Chapter 11
Three days later, Harmony eased her legs out of bed and got dressed. Her side still ached, but she could move around well enough if she didn’t push herself too hard. She climbed down the stairs and got out to the front porch before she collapsed into a wicker armchair with a heavy sigh. She couldn’t go any farther than that.
Aiken’s younger sister Marla came out and took the chair next to her. “You’re almost there. A few more steps, and you’ll be on the grass.”
Harmony smiled. “They’re probably worried about me back in town. They probably think the devil got me.”
“They would have sent the police screaming up here if they thought that.”
“I’m sure Bain is milking my disappearance for all it’s worth.”
“You’ll just have to tell them you’re investigating us, which you are.”
“Getting to know you isn’t exactly investigating you. You saved me from a gunshot wound, and I’m grateful for that, but I still have a report to write about you.”
“We didn’t save you. Aiken did it.”
Harmony’s head whipped around. “He said the family did it.”
“He said that so you wouldn’t know. He did it himself. No one knows more about wilderness medicine than he does. He put one of his homemade concoctions on the wound to stop the bleeding, but he did that long before he brought you back here. By the time he showed up here with you, the danger was over. You were still unconscious, but you weren’t at death’s door.”
“Then he lied about that. Maybe he lied about finding me in the woods, too.”
“How could he bring you here if he didn’t find you in the woods?”
“I don’t know. Some of the things he says don’t make much sense.”
“One thing does make sense. He wants to keep his distance from you.”
“That’s what he keeps saying, but he spends hours with me every day. He only leaves to go to work.”
Marla looked the other way. “Yeah.”
Harmony gazed across the lawn to the fountain rippling in the sun. There was Bruins’ Peak, rising stately and imposing beyond the trees. She couldn’t get away from it. She didn’t have to get away from it. “It sure is nice up here. I don’t think anyone in Iron Bark would believe how nice it is.”
“They would believe it, and they would burn up with jealousy. That’s another reason they want to destroy us. They can’t stand that we should be successful while they scratch in the dirt.”
“I guess that’s one of the benefits of working together as a family to build an empire. That success gets passed on from one generation to the the next. It doesn’t get lost.”
“You’ll just have to explain it to them. They won’t believe it from us.”
Harmony inhaled a deep breath of the woods beyond the lawn. “I’m sure gonna miss this place when I go back. I’ll never forget the time I spent here. I could almost wish I wasn’t going back. I could stay up here forever.”
“You have to go back. You belong there, not here.”
Harmony kept her eyes on the trees, but her eyes stung with tears. She wouldn’t let Marla see them, but she couldn’t stop her voice cracking. “I don’t feel that way. I feel like I belong here. I don’t know how I survived down there all these years.”
“You were born there, weren’t you? You have friends who care about you there, and a good job. You don’t belong up here. Outsiders don’t belong here.”
“That’s what everybody keeps telling me, but I don’t feel like an outsider. Leaving would break my heart.”
Just then, the three boys Harmony knew as Clarissa’s sons, Jana, Foicks, and Ash Dunlap, thundered out of the woods, up the porch, and into the house. They didn’t give Marla and Harmony the time of day. In a minute, the house swallowed their voices. “What are you going to tell Social Services about them?”
“The truth—that they’re thriving and healthy and well treated. I’ll tell them the kids up here get a good education, good food, good discipline, and everything else they need to thrive. Social Services can’t ask for anything more. I’ll tell them the same thing Molly and all the other investigators have told them. Maybe now they’ll listen and give up these investigations.”
“That will never happen.”
“I hope you’re wrong.”
Across the lawn, Aiken emerged from the trees. He squinted under his baseball cap, and when he saw Harmony on the porch, he dove back into the forest. Marla stood up. “I can see what’s coming next. I’ll catch you later.”
“Why? What’s coming next?”
Marla didn’t answer. She let the screen door slam behind her, and Harmony was alone. Marla always raised more questions than she answered, but Harmony found herself gravitating toward the strange young woman. Marla exuded the same intensity as Aiken, with a subtle hint of danger just below the surface.
Harmony couldn’t explain her fascination with these people. Marla and Aiken exemplified the type more than anyone, but everybody on Bruins’ Peak carried the same stamp of hidden danger waiting to explode at the slightest provocation. Harmony recognized the same spark of intense potential in herself.
Maybe that’s why these people attracted her like no other. She wanted to know Marla with the same depth as Aiken and the rest of his family. She wanted to find a home for her own demons with people who carried the same brooding secret in their hearts.
That must be why the ordinary people of Iron Bark shunned her—not that they shunned her. They were nice enough, but no one got too close. They sensed it, and they didn’t like it. Harmony liked it. Harmony yearned for it.
She pushed herself out of her chair. She’d taken it easy too long. She had to challenge herself, and now was the time. She headed across the lawn to the place Aiken disappeared.
