Chapter 3
Aiken Dunlap leaned against the Kerrs’ kitchen counter with his arms crossed over his chest and watched the interplay between Laird Kerr and this stranger from town. He read the business card on the counter in a flash. Harmony McGillis, Investigative Social Worker.
She could only be here in response to another slew of complaints from those low-life hunters who hung around the perimeter of Bruins’ Peak and waited for a chance to get Bruins in trouble. If they couldn’t gun Bruins down, they laid traps for them. If they couldn’t lay traps for them, they used the law to get them.
Every few years, some new social worker came poking around and asking questions about the children on the mountain. They always went away satisfied. This young woman didn’t look like a tough-nosed investigator, either. She looked like something Aiken dreamed about on feverish nights under the harvest moon.
She wore her straight blonde hair bobbed off above her shoulders and tight canvas pants hugged her hips and shapely thighs. Her heeled leather boots made her calves arch just the right way, and her leather jacket brushed her notebook when she scribbled in it.
Laird noticed her, too. He wasn’t joking when he said she could have any man she wanted. Any man she wanted would fall at her feet with his tongue hanging out—but what was Aiken doing thinking about that? She existed in another world from him, a world so far away she might as well not exist at all.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, though, and not just because she was stunning. She gleamed in that immaculate house like a fallen star. When she blushed under his stare, his blood raged. She glanced up into his eyes, and when she lowered her eyelashes to look away, his head swam with delirious visions of what he would do to her if he ever got her off by herself—if she ever existed for him, which she didn’t.
Aiken wasn’t the only one who saw Laird touch Harmony. Celia burst out of the kitchen and shot across the room with her accusing finger outstretched. “What do you think you’re doing? Can’t you even talk sense to an official from Social Services without disgracing all of us in the eyes of the law?”
Laird’s face hardened into a brutal mask. “What in the world are you talking about, woman?”
Celia chopped her hand at Harmony. “Do you think I’m blind? Do you think I don’t see you flirting with this young thing right in front of my eyes? Why don’t you take a bucket of cold slop and throw it in my face? She’s young enough to be your granddaughter.”
Laird shot out of his chair. “You’re cracked, woman. Go back to your apple pies. I’m just talking to her. If you’re so busy watching us and eavesdropping on our conversation, you would see that.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see you touch her just now. Don’t think I didn’t see you mooning into her face.”
The old man waved her away. “You’re imagining things.”
“You invited her to dinner. What am I supposed to think of that? She’s a social worker from the Child Protection Service. Do you know what that means? She’s not here to pump you up.”
Laird rounded on her with his hands balled into fists. “You take that back. You take that back this minute. How dare you insult her to her face!”
Harmony struggled to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any strife. I’ll go now. Thank you for your hospitality. You have nothing to worry about with these complaints against you. I can see your children are just fine. Good-bye.”
She started for the door when Celia barred her way. “Do you think you can walk into my house and throw yourself at my husband? Don’t you have any shame at all? You come barging in here with your business card and your notebook and start prying into our family business. How dare you?”
Celia didn’t wait to hear anymore. “I’m sorry. I never meant to offend you. I’ll be going now. Thanks again. Good-bye.” She hurried out the door and beat it to her car.
Aiken stared wide-eyed at the scene. Maybe Celia was right and Laird’s old blood boiled at the sight of this fresh, angelic creature fallen into his lap. Maybe Harmony brought back visions of his misspent youth. Maybe he thought things about Harmony he hadn’t thought in seventy years. Who knows what he thought?
No one could explain his behavior, though. What on earth could make him leer into her face like a love-struck teenager? Harmony reduced Aiken to a love-struck teenager, and he didn’t leer into her face. He knew enough to keep his distance.
Aiken knew Laird all his life, and the old man never lost his cool over anything, especially not a fine woman like that. After all, he invited Harmony to dinner. HE INVITED HER TO DINNER—AT HIS HOUSE!!!
This was unheard of. No Bruin would invite an outsider to their house for dinner like the flamin’ guest of honor. Everybody on Bruins’ Peak knew to keep outsiders at a distance.
