Page 28 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

"He went out to check the secondary diesel feed valve at the east shed right before the whiteout hit the lower paddock." Nadia's voice tightens as she turns toward the frost-covered window pane. "He promised to be right back."

Beyond the glass, fifty-mile-an-hour winds howl across the lower yard, erasing the world in a wall of white powder.

"Danny's been out there too long." My chest tightens as I reach for my heavy coat.

NINE

Whiteout

MAREN

"Nadia, stay with Sarah and Brody in the bunkhouse." I zip my canvas coat to my throat, pulling my dark wool cap down until it covers my ears. "Keep Zip, Babe, and Tank inside, keep the wood stove stoked, and monitor the kennel heat pads."

"We have the barn covered." Nadia rests her hands on Zip's shoulders while Brody and Sarah settle Babe and Tank by the stove. "Bring Danny and Buddy back."

Jason steps past me, pulling his leather work gloves tight over his knuckles. Barnaby sits flush at his knee, his broad Boxer-Mastiff chest vibrating with every gust that hits the timber siding. Griff stands by the tack room bench with Chief, the Lab mix resting his bandaged shoulder against Griff's leg, his dark eyes set in the hard focus of a veteran preparing for night operations.

The three of us are the search party: Jason with Barnaby, Griff with Chief, and me with Juno. Danny Montoya and his shepherd mix, Buddy, are missing out in the storm.

"Fifty miles an hour out there." Jason's gravel voice cuts through the rattling rafters. "Visibility is under three feet. Voice commands are useless. We tie into a single traverse line—eight-foot spacing. If the wind takes your legs or the whiteout swallows your boots, the rope keeps us tethered."

He pulls a fifty-foot coil of static climbing rope from the wall rack, clipping the locking carabiners into the heavy webbing belts of our coats.

"I've prepped three thermal wraps and the hypothermia kit." I sling the heavy nylon strap of the trauma bag across my shoulder, the deep throb behind my right kneecap flaring as I test my footing on the shavings. "Danny and Buddy have been out there twenty minutes in negative fourteen degrees. We don't have time for a slow sweep."

Jason meets my gaze, his slate-gray eyes steady in the dim LED glow.

"Sweep the east shed corridor first." He checks the carabiner gate on my belt before signaling Griff and Chief to fall in behind us. "Then the lower paddock fence line."

He shoves the heavy timber deadbolt back, and the double doors burst inward against the gale.

The world disappears in a roaring wall of white powder.

The cold doesn't just touch skin—it attacks. The first blast of sub-zero air hits my throat like aerosolized glass, stripping every drop of moisture from my mouth and leaving a metallic taste on my tongue. Ground and sky vanish instantly, erased by a blinding vortex that turns the universe into a featureless white void.

There's no horizon, no footing, no up or down. Just the terrifying sensation of stepping into an ocean of white.

The wind comes down Angel's Peak with the screech of a jet turbine, driving frozen needles of snow through the weave of my scarf and into the exposed skin around my eyes. Within three steps, my eyelashes freeze together, tiny crystals forming along my eyelids every time I blink.

"Juno, search line." My command is eaten by the gale before it clears my lips, but the sharp tension on the leather lead tells me she understands.

The three dogs work together as in the whiteout. Juno lowers her broad head, her sable coat coated in white within seconds as she leads the search line up front. Barnaby stays glued to Jason's calf, using his heavy chest to break the wind and keep static line tension steady. Chief works the rear flank beside Griff, leaning his bandaged shoulder into Griff's leg to keep Griff anchored to the rope.

Juno doesn't rush. She executes the wide, sweeping head-scan Jason taught us yesterday in the aisle, her muzzle working left to right, filtering the freezing air for scent particles amidst the roar of the gale.

My right boot slips on a sheet of black ice buried under two feet of powder.

My balance breaks, my bad knee buckling outward as I start to fall.

Jason's hand catches my upper arm, his grip an iron clamp through the heavy canvas of my sleeve. He absorbs my falling weight without giving an inch, holding me steady until my left boot finds solid footing on the frozen earth.

He shifts his stance, placing his broad back directly into the wind to create a momentary lee against the driving snow.

He flashes the flat-palm hand signal for hold line, his eyes scanning my face through the swirl of white.

I give him a sharp nod, tightening my jaw against the fire in my joint.

We move as one unit through the whiteout, bodies leaning into the forty-knot pressure of the gale. Jason keeps his left shoulder aligned with mine, using his bulk to break the wind while Barnaby presses his flank against Jason's leg.