Walker frowned. Then his face cleared. “They may have been too far away to bring her here, so it sounds like Austin took her to his place. Did you find out about the traps?”
“Is that all you can think about?” Dax thundered. “How can you stand by and let one of them take your own sister to their place? You have to launch an attack to pay them back. You have to forget this peace nonsense and send in the big guns.”
Walker laid his hand on his brother's shoulder. “If you weren't so rabid about getting revenge against the Farrells, I might be able to understand what in the world you are talking about. So Austin and Aurora got into a car crash and she got hurt. He couldn't exactly bring her here with you toting your gun around all over the place and saying you're gonna blow away any Farrell you lay your eyes on. If what you say is true, he would have no choice but to take her to his house.”
Dax smacked Walker's hand off his shoulder. “You're a lily-livered pansy and you always have been. What are you going to do about it? That's what I want to know. You're gonna sit back and let them walk all over us and even schmaltz your sister, and you're not going to do anything about it.”
Walker turned away. “I have much bigger things to worry about than the Farrells schmaltzing Aurora. Don't bother me again unless you have something to tell me about the hunters setting traps on the mountain. I'm going to my room now, and later, I'll go see Star to find out what's going on, since I can't get any sense out of you.”
Dax called after him, “Hey, man, I'm talking to you!”
Walker didn't stop, but bit back over his shoulder. “You just called me a lily-livered pansy. If you don't want to back those words up right now on the front lawn, I suggest you keep out of my way for the rest of the day.”
Walker went inside without seeing his parents. Keeping Marla a secret from them would be easy until he was ready to tell them. He closed his bedroom door and sank into his swivel chair. Piles of paper lay stacked on his desk, but he couldn't bring himself to sort through them or do any work. Marla filled his awareness. He swiveled his chair around and gazed out the window.
She was out there somewhere. Was she dreaming about him right now? Was the memory of him kissing her turning her on right now? Was she as excited about their future together as he was?
He couldn't think like that. He couldn't make up stories about their future when he still had a long way to go to win her. She wasn't his. As long as she kept pushing him away, he had to keep his head screwed on straight.
He didn't hear the knock at his door. He didn't hear a thing until a soft hand touched his chair near his shoulder. “Walker? Can I talk to you for a second?”
He swung his chair around. “Hello, Aurora. I was wondering when you would get back. Have a seat.”
Aurora took the chair closest to the door. She hesitated to say anything. “I need to talk to you, Walker.”
“You can talk to me anytime, Aurora,” he murmured. “You know I’m always here for you.”
She did her best to smile. “I came to tell you, Walker. I’m getting married.”
His eyes flew open. “Married? Who are you marrying?”
Aurora took a deep breath. “Austin Farrell.”
So, Dax was right. There was something going on between Austin and Aurora. “Austin Farrell? What makes you want to marry him?”
“I know you think he’s wild and lawless and trigger-happy,” she breathed. “He used to be that way, but he isn’t anymore. He’s grown up and filled out. He’s Brody’s right-hand man now, and any Alpha would be glad to have him. He helps run his family’s business and he’s…well, if you had seen what I’ve seen, you would know he’s not the man everybody thought he was.”
“You know this is a bad idea, don’t you? Austin Farrell has a bad reputation on this mountain, and for good reason. He’s done some very dangerous things in his time. A lot of people on this mountain will never forgive him, no matter how much he’s changed.”
“I know all that,” Aurora exclaimed, “but he isn’t like that anymore.”
Walker shook his head. “A tiger doesn’t change its stripes, Aurora, and neither does a Bruin. He might behave himself for a little while to get you to like him, but he’ll go back to his old ways. What will you do then?”
Aurora sat up straighter, and her voice strengthened. “That won’t happen, Walker. You don’t know him like I do. He’s steady and reliable, and he helped me out when no one else did. Because of him, the Bruins on this mountain are safer than they would have been if he hadn’t helped me.”