What got into the old goat’s head? Celia overreacted, too, but Aiken could see her point. No one wanted some human social worker sticking her nose and her pencil into Bruins business. She might find out too much, and here was Laird Kerr—LAIRD KERR, of all people—inviting her to dinner.
No one imposed the strictness of keeping outsiders at a distance more than Laird Kerr. He admonished the children and disciplined the young people for making friends with humans in town. They could go to the movies and participate in local events, but socializing? No way! And here he was, Laird Kerr, the man, the myth, the legend, inviting this social worker to dinner at his house with no official business involved. Unbelievable!
As soon as Harmony made herself scarce, Celia vanished off somewhere. The kids dispersed and left only Laird sitting in his chair. Aiken gravitated toward the old man. Whatever hidden motivation made him act that way lay concealed inside his big chest. Aiken sat down on the couch. It was still warm from Harmony’s beautifully curved posterior. Jeepers! He had to stop thinking about that.
“Hey, Laird.”
Laird didn’t flinch. He didn’t acknowledge having heard at all.
Aiken tried again. “Hey, Laird, what do you make of that social worker?”
Laird frowned into the distance. Not a trace remained of the beatific smile he bestowed on Harmony. He fell to brooding like Aiken hadn’t seen since Claire convinced Hollan to move away.
“Hey, Laird, you heard her say you have nothing to worry about with those complaints. She’s satisfied the children are being treated well. That’s a relief, don’t you think?”
For the first time, Laird raised his flashing eyes to Aiken’s face. “Don’t you give that social worker another thought. She’s bad news. You stay away from her. Do you hear me?”
Aiken stared at in him surprise. That was the old Laird talking, but Laird himself didn’t stay away from her. He sure didn’t treat her like bad news. What in the Sam hill was going on here? Before Aiken could say or do anything else, Laird lurched out of his seat and stormed out of the house.
Aiken wandered to the front window and watched Harmony’s car peel out of the driveway in a cloud of dust and gravel. What did she think of all this? She couldn’t know the astonishing nature of her own experience. She couldn’t know how tarnation extraordinary the whole thing was.
A chirpy voice intruded on his thoughts. “Are you sticking around for a few days, Aiken?”
He turned around to find a fifteen-year-old girl wearing too much make-up draping her buxom form across the counter. She leaned on her elbows to show off the cleavage inside her low-cut top. She drummed her fake, purple-polished nails on the counter.
“How ya doing, Alannis? No, I’m going home later this morning. I planned to stay longer, but Barton’s done working for now.”
Alannis Kerr inched along the counter toward him. “You could stay longer. You know you’re always welcome.”
“Thanks for the invite. I better get home.” Aiken turned back to the window. He couldn’t look at Alannis right now, not with the image of Harmony seared into his brain. “Did that social worker talk to you about anything?”
“What social worker?”
“That woman that was just here. She’s a social worker investigating some complaints against us by locals in town. Did you see the way your Dad talked to her?”
“I didn’t see anything, and I don’t want to see anything of any rooty-tooty social worker from town. What do you want with any social worker? I suppose you want her to start investigating you.”
“If she’s here investigating your tribe, you can bet your boots she’ll be around investigating mine pretty soon. That’s the way it always works. They start here, since Kerr territory is closest to town. Then they work their way around the mountain until they visit everybody. I just wondered if you talked to her. She came to check up on all the kids.”
Alannis leapt off the counter so fast her heavy chest jiggled. “So I’m a kid now, am I? Thanks a lot, Aiken.”
Aiken pursed his lips. “You know what I mean, Alannis. You’re under 18. That makes you someone she’ll want to check up on.”
Alannis flounced up to him and stuck her big tits in his face. “Would you like to check up on me, Aiken?”
Aiken threw up his hands and backed away. “Come on, Alannis. You’re my best friend’s little sister. I’ve told you before I don’t feel that way about you. I just asked you a question. Did that social worker talk to you or not?”
Alannis spun away and sashayed to the base of the stairs. “Fine. Be that way. No, she didn’t talk to me, and you shouldn’t talk to her, either. You know humans are forbidden. Do yourself a favor and put her out of your mind. Get yourself a healthy Bruin girl and raise you a pack of cubs the way you’re supposed to.”
