Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears #1)(14)

“Why did she leave?”

“I think that some people are meant to be parents, and some are not. She had trouble staying in one place. Trouble staying sober. My dad said he was afraid to leave me alone with her when I was a baby, and when she left, it broke his heart, but he knew it was probably best for me. He wanted me to have stability, and she wasn’t capable of giving it.”

“Yeah, but your entire shifter heritage left with your mom.”

Audrey shrugged helplessly. “That was the bad part, but the good part was that my dad knew exactly what I was from day one, and he moved us out to Buffalo Gap, bought some land, and raised me as well as he could. He kept everything as normal as possible. I went to school with other kids and had a parent who was completely devoted to being mom and dad. I had a good childhood. It was just missing her.”

Harrison turned the page. There was a picture of her at Kindergarten graduation with a big, gap-toothed grin and pigtails. “You have freckles,” he murmured, gripping the book.

“Yeah, under my make-up, I’m freckled. Polka dots and stripes,” she said with a nervous laugh.

This spread was on a purple background with cartoon diplomas and graduation caps glued in the top left corner. A picture at the bottom showed her dressed in her tiny cap and gown, up on Dad’s shoulders, arms wrapped around his face while he cheesed through his giant mustache at the camera.

“He’s a good man,” Harrison said.

“He’s the best. He was the one who encouraged me to sign up on Bangaboarlander. Not to actually bang a Boarlander, but to hopefully meet people like me. He didn’t like that I felt so alone.”

Harrison sighed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she flipped to the next page. It was a picture taken at her eighth birthday party. Dad had invited her entire second-grade class out to their trailer and set up rope swings in the tree out front and a slip-n-slide on the lawn, and he’d done a big barbecue cookout for all the kids’ parents so they could watch their kids playing. In the picture, all the kids were standing in front of her house with pointy party hats and grins and peace signs, while Audrey stood on the very outskirt, her lips barely lifted in a smile and her eyes looking hollow.

“You lived in a trailer?” Harrison asked, pointing to the old singlewide she’d grown up in. Dad lived there still.

“Yeah, it was the only way dad could afford the land for me to Change safely. It was hard for me to connect with other kids. I was always afraid they would figure out I was a monster, so it was hard keeping friends and fitting in.”

“You look sad.”

“I had fun, but I felt sick as all get-out. I hadn’t Changed in a long time, and I fought my cat hard that entire party. I was so scared she would come out in front of everyone. I Changed on accident about an hour after everyone left. That was the last birthday party we did with my classmates. Too risky. I think my dad was just desperately trying to integrate me into my class and the town.”

She flipped through more pages, explaining as she went. Some were of school events, cheerleader tryouts, a birthday card Mom sent her one year, a letter from her dad on the day of her high school graduation telling her how proud he was. Her diploma, a copy of her first paycheck from Donna’s Diner, an employee-of-the-month award, a receipt with a nice note from a regular customer. There was a spread with pictures she hadn’t known her dad had taken of her over the years. There was one a year since, from ages five to eighteen, swinging on the same tree swing. He gifted them to her for her twentieth birthday. “For the scrapbook,” he’d declared. In each one, she’d grown, but one thing was always the same—her smile.

“You were happy there,” Harrison said, pointing to the last picture of her, mid-laugh, hair flying behind her as she kicked her legs to go higher.

“Yeah. It was my little paradise. Dad made it a happy place.”

“Happy but lonely.”

Her voice would tremble if she said anything, so instead, she nodded and turned the page. This was the second to last spread of the book. It was green, her favorite color. She fingered the picture of January, her ex-boyfriend’s three-year-old girl. “I was lonely until this page,” she said, her eyes burning.

Harrison hugged her closer. “Who is this?”

“I started dating someone I’d grown up with. A human. His name was Rhett, and he shared custody of his kid. This is January. I loved her. Love her still. She felt like mine for the year Rhett and I were together.”

Harrison fingered the piece of tape with a torn picture still attached. She’d ripped out of her book the photo of her and Rhett grinning for the camera the day he’d let her down. January still deserved to be in it, though.

“Why did you stop dating him?”

“It wasn’t my choice.” She flipped to the next page. Across the top was the date she’d Changed in the car and been outed as a tiger shifter. The rest of the spread was covered in layers of newspaper clippings, all about her, and all with that awful picture of her tranquilized and semiconscious on the pavement. “Less than a thousand people live there, so this was huge news. I was forced to register, and Rhett came over right after it happened and said he didn’t want January around someone like me. He said it was wrong for us to be together, and he didn’t want me anymore. He asked for his ring back.” She swallowed hard and closed the book on Harrison’s lap. “And that was that. The tiger took everything.” A long snarl vibrated in her chest, but she didn’t stifle it. Both she and her animal had been devastated in the aftermath.