Page 59 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“Every survival skill you learn is like money in the bank.”
That sounded reasonable. “Why do our sleds have wooden runners instead of metal like so many of the others,” she asked, looking around.
“Metal runners stick to the ice in extreme cold.”
He showed her how to water the wooden runners and coat them with a sheath of ice. Then demonstrated how to hitch the dogs. Showed her where to stand, how to guide the animals. At the end of an hour, the information had begun to blur. The one thing that stuck in Zoe’s memory was the warning that the sled driver did not add her weight to the load. The driver ran along behind, guiding the sled.
“There’s not much to worry about. The dogs will follow the sled ahead of them. I’ll drive the lead sled, and Bear Barrett has agreed to bring up the rear. Ben Dare will drive a sled behind Juliette to keep an eye on her. You and the ladies shouldn’t run into any trouble.”
She stared at him. “Let me make sure I understand. I’m going torunbehind a sled all the way to Long Lake. Thenrunacross Long Lake to Deep Lake. Thenrunacross Deep Lake to Linderman Lake. Thenrunover Linderman Lake to Lake Bennett.”
Laughing at her expression, he nodded. “The alternative is to camp here until the spring melt, then take a boat or a raft downriver.”
“Neither possibility sounds appealing.” But remembering her experience aboard theAnnasettmade running a hundred miles sound almost desirable. “You know, this really makes me mad.” Her cheeks were fiery with cold, yet she was sweating inside her coat. The dogs frightened her a little. She didn’t know if a foot of ice was thick enough. And she simply couldn’t imagine running behind a sled for a hundred miles, except she expected it would be a grueling experience. “No one tells you about all this before you leave the States.” She waved an arm at the lake. “I’ll bet half of these people wouldn’t be here if they’d known the truth about what to expect.”
Tom tugged her muffler away from her mouth, bent, and kissed her quickly. “You’re tough, remember?”
“You kissed me!” Startled and angry, she shoved him away and then glared. “In public!” After scrubbing her mitten across the tingle throbbing in her lips, she made a hissing sound. “How dare you compromise me like that!”
“I’ve thought about what you said up at the glaciers. And I’ve thought about fate bringing us together again. I want to be more than just a friend, Zoe. So I’ve decided to commence a courtship.” His green eyes were clear and serious. “As for kissing you in public, that was deliberate. I’m staking my territory. I doubt I’m the only one who thinks you’re a fine-looking woman with spunk and spirit. So I’m sending any rivals a signal that I won’t tolerate anyone else courting you.”
He had lost his senses. “I don’t want to be courted!” she insisted, when she stopped sputtering. “I thought I made that clear.”
“You did.” He unhitched the dogs from the sled he’d used for demonstration and handed the trace lines to one of the Chilkats. “Changing your mind is one of my courtship objectives.”
“Oneof your objectives?” She was still indignant and sputtering. Furious that he had compromised her in front of all the men on the ice. He’d treated her as if she were common and vulgar. “If I wasn’t wearing gloves and mittens, I’d slap your face!”
He laughed. “Piss and vinegar. I like that in a woman.”
Angry and exasperated, she started toward the shore, praying she wouldn’t slip and ruin what she hoped was a dramatic exit by sprawling on the ice.
“Teach the others what I showed you today,” he called after her. “And Zoe?” She refused to look back. “I’ve made up my mind. It’s going to be you and me. You might as well accept it.”
“Never!” she shouted over her shoulder.
She had made one disastrous mistake; she wasn’t going to make another.
Chapter 14
In one of her beloved books, Juliette had read that a person’s past flashed before her eyes while she was drowning. It hadn’t happened that way for her. Her life had passed in review later, while she was recovering from deep racking chills and trying to cope with the shock of nearly dying.
What she examined was a safe sheltered life, predictable and monotonous. She had drifted through the years doing the same things day after day, week after week, with little variation. No challenges obstructed her path. Nothing alarming occurred, nothing exciting happened. She had sleepwalked through her boring routines, shying away from new experiences.
In retrospect, marrying in haste and impulse was more understandable than it had first appeared. Now she remembered the quiet desperation she’d felt as the years passed and she began to feel she was wasting her life. She remembered thinking that she had passed silently through the world and only Aunt Kibble would care when the end came. One of her pastimes had been to wonder what sort of epitaph would mark her tombstone.
Miss Juliette March never committed an improper act.
Here lies what’s-her-name, gone but not forgotten.
She never went anywhere, never did anything.
In the end, marrying Jean Jacques, and all that had followed, had changed so much in her life, yet it had changed little.
She still fretted and worried about propriety and appearances. There was still no one who loved her or who would mourn her passing if she had drowned in Crater Lake. Yes, she had left Linda Vista. She was here in the Yukon, and she had climbed Chilkoot Pass, but not willingly, and she’d complained and resented every step. She had stepped out of monotony, but she’d lacked the sense to enjoy her new experiences.
Worse, once the confrontation with Jean Jacques lay behind her, she could so easily lapse into the same deadening routine she’d endured before her uncharacteristic break with convention.
She absolutely could not let that happen.
