Page 15 of Taming Her Bears

To tell you the truth, I’ve always been a little anxious about proving myself. Although I was treated as an equal, there was one way I was an outsider and that way couldn’t be changed. I wasn’t born in Alaska. Even Roy, as white as the fresh-driven snow, could one-up me on that. There was another way that shouldn’t bother me at all, but it did. The Alaskan big bears were considerably larger than Rocky Mountain Grizzlies. Lee wasn’t that much bigger. It’s probably why I’ve always felt a close rapport with him. The Denali brown bear isn’t much different than a grizzly. Lee isn’t extremely fond of diving into the ocean, but he loves to run, and he loves doing dangerous things. See? Not much different at all than a grizzly.

But Kodiaks and polar bears? Holy motherload! I’ve heard the shape-shifter circle debate sometimes over who would come up winner in a competition. Polar bears swim better, and pound for pound they are well-matched in size with the Kodiak, but for sheer ferocity, I’d say the Kodiak would come out on top.

Roy kept his calm nearly all the time. He calculated, but his calculations were too slow. For all his firecracker temper, Josh went straight for the jugular vein—without hesitation, without thought. That may sound reckless, except Kodiaks don’t have a vulnerable spot on them. Their layers of fat are so thick, it would take a hand grenade to do real damage.

Fortunately, at a young age, I began to understand respect didn’t depend on size and strength as much as it did courage, perseverance, and the willingness to help others. Before I finished high school, I knew what I wanted to do and joined the Coast Guard right after spring graduation. I never regretted it. I needed something that could make use of my special abilities and the recruiter who dealt with shapeshifter placement knew just what to do.

Alan McCarthy had been my trainer. He wasn’t a shapeshifter, but he had worked with them. I liked to show off around him just to see him roll his eyes and tell me someday I was going to take a nose-dive into shark-infested waters. He liked to hope for the worst, believing it would inspire me to do my best. When I heard he was dead, I wanted to shred the island to pieces. It wouldn’t have done any good, but my bear instincts still rumbled to knock over some dead trees and tear up a few hills. I was glad to hear the captain had killed the two slave traders, but I still seethed with my own taste for revenge.

Natalia saved me. I was going to drink myself silly with a bottle of Jack Daniels that I kept in the closet, with no intention to sober up until we arrived at port. I was preparing myself for this long deliberation with the dark spirits when Natalia waltzed in. She was freshly showered, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her eyes sparkling. She was half-drunk. Rather than climb inside a bottle and pull the gloom and doom in with me, there was a shiny and spontaneous new life right ahead.

She saved all of us. We were vibrating with anger. Even the skeleton crew, all familiar with our shape-shifting ways, were uneasy around us. It’s probably why Pete surrendered the champagne so willingly. He understood. Coast guard was family and he was angry, too, but at least he didn’t have to worry about uncontrollably breaking out in fur and claws. Anything to make the shifters happy was a logical course of action.

Natalia put out the fire. The anger was still there, crackling at the backs of our minds, but our heads were cool, our bodies exhausted. Instead of fury, we slept in the sweet innocence of pleasure. You’ve got to love a woman like that. You’ve got to love the way she loves us.

If we weren’t the most polite and civilized people on the planet by the next morning, at least we were loud, cheerful, and had hardy appetites. This relieved everyone in general. By noon, the tiny port town of Sitka was shining in the distance. In this part of the Panhandle, the islands are like exquisite jewels laced together for a necklace. The wildlife was so intense, it made my nostrils flare. I sneaked off the boat once just to dive with the seals. I had become so accustomed to freezing temperatures that I didn’t need to shift in order to swim these warmer waters. All I needed was my wetsuit.

When I had dressed and returned to the Captain’s deck, Josh was contacting the harbor master. After sending him his identity code, he asked if there had been any news concerning Captain McCarthy. The answer was given in the slack voice of someone who was enjoying the lazy winter traffic. “McCarthy? He went on vacation. I haven’t seen him in about three weeks.”

I stood intently beside Josh to listen. “Has his boat been out?” Josh asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” I could hear the squeak of a drawer opening, the sharp shuffle of papers, then a tapping sound. The harbor master cleared his throat. “This is odd. A Lieutenant Rawlings took it out two weeks ago. No return dates. The documents are all signed and stamped. I don’t know how I missed this.”