Alannis tripped up the stairs and out of sight. Aiken waited until her footsteps receded overhead before he let himself out of the house. No one saw him leave. He sauntered to the middle of the yard and glanced back at the big log house. He knew that house as well as any Kerr living in it. He’d been in it thousands of times and knew everyone in the whole Kerr territory like his own tribe.
Now something mysterious separated him from the people he knew so well. Something unknown and unseen lurked beneath the surface, and the merest chance encounter brought it to the light of day. If he hadn’t happened to enter that house when Harmony came to visit, he never would have known they kept some family secret hidden in the closet.
He ambled the rest of the way across the yard, but the mystery of what he saw and heard in that house nagged him all the way. Why did Laird and Celia both react to Harmony the way they did? Both of them acted so far out of character with the Laird and Celia Aiken knew, he barely recognized them. No one on Bruins’ Peak would believe an innocent visit from a social worker could rattle them to their cornerstones.
Alannis was right, of course. He should drop it and forget all about this. He should put Harmony out of her mind, along with whatever she meant to the Kerrs. Humans were forbidden. Every Bruin knew that. Aiken knew it as well as anybody else. He heard the tales and the warnings since he was a boy.
What about her made her so irresistible to him? So she was beyond beautiful. He’d seen beautiful Bruin girls a million times, and none of them affected him like this. Every blush of her cheeks, every bat of her eyelashes made him weak in the knees.
Even after she left, a gut-wrenching blast of excitement scorched through his veins at the mere thought of her. Who was she? She couldn’t be as boring as she made out. She must be somebody. She must be some lost princess, or maybe a celebrity he hadn’t heard about yet.
She was too good for Iron Bark. She was too good for Bruins’ Peak. She was too good for him. Yes, that was it. He could hold onto that simple idea to get her out of his mind. She was too good for him. A woman as perfect as Harmony wouldn’t go for a thug like Aiken Dunlap. She wouldn’t go for a guy who worked for a living, a guy with dirt under his fingernails.
He stopped in the middle of the driveway. Harmony’s tire tracks scored the gravel. He could….No, he shouldn’t.
He wasn’t after Harmony, though. Was he? Of course not. That would be foolish. He was just doing a little investigating of his own. He followed the tracks down the driveway to the place where they turned off, away from Kerr Homestead and onto the old dirt road toward town.
He glanced back toward the house—why? He couldn’t see it around the corner, but even if he could, it wouldn’t make any difference. What did they care if he went for a walk in the woods?
He took a deep breath of the pine woods and dropped his hands down to the ground. In an instant, his back arched and his head lowered between his shoulders. His skin turned dark brown, and his fingers extended into claws. His elbows turned in, and his hips thickened into two burly flanks. In the blink of an eye, he changed from a man into a drowsy brown bear.
The bear sniffed the tire tracks and headed into the woods by the roadside. The trees swallowed him up, and the bear swallowed up all the thoughts Aiken ever had about Harmony McGillis.
He shuffled through the trees, and he didn’t think about anything more complicated than finding a nice fat juicy grub under a log and maybe heading down to the stream to find some fish when he heard a different noise. All mixed up with the noise came a familiar scent.
What was it? It reminded him of something his bear brain couldn’t place. He liked that scent. That much he knew, and he headed toward it. It reminded him of something to eat, something delicious like blackberries warmed in the summer sunshine. Hmm, yes.
The loud noise crashed on his sensitive ears and snapped him alert. He stopped inside the trees and peered out across the road. That road smelled of oil and gas, and human, but not human, not as human as it should have been. He couldn’t figure it out.
Just as he was about to shift back into a man to puzzle over the curious combination of smells, a car pulled up in front of him. It eeked to a stop in a turn-out by the side of the road, and the motor died. The door open, and the bear froze in his tracks.
A curvy blonde woman got out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind her. She wore the same clothes she had at Kerr Homestead, except instead of her heeled dress boots, she wore rugged leather hiking boots. That delicious sweet scent gusted off her into the bear’s nostrils and made him rock in drunken delirium.
She hiked up the road and headed off into the woods without looking right or left. She didn’t notice the brown bear watching her.