The Sheriff shrugged and looked away. “Yes, ma’am, I know that. It’s just he said you got kidnapped up here and hadn’t been seen since. I had no choice but to investigate.”
“You can see I’m alive and well. Nobody kidnapped me.”
“What did I tell you?” Aiken burst out.
The Sheriff waved for quiet. “I hate to bother you, ma’am. I can see you’re alive and well, but everyone’s mighty worried about you back in town. Would you mind telling me just exactly what happened to make you disappear without a word to anybody of your plans?”
She cast a glance at Bain. “Do you want to tell the Sheriff what happened, Bain?”
Bain looked around with wild eyes. He looked at Harmony. He looked at Aiken. He looked up at the Dunlaps. He looked everywhere but at the Sheriff.
“I’ll help you get started. You came up to me in the parking lot at Social Services the evening before I left town. You wanted me to show you where I encountered that bear.”
Aiken interrupted; “Even though it was on Dunlap territory.”
“I asked if you planned to kill the bear, and you said no, you only wanted to trap it and maybe send it to the zoo.”
“Is all that true, Campbell?” the Sheriff asked.
“Then, when I picked you up Monday morning to come up the mountain, you insisted on bringing your rifle with you. You said it wasn’t safe to come up the mountain without a weapon, and you told me a big tale about the children on the mountain being in danger. Am I following the facts accurately enough for you so far?”
Bain bared his crooked teeth.
“Then, when I showed you the spot where I met the bear the first time, we found the same bear waiting there. He came right up to me, and I said I thought he was tame. I had to stop you from shooting it on the spot, but when I put out my hand to him, you called out that he was dangerous. You spooked him, and he roared at you. You raised your gun again, and the bear charged at you and would have killed you if I hadn’t....”
“Stop!” Bain screeched.
Aiken chuckled low.
“You better finish the story yourself, Bain,” Harmony told him.
McPherson turned on Bain. “Well? So what happened then?”
Bain aimed a shaky finger at Aiken. “It was him! He did it! He...he....”
“He did what?” Harmony asked. “He saved my life after you shot me in the chest with your precious gun. Is that what you were about to say? I tried to stop you from shooting the bear, and the gun went off and hit me in the chest. If Aiken hadn’t been there to stop the bleeding, I would have been dead.”
McPherson glared. “Is that true, Bain? Did you lose control of your weapon?”
“I never lost control,” Bain screeched. “It was him. He would have killed me.”
“What are you saying?” McPherson asked. “Did he threaten you in some way?”
“He...he....”
“You’re not making any sense, Bain,” Harmony remarked. “Explain yourself.”
“It was him.” Bain waved his arms in circles. “He attacked me.”
“You just said no one was there but you and the lady and the bear. How could he attack you?”
Bain spluttered, but he couldn’t form the words to say what he meant. At that moment, the screen door swung open and Marla came out. Why hadn’t Harmony noticed before she wasn’t on the porch?
Marla stopped next to her mother. Bain’s eyes snapped to her, and his mouth fell open in a spine-chilling howl. “It’s her! It’s her! She’s the one!”
Sheriff McPherson smacked his lips. “First it’s him, and now it’s her. What the blazes are you talking about?”
“She’s the one! She’s the one who killed my dad’s friend. She tore him to pieces. She ripped out his throat so his head bobbed on his neck. I was standing right there and saw the whole thing.”
The annoyed, frustrated expression vanished from the Sheriff’s face. He eyed Marla with new interest. “Is that so?”
“I saw her! She attacked him, and she turned into a devil right in front of me, and she killed him in cold blood. I saw it all. You could ask my dad if he was still alive, but my brother Edward was there, too. He can confirm it all.”
The Sheriff turned to Jasper. “I’m sorry to say this, Mr. Dunlap, but with another witness to confirm the incident, I have to treat it as a serious matter. I’ll have to question your daughter about this.”
