Page 6 of Stolen Mate

“And full of bullshit.”

“That too,” quipped Tess as she started up her vehicle and pulled out into the street, waving at Lara. Lara looked so right standing in the driveway in front of the little cottage that she would make over in her own style.

Later that evening, she poured herself another large glass of pinot, put together another bread and cheese tray, lit the fire in her fireplace, and curled up on her sofa to read whatever it was that her mother had been so insistent she read. She had to admit, she was more than just a bit intrigued. She felt she knew her mother better now than she had ever known her. It was probably best they had found the diaries last.

Tess went through the box, organizing the diaries in chronological order, and then opened the first one. Still racked in her private moments by grief and guilt, she held her mother’s diary from the year of her birth, tracing the hand-carved leather cover and lifting it to her nose to smell the fragrant perfume of leather, old paper, and fine ink. Smiling, settled in and began to read…

CHAPTER 3

TESS

Journal Entry, September 28th

Oh good god! I cannot believe people come up to ‘the rugged beauty of Alaska,’—their words, not mine—and expect to find the kind of amenities in the bush that they’d have at a five-star resort or an Alaskan cruise! What the proverbial fuck! It’s the Alaskan wilderness! Don’t they know anything?

These idiots come in here saying they have experience, blah, blah, blah but are so unprepared it isn’t even funny. And I’m their guide for fuck’s sake, not their pack mule. I’m also not their personal janitor. They leave trash everywhere. What are they thinking?

And they wander off—just take a stroll while my back is turned. I keep telling them they have to be safe. Kodiak Island is bear country—Kodiak bear country. But do they pay attention? No. Well, Mr.-and-Mrs.-I-Know-What-I’m-Doing-In-the-Bush are about to get a big surprise when they turn in for the night. I’m going to shift. That ought to scare the shit out of them.

I’ll bet they’ve never seen a polar bear outside the zoo.

Tess stared at the diary entry dated shortly after she was born. When she’d first opened the journal, she’d noticed it wasn’t in her adoptive mother’s beautiful, elegant handwriting. This was more casual, more rustic. So, was this the woman they’d hired to guide them? She didn’t sound very nice. Surely no one would describe her parents as unprepared and uncaring.

They were the exact opposite of that. They were so concerned with the environment and the footprint they left on their adventures. Even after their father died, her mother had stressed the importance of caring for the Earth and all its creatures. Hell, her parents had installed solar panels long before it was trendy. That was one of the things she’d urged Lara to do with the house—upgrade the solar panels and systems.

There were a lot of things about the journal entry that didn’t make sense. Tess had always known her parents had adopted her from Alaska and she’d known they’d taken a vacation right around the same time. Her mother had always called it their last great adventure before embarking upon the greatest adventure of their lives—raising children. Tess didn’t know they’d ever visited Kodiak Island. But if they were in Kodiak bear country, they had to have been there.

She’d always assumed she’d been adopted from one of the bigger cities, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, et cetera. Well, maybe they’d vacationed on Kodiak and then gone back to the mainland and completed the adoption before returning to their new lives as parents in Seattle.

Curiously, her parents had always tried to dissuade her from visiting Alaska, to the point that when she and Lara had booked a cruise to Alaska for her mother’s birthday, their mother had insisted that they take one to the Mexican Riviera instead. As it was their mother’s birthday, the girls had acceded to her wishes, but given their mother’s fascination with the aurora borealis, it had seemed odd. Tess smiled with bittersweet remembrance as she remembered that cruise; it was to be the last one they took as a family.

Even more interesting was why had her mother insisted she read these journals that were clearly not her own? Tess had expected to find insights into her mother’s life before she had children, perhaps even before she got married. She wanted to better know the woman who had been her mother.

How had her mother come to have journals by the woman who had been their guide? Surely the woman wouldn’t have just given them to her mother. That made no sense at all. But the other alternative was that her mother had stolen the diaries. But why would her mother do that? It made even less sense than the guide having given them to her mother.

Tess turned back to the diary:

I’m going to shift. That ought to scare the shit out of them.

What the hell did that mean? I’m going to shift? What the hell was ‘shift?’ Could the woman have been in such a hurry that she’d meant to write something other than ‘shift?’ Maybe she meant shit—which not only made no sense but was gross. Maybe, swift, which made even less sense than the other two. The entry didn’t seem to be rushed or stressed. The woman appeared to be pissed at Tess’s parents, but not in any distress. Shift. What the hell was that supposed to be and what did it have to do with seeing polar bears?

One of those curious facts you learn as a child, but never thought you’d have a use for: were polar bears even on Kodiak Island? As she recalled they weren’t and were only seen in the northern reaches of Alaska. So why would an experienced guide not know that? For that matter, why would a guide who is being paid to show someone a great experience want to A– scare the shit out of them; B– not know that there were no polar bears on Kodiak Island; and C– entice a polar bear—or any bear—close enough that her parents would be able to see it and be frightened?

None of this made any sense at all. First and foremost, the woman couldn’t possibly mean ‘shift’ as in change into a polar bear like the people in the paranormal romances her sister loved to read and the book she was illustrating. Tess thought they were silly, but had to admit she’d been intrigued by the entire concept when Lara had insisted they listen to an audiobook when they’d gone camping the year before at Mt. Rainier.

If that was the case, Tess couldn’t decide whether the woman thinking she could shift into a polar bear was ludicrous or frightening. The woman would have to be seriously unbalanced to believe that, right? But why would she write something humorous in her journal entry and present it as fact? The whole thing was silly, wasn’t it?

She took another rather big gulp of her pinot and read the journal entry again. She’d meant to read the next entry but had become fascinated with trying to puzzle out the first one. None of it made any sense.

Why had her mother insisted she read the diaries of a woman who clearly didn’t like her? How had her mother come by them? Had something happened to the other woman, and she’d bequeathed her journals to Tess’s mother…but if that were the case, again, why? Who was this woman and what had her relationship been with Tess’s mother? Did she know that Tess’s mother had passed? If not, would she care? Was she even alive?

Had the woman known they were adopting Tess? Might she have had anything to do with it? Tess’s parents had always been very open that Tess was adopted. It was kind of obvious. Tess was dark haired, tall, and curvy. Lara was blonde and petite—petite in everything—and there had been a long time when Tess had longed to be Lara and fit into all the trendy clothes. She had to admit that once she’d accepted she was never going to look like Lara and had accepted her own body and adopted her own style, the relationship between the two sisters had improved. Jealousy was an ugly bitch and had made her life less than it could have been.

Now, she and Lara were best friends as well as sisters. They embraced and celebrated their uniqueness from each other. For as much as their physical differences were apparent, the differences in their temperament were just as obvious. Lara was most like their mother after she’d had children—calm, kind, patient, and nurturing. Tess, on the other hand, liked to think of herself as most like her mother before her last trip into the Alaskan bush—wild, adventurous, kind, and ambitious. They always saw each other as Lara’s yin to Tess’s yang.

There were way too many questions with no way to resolve them. Her mother had asked her to start the journals that began around the time of her adoption, but there were many journals written before that time. Maybe she should go back and read those as well.

What had her mother said? ‘Because we shouldn’t have taken you. But you were so small, and the polar bear gave her life to protect you. We… we didn’t know.’ What the hell did that mean? What had her mother meant by saying they shouldn’t have taken her? Of course, they should have. After all they had legally adopted her, right? But what if they hadn’t? What if that was what her mother was trying to tell her? What if there was no legal adoption? What if that was the reason she hadn’t wanted to take the Alaskan cruise?

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