She picked up a file folder from the passenger seat. She read the words printed on the front cover in bold red letters: Iron Bark Social Services-Child Protection Division. The words Dodd Family darkened the outer the tab.
The first two inches of the folder contained the usual complaints and reports by neighbors and local busy-bodies. She flipped past them to the case histories buried underneath them.
Her eye fell on a name: Addison Dodd. That was Celia’s brother, the younger brother of Vaughn Dodd who died in the round-up. That gave Harmony an idea, but it didn’t have anything to do with her investigation – at least, not the official investigation.
She pulled out her phone and opened the Social Service mainframe. She typed Penelope McGillis into the search window. A bunch of medical record listings came up, along with one blurry photo taken at the local medical clinic.
The young woman in the photo reminded Harmony of how she looked at herself in the mirror on one of those wretched mornings after she let Molly drag her to the “watering hole” for some distraction from her failed love life. Dark circles pooled under the eyes, and the hair stuck out at odd angles. When did the medial clinic take this picture?
Still, Harmony couldn’t ignore the reality staring her in the face. She’d seen this picture before, but it meant something different, now that she’d seen a picture of Scotia Kerr. Harmony looked exactly like her mother. She looked exactly like…
She didn’t let herself finish that sentence. She fumbled with her key in an insane hurry to jam it into the ignition. She gunned the motor and screeched out of the parking lot.
The medical clinic stood just behind the Social Services building. She could have walked there faster, but she wasn’t thinking. She had to find out. She had to uncover the reason that picture looked so similar to the other one, the one she’d seen in Laird Kerr’s battered old album. Her mother, her poor dead mother, looked exactly like Scotia Kerr. They could have been the same person: all three of them – Harmony, her mother, and Scotia Kerr – they all could have been the same person. That’s how closely they resembled each other.
Harmony burst into the clinic and accosted the receptionist. “I’m looking for Doctor Wayland Otsprenk.”
“Doctor Otsprenk is with a patient at the moment, and he has a full schedule for the rest of the day. Would you like to make an appointment?”
Harmony took a firm grip on herself. Now was no time to lose it completely, and this dumpy lady sitting behind a computer screen didn’t know apples from oranges. It wouldn’t pay to flip out, right here in the reception area, in front of a bunch of kids with chicken pox.
She leaned her two fists on the desk and chose her words with care. “I’m not a patient. I’m an investigator with the Social Service Child Protection Unit. I want to question Doctor Otsprenk about a child that was placed in foster care. The child’s mother died under Doctor Otsprenk’s care, and there’s some question about the circumstances surrounding the case.”
That did the trick. The blood drained from the receptionist’s face. “Wait here.”
A few minutes later, she came back. “Doctor Otsprenk will see you now.”
Harmony fought to breathe. “Thank you.”
She found the good doctor sitting at his desk in a back office. He smiled when she walked in. “What can I do for you? I guessed it was you when the receptionist told me what this was about.”
Harmony stopped in front of the desk. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are. I’ll never forget you. You’re Harmony McGillis. I took care of your mother before she died, and I’m the one who handed you over to Social Services to place you in foster care.”
Harmony sank into a chair opposite him. “Then you know why I’m here.”
He nodded. His eyes looked tired, almost as tired as Harmony herself. “I’ve been expecting you for years. I knew one of these days you would walk through that door and want all your questions answered. I’ll do my best for you, but I don’t have all the answers myself.”
“What can you tell me about my mother?”
“If you’re sitting here, you must have used your position at Social Services to research her. If that’s the case, you know as much as I do.”
“I don’t know how she wound up in the clinic in the first place.”
“She was brought in with multiple fractures and some very dangerous head injuries. She was three months pregnant at the time, so we couldn’t perform all the major operations we wanted to. We worried her body would abort the pregnancy if we operated, so we put it off until the swelling on her brain could go down. In the meantime, we had to call her something, so we called her Penelope. Did you know I gave her that name? I gave you the name Harmony, too.”
Harmony did her best to return his smile. “Where did you get the names?”
“I opened the phone book, closed my eyes, and pointed. That’s also how I came up with the name McGillis. Not very creative, I know.”
“Don’t worry. It’s done the job perfectly well all these years, and I don’t plan to change it. Do you know how she got injured?”
“She was found by hikers in the mountains outside town.”
Harmony sat up straight and asked, “Which mountains? Do you know where she was found?”
“She was found near Bruins’ Peak, at the base of the cliffs on the north side.” Harmony’s teeth chattered in her head, but the doctor didn’t notice. “They found her battered body, and she was already barely conscious when she came in. She only got worse, and she couldn’t tell us anything about herself, not even her name. She lingered in a semi-coma for months before she got the infection that killed her. I had to perform an emergency Caesarian section to save you.”
“Are you absolutely certain she was found under Bruins’ Peak? There’s no mistake about that, is there?”
“No. Of course not. Well, after you were born, what could we do with you? My wife and I considered adopting you, but we were already old back then, and wouldn’t have been much good to you. We thought you would have a better chance with a younger family, so we gave you up. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”
Harmony laid her hand over his. “Thank you. I’m sure you would have been wonderful parents.”