Jasper scowled at the Sheriff. Then he murmured to Marla, “You better tell him.”
Marla raised her flashing eyes from the boards under her feet and met the Sheriff’s gaze. “It’s true. I killed him.”
Harmony gasped. “Marla!
Marla fixed her ferocious glare on Harmony. “Are you gonna arrest me now? Are you gonna ruin the lives of all the other kids on this mountain because of what I did? That stinking hunter attacked me, and he would have killed me if I hadn’t killed him first. I was only seven years old when it happened. I was walking through the woods minding my own business on my own land when all four of them came out of the trees and attacked me.”
“Four of them, you say?” Sheriff McPherson asked.
“Two men and two teenage boys,” Marla pointed at Bain. “He was just a boy then, him and his brother. One of the men was his dad, and the other one was this friend he talks so much about.”
“What did they do?”
“They grabbed me by the arms and wrestled me to the ground. Then they started arguing over who was gonna get me first. They were going to take turns with me and then kill me. They said they could hide my body and no one would ever find it. I….I….”
“Did you fight back?”
Marla looked at her father for help. “I….I got scared. I went berserk. The next thing I knew, this guy was lying on the ground with his neck broken and the others were running away. I looked around. I had blood all over me.”
“What happened then?”
Aiken spoke up. “She came back home covered in blood. Dad, Boyd and I were standing over there by the fountain when she showed up screaming bloody murder. When we finally got the truth out of her, she told us where to find the guy’s body. We went down there, and we buried it where no one would ever find it. We did it to protect Marla. I hope you understand, Sheriff.”
The Sheriff shook his head. “I think I see what’s going on here. I don’t need to hear anymore. You did what you had to do, and that’s all there is to it.” He turned toward Harmony. “If you want to lay charges against Bain, ma’am, I’d say you have a pretty good case of reckless endangerment with a firearm. If I was you, Bain, I would keep my accusations to myself until you can find a way to tell the truth, if that’s possible. I should never have listened to you.” He strode away to the patrol car tucked in the trees down the driveway.
Behind his back, Bain’s expression transformed from confusion to murderous rage. His lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes smoldered in his pointed skull. He glared at Aiken. “You know, good and well, you attacked me out there. You know good and well you were there, along with the lady.”
Aiken grinned at him and asked, “And the bear?”
Bain flew into a rage. A ragged shriek broke out of his throat, and his feet left the ground on a flying leap at Aiken’s neck. Harmony screamed, but as fast as her arm shot out to grab Bain, she couldn’t react fast enough. He sailed past her.
Faster than the eye could see, Aiken spun around, with one hand guiding Bain’s outstretched fingers inches away from his face. Bain tumbled forward, carried by his own momentum, and Aiken moved around him from behind. Harmony couldn’t comprehend what happened next. A blur crossed her vision. It swirled around Aiken, and a concussion of air thumping away from him pounded against her ears.
Before she realized what happened, Aiken disappeared and a bear took his place. But that’s not really what happened, was it? Some forgotten part of her saw what really happened. She saw it perfectly well. She just didn’t want to let herself believe it.
Shaggy fur sprouted all over his body, and the morning sun peeking over the treetops caught the golden hairs in their angelic glow. His face contorted and stretched out into a narrow snout with a black shiny nose. Aiken disappeared, and a bear took his place; but that wasn’t enough for Harmony. She knew that bear. She knew that bear on sight. It was him. It was the bear she met in the woods.
The bear lunged at Bain, but Harmony didn’t make any move to intervene. The rest of the Dunlap family stayed where they were. They weren’t the least bit surprised by what they’d seen. They’d seen it a thousand times. This was all normal to them.
The bear knocked Bain the rest of the way off his feet. Bain landed on his face against the steps. The bear came down on his front paws on either side of his head. His great body covered Bain, and his open mouth struck Bain in the neck.