Walker froze. “What did he do?”
“He helped me raise the alarm when Bain Campbell laid those traps on the ridge, and he helped me stop Bain when no one knew where he was. It’s thanks to Austin Farrell we don’t have to worry about Bain anymore.” Her eyes glinted when she talked about Austin.
“He may have done all that, but I’m not convinced,” Walker countered. “He could have done that to impress you.”
“There’s another side to him, a side no one knows about,” Aurora added. “He’s kept it hidden all these years, and he definitely didn’t create that to impress me.”
Walker settled back in his chair to listen. “Tell me about it.”
“I can’t tell you everything. I can just tell you he’s been like this all along.” Her eyes shone, and her teeth flashed through her smiling lips. “It just needed the right combination of events to bring it out. He won’t go back to the way he was before. Brody changed him, and finding a mate finished the job. He’s not a weasel at all.”
“A Farrell and a Cunningham mating could reignite the war between our tribes” he pointed out. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Star is a Cunningham and Brody is a Farrell,” she argued. “The feud is all but ended since you and Brody took over. In a few more years, no one will remember there ever was a feud.”
“What about Dax? He won’t forget about the feud. I don’t know if the Farrells have any relatives who will keep the old animosity going, but I’m sure some of them won’t be so quick to forget.”
Aurora hesitated. Marla came back to his thoughts. Could Aurora feel the same way about Austin that he felt about Marla? Star and Brody went through hell and high water to get together, even when their families would rather cut both their throats than see them together.
So, this was why everyone made such a big fuss over finding a mate. So, this was why Bruins mated for life. Once they found their heart's true match, they didn't deviate. They stuck to that one person through thick and thin.
He would stick with Marla. He didn't care what people thought of her. Whatever bothered her about being a Bruin, he would help her. He would overcome any obstacle to get her and keep her.
Aurora's voice came to him from far away. “Walker?”
“Hmm. I don’t know, Aurora. I’ll have to think about that.”
Trees moving outside his window caught his attention. He planned out exactly what he would do and when. He rehearsed every word he would say to her. He would impress her until she had no choice but to fall for him the way he fell for her.
He jerked out of his trance to find Aurora gone. He gave her no further thought. He fished his phone out of his pocket and started pushing buttons. When he came out of his room, he found Dax sitting on the couch in his socks.
Dax punched the TV remote with his finger and called out when Walker passed. “Whatever you said to her really did the trick. She stomped out of here in a huff.”
Walker ignored him. He kept his mind on his own plans.
Dax jumped off the couch, and the remote fell out of his hand. “Hey, where are you going? What are you going to do about the Farrells?”
Walker let the door slam behind him. He hit the ground running and left the Homestead far behind.
Chapter 5
Marla kept her curtains drawn so her room stayed dark. Images of Gothic horror covered the walls. A skull and crossbones flag hung above her bed. On the opposite wall hung a tape
stry depicting another skull with two daggers impaling the eye sockets. Blood dripped from the nose holes and the wide grinning mouth.
Directly across the room where Marla could look on it from her bed, she kept a glow-in-the-dark statue of a monster devouring a gazelle. The creature hung limp and bleeding from the monster’s jaws, while the monster glared out at the world with glowing red eyes.
She stayed in bed with the covers drawn up to her chin, but she still couldn’t control the emotions warring for control of her life. No matter what she did, no matter what magazines she read or what games she played on her phone, she couldn’t stop Walker invading her thoughts.
He walked up to her in the forest, and she melted into his arms. His mouth dissolved her resistance, and his body consumed her against her will. She fell under his weight, and she soared into the skies on drafts of ecstasy.
Every night since she met him in the forest, she dreamed this same dream. She woke in the throes of rapture, and the bear marauded the forests in search of her mate. Marla went through hours of struggle to wrestle the bear back into its dark hole where it wouldn’t bother her anymore.
