Married five years to Rob Nicholls who grew up in Rock Harbor, Bree returned to the village a year before her son and husband came up missing in a small plane crash. Highly trained in Indiana, she and her dog Samson are a K-9 team that operates almost as one. She and Samson have won many awards for their keenly developed skills.
Thirty-two years old, Bree has short red hair and green eyes. She is muscular though only five-two and works out every day to be able to perform the duties needed on a search. With her husband Kade and her son Davy, she lives in a brick lighthouse that she renovated. She started Kitchigami Search Dogs and trains other handlers and dogs to do what she and Samson do. She’s finally pregnant with a baby brother for Davy and is due in a month.
A National Park Service Ranger, Kade is a homegrown “Yooper” (someone from the U.P., as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is called). Not quite six feet tall, Kade is dark haired with blue eyes and a stocky build. His parents died y a year before he met Bree, leaving him as guardian of his rebellious sixteen-year-old sister, Lauri who is now 19 and in college. He promised his mother he would raise Lauri in Rock Harbor where the trouble she could get into was more restricted. He turned down a large promotion that would have meant relocating to Washington D.C. Kade is in charge of the Ottawa National Forest search operations and coordinates them with the town sheriff. His passion is saving orphaned wildlife. He’s begun the procedure to legally adopt Davy.
Samson is Bree’s world-class search dog. He is part German Shepherd with a bit of Chow that gives his tail its characteristic curl. He has a nose like none other and has been on searches all over the world, ranging from finding lost persons and pets to those buried in tragedies like earthquakes. Bree found him as a puppy in a box by the river. His siblings were already dead, but she nursed Samson back to life. Sometimes she thinks he can read her mind, and he is a huge part of her life.
