She set off down the hill into the sunshine when a flash of movement caught her eye. She glanced sideways and Aiken stepped out of the trees. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’ve been hiding from you.”
Harmony gave him a light smack on the shoulder. “I knew you were. You’re a terrible host, leaving your guest alone like that.”
“You weren’t alone. You were knee-deep in conversation with Marla. What were you talking about – me, I suppose?”
“How did you guess?”
“What did she say?”
“She just said what you’ve always said, that it’s hopeless to think of anything happening between us – not that I think about it. You and everyone else keep saying it so often I have to wonder if maybe you’re all trying to tell me something else.”
“What else would we be saying?”
“That it’s not as hopeless as it seems.”
Aiken set his jaw and turned away. “It’s hopeless. I’m sorry.”
Harmony darted forward and caught his arm. “Stop right there, Aiken Dunlap. You're not going to walk away from me this time. I refuse to believe it's hopeless until you tell me why. You and your whole family keep telling me over and over again nothing will ever happen between us, but when I ask for some explanation, I get a lot of static and hot air. You're not walking away from me until you give me a straight answer once and for all. What is it about me you find so offensive? Is it that I have no family of my own? Am I not good enough because I wasn't raised as well as you were? What is it? Do you have arranged marriages, and you're promised to someone else? What is it?”
He pulled his arm away. “Look, Harmony, it's complicated. You wouldn't understand....
She yanked his arm back so hard he spun around to face her. “It’s not so complicated you can’t give me a simple explanation. We’re speaking the same language here, aren’t we? I can understand you perfectly well, so start talking. Neither of us is leaving here until you tell me what the deuce is going on.”
He swung around with his hands balled into fists. He wrenched his arm out of her grasp by main force. His words fought their way out of his mouth through gritted teeth. “Don’t you think I’d love to be with you? Don’t you think I want that more than anything? I’m falling apart here. I can’t concentrate on anything. I can’t even take a walk in the woods without looking for you. I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be with you, but I can’t. I can never be with you – never – and it’s tearing me apart.”
She froze in horror. She couldn’t be hearing these words from him. He wanted her. He wanted her more than anything, but something stopped him, something monstrous. “Why can’t we be together?”
He covered his eyes with both hands. “For God’s sake, don’t ask me that. Ask me anything but that. I know it’s impossible that you could ever care about me the way I care about you, but if you really want to do something nice for me, if you have one scrap of compassion in your heart, please, please, please, just go get in your car and go back to town. Forget about me and don’t talk to me again. Leave me alone to rot away in misery. I can’t stand this one second longer.” His voice squeaked with the effort of speaking those last words.
Harmony flinched like he’d slapped her. She stared at his hunched shoulders and his hands covering his eyes. Leave him alone after what he just said? Not a chance. She took hold of his wrists and tried to pry his hands away from his eyes. “Aiken, look at me.”
He did his best to get away. “Leave me alone. I can’t look at you without wanting to die. I don’t want to want you and dream about you and love you when I’m never going to have you.”
She gave up tugging at his wrists and shook him by the shoulders. “Stop this, Aiken. I’m right here in front of you, and I’m not leaving you like this. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to torture you.”
“Of course you didn’t. You would never do that. You’re too good and kind and caring for that. It’s just this blasted…”
“What? What is it? Why can’t we be together? Why can’t you just come out and tell me?”
His hands flew away from his face. Faster than lightning, his hands closed on her arms. He clenched her in his fists and shook her face just inches from his foaming mouth. “You know, Harmony. You already know if you just think about it for a second. Think back to the moment when you knew you had discovered something really unusual on Bruins’ Peak. Think back, and you’ll discover the answer.”
She cowered from his fuming passion. “What are you talking about?”
“The bear, Harmony. Do you remember the bear? What did the bear mean to you? What did you feel for the bear?”
She stared up into his raving eyes. “What are you trying to tell me? What does the bear have to do with you and me?”
He tossed her away from him. “Of course you don’t understand, and you never will. What’s the point of talking about it? It just makes this situation worse for me.”
“Why can’t you just tell me straight out what you want to say? If you really care about me and I really care about you, why can’t we be together? Is it your family that forbids it? Do you have some terrible disease I don’t know about? Is that why you people keep your distance from outsiders?”
Aiken searched her face for some shred of hope. All at once, he caught her up in his arms. He kissed her hair and pressed her to his heart. “I don’t care. I love you, and you love me. Don’t you love me, Harmony? Don’t you feel we belong together?”
Before she could answer, he covered her face with kisses. He drowned out her answer with his lips and drank the happy whispers into himself.
“I don’t care what they do. We’ll leave here. We’ll never see Bruins’ Peak again, but we’ll be together. They can live without us. We’ll go live somewhere else like ordinary people. No one has to know where we came from or who we are.”
Harmony devoured his kisses with rising excitement. He cared about her. He said he loved her; and she loved him. Oh, she loved him! The words soared out of her soul on wings of joy. She loved him! She would hazard anything for him. Whatever barrier kept them apart would collapse before their love.
