Scott was on the phone when she entered the office, his face animated. When he wasn’t frowning, he was a good-looking guy—strong jaw, cleft chin, intense hazel eyes. Though today those eyes were underscored with half-moon shadows, and his jaw was dusted with a day’s growth of beard. “Just the single set of tracks? You’re sure they don’t belong to anyone who was at the bonfire last night? You really think it could be him? Of course I’ll be right there. Two of us. With dogs.”
He hung up the phone. “They’ve found something?” Lily asked.
“The helicopter saw a sets of ski tracks exiting the woods at the resort boundary line,” he said. “The imprint was pretty shallow, and he thought it looked shorter than most adult skis.” He stood and shrugged into his jacket.
“Shorter kids’ skis,” she said. “Less weight on the snow.”
“That’s what they’re thinking.” He grabbed an avalanche beacon from the cubby behind him and checked the battery level.
“The chopper is going to pick me up at heli-ski operations.” He clipped on the beacon and grabbed his pack. “They lost the tracks when they went into the trees again. I’m taking Hunter. The helicopter can set us down near the tracks. With luck we can catch up with them. I’ll radio Connor and Farley to meet us there and go with me.”
Lily stepped in front of him, blocking his exit. “Take me and Shelby. Jackson knows us. He’s been out all night by this time. He’s probably terrified. A familiar face is going to make things easier on everyone.”
He hesitated. “Have you trained for backcountry rescue?”
“Not wilderness search-and-rescue, but I’ve trained with C-RAD on avalanche rescue—search techniques and first aid.”
“It’s not the same as search-and-rescue.”
He tried to move past her, but she remained where she was, refusing to give way. “Jackson knows me. If two men he doesn’tknow are out there calling for him, he’s liable to be afraid. He might even hide from you.”
He looked at Shelby, who was standing at the door of the kennel, poised to come out. “Has Shelby ridden a helicopter before?”
“Of course.” This was a lie. They hadn’t reached the level of training that included riding in helicopters. But she had faith in her dog. Shelby wasn’t the type to freak out over anything.
“All right,” he said. “But you have to keep up.”
She released Shelby from her kennel and grabbed a beacon, then raced after Scott.
Chapter Five
Scott hadn’t asked if Lily herself had ridden in a helicopter before. She hadn’t thought it mattered, but now that they were inside the noisy beast, rising straight into the air while her stomach stayed on the ground, she was having second thoughts about volunteering for this mission.
She gritted her teeth and focused on not losing her breakfast. Shelby lay between Lily’s feet, head up and ears back, but obedient to the command Lily had given her to stay.
Next to them, between Scott’s feet, Hunter let out a high-pitched whine. “It’s okay, boy.” Scott patted the dog. He glanced at Lily. “He’s never liked flying.”
“Have the two of you flown a lot?” she asked.
“A few times.”
“For avalanche rescue work?”
“Yeah. Nothing inbounds, but we’ve responded to several backcountry slides.”
“Has Hunter found people who were buried?” She and Shelby had spent hours training with people who volunteered to be buried in snow caves and “rescued” by the dogs, but she had yet to participate in a real rescue effort.
“He has. He made his first find less than five minutes into his very first search.”
She almost smiled at the pride in his voice. She got it. Seeing your dog succeed was every bit as satisfying as achieving something yourself.
Scott glanced at her, his expression more sober now. “None of them were alive,” he said. “The people he found, I mean. Even though we got to them within half an hour in one case, we were still too late.”
“They tell us that in the training,” she said.Most searches are body searches, she remembered her first instructor saying.
“That’s just the reality of what we do,” he said.
“Dogs do make live finds sometimes,” she said. “There was a handler who spoke to us at my last WBR training class.”