Bain wriggled onto his back with a terrified squeal, and the bear let him turn. From her place by the steps, Harmony could see plain as day the bear didn’t tighten his jaws around Bain’s neck. He could kill Bain with the slightest pressure of his jaws, but he only wanted to scare him.
Bain flipped himself over to face the fearsome beast looming over him. He fought to put his arms up to block the bear’s jaws closing around his face. The bear drove in hard and bellowed full and loud in Bain’s face. His saliva spattered Bain’s cheeks and flew into his eyes.
Bain whimpered in terror. He shut his eyes tight against the onslaught and turned his face aside. The bear roared and roared again. He covered Bain’s face with his open mouth, but still he did not bite down.
Bain rolled sideways and pulled his knees up to his chest in a fetal ball. A stink of urine stung Harmony’s nose, and a dark wet stain spread down Bain’s pants. A trickle of yellow liquid muddied the ground underneath him where his legs rubbed the ground.
The bear stopped roaring, and in the silence between Bain’s muffled sobs, someone chuckled. Harmony looked up to see Boyd stifling laughter. Even dignified Jasper bit his lip to keep from smiling. Marla snorted, spun away on her heel, and stormed into the house. The screen door slammed behind her.
The bear sniffed at Bain and grunted under his breath. He craned his big head around and fixed his small eyes on Harmony. He stepped back and let out a puff of air through his nostrils.
A moment later, the bear straightened up on his hind legs. His forepaws hung down at his sides, and his shoulders dropped. His head shrank, and his skin turned from brown to white when Aiken took his place.
“You showed him, sonny,” Boyd crowed. “He won’t bother you again. You can take that to the bank.”
Aiken wrinkled his nose at Bain. He gave him a light kick in the side of the leg. “Get up, man. Get on your feet and get out of here. Don’t let me catch you in our territory again.”
Bain struggled to his feet. He cast one frightened look around and headed out of there, running down the driveway. Aiken didn’t turn around to watch him go. Boyd stepped forward and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re the man, brother. You can really school ‘em.” He walked off toward the barn.
Aiken caught sight of Harmony, and the satisfied smirk vanished from his face. He put out his hands to her. “I’m sorry, Harmony. I couldn’t tell you. I wanted to. God knows I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
She stared at him in stunned shock. “You’re....you’re a bear.”
He took hold of her shoulders and tried to draw her to him. “Harmony, please listen to me. I can explain. Just give me a chance.”
“You’re a bear… and not just a bear. You’re that bear. You’re the bear I met in the woods. You let me touch you, and you touched me. It was you all along. Why didn’t you tell me? I asked you a hundred times to explain it to me. Why didn’t you? You want to explain now? There’s nothing to explain.”
“Harmony, please; just listen to me for a second. I can explain everything.”
“So that’s why you didn’t want to be with me.” She nodded and turned away. “I see now.”
She pulled out of his hands. His voice shattered against her stony facade. “Please don’t walk away from me, Harmony. Let’s talk about this. I need you. Don’t leave.”
She nodded once to herself, but she didn’t see or hear him again. She walked up the porch steps and found her car keys where they sat on the table in the entrance hall. She stuffed them into her pocket and walked down the path toward the road.
She found her car where she parked it the morning Bain Campbell shot her. She got into it, started the motor, and drove back to town.
Chapter 15
Molly Shannon leaned over Harmony’s desk and examined the computer screen. “Whatcha doin’?”
“I’m doing some research on the Kerr family.”
Molly squinted. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face without her glasses on. “Scotia Kerr: I don’t know that name. Who is she?”
“You don’t know the name because she’s dead. She’s from one of the older generations, and she killed herself back in 1993. She left a suicide note, but her body was never found.”
Molly leaned closer. “She looks like you.”
“That’s why I’m researching her. She’s Laird Kerr’s sister, and he wondered why I looked so much like her.”
“So what have you found out?”
