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 tapestry 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.

Beatrice cleared her throat. With a great effort, she turned to her daughter. “What about you, Marla? Do you have any plans for the day?”

“No, no plans,” she mumbled.

Aiken interrupted, “She's too busy sparkling.”

Marla rounded on him. “Is that your idea of a joke?”

Harmony put out her hand. “Don't antagonize her. Can't you see she's unhappy?”

“I am not unhappy!” Marla shrieked.

Aiken tossed his fork and knife onto the table and pushed his chair back. “I don't have time for this. Stay here and be sparkling happy. I'm out of here.”

“Please, Marla,” Beatrice sobbed. “Can't we have a quiet breakfast for a change?”

“It's not my fault,” Marla shot back. “He made fun of me. You all heard him.”

Aiken kicked back his chair. “You're a thorn in my side, Marla. It's hard enough working full time with a baby on the way without having to come home to this kindergarten behavior. Grow up, or learn to keep your mouth shut around civilized people.”

He marched across the room toward the front door, but before he got there, someone knocked on the door from outside. Aiken yanked the door open… and stared. A gruff voice rumbled from the porch. Marla recognized that voice. She would recognize that voice anywhere. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Aiken replied. “What can we do for you this morning?”

“Is Marla here?”

She jumped up and raced to the door. Beatrice and Harmony came over behind her, and the two of them and Aiken and Marla stared at Walker Cunningham standing on their front porch with a huge bouquet in his hands.

His face broke into a big smile. “Good morning, Marla.”

Beatrice gasped. “What in heaven's name is going on here, Marla?”

Marla stiffened against the shiver of excitement racing through her. He was here. He brought her flowers. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to give you these.” He handed the bouquet across the threshold to her. “And I came to invite you out to dinner at the Coach House tomorrow night. What do you say?”

Aiken clapped Marla on the shoulder and let out a big rolling laugh. “You really know how to make an impression, don't you, Sparkles? Where have you been hiding him all this time?”

Marla's ears burned. “You shouldn't have come here, Walker, and you shouldn't have brought these.” She tried to hand back the bouquet.

He held up his hands. “You keep 'em. You deserve 'em. So how about it? Tomorrow night at the Coach House? I'll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

She burst across the threshold and shoved the bouquet against his chest. “I can't accept these, and I can't go out to dinner with you. I'm sorry. Please, just go away and don't come around here anymore.”

Beatrice let out a broken cry. “Marla!”

“I can't do that,” Walker told her. “You can turn me down now, but I won't forget you. I can't stop thinking about you. I can't rest until I make you mine. If you won't accept these flowers and you won't go out with me, I'll just have to think of some other way to win you over. We belong together, and I'm ready to wait a long time for you to realize that. I'm ready to wait forever.”

Harmony nudged Marla with her elbow. “Come on, Marla. Give a guy a chance.”

Marla swatted her hand away. “Don't you people think I can make up my own mind about what I do and who I spend my time with? I said no, and that's the last word. Now, why don't you all just leave me alone?”

“You gotta admit he makes a pretty convincing case,” Aiken remarked.

Marla shot out of the house. She pushed Walker away from the door. “All of you keep your stinkin' comments to yourself. This is my life, and I'll say what's convincing and what isn't. Go back inside to your bacon and your grapefruit and LEAVE ME ALONE!!”

She swung the door shut in their stunned faces. Luckily, the brand-new hinges held this time, and the latch clicked into place. The windows rattled in their frames, but they didn't break.

Marla spun around. Walker stared at her with wide eyes. She gave him another shove with both hands and sent him stumbling off the porch. “Get out of here, Walker, and don't let me see your ugly face again. I swear to God, if you come around here again, I'll sic my dad and Boyd on you. Take your stupid flowers and your dinner at the Coach House. Get yourself a nice little Bruin girl from the other side of the mountain and forget all about me. That's the best thing you can do.”

She pushed her way past him and ran for the woods. The shed wouldn't hide her from all these competing forces tugging her in every direction. What was he thinking, trotting straight up to her front porch with the biggest bouquet money could buy? What did he think she was, that he could just ask her out like any ordinary girl?

She wasn't any ordinary girl. She couldn't let herself get close to him. She might wish all day and all night she could find shelter in his arms, but that privilege would fall to someone else, someone who deserved his love and attention.

She didn't notice the woods swallowing her up. Her heart screamed for relief, for any comfort against this excruciating pain eating her up from the inside, but the world closed itself against her. She could find no resting place in this world. She was outcast, pariah.

She ran all day, she knew not where. The trees stood back and stared at her reckless flight, but she left them behind the moment they noticed her. The woods didn't have a chance to threaten her before they fell away behind her.

The sun dropped away behind Bruins' Peak. When she stopped to look around, she had no idea where she was. The bear in her soul tried to take over and find the way by smell and sound, but Marla wouldn't let the bear out. She screamed down into her being until the bear retreated into the shadows. Marla jumped on the bear's head with both feet to tamp it down into nothing again.

She couldn't live like this. She couldn't be this wretched demon anymore. Tears and saliva stained her face. Broken-off bits of leaf and twig stuck to her damp face and hair, but she brushed them away to see the way ahead of her.

She barreled on without thinking. She didn't care where she went or what she did, as long as she never saw her family or Walker Cunningham or anyone else she knew ever again. She had to erase herself from existence. She had to make herself nonexistent. She had to destroy herself against the cruel world before she let the bear consume her whole life.

She spotted the Peak through the trees and made for it. She would sit on the look-out bench until she calmed down. Then she would decide what to do with herself. She set off through the thicket with fresh hope brimming up in her heart. At least Bruins' Peak was still there, lonely and inviolate. Mackenzie territory stretched dark and brooding on the other side. The Peak didn't care who or what she was. It didn't judge her or pressure her to marry someone she didn't love.

She did love. That was the problem. She loved more than she dared believe. She loved…She couldn't say the words, not even in the privacy of her own thoughts. She had to hold all those feelings down in the rotten depths of her soul where no one would ever see them.

The trees parted, and the first rays of sunshine brightened her face when, all of a sudden, the ground gave way beneath her feet. The blue sky sailed upward faster than she could follow. Branches closed over her head and blocked out the sun.

She landed with a bump in a pile of leaves, and more leaves rained down around her head. She blinked, but her mind rocked in stunned confusion. What just happened? Where was she?

She sat still and looked around at steep walls cut into the clay bank. Even now, she could make out the chisel marks of a shovel in the walls. Someone dug this hole, but she didn't see anything when she moved through the trees.

She wasn't exactly looking for a giant hole in the ground, though. She saw only the Peak and its wide-open space. She didn't look right or left or allow the smells to enter her brain. She'd been locked in the house so long she lost the ability to accept information from her senses and instincts. She didn't even know enough to sense danger when she got near it.

Aiken's words at the breakfast table that morning returned to her. The hunters were setting jaw traps on the mountain, but this was no jaw trap. Someone carved this pit out of the mountain and covered it with leaves to conceal it. Why? She was nowhere near the road where Austin crashed Bain Campbell's truck.

She climbed to her feet and ran her hands over the clay walls. Her fingers dug in slippery slime. She couldn't gain a toehold in this stuff. She would never get out of this pit, and no one knew where she was. She was lost.