Josh was clenching and unclenching his fists. I could swear the curly hairs on his chest were growing longer and thicker. I took the mic so he wouldn’t sprout fangs. “Harbor master, can you tell us where McCarthy was vacationing?”

“Sure. That’s a no-brainer. He has a lodge just a few miles outside Ketchikan. Real nice place. He and a few other officers were going there for rest and recreation.”

I glanced at Josh. The sweat was trickling down his brow, but he had calmed down. “Harbor master, we’re docking at the Coast Guard auxiliary pier. Can you meet us at fourteen hundred hours? Bring the documents with you.”

The boat docked into a nearly deserted port. Everything slowed down in winter; tourism, commerce. Some locals strolled the piers and others dropped crab traps over the side, taking advantage of the peaceful slow season when the sea life crept under the docks to scavenge scraps left by the fishing boats.

We met in the ready room. The cook had been instructed to set out coffee and sandwiches as a gesture of our hospitality. That’s one thing I admired about Josh. He was a hell of a diplomat. He always knew just what to say and do to keep information channels running smoothly.

The harbor master was as lean and gnarled as the old growth willow that twisted and turned in the wind. He had long, grey hair that straggled out of a ponytail, and shrewd, blue eyes. He was a seaman, through and through. Josh studied the documents in front of him, rubbing the stubbly beard he had failed to shave away that morning. I never understood why he could grow a full beard when I couldn’t, as Jews were not known for their hairlessness. Josh wasn’t full Native, I knew, but I still considered it a mystery.

Josh clasped his hands together and managed to look very sad and regretful. “Harbor master, I need to fax these documents to headquarters. They could be counterfeit.”

The harbor master was a smoker and wanted a cigarette badly. He tapped two fingers against the table and said, “Honestly, I don’t remember how they got there. I don’t remember logging out ‘Christina.’ The documents are all there, but I swear I didn’t sign them. That looks like my signature, but it isn’t.”

I could feel the harbor master’s discomfort so much, I felt bad. I shoved the plate of sandwiches at him and he took one, nibbling at it without interest. His eyes down, Josh muttered, “We have a hand-writing expert on board.”

He turned the paperwork over to Pete to be faxed. The harbor master had torn his sandwich apart in bitter pieces but had not eaten much of it. “Go ahead and have a smoke on deck,” invited Josh. “There will be a record with the admiralty ifChristinawas authorized to travel under a lieutenant commander. In the meantime, you are not to discuss this with anyone.”

The harbor master nodded and went outside, lighting up with obvious relief. I followed him out, as much out of sympathy as wanting to get a measurement of his loyalty. “Do you know McCarthy well?”

He nodded, inhaling deeply and letting it out through his nose. “He likes to play cribbage. On quiet nights, he’ll come over to the office and we’ll play cribbage. He brought me a nice scrimshaw cribbage board one year. Still have it. I keep it on the shelf up over my desk. Beautiful board. It has caribou carved on it.”

“Did he say anything about missing girls?”

“There’s been some discussion. You hear it. A girl missing here. One there. It’s common talk, though, lieutenant. I don’t know how much stock McCarthy put in it.”

“And you?”

The harbor master put out his cigarette and threw it in the trash container. “I don’t know. They run off and sometimes, they don’t want to be found. But then, sometimes, they need to be found. How am I to know the difference? I’m not a detective.”

When we returned to the ready room, Josh was waiting. Indicating we should sit back down, he asked, “Ensign Stevenson, what do you have?”

Roy looked up from a magnifying glass. As much as he likes to tinker with things and pays mind-numbing attention to small details, I should have known he’d be a handwriting expert. “This log-out doesn’t match the other harbor master signatures. It’s good, but the harbor master’s lowercase letters have long, sharp points. The forger tried to make them as long, but hesitated before finishing the loop, so that it wriggles instead of one straight mark. Also, the letter “a” is slanted toward the left. The harbor master makes his a’s consistently upright. It’s a forgery. The forger probably broke into the office after hours.”

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