He knew the smell of every Farrell in his tribe, but this scent set his whole system on high alert. They were deep in enemy territory, and right there in front of them, with the lamplight glowing through the living room windows, was Cunningham Homestead.
A black shadow crossed their field of view—then another. The Cunninghams could smell and hear as well as the Farrells or any other Bruins. They could smell the brothers hiding in the bushes as well as Brody could smell them. How long before they came after the intruders with guns and dogs? A Bruin trapped and surrounded was a dead Bruin.
How could Austin come here, oblivious to all danger? Brody put out his hand to pull his brother back when a square of light opened in the front house wall. A burly figure blocked the opening, and a rough deep voice bellowed into the night. “Come inside, Walker, and get your supper.”
The big Bruin standing right in front of Brody and Austin surveyed the forest one more time. He dropped his rifle from his shoulder and went through that door, into the distracting glow of domestic comfort.
Austin whispered in Brody’s ear. “You see? Easy-peasy.”
“Yeah, easy-peasy. Now let’s go.”
Austin yanked his arm out of Brody’s grasp. “Go? Forget it! I saved the best for last. You’re gonna love this. Come on. Just wait until you see.”
Brody hissed, “Austin!” but it was too late. Austin scrambled into the open and ran in a crouch around the split-rail fence. He circled the house and disappeared into the shadows. Brody hated to think what Austin might be up to, but he had to go along to make sure this, so-called adventure, didn’t end in disaster. Austin lacked the brains to judge the danger, so Brody had no choice but to follow.
Austin scurried around behind the house. More lighted windows brightened the back yard and gave Austin enough light to slip through the fence. He slithered up to a window and stuck his nose over the windowsill.
Brody hung back, but Austin waved him forward with wild facial expressions. Brody cast a look right and left. No one was coming. He better take a look and then haul Austin back home by the small hairs.
His heart thumped in his chest. The closer he came to that house, the more the Bruin scent drove him out of his mind. This was danger like he never encountered before. He couldn’t leave his blood on Star’s Homestead. He shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
He crouched next to Austin. Austin pointed up to the window and motioned Brody forward. Brody rose up on his knees and cast a quick glance through the window, but his blood ran cold when he saw Star sitting cross-legged on her bed.
Star wore a T-shirt ten times too big for her and nothing else. Her hair hung around her face, and she wore no bra. Her cherry tits stuck out under the T-shirt, and her sharp nipples pricked the cotton surface.
A surge of fire rushed to Brody’s crotch. His cock swelled tight in his pants. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Was she dreaming of his kiss right now? Did she have any panties on under that T-shirt, or did she sleep commando?
Now it was Austin’s turn to yank him down by the arm. He dared not say anything, even in a whisper, but his eyes flashed warning. Brody jerked his thumb toward the woods, and Austin nodded.
Brody turned around to scuttle for the fence when another door in the back of the house slammed open. Light flooded the yard, and a black shape even bigger than the first filled the doorway.
Brody burst into a run, but the enormous Bruin leveled his gun at them and sprayed buckshot all over the yard. The explosion deafened Brody and sent his head spinning. He couldn’t do anything but run for it.
A thunderous voice exploded through the night, a voice louder and deeper than the first voice they heard. It wasn’t Kaiser. It was Walker. “You thieving Farrells! I’ll kill you.”
Walker let another shell blast across the yard. Pellets peppered the fence over Brody’s head and popped into the dirt all around his feet. He covered his head with his arms and ran.
He got halfway across the yard when he remembered Austin. Was his idiot brother dead back there? The Cunninghams would hang him from the gatepost as a warning to anyone as foolhardy as him.
Brody turned to go back for him when Austin collided with him from behind. Brody was too relieved to be annoyed. He snatched a fistful of Austin’s jacket and hauled him through the fence as Walker let another burst of gunfire rip into the darkness.
Austin screamed into Brody’s ear. “I knew we should have brought the gun.”
Brody didn’t reply. He practically dragged Austin along the ground in his haste to get away. Walker followed them to the tree line. Brody couldn’t wait a moment longer. He shifted in the blink of an eye and plunged into the dark. Even as he galloped down the hill toward the truck, he heard Austin breaking branches and overturning stones behind him.
He didn’t stop running until he found the truck where they left it. He shifted back and dove into the driver’s seat. He sat on the shotgun and jammed the keys into the ignition.
Austin jumped into the seat next to him. “Hey! Get off my gun.”
Brody yanked the wheel around. “Shut up!” Brody roared back at him.
He dropped his foot on the gas and barreled onto the road. The floodlights swung around to light up the way. Austin drove like a bat out of hell on the way there, but Brody left him in the dust on the way home.
Chapter 6
Star couldn’t sit still through breakfast. Her mother swatted her. “Sit still, child. You’re flicking your oatmeal all over the table.”
Star bent her head. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“What do you keep looking out the window for? Are you worried about those Farrells coming back? You know Walker and your Pop haven’t slept since they ran those rat bags off last night. They’ve been on guard nonstop.”
“I know, Mama. I’m sorry.”