How long did she have to endure this terrible struggle? Nothing bothered her in all the long years she kept up her fight against the bear. Nothing came close to waking the bear from its slumber, and now nothing would send it back to sleep.
With plenty of kicking and screaming and threats, Marla might get the bear to retreat for a little while. Pretty soon, though, hunger or fatigue would take over. She would fall asleep and dream of Walker all over again. When she woke up, she found the bear stronger and more insistent than ever. The bear needed out. Another few days of this, and Marla would lose the fight. Then what would happen?
Walker wouldn’t leave her alone. He didn’t just come upon her in the forest with his indomitable presence and his intoxicating scent. He walked at her side. He held her hand. He talked to her. When she wasn’t dreaming about him lying on top of her, she dreamed of sitting across the room from him and talking to him about all the secrets haunting her heart. He listened with his wise head on one side, and he always came up with a solution to her problem.
Well, he couldn’t come up with a solution to this problem. He posed the biggest problem she ever faced. He could only solve it by disappearing off the face of the Earth, and he wasn’t likely to do that anytime soon.
Why did she have to meet him at all? Why did he have to touch her and kiss her like that? Why did he have to look at her like that? Why couldn’t he leave her alone like everybody else?
She couldn’t figure out what she felt about him. She wanted to hate him, but he occupied some part of her she couldn’t identify. He wasn’t a stranger, even though she never set eyes on him before in her life. She must have seen him sometime at some Bruin event from her childhood, but she couldn’t remember him. She didn’t recognize him when she met him in the woods.
She knew him, though. She knew him in her blood. When she cast her mind back to the years she spent in hiding from the world, he was there. He filled her days and nights with himself, even when she didn’t know anything was missing. The bear longed for him. Now that the bear knew who he was and what he was, it wouldn’t rest again.
Nothing would ever be the same. Even Marla’s body changed at his touch. He woke her sleeping cells to burnish bright with gold. She suffered insatiable hungers she couldn’t satisfy with food. If she hid in her room long enough without eating anything, the hunger pangs would go away. She would rise into some ethereal haze beyond hunger or thirst, somewhere the needs of her body no longer existed.
She could never get rid of the hunger for him. Her body ached for him every minute of every day. The bear gave her no peace, waking or sleeping.
A knock on her door startled Marla off her bed. “Who is it?”
Beatrice's voice came from the crack under the door. “It's me, Marla. Breakfast is on the table. Would you like to join Aiken and Harmony and me?”
“Go away,” she yelled.
Beatrice's voice came from the crack near the handle this time. Marla could just see her mother moving her mouth around to different places on the door to get her message through. “You'll starve to death if you stay in that room much longer. You haven't come out in days.”
“Go away,” she grumbled. Marla couldn't exactly tell her family she snuck out in the dead of night to stuff herself before hiding in her room again.
She couldn't face her family, even for a fraction of a second, not with Walker hanging over her head. If one of them figured out she met a man, that would be the end of everything. They would never leave her in peace. It would be nothing but marry, marry, marry all the live-long day.
She heard Harmony's voice approaching from down the hall. “Just leave her alone, Beatrice. If she wants to stay in there by herself, let her.” Their voices faded back down the stairs to the living room.
That made Marla madder than anything. So, they planned to leave her alone, did they? Some stranger from town told her own mother to leave her alone? She would show them. She would be stuffed if she let them leave her alone. She would snow them with her unpleasantness and make them lick it up with a spoon.
She tore the door open and ran downstairs after them. Her mother fidgeted around the kitchen. She froze when Marla appeared. Her own mother dreaded her presence. That's how bad the situation got over the last few days. Days? Months was more like it. This terrible situation stretched far into the past so no one could remember a time around Dunlap Homestead when Marla didn't make everyone's lives miserable, including her own. Now, one could remember the happy, helpful little girl she once was.
