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She’s never lost a client, but this could be a first!
Cameron Johnson thought she’d found the perfect life as a guide and bush pilot in Canada’s Northwest Territories until one of her clients disappeared in the wilderness. Jack Parker had been searching for the dog that saved his life when he was deployed in Afghanistan—a dog his sister had helped bring stateside only to lose him along the Wolf River.
Jack’s traveling on a prosthetic leg, and after just one day, Cameron’s sure he’ll be ready to quit and climb into her canoe. Once she finds him. Well, she’s about to get a thorough lesson in stubbornness from a veteran who won’t give up...
“This smells like real cowboy coffee.”
“It’ll float a spoon,” he said.
“Just how I like it.” She took a sip. “Perfect.”
Her eyes were as dark as her hair, fringed with thick lashes. Her face was slender, cheekbones high, lips curved in a smile. In the dim confines of the tent, after that plunge in the icy river and the mighty struggle with the canoe, she should have looked like a scrawny wet rat, not a sexy fashion model.
“Why are you here?” he said, blunt and to the point.
She shook her head, took another swallow of coffee. “My boss dropped me off up at the lake so I could canoe downriver and deliver a message from your sister.” She ran the fingers of one hand through her wet, shoulder-length hair, sweeping it back from her face, and gazed at him frankly. “She’s very worried about you. I spoke with her on the phone yesterday. She told me what happened to your dog, and she feels bad about it.”
He made no comment. He had nothing to say to this girl about his dog or his sister.
His life was none of her business.
Like many fictional stories, A Soldier’s Pledge found its origins in real life. One segment of a documentary was being filmed at my workplace. The documentary was called Searching for Home: Coming Back from War, and one of the soldiers being filmed for the documentary had lost his leg while serving a tour of duty in Iraq.
I am deeply indebted to Sergeant Brandon Deaton for his personal insight into a wounded warrior’s difficult journey back from war. Any inaccuracies are my own. This story is about a fictional character, but is dedicated to all soldiers, past and present, who served and sacrificed to protect our nation, and to those who served and didn’t come home.
Nadia Nichols
A Soldier’s Pledge
Nadia Nichols
NADIA NICHOLS went to the dogs at the age of twenty-nine and currently operates a kennel of twenty-eight Alaskan huskies. She has raced her sled dogs in northern New England and Canada, works at the family-owned Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, Maine, and is also a registered Maine Master Guide.
She began her writing career at the age of five, when she made her first sale, a short story called “The Bear,” to her mother for 25 cents. This story was such a blockbuster that her mother bought every other story she wrote, and kept her in ice-cream money throughout much of her childhood.
Now all her royalties go toward buying dog food. She lives on a remote solar-powered northern Maine homestead with her sled dogs, a Belgian draft horse named Dan, several cats, two goats and a flock of chickens. She can be reached at [email protected].
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