His raging passion subsided now that he held her in his arms. He nuzzled into her hair and tasted her sweet lips. She craned her neck to lift her face to his, and her arms circled his barrel chest. She touched those sharp muscled corners the way she had so often dreamed of touching them. She followed the curve of his shoulders to the sloping lats leading down his back. She inhaled his scent in the fullness of her mounting desire.
His hands roved all over her body. His tongue dove into her mouth and brought the juicy wetness bubbling from her depths to burn her buried flesh. He burrowed under her shirt to find her breasts, and they rose to welcome him.
He squeezed her nipples to tortured points and fought his way into her waistband to find the delicious center between her legs, but just as fast, he pulled away. He turned his back on her with a groan. “I can’t. This is insane. I can’t.”
Harmony choked on her own grief. Her arms hung empty and powerless. “Why can’t you?”
“We’re just too far apart. We’re fire and ice. We would destroy each other. I can’t do this.”
She drew near his back, but when she raised her hand, she dared not make contact with his body. Her soul seethed in torment. “Please, just tell me why.”
He growled over his shoulder. “I would rather die than give you up, but I can’t do this. It’s forbidden. It breaks all our most stringent laws.
Harmony exploded. All her raw, tensed emotions, dammed up for days since she first laid eyes on him at the Kerrs’, burst forth in a torrent of blind fury.
She pounded her fists against his back and screeched at him. "That's crap, Aiken Dunlap. You don't give a flip about me and you never did. How can a bunch of people have laws keeping two people who love each other apart? You’re making all that up to manipulate me. It’s crap. Do you hear me? Cr
ap! If you really cared about me, you would stand up to your family or whoever it is that’s making you think we can’t be together. You would tell them you love me, instead of telling me over and over again you can’t. You can’t; you can’t; you can’t. That’s all you ever say, and I say that it’s crap: So there. What are you going to do about that?”
He turned around, and his face cleared for the first time. He grabbed her pounding fists and pulled her toward him. “Hey, come on. Don’t hit me. It’s not as bad as that. You know I care about you.”
She flailed against his hands. “Isn’t it enough that you have this huge wonderful family to support you and I’ve got no one – not one person in the whole world who cares about me? Why do you have to go rubbing my nose in it and make it a hundred times worse?”
He tried to put his arms around her, but she struggled against his embrace. “I never wanted to rub your nose in it. I only wanted to help you and protect you so you didn’t get hurt.”
“What do you think I have to go back to? What do you think my life will be like when I leave here and go back to town? What do you think I have to look forward to, now that I’ve seen how you live? Everything here is so wonderful and beautiful. Everyone loves each other and helps each other. I’m a worm in the dirt compared to you.”
“Stop it. You know you’re not a worm in the dirt.”
She threw off his arms and spun away. “Leave me alone. Don’t tell me you love me if you won’t fight to have me. Don’t tell me anymore than I’m special or that you care about me and want to protect me when you’re the one who’s hurting me worse than anybody.”
He tried to catch up with her, but she had stormed away.
Chapter 12
After Harmony left him in the trees, Aiken stayed away from home longer than he planned. He couldn’t face her. He could only do himself and her both a favor by keeping clear of her. Her presence drew him to her. He couldn’t fight it. He had to struggle with all his strength to pry himself away from her, and every time he did, it got harder. One of these days, he would fail, and it would be all over for both of them.
He stayed at the greenhouses long past quitting time. Boyd had to threaten him with a pay cut if he didn’t get in the truck and come home for dinner. “You’re giving Ma an ulcer. Don’t you know that? When are you gonna learn to think of others?”
“I am thinking of others. That’s why I’m not going.”
Boyd collared him and shoved him in the truck. “You’re going, and you’ll put on a clean shirt and comb your hair before you come to the dinner table.”
“Yes, sir,” Aiken replied. That’s the price you paid for having an older brother born to be Alpha. You did as you were told and liked it.
Aiken brooded all the way home, but when they got there, they found the womenfolk already seated at the table with Floyd, Jasper, and the boys. Harmony sat between Marla and Clarissa. She cast a stony glance at Aiken. He could read nothing in that face.
Jasper pursed his lips at his two sons. “You boys sit down to your dinner before it gets cold. Your Ma didn’t work all day to waste food.”
Boyd sat down, but Aiken headed for the stairs. “I’ll wash up and change my shirt first.”
He changed his shirt and washed his hands and face and neck, and he wetted and combed his hair the way Boyd told him to. He would have done it anyway. He would have done it for Harmony.
He took his usual seat next to Boyd. He found himself sitting directly across from Harmony, but he kept his eyes on his plate when Boyd served him. The less said between the two of them, the better.
Conversation resumed. Jasper and Boyd talked business until Beatrice interrupted. “There’s a whole table of people sitting here who don’t want to hear about your spreadsheets and budget forecasts. Why don’t you talk about something else until you’re alone?”