“Just tell me this; were you happy growing up? Did you find what you needed from your foster family?”
She took her hand away and stood up. “I didn’t find it from my foster family, but I think I’ve found it now. You couldn’t have given me what I needed, either. No one in Iron Bark could, but I’m on my way to get it, now that I know where to look.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m glad. I only wanted you to be happy and well cared for.”
“Don’t worry. I will be.”
Chapter 16
Harmony’s car skidded all over the road. She fought the steering wheel back and forth, but she didn’t care. As long as the car stayed out of the ditch, she would drive as crazy as she wanted. She would drive like a bat out of hell to get back to Bruins’ Peak.
She screeched around corners and launched over bumps and bottomed out in potholes until she slid to a stop in front of the Kerrs’. She slammed the door and took the front steps two at a time. Celia answered her knock.
“Where is he? Where’s Laird?”
Celia was startled back. “What’s this all about?”
Harmony didn’t stand around waiting. She barged right into the house. “I have to find him. I have to talk to him. Where is he?”
Laird answered her from his corner of the living room. “I’m right over here. What’s the big emergency, young lady?”
Harmony ran over to him. “It’s her! It’s Scotia. I found her.”
Laird started to rise out of his chair. “What are you talking about? What’s all this about Scotia.”
“She’s my mother. Scotia Kerr is my mother. Take a look.” She showed him the picture on her phone.
Laird touched the screen and made it
wobble. “Scotia! Where did you get this?”
“This is a picture taken of my mother when they first brought her into the medical clinic in town. She was found by hikers at the base of a cliff on the north side of Bruins’ Peak. Don’t you see? It’s Scotia. She left that note for your family to find. She threw herself off a cliff, but she didn’t die. She was brought into the clinic three months pregnant, and she lived six months before she died. The doctor couldn’t communicate with her, so he gave her a name out of the phone book: Penelope McGillis. That’s my mother. When she died, the doctor put me in foster care. My mother is your sister. That makes you....” She stopped, and she and Laird stared at each other. She could barely form the words. “You’re my uncle.”
Laird collapsed back in his chair. A deadly pall fell over his face. “This is impossible; your uncle!”
“That must be the reason I felt such a strong connection with you and this place the first time I came here.”
He blinked, but his old brain couldn’t take it all in.
Harmony sat on the edge of the couch and squeezed his arm. She whispered into his ear. “Don’t you see what this means? I’m a Bruin.” She laughed out loud and jumped to her feet. “I have to go. I have to tell Aiken. Don’t you see? I’m a Bruin, too.”
“Wait!” Laird cried. “I’m...You’re...If I’m your uncle and Scotia is your mother, who’s your father? Scotia – pregnant! None of us ever knew. We never knew she even had a sweetheart, much less mated with anyone.”
Harmony stopped in mid-leap. “I don’t know. I can’t figure it out.”
Laird shook himself alert. His brain started working again. “Whoever he was, he must be a Bruin. Humans aren’t compatible with Bruins. Scotia couldn’t have gotten pregnant with anyone off the mountain.”
Harmony sank down on the couch next to him. “It’s a mystery. We may never know.”
Celia shouted across the room at them. “Did it ever occur to you two love birds to ask somebody else? Did it ever occur to you that someone other than you might know something you didn’t know?”
Laird didn’t look up. He growled at her over his shoulder. “Hold your noise, woman, and don’t call us love birds. This is important.”
Celia stomped over to the couch and yanked Harmony’s phone out of her hands. She took a quick glance at the image on the screen and tossed the phone onto the leather cushion at Harmony’s side. “If you weren’t so wrapped up in your all-important business, and if you weren’t so rude that you can’t listen to somebody else, you would find out that I know who Scotia’s sweetheart was.”
Laird and Harmony looked up at the same moment. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I’ve known for years, and not one of you Kerrs ever took the time of day to ask me. Scotia’s mate was my brother Vaughn. They met at a family picnic, and Vaughn snuck out to meet her in secret. No one else ever knew except me.”
“How did you find out?” Harmony asked.
“It was my father Breslin’s seventy-fifth birthday. I made a big fancy dinner for him, and the whole family was there – all except for Vaughn. I was so mad at him for not showing up that I waited up for him to come home. I fumed for hours, and I planned to tell him off good and proper when he dragged his sorry backside through our front door. When he finally came in around three-thirty the next morning, I took one look at his face and my anger melted. He looked like he had just floated down from a cloud. I asked him where he’d been, but he wouldn’t answer. He just kept looking out the window with that dreamy look on his face. I never saw him like that before. He was always such a sensible, practical guy who never messed around with anything.
“I asked him again what was going on and where he’d been, but he wouldn’t say anything except that I’d find out in the morning. I realized he wouldn’t talk, so I told him to sit down at the table and I put the plate of food I’d been saving in front of him. He started eating. I sat down across from him and talked to him about the ranch. He got talking, and I asked if he knew he missed Dad’s birthday dinner.
