“Try.”
“I thought maybe I belonged there, but that makes no sense because I never set foot on the place in my life. Then, after Celia got mad at me and I left, I had the same feeling outside. The woods and the trees seemed to be talking to me. Even the Peak seemed to be calling me. Then I met that bear in the woods.”
Aiken went very still, and his eyes flashed. “And?”
“And it was like experiencing something out of a dream. The woods looked like some kind of church with the light of God streaming through the trees; and the bear had a halo around it. I thought I could hear the bear’s thoughts and understand its words. I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
He didn’t answer. He stared at her with his burning eyes.
Harmony waved her hand. “Forget about it. It’s stupid, and it will probably never happen again. It just changed something in me.”
“What did it change?”
“I never knew where I belonged or what I was doing with my life. I thought I was a rootless drifter, but after I left the Kerrs, I stopped feeling like that. I felt like I belonged somewhere; that I found something I’d been looking for all my life, but I didn’t find it at the Kerrs.”
“Where did you find it, then: with the bear?”
“No: I found it on the Peak. Don’t even say it. I know it’s stupid, but the Peak itself gave me what I was looking for. I don’t know how or why, but I belong there. I belong to Bruins’ Peak.” He stood still and silent so long that she shifted from one foot to the other in the uncomfortable silence. “Anyway, I guess I better go. I’ll see you Monday.”
Chapter 7
Harmony turned to go, but Aiken’s hand shot out and touched her arm. “Wait, Harmony.”
His hand burned to her skin through her sleeve. A thousand voices screamed in his ear. “What is it?”
“Listen, Harmony, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s not stupid. I feel the same way about Bruins’ Peak.”
Her eyes flew open. “You do?”
He nodded. Dear God, how could he make her understand? He knew what she was talking about. He was there. He was the bear she saw in the woods. “I always felt that way about Bruins’ Peak. I always loved wandering around in the woods. I feel more at home there than anywhere else in the world. I even feel like you did that the woods are some kind of church where I can find God.”
She couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Really?”
“I’ve seen things in the woods no one would believe. I’ve understood things in the woods that don’t make any sense outside them. What you just said about the bear, I experienced something like that, too.”
“With a bear?”
“Not exactly, but I want you to know I understand what you’re talking about. It’s not stupid or crazy. Actually, it makes a lot of sense.”
She laughed out loud in pure relief. “Thanks. Thanks for telling me that. It means a lot.”
For some reason, his hand still rested on her arm. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her walk away from him. That intoxicating scent pulled him toward her.
He drifted closer. Without really meaning to, his fingers entwined with hers and his voice softened. He murmured into her ear. “You shouldn’t doubt yourself. You’re not stupid or ridiculous for experiencing something like that. You’re smart. You know you are. It just shows you’re connected to nature in a way most people never get to be.”
She studied his mouth. “Yeah, I have a problem with that. I guess because I’ve been alone all my life with no one in my corner, I start thinking maybe I’m not like other people.”
“You’re not like other people. That’s what makes you so special. That must be what Laird noticed about you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course; everyone notices it. I noticed it the first time I saw you.”
He couldn’t shake himself loose. He couldn’t do anything but move closer and closer to her. His eyes moved to her lips. Was he really going to kiss her?
“I noticed you, too. I never met anyone like you before.”
His cheeks turned bright red at the memory of staring at Harmony across the Kerrs’ living room. Something magical connected them, and they hadn’t said a word to each other.
She had to hold her head back to look up into his face. Her whole body posture opened to him and invited him in. “I’m glad you think I’m special. I don’t hear that very often.”
“You are special. You’re special to Laird, and you’re special to me. Just remember that if you start to doubt yourself. You’re special enough to meet that bear in the woods.”
“Of course; I’m so special I met a devil bear. That makes perfect sense. I must be a devil, too.”
Aiken joined her in nervous laughter. His arms just opened by themselves and surrounded her with their friendly comforting embrace.
With a sudden jolt, he realized what he was doing. Her body scorched his skin and knocked him off his feet. He pulled away as fast as he could, but the damage was done. He touched her. He hugged her. He only wanted to comfort her, to let her know she wasn’t cracked in the head for having an uplifting experience in the woods on Bruins’ Peak. Now here he was hugging her.
He took a step back. He had to get away from her before something terrible happened. She was human, but her scent attracted him beyond comprehension. She smelled like no human he had ever met before. Her scent set his blood on fire.
He had noticed it when he smelled her in the woods. The bear in his soul wanted that scent, to consume it and know it and claim it for its own. The bear didn’t understand about humans. The bear didn’t understand rules. It wanted a female, and not just any female. No Bruin ever sparked his passion like this. He wanted her. He had to have her.
Aiken started to turn away when Harmony spoke up. “You’ll be around Monday, won’t you, when I come to visit? You’ll show me around your greenhouses, won’t you?”
He mumbled under his breath. His brain wouldn’t work. He had to get out of here before he grabbed her. “Sure. I’ll be there.”
“I guess I’ll see you at the house – that is, if you’re not too busy.”
He dug his toe into sidewalk. “I’ll come down to the house to meet you. I’ll show you around.”
“I appreciate it. These visits always go much smoother if you know someone in advance.”
His eyes darted to her face. He would go nuts if he stayed near her one more second. “Thanks, Harmony.”
“What for; I didn’t do anything.”
“Thanks for talking about this. I never talked to anybody about this before.”
“Don’t other Bruins feel this way about the Peak?”
“I don’t know. I never asked.”
“I wish everyone knew what it was like. That would help them understand why you keep to yourselves up there.”
He stopped himself from putting out his hand again. “Don’t tell anybody.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“They wouldn’t understand. They already think we’re strange enough.”
“I don’t think you’re strange.”
“You’re different.” Aiken found himself staring at her lips as she spoke. Her tongue flashed just beyond the barrier of her teeth. He could taste her. He could imagine every pore of her skin.
“I better go.”
Aiken nodded. “I’ll see you Monday.”
Harmony looked up at him with eyes full of hope. “You promise?”
His face cracked into a big grin. “I promise.”
Neither of them made any move to leave. They stole quick glances at each other’s faces before lowering their eyes to the ground. “See you later,” Harmony finally muttered.
“Yeah,” was Aiken’s low reply.
Harmony backed away, but Aiken didn’t move. He watched as she turned around and retreated across the parking lot towards her car. She cast a few backward glances at him, and when she did, her smile lit up her face.
She got int
o her car and drove away with one last wave. I’ll see you Monday kept repeating in his mind. I’ll see you Monday, Harmony. He kept thinking those innocent, yet, so dangerous, words. He knew he should stop, put an end to the mantra, but his will was subverted; the mantra continued.
After she disappeared around a corner, he walked on toward the hardware store. Boyd was nowhere in sight, so Aiken got into the passenger seat of the big black Escalade parked in front of the store. He plugged his tablet into the cigarette lighter and let his thoughts drift.
He had to get Harmony McGillis out of his mind once and for all. Telling her point blank there could never be anything between them did no good at all. He didn’t believe that and neither did she.
She was human, for Pete’s sake. What was he thinking, getting all worked up over a human? Didn’t he know that could only end in disaster? Of course he did. She didn’t know it, but that made no difference.
Any man with warm blood in his veins would have seen her face fall when he told her to give up any idea of them being together. He couldn’t expect her to understand about Bruins being reproductively incompatible with humans. She didn’t know what the word ‘Bruin’ meant. How could she? No one in Iron Bark knew the truth.
He could pound his head against the wall ‘til kingdom come, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. Her skin, her hair, her eyes all drove him nuts. He had never wanted any woman like this; certainly not a Bruin woman. He knew tons of Bruin women more beautiful than Harmony. He knew tons of Bruin women more successful, smarter, and more fashionable. None of them could hold a candle to her.
He had never given any Bruin woman the time of day, so why was he dreaming about Harmony coming to his Homestead on Monday? What did he really think he was going to do? He would show her around his greenhouses. She would meet his nephews and his sisters and his parents. Then she would get in her car and drive away. He wasn’t doing anything but torturing himself by thinking about her.
The sad reality hammered into his mind. The bear wanted her. The bear wanted the female whose scent he caught in the woods when he met Harmony. The bear didn’t care whether she was human or Bruin. The bear wanted a mate. It wanted her for a mate, and it wouldn’t rest until it got her.
How could he face his family with this secret weighing him down? How could he face Harmony on Monday? How could he crave her and show her around his Homestead like any ordinary local official on an inspection?
His lips ached to kiss her. His arms longed to hold her close and protect her from this cruel world. She needed love and home and family, and he knew how to give it to her. Every inch of his skin screamed for her, but he could never have her.
He ought to never see her again. He ought to disappear Sunday night and just happen to be nonexistent Monday morning when she came around. He’d done it before, and he could do it again. His family wouldn’t think anything of it. That’s what a sensible Bruin would do to avoid contact with the forbidden.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew he wouldn’t do it. He would be there, bright and early Monday morning, in a clean shirt and clean pants, with his teeth brushed and his fingernails scrubbed. His face would be the first to greet her when she got out of her car on Monday. He would do anything – absolutely anything – to see her again: to be near her again; to talk to her; help her; and make her burden lighter.
To hell with the rules: if she was forbidden, he would become forbidden, too. He would turn his back on his whole tribe, on the whole Bruin race, to win her. No, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t do that. Bruins didn’t do that. Turning his back on Bruins’ Peak meant living a life of destitution and exile. It meant never having children, never participating in family reunions or weddings or funerals. It meant giving up a share in his inheritance, in never speaking to his relatives again.
He couldn’t do that. He had to toe the line. He had to wipe Harmony McGillis, everything she did, said, and stood for, off the face of the Earth. She didn’t exist for him. He had to find himself a nice Bruin wife and raise a bunch of cubs the way his mother always nagged him to do. He had to take over his share of the business and be ready to run it along with Boyd when their father passed on. That’s the way it worked.
Boyd came back and slid into the driver’s seat. He started the motor and rambled on about the parts he bought, but Aiken didn’t hear him. He stared straight ahead at nothing the whole way home.
What was the point in living at all, if he couldn’t have this one thing he desired more than anything? What was the point in a nice house and a loving extended family, if you couldn’t have the one woman in the world you truly craved?
He would never mate with a nice Bruin woman and raise a bunch of cubs. Bruins mate for life, and they only ever mated with their heart’s true match. That much was certain. They found the one they really wanted and stuck. Well, he had found the one he really wanted, but he could never have her. He would live the rest of his life always miserable and no one would ever know why.
Chapter 8
At eight o’clock Monday morning, Harmony pulled her car into the Social Services parking lot. Despite the activity on the town streets, with parents taking their kids to school and store owners opening up, the parking lot stood empty – all except one ratty old pick-up truck parked in the far corner.
Its rusted green door almost fell off when it swung open and that stripling, Bain Campbell, got out. He looked both ways before he crossed the deserted parking lot. Maybe he thought he was doing something he shouldn’t, or maybe he was just so used to doing things he shouldn’t that he looked both ways out of habit.
He looked both ways again before he opened the passenger door and slid into Harmony’s car. He slammed the door and rested his rifle butt on the floor between his feet. “Ready to go when you are.”
“You won’t need the gun. Leave it behind.”
His head twisted around. “You cain’t go up on Bruins’ Peak without a gun. You should know that better than anyone.”
Harmony tightened her lips. “Leave the gun behind, Bain, or you’re staying behind along with it. I’m not taking you up there with that gun in the car.”
He bared his discolored teeth. “You want to go up to Bruins’ Peak, one of the most dangerous wilderness areas in the state, looking for some wild bear, and you don’t want to take a gun? Yer out of your gourd. What if it attacks you and I have no way to defend you? What then? What if we run into a raging mother bear tryin’ to protect hiz cubs? I’m telling you, I’m not going up there without a gun.”
“Then you’re not going up there. You said you weren’t hunting it, that you would trap it and send it to the zoo. What happened to that?”
He faced forward with a determined snort. He sat back in the seat, but he didn’t take his hand off his gun. “I’m taking it, and that’s final.”
“This is my car. I’ll be the one to decide whether we take it or not.”
“You’re going up there to talk to the Dunlaps. What if they prove hostile? What if you walk into a hail of bullets? What are you going to do then?”
“If I walk into a hail of bullets, your gun won’t help me because you won’t be with me. You’re staying down on the trail, remember? You’re not going anywhere near the Dunlaps, armed or otherwise. Is that clear?”
“You ought to be armed, too. You ought to carry a concealed weapon on trips like this. You don’t know what you could be running into.”
Aiken’s face flashed before Harmony’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but smile to herself. A shimmer of excitement tingled through her at the thought of seeing him again. She wanted to hurry up and get there to find out what happened next. “I think I know what I’m running into.”
“You don’t know what all lives up there on Bruins’ Peak. Thar’s wild animals and wolves and cougars and panthers and wolverines, and the people are more dangerous than the animals. Those people are witches in disguise.”
“I’ve heard all the stories, Bain, and I’ve met the people for
myself. They seem nice enough to me.”
“They can make themselves any shape they want. They can show you what they want you to see, and the next minute, they change into blood-thirsty vampires and ghouls.”
Harmony tried to laugh, but his words wormed into her heart. She shuddered in spite of herself. “Now you’re just making stuff up to scare me. Shut up and put your rifle in the truck so we can get out of here.”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“What have you seen?”
“I’ve seen people change their shape and rip an innocent person to pieces with blood dripping from their fangs. I was with my dad when that girl killed his friend. Trust me. You don’t want to go up there without some kind of protection.”
Harmony shrugged his warnings away. “I don’t know where you come up with this stuff, but I can’t wait anymore. Get out of the car. I gotta go.”
“Yer supposed to protect the children up there, ain’t ya? You better take my word fer it. They sacrifice their children to their satanic gods on moonlit nights. That’s why the kids don’t show up on the county rolls. That’s why they keep their kids isolated, so no one knows who lives and who dies.”
A chill ran up Harmony’s spine. “You better be darn sure you know what you’re talking about before you start spreading rumors like that. The folks on Bruins’ Mountain have always been cleared of mistreatment of children, and no one has ever reported any child missing.”
His voice rose to a shriek. “That’s exactly the way they want it. Don’t ya see? You cain’t let them take you in with their fancy exterior. They look real nice from the outside, but once you scratch the surface, you find they’re pure evil. You’ll see. You just have to dig deep enough to find the truth.”
This was too much for Harmony. She threw the car into reverse. “Buckle your seatbelt, and no funny business. The first time you step out of line, I’m leaving you by the side of the road. Do you hear me?”
He buckled his seatbelt, and Harmony hit the gas. She revved the motor on the turnpike out of town and hit the dirt road running around Bruins’ Mountain. She knew better than to listen to anything Bain said, but his comments about children disappearing rattled her more than she realized.
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