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 started 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 word. “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 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 back side 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 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 run 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 dove 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 toward 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 crunched 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.
The whole terrible scene unfolded out of Harmony worst nightmares. Just when she finally found a way to take Aiken to her heart, she had to stand here and watch him gunned down by some unscrupulous hound from the projects.
Her whole soul screamed in fury and pain. Bain levered his rifle to fire again. He’d shot Aiken once. One more shot would finish him forever.
In that moment, she could understand how Scotia felt. She couldn’t live without her mate, her life’s companion, and she would never find another one like him. No one could take his place at her side wandering free and careless through those woods. No one could awaken her deepest desires the way he could.
Bain’s bullet ripped a hole in Harmony’s being and blasted out the other side. She would die along with Aiken, here in the leafy dell where they first met. She would never have to face the world without him in it.
Bain strode toward Aiken’s prostrate form. He straddled the body and aimed his rifle into Aiken’s upturned face.
That wild thing Harmony fought to keep down, that dangerous part of herself she never let see the light of day, exploded out of her so fast she couldn’t hold it back—not that she tried. She let it loose in all its fury to destroy the man who ruined her life.
Her feet left the ground, and her mind blurred into animal madness beyond words. Her shoulders swelled to encompass the whole world. Her mouth gaped open in a deep-throated roar that shivered the very stones of Bruins’ Peak. Rough brown fur grew out of her skin. She was a bear—but so much more than a bear. She was a Bruin, and this was her place. He trespassed on her territory one too many times, and she wouldn’t let him live to do it again. Her teeth grabbed the air to rend Bain Campbell limb from limb, but she never reached him.
He wheeled to aim his rifle at her with a shriek, but she wouldn’t cringe from it. Let him shoot her. He could only end her grief sooner. In mid-air, she saw him whip sideways. His eyes snapped open. The next thing she knew, she landed on all four paws on the ground, but Bain wasn’t . She looked around for him.
He jutted sideways with his legs in the air and his arms all tangled up in his rifle. Aiken kicked his foot free where he’d hooked Bain’s ankle to knock him over. In a trice, he was on his feet and changed before Harmony’s eyes. The bear reared up and rocketed over the ground to attack Bain.
Harmony stared at Aiken through her beady black eyes. Her nose caught his scent. He wasn’t dead after all. Here he was, her love, her bear, alive and well and diving for Bain’s throat.
Her mind cleared. She could form thoughts and words. She understood everything. The next thing Harmony knew, she stood in the same place in her human form. She put out her hand to touch the bear. She spoke to it with all the love in her heart. “Leave him alone. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
The bear bellowed in rage, but her words sunk into his animal brain. He brought up his great paw and swiped it down Bain’s cheek. That swipe was nothing more than a pat, but he left three parallel scratches that oozed blood down to Bain’s weasel jaw.
The bear stepped back and away. He stepped on Bain’s rifle with one massive foot. With the other, he scooped up the butt stock with his claws and twisted the hardened metal into a pretzel. He folded the gun in half and left it lying in the dust.
The bear stood up straight to become, once again, Aiken Dunlap. His shoulders heaved with panting breath, and his fingers clenched into fists. He growled down at Bain through bared teeth. “Get out of here. Go on. Run home to your Mama and tell her all about how you wet your pants on my front porch. Tell her where you got those scratches and see if she believes you.”
Bain scrambled through the leaf litter to grab his mangled gun. He cast one backward glance at Aiken and Harmony before he turned tail and ran.