“He blushed to beat the band and that’s when he spilled the whole story. He’d fallen in love with Scotia Kerr. He met her in the woods, and they stayed in his den longer than they planned. That’s why he missed dinner. He said he planned to ask Dad in the morning for permission to marry Scotia.”
“But that never happened,” Laird interrupted. “What went wrong?”
“I didn’t go to sleep that night. It was already too late, and I usually got up around five anyway. I stayed up and got some work done around the house. I don’t think Vaughn slept, either. He ate breakfast at six the way he usually did, and when he went out to work at six-thirty, Dad was still in bed. He had a cold that morning, and he stayed in bed all morning. He never saw Vaughn before he left.
“About three that afternoon, Addison came running down to the house from the top pasture saying Vaughn was hurt. A few minutes later, Laird came driving down to the house with Vaughn in the back of the pick-up, but it was too late. He was already dead from the fall off his horse. He never told anyone else his plans. Scotia must have decided to kill herself when she heard the news. She wouldn’t want to live without Vaughn.”
Laird stared up at her. “You kept this a secret all these years. Our family never knew what happened to Scotia, and you knew all along. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away out the window. “None of you ever asked me.”
Laird sat stunned. Then a shudder ran down his lanky body. He got out of his chair and put his arms around his wife. “Never mind; we know now, and even if we’d known Scotia was pregnant from Vaughn when she disappeared, we never would have known she lived long enough to have her baby. Nothing would have changed. We would still think she killed herself.” He kissed the top of Celia’s head. “I’m sorry I never asked you. I should have. You must have had a terrible time carrying that secret all these years.”
Celia laid her head against his chest, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
Harmony watched them for a moment before she got to her feet and slipped out of the house. Laird rocked Celia back and forth in his arms and nodded to Harmony over Celia’s head. She shut the door, but she didn’t bother to run down the steps. She took a running jump and hit the dirt with both feet flying.
She had to get to Aiken. She had to tell him. She would throw her arms around him and kiss him and… and anything else she could think to do to him, and nothing in the world would stop her. Nothing in the world would ever stop her again.
She was a Bruin! Those words ran through her mind again and again. She was a Bruin! She was the daughter of Scotia Kerr and Vaughn Dodd, two Bruins born and bred on Bruins’ Mountain. That made her a Bruin, and she belonged on Bruins’ Mountain, too.
Her heart overflowed with joy. She belonged here! In a flash of brilliant sunshine, everything made sense. Her sense of place on the mountain, her connection with the bear that was Aiken, her heartbreak at leaving not only the mountain she loved, but the man to whom her heart belonged – every piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
The lonely years of searching and alienation fell away. They blew away like dust in the wind. That’s all they would ever be. All those guys who broke her heart by running away couldn’t understand why any better than she did. They sensed they weren’t compatible with her. They didn’t know why, but now she did. Fate brought her here, to Bruins’ Peak, to meet the mate of her life: Aiken Dunlap.
She was a Bruin, so she belonged on Bruins’ Peak. She would never live anywhere else. She would roam these woods, her woods, with her mate at her side. She would never search for a home or a family again. She had two families, two huge families! They would welcome her with open arms, now that they knew she was really one of them.
She crossed the high ridge that formed the boundary between Kerr territory and Dunlap territory. No one had to tell her where she was. Long-lost instinct guided her. She could close her eyes and ru
n every inch of this mountain and never get lost. The stars and the air and the rocks under her feet steered her where she needed to go.
She ran, diving down the other side of the ridge. She was on Aiken’s territory now. The Dunlaps would sense her presence, the presence of another Bruin. They would come for her.
The woods blocked out the sunlight all the way down to the rolling hills along the southwestern valley where Harmony first encountered Aiken in the woods. The trees opened up, and sunshine streamed down through the branches.
Her senses detected something moving out there, and her nose caught a strange scent. It spoke to her. What was it? Bruin. She headed towards it, but she didn’t find the bear. She pressed on until she saw a familiar set of broad shoulders with a baseball cap set between them. A man stepped out of the woods coming from the opposite direction.
Aiken caught her eye. First he smiled, but that smile turned to an uncertain frown. A question still lingered in his eyes. Her heart extended its arms to him, to embrace him and sooth that uncertainty. He didn’t know yet. How happy he would be when he found out!
A joyous smile spread over her face. She opened her mouth to call out his name. Aiken! That call died on her lips when a thin figure crossed her path from out of nowhere. Her joy froze to icy rage. It was Bain Campbell.
Hadn’t he learned his lesson yet? Apparently not, since he carried his rifle ready in his hands. He didn’t see Harmony, but headed straight for Aiken. Aiken didn’t see Bain, but made a bee line for Harmony. He didn’t stop walking until Bain cut in front of him and aimed his rifle at Aiken’s head.
Aiken smacked his lips in annoyance, but Bain scrunched up his face in a mask of malignant determination. His finger tightened on the trigger.
The shot echoed through the trees. Aiken whirled sideways to dodge away, but Bain fired again. Aiken flew backward off his feet and landed on his back four feet away.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 28