“Nothing: Zilch; Buptkus; if you want to know the truth. There’s no record of her after her family found her note. I guess she really is dead somewhere.”
“So what does that mean? She’s dead and gone. She has nothing to do with your investigation.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Molly studied Harmony. “Are you okay? You haven’t been your usual sparkly self since you came back from the mountain.”
Harmony made a face. “You don’t have to be sarcastic about it.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. You’re not the same.”
“I meant that wise crack you just made about me being sparkly. I know I’m not sparkly. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“What makes you think you’re not sparkly? You’re the most sparkly person I know.”
“Put a sock in it. If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re just making it worse.”
“I’m not being sarcastic, Harmony. You are sparkly.”
Harmony swallowed hard. “Then how come no one wants to be near me? How come no one wants to have anything to do with me? How come all the guys I try to date wind up running for the hills? How come…”
Molly waited: “How come what?”
Molly slammed her computer closed. “Nothing: just leave me alone. If you’re telling the truth and I was sparkly before, I don’t want to be sparkly ever again. I want to be dark and drab and depressed. Maybe then I won’t get hurt.”
Molly whistled through her teeth. “Man, you got it bad. Did some guy break your heart or something? I can fix that with a few highballs at the local watering hole. We’ll meet after work and I’ll....”
Harmony rocketed out of her chair. “I can’t listen to this. Thanks for trying to cheer me up. I gotta go. I’ve got five more families to investigate.”
Harmony raced out of the building. She couldn’t face Molly. She couldn’t face anybody. She ran out to her car and jumped behind the wheel, but she didn’t turn on the engine. She just sat there with both hands gripping the steering wheel. She stared through the windshield with a fixed, glassy expression.
What in blazes was wrong with her? Molly wasn’t the only person who had noticed a change in her since she had come back from the Dunlaps. Dunlaps! She hated that name, but she couldn’t erase the image of Aiken turning into a bear – that bear! – right in front of her eyes.
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What was he? He was a bear one minute and a man the next. He switched back and forth between the two in the blink of an eye. They must all be like that. His brother and family laughed at him scaring Bain.
What were they? They must be some kind of hybrid species, and not just them. Everything everybody said, from the first moment she set foot inside the Kerrs’ house, fit together like puzzle pieces. That’s why they didn’t mix with outsiders. That’s why they forbade their young people mating with the locals. They couldn’t mate with them. They weren’t the same species.
And Aiken was one of them. Underneath his handsome, rugged, sexy exterior, he was a bear. He was wild, savage, untamed, and brutal. The thought sent electric shocks of adrenaline burning through her guts.
That bear touched her hand and body with his face and neck. He rubbed up against her and let her stroke him. That was Aiken. That was the man who said he loved her.
In her private moments, when she looked deep into her heart for answers, she loved that bear far more than she ever loved Aiken the man. She wanted to be with him, to know him and touch him and win his trust.
He nuzzled her and caressed her. He brought out the aching longing in her heart to belong to his world. She wanted nothing but to be near him, to share the untarnished woods that he called home.
That could never happen now. Now she knew the devastation Aiken suffered all these nights since he fell for her. They could never be together. She could never have that bear. She could never touch him again the way she wanted to, let alone share his life. She was human. He was… something else.
Why, oh why did he ever tell her he loved her? Why did he kiss her and hold her in his arms? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? She was so much better off before she ever met him. She would rather die than face the rest of her life like this, shattered by lost love.
She’d lost so much more than a man. She’d lost Bruins’ Peak and everything on it. She’d lost the Kerrs, the bear, the Dunlaps, the forest, the hope – she lost it all in one moment. In fact, she never really had it.
Nothing remained for her but the job she had to do. Nothing remained but a lifeless life of dull days and tearful nights. She would dream about Aiken for the rest of her life. She would revisit that dell and touch her bear in her dreams, and wake in the morning to a hollow shell of a life. Nothing would ever take its place.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 27