“Well, you haven’t eaten a bite of your breakfast. You better go get ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Your Pop is taking you over to the Kerrs as soon as he eats his own breakfast. He wants to sit down and have a serious talk with Hyatt and his parents about your match.”
Star knocked her chair over getting away from the table. “Hyatt and I don’t have a match.” She said forcefully, trying to keep her fear at bay.
“Not yet. That’s what your Pop is taking you over there for. Now you better take a shower and do your hair. You want to look your best for the Kerrs.”
Star took the opportunity to get away from her mother. She took a shower and did her hair. She wanted to look her best, but not for the Kerrs. She couldn’t wait to get out of the house and meet Brody near Craven’s Creek.
When she came back to the living room at nine-thirty, the house was empty. She heard her father and Walker talking outside the back door. They thought the Farrells would come back at any second. They had no proof whatever they heard last night was a Farrell. It could have been a raccoon.
Star didn’t hesitate. She hit the front door and made it across the yard into the trees before anyone saw her or stopped her. She ran full speed up the trail and dove off down the creek.
The stream bed wound down into trackless ravines with sheer sides. Barely a tree rooted on those walls, and the water cut its path through forgotten reaches into the mountains.
When had she tramped these woods with the carefree contentment she remembered from her childhood? Why did she have to grow up at all? She understood those Bruins who took to the woods as bears and never came back to the world of houses and families and firesides. They hibernated in caves in the winter and foraged for their food in the summer. They even ventured into the world of humans. The humans never knew they were Bruins underneath their shaggy skins.
She heard the waterfall long before she found it. The water tumbled from its high perch in a crystal white curtain of spraying droplets. The sun filtered through the trees far above and gave the water a ghostly clarity. Sparkling drops drifted in the air like snowflakes.
Star closed her eyes and li
fted her face into that glorious beauty. No wonder Brody kept this place to himself. Now he invited her here. They would share it together. It would be their own private world where no one was Farrell and no one was Cunningham.
His voice brought her back to Earth. “You’re early.”
She smiled up at him. “I couldn’t wait to come.”
He climbed down the rocks, but he didn’t sweep her up into his arms the way she dreamed he would. He stood a few feet away with his thumbs hooked into his pockets.
“How long have you been here?”
He shrugged. “A while. I...I had some things to think about.”
Her smile evaporated. Where was this going? “What things?”
He clenched his jaw. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Star’s blood screamed in her veins. “That’s not what you said yesterday.”
“That was yesterday.” Brody replied quietly.
“Do you mind telling me what happened between yesterday and today that changed your mind?”
“Nothing happened.”
Star heard her voice rising out of control. “Well, something happened. Yesterday you were all lovey and today you can’t look me in the eye. You better start talking, boy, or I’ll march straight back home and tell my father you tried to kiss me. You know what will happen then. Nothing will keep our families from gutting each other, and you and I won’t have homes to go home to anymore.”
He held up his hands. “Listen, Star, I know what I said and did yesterday. You don’t have to remind me.”
“Then what the deuce happened to you? Did you find somebody else? No, no, wait a minute. I have it. Your father wants you to marry Alannis Kerr to form an alliance between your tribes. Then your two tribes will march on Cunningham Homestead and slaughter everyone you find there. Am I right? Yeah, I thought so.”
His face pinched. “Stop it. Don’t make it any worse than it already is.” Brody replied in a strangled voice.
“You’re the one making it worse. How can you stand there and say we shouldn’t see each other anymore? Don’t you know you’re the only thing keeping me going right now?” Her voice broke.
He took a step toward her. He fought to form the words. “Come on.” He murmured, “Don’t hurt yourself like this.”
“You never gave a fig about me.” Star replied, holding back tears, “I was never anything but a game to you. I should have known a Farrell couldn’t care less for another living soul on the face of the Earth. Well, adios, muchacho. I’ll handle my own problems from now on. Give Alannis a nice wet kiss for me,” she sneered at him.
Star spun away, but Brody put out his hand to hold her back. “Come on, Star. You know I care about you. That’s why I have to do this. I want you more than anything, but it’s just not safe. If anything happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself.” Brody stated earnestly.
“Nothing is going to happen to me. If you really care about me, you won’t turn your back on me right now. Watching someone walk away who I think really has my back, or really cares for me, is the worst thing anybody could do to me.” Star said quietly while looking at the ground.
Once Brody laid his hand on her skin, he couldn’t pull it back. He couldn’t retreat to his place out of arm’s reach. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. There are guns going off in all directions, and some of these mountain men won’t sleep easy until somebody gets killed. I would rather walk away from you than see you get hurt,” he said harshly, through a closed up throat.
“I’m already hurt. You’re hurting me. Don’t you see that?” Star replied pleadingly.
“If your father found out what you’re doing, you could get hurt a lot worse, and if my family found out, you could get killed. I care too much about you to let that happen,” Brody gently stated.
Star peered up into his eyes for any sign of hope. “Do you really care about me? You’re not just saying that to get yourself off the hook?”