The front door sat in its proper place on three hinges, and the two front windows glistened in the morning sunshine, all ready for Marla to break again. They mocked Marla. They jeered at her and tormented her to break them all over again. She had to fight hard to stop herself putting her fists through both of them here and now.
Marla sat down at the table. She was the first person there. Her mother finished putting the food in front of her, but Beatrice hesitated to join her until Harmony came downstairs. Beatrice spoke to Harmony but ignored Marla, “How are you feeling today, dear?”
Harmony rested her hands flat on the tabletop to ease her swollen body into a chair. “I'm all right, I guess. I just have no energy at all. I could spend all day in bed.”
Beatrice sat down next to Harmony. “You should stay in bed if you feel like that. You shouldn't strain yourself by going out.”
“I have to get some fresh air and move my bones every day, even if it takes a massive effort. Besides, I feel better walking around in the woods. I guess bears don't get morning sickness.”
Beatrice held out a bowl of scrambled eggs. “Are you eating anything today?”
Harmony waved the bowl away. “Thanks. I'll skip it.”
“You can't grow a baby on fumes, darling. At least have a slice of bacon.”
“I'll have something later. I can usually manage something later in the day. Mornings are harder for me.”
Aiken came in from outside. He washed his hands and sat down. “Oh, hello there, Marla. How are you this morning?”
“I'm just sparkly,” she snarled around the table. “That's how I am. Thanks for asking, Aiken. That's more than I can say for anyone else around here.”
Aiken stared at her and looked around the table at his wife and mother. Then he smirked. “Another glorious day in the life of Marla Dunlap. Well, that's all well and good. How about a half of grapefruit, Sparkly?”
She looked away. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Aiken took a grapefruit for himself and offered one to Harmony. “One for you, darling?”
Harmony smiled back at him. “No, thanks.”
He settled down to eating. “I'm leaving right after breakfast. I just want to let you know I probably won't be home for dinner.”
“What's going on?” Harmony asked.
“Brody Farrell and I are going back
down to the road to try to get rid of Bain Campbell’s truck. His truck is still wrapped around Austin's pick-up by the side of the road for anyone to see. It’s only a matter of time before someone from town comes looking for him. We want to get rid of the evidence before they find out we put him down.”
“Put him down?” Harmony cried. “You mean killed him? Did you really have to do that?”
“It wasn’t me,” Aiken explained. “It was Austin and Aurora that did it, but yes, they really had to. I let him go before, and he kept coming around making trouble. He wouldn’t quit until he was dead. They say he killed himself by accident falling into one of his own jaw traps, and I believe them. Either way, he’s just as dead and won’t bother anybody anymore.”
“If that’s true and he really died by accident,” Harmony countered, “then you shouldn’t have to get rid of the evidence that he died on the mountain. Let them investigate. They can’t touch us.”
Aiken shrugged. “It will just make it easier for us to say we knew nothing about it. It will save us answering a bunch of awkward questions we would just as soon not answer.”
Harmony smacked her lips and set both hands on the table. “It will make us look more guilty than ever when we aren’t. Just leave the trucks where they are, and let whoever wants to ask questions ask them. We have nothing to hide.”
Beatrice groaned. “Can't we talk about something else at the breakfast table?”
“Sorry, Ma,” Aiken muttered. “This hunter business weighs on my mind lately. I won't be able to rest until I do everything possible to protect us from the hunters.”
Marla listened to the interchange. No one gave her a second glance. If she didn't raise Cain, no one would notice her at all. She would fade into the background, and no one would ever guess she carried this secret tucked into her heart. The truth burned through her guts. Walker hung over her shoulder and haunted her every move. She couldn't escape him. He stole the taste out of her food.
If only she could tell someone the truth, the secret wouldn't bother her so much. She couldn't expect Harmony to try again to talk to her and make friends with her. If only she could relive their time on the porch, Marla might have played her cards differently. What she wouldn't give for a chance to confide in Harmony now. Harmony of all people would understand about falling for someone forbidden.
Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I) Page 46