“Sorry, Ma,” Boyd replied. “Have you heard Shaw and Dana Cunningham are having a baby?”
Harmony’s head shot up. “Really? When is it due?”
“I just heard the news, so I guess it will be due in about nine months.”
Marla straightened up. “I forgot to tell you, Harmony. A letter came for you today.”
“A letter – for me? But no one knows I’m here.”
Marla handed it over. “Here it is.”
Harmony studied the envelope. “It doesn’t have a stamp. It must have been hand delivered.”
“I found it in the mailbox like that,” Marla replied. “Open it.”
Harmony ripped open the envelope. Her eyes skimmed the page. “It’s from Laird Kerr. He’s inviting me to dinner at his house tomorrow night.”
The Dunlap family exchanged glances. Aiken watched Harmony reading. “What else does he say?”
“He says he heard I was staying with the Dunlaps for a few days, and he thought he would take the opportunity to extend the invitation. He thinks he can shed some light on the case I’m investigating.”
“What case is that? I thought you cleared the Kerrs.”
“I did. As far as the accusations go, I have nothing further to investigate.”
“So what’s he talking about?”
“If you ask me,” Aiken chimed in, “he’s looking for an excuse to invite you over.”
Harmony waved the paper and asked, “But why?”
“Can you think of any reason he would particularly want to see you? What’s so special about you that he would invite you over to his house?”
“It doesn’t make any sense, especially after the way his wife reacted to me. Maybe I shouldn’t accept the invitation. I don’t want her blowing up again. It was bad enough having her accuse me of flirting with her husband. I can only imagine what she would do if she thought I was having an affair with him.”
Marla and Clarissa laughed out loud, and some of the other Dunlaps smiled, but Aiken stared across the table at Harmony. Just looking at her made him understand how Laird felt. Lucky old Laird; he could spend the evening staring into Harmony’s gentle brown eyes and admiring her open countenance and straightforward demeanor. He didn’t have to worry about anybody but Celia making a fuss about it, and no one took Celia’s accusations seriously.
Aiken couldn’t even do that. He couldn’t even look at Harmony because he really did want her. He wanted her with all his heart and all his bear soul. He wanted all of her, all the time, forever. He couldn’t even have dinner with her without suffering the most excruciating pangs of heartache and torment.
Harmony put the invitation down and went back to her food. “I better call him after dinner and explain. I’d love to go, but I don’t want to offend Celia.”
“I think you should go,” Aiken blurted out. “He might have something to tell you, and Celia might not be around.”
“Something to tell me: like he wants to leave Celia and run away with me? I don’t think so.”
A ripple of laughter went around the table.
“I mean it could help solve the mystery of why he’s so taken with you.”
“His invitation to dinner hardly means he’s taken with me. He’s just being polite. He’s following up on our conversation at his house.”
“You don’t understand. Laird Kerr would never invite an outsider to dinner at his house – never – no matter what Celia said. I saw the way he acted toward you. He wants something from you, or he wants you to do something.”
“Like what? What could he want with a total stranger?”
“I don’t have a clue, but it must be something pretty important if he went this far.”
She looked back and forth between the letter and Aiken. He studied her radiant face for the thousandth time. She was special. He couldn’t deny that. She could fascinate him, even now after a week of living in the same house with her.
What was it about her? Would he ever puzzle out the mystery? She was human. He shouldn’t be attracted to her. The bear in him should want someone of its own kind. Bruins never mated with humans. They were a different species.
Not only were the two groups reproductively alien to each other, they usually didn’t find each other attractive at all. Bruin men found human women fragile and flighty, while Bruin women found human men shallow and coarse. The bear gave a Bruin depth, soul, and warmth.
Harmony had all that and more. She had everything a Bruin had. Her soul extended deep beneath the surface. He’d seen it a dozen times.
Nothing more passed between them that night. Everyone pondered the mystery, and Harmony worked on her case notes on both families. Aiken kept his distance until she came downstairs the following evening with her notebook under one arm and her handbag under the other.
Aiken stood up to meet her. “All set?”
She nodded. “I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be. Laird loves you. You have nothing to worry about.”
Harmony’s cheeks heated with that mesmerizing blush that melted him into his boots. “Don’t say he loves me.”
“Let me drive you over there, Harmony.”
“Your mother planned to drive me.”
“She did, but I asked her to let me take you instead. I want to talk to you before you see the Kerrs.”
“All right.”
He opened the front door for her and handed her into the Boyd’s big shiny red Land Cruiser. He purred down the back road and around to Kerr Homestead. Neither said anything until he parked in the front driveway.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I know you plan to leave soon to go back to town.”
“I can’t stay at your house forever.”
He winced in pain at the words. “I know. I just want to tell you that you have nothing to worry about from me. I won’t do anything to bother you again.”
She pressed her lips together. “Is that what you brought me out here to tell me?”
His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel and he glared through the windshield at the Kerrs’ house. “I just don’t want you to worry that I’ll make trouble for you. I’ll leave you alone.”
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