Brody moved a step closer, and he growled under his breath in fierce determination. “I have never felt this way about anyone before. I never believed it was possible to feel this way about another living soul. I always thought that ‘soul mate’ stuff was a big fairy tale. Then I met you.” He looked straight into her eyes with nothing but truth shining out.
“So what do you think now? Do you still think it’s a fairy tale?” Star whispered.
“Now I know you’re my mate – my true mate. I’ll never take another mate as long as I live.” Brody pronounced firmly. “I would rather die than lose you, but I would feel even worse if anything happened to you. Now that I know you’re mine, I have to protect you. If that means never seeing you again, that’s what I have to do. To my family, you’re nothing but a Cunningham. They’ll kill you to stop us being together.”
She clung to his hand. “Don’t do this, Brody. I can’t go back to the life I had before I met you. I can’t go back to wondering if I’ll end up married to Hyatt Kerr or if my parents will find someone else they want me to marry” she whispered despondently as tears pooled in her eyes.
Then Star lifted her face, gazed into his eyes, and tried to speak to his soul, “I want to be with you – no one else. We’ve come this far to be together. Don’t push me away now.”
Brody clenched his jaw one more time. He shot a fierce glare at the waterfall. Then he threw his arm around her shoulders and jerked her against him. He growled into her hair. “Don’t. Don’t. It’s all right. It’s gonna be okay.”
She hugged his ribs in desperate hunger. If only she could draw him into herself, they would never be separated. “Don’t send me away. Please – don’t send me away.”
“Hush! It’s all right. We’ll find a way. One way or another, we’ll make it.”
Star’s heart fluttered between joy and despair. Could it really be? Brody cared enough to protect her. He wanted her. “So we can keep seeing each other?”
He covered her face with kisses. He crushed the air out of her lungs with his arms. “It’s okay. Nothing will tear us apart. I’ll kill anyone who comes near you. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
She burst out laughing in sheer relief. She kissed the tattoos around his neck, and he bit at her lips, around to her ears and down to her collarbone. The spray from the waterfall cooled their faces until Brody tore himself away. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He took her hand and scrambled up the rocks to the spot where he first called down to her. Star followed him around a boulder to a hollow cut straight into the cliff. He led her into the shadows. The opening widened into a cavern and, deeper down, it ballooned into a dry cave.
Brody tugged her closer in the gloom. His breath blew into her face. The place smelled powerfully of Bruin. Nothing but bear had lived in that place for a long time. “What is this place?”
“This is my den. No one knows about this place but me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be here, either. If my parents found out about this...”
He covered her mouth with his to silence her. He pulled her down into a corner. She put her hand down to the ground and felt pine needles compacted into a bed. He pushed her back, and she lay down.
She could see nothing but his massive outline above her against the thin light coming through the cave mouth. His overpowering presence obliterated everything outside that cave. She couldn’t worry. She couldn’t even think. She knew nothing but him.
His bulk collapsed on top of her, and his mouth took her breath away. Her body sizzled with electric energy. She had to claw and bite and tear to get at him. He crashed in her ears with the might of breaking waves.
His mouth covered her face with rough kisses, and he caressed the hair off her forehead. He kissed down her neck to the heaving mound of her chest. He rested his scruffy cheek against her T-shirt, and she hugged him to her heart. She would never let him go. He was hers, and she was his. They were mated, for better or for worse.
No matter what happened, she
could never mate with another man after today. She would go home and tell her parents she couldn’t go through with their plans to marry her off to Hyatt. The thought didn’t rattle her nerves the way it had for the last several weeks. She could face it now, with Brody’s heart beating next to hers.
Complete contentment and peace filled her soul. She was home, right here in this cave. Her parents would just have to accept the reality that Brody was her life’s mate. They would accept it the way she had, as a natural fact. No one could alter it any more than they could make the wind change direction.
The cave walls cradled her in their comforting embrace. Brody’s presence surrounded her on all sides. Nothing could disturb her here.
By degrees, she became aware of his hands covering her body. They slid up her stomach and around her ribs. They lifted her under the armpits and followed the sweeping curve of her hips down to her legs.
Her breath quickened, but the surge of excitement didn’t frighten her the way it did at the Peak. She wasn’t doing anything wrong when she gave herself to him. Unmistakable rightness marked every inch of her skin under his touch. He owned her. He claimed his own territory when he touched her.
He raised his head, and their lips met in tangled kisses that sent tendrils of pleasure down to her toes. She closed her eyes and swam in pools of warmth. She inhaled him into her very cells. The sooner he occupied every corner of her being, never to be uprooted, the better.
His big hands came back up her stomach and closed around her breast. Her chest thrust into his grip, and she rocked her hips under him. He responded by rolling the rest of the way onto her. He wedged his hips between her legs, and she embraced him with her thighs around his waist.
In a flash of lightning, a tidal wave of passion blasted away her quiet contentment. A storm swept over her. The tremendous tornado of burning need devastated everything in its path. It left her prostrate before his dominating power. She could only submit and ride the wave to her own glorious fulfillment.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 11