Christmas but what had been the point?
His quiet academic father had never understood how his son preferred adventure sports and a hard outdoor life to the quiet study of the maps and charts that had made Elstrom Mapping a familiar name around the world.
The only common thing holding them together had been the mapping company, and when his father had decided that Travis could be trusted to lead the company that link had been swept away, leaving nothing but regrets and harsh words behind.
The weather had closed in during December and made travel impossible for anyone at the research station, so he had a perfectly valid and very convenient excuse to stay in Alaska.
Way too convenient an excuse according to his sister, who’d ended up coping on her own for the holidays, being bounced between divorced parents who had drifted away from one another for years before their mother finally gave up trying to make a family with a father who was never home. Freya had spent New Year’s with their quite happily settled mother and her new boyfriend—a lawyer with a fine selection of colourful bow ties.
Scott chuckled to himself deep in the back of his throat. Freya would make him suffer for that one. He looked up and was just about to check his GPS position when his world shifted.
He felt the sled shudder and slip underneath him.
They had hit a weak spot in the ice.
Instantly every cell in his body leapt to attention, adrenaline surging through his veins.
While he had been thinking about London firesides, Dallas had slowed down, her tail high and in the shape of a question mark instead of hanging straight down. And her paws were dancing.
Scott’s heart almost stopped.
He couldn’t swim in five layers of thermal clothing and, even if he could, the water was so cold he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. He would go down with the sled and the dogs.
The dogs would die because his father had given up the fight.
No way. Not while he still had breath in his body.
Scott snatched up the solid grab rope and dropped off the back of the sled onto his stomach, his legs spread wide so his body weight would be spread over the thin ice. ‘Dallas. Gee right. Gee right. Dallas.’
Dallas knew that this was the instruction to turn right to safety and she tugged and tugged as the team fought her, the other eight dogs desperate to run hard and straight. But she did it and after a few terrifying minutes Scott felt a ridge of hard ice under his stomach and they were back on the older solid pan ice.
The broken shards of ice ripped his right glove to shreds and his fingers instantly turned numb and blue. Frostbite. But he managed to haul himself back onto the sled and the dogs sped on to safety as the shapes of the cabins on the other side of the bay grew clearer in the growing early morning light.
He was going to make it home in time to hear what his father had to say after all.
But one thing was for sure. This was his chance to prove to his father that he was a better man than Travis could ever be. And nothing was going to stand in his way and stop him from making that happen. Not this time.
* * *
‘So let me get this straight. Those G-strings are edible?’
Toni pulled away the wrapping paper from the pink and black gift box that her sister Amy had given her and started reading the instructions on the back.
‘Of course.’ Amy shrugged and flicked the fluffy feather end of her pink whip against the packing. ‘Why else would you want to wear something that uncomfortable?’
‘I have just had a vision of what happens when those candy pieces come adrift and where they might end up in my lady parts. Amy, I love you and you are my only sister but I may save modelling this particular birthday pressie for another day.’
Amy giggled and shook her head. ‘Those knickers are not for us to ogle at. Save it for that hunky boyfriend you’re going to meet.’ She knocked her on the head with the feather whip again. ‘Very soon.’
‘Well, in that case I might as well put the box in the freezer right now and stick to eating supermarket chocolate bars.’
Amy sighed out loud and collapsed down on the arm of the dining chair next to Toni. ‘Now don’t be like that. It has been a whole year since you got rid of that skanky Peter and what did we agree? He was totally not worthy of your luscious magnificence. Right? Of course right. This is a new year and a new you, remember?’
Toni