Wolf Lake

By Darrel Bird

Tessa Parker is a plucky woman who is thrust into the cold Alaskan wilderness with a cold and bitter man. All she wants is to get back home to her husband and her life with the man she married.
Her health fails her and delays her return home, and when she does return she finds another woman has taken her place.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Darrel Bird
• Release date: Dec 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301346028

Darrel Bird

Darrel Bird has written and published 47 short stories. He attended Bakersfield college, and is an avid motorcyclist.

Book preview

Wolf Lake

by Darrel Bird

Copyright December 2012 by Darrel Bird

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"Up there where the cold wind blows

In its wild way, the wilderness enfolds

Stricken from society, the wildness grows.

Winter comes, and time slows.

For all who would find love there.

Part 1

Tessa Parker stood in front of the mirror at the hair salon in downtown Alameda, California, staring at her hair.

It just wasn’t done the way she had asked the girl to do it. The girl who normally did her hair was off with the flu.

She had gotten a call from her sister in Barrow, Alaska, begging her to come up on her week’s vacation. The girls had not seen one another in two years; her sister had moved to Barrow with her new husband. Her sister was only two years younger than her but had already married twice.

In walked Dottie Bernstein, who attended her church. Tessa, I heard you were going to go off by yourself on your vacation.

Hi Dottie, Yes, Rick has to work, so I thought I would visit my sister in Barrow, Alaska."

Isn’t that near the north pole or something?

Well, very near it. She laughed. It's on the northern-most part of Alaska.

Don’t they have, like, polar bears or something up there?

I don’t know; I’ve never been there.

She knew that Dottie would go on gabbing all day if she let her, but she simply didn’t have time for that as her plane was scheduled for the next morning.

See you when I get back; I've got to run, Dottie.

Ok, don’t get eaten by wild animals up there.

She hurriedly walked to her car, got in, and turned the ignition. The car was a small Ford, a tribute to her husband’s frugality.

On her way home in the suburbs of Alameda, she thought about the fact that her biological clock had already stopped ticking. It had run up to the big forty road block, crawled over, then fell on its face and killed the hope of her ever fulfilling her mission to populate the world.

They had said they would have a child later, when the time was right, but Rick had put her off. The time that was right just never happened.

Rick was a computer systems analyst for a banking security firm, and she sometimes wondered if there was anything but numbers in his head.

He had every phase of their lives planned. He made good money, and she had everything she wanted or needed except children.

Their marriage had become settled, and days turned into years in the same stucco home they had bought new when they were married, she at twenty-eight and Rick at thirty.

Neither she nor Rick had chased after large houses, fine cars, or impressed the neighbors; it was just not in either one of them to do that.

She realized that from the beginning, both of them were happily married, and then they were just married, period.

She was a Christian and went to church regularly, but Rick begged off most Sundays. He just didn’t seem interested in church, but instead of being concerned, she put it down to his being cooped up in his office day after day.

When she had walked in and announced that she was going to fly up and visit her sister in Barrow, he had just said, Ok. And he went back to reading his paper.

She pulled up in front of their neat stucco house with its groomed lawn, trimmed trees in front, and perfectly trimmed shrubbery. They had obtained a good gardener who had faithfully kept the grounds for five straight years.

She opened the door and walked into the living room, where Rick was working on some papers. Instead of working at his desk, he had them spread out on the footstool.

I got my hair done, and I’m about packed; I leave in the morning.

What time?

Nine AM. Can you remember to feed the cat?

Yes, I’ll leave a note near the coffee pot.

"Rick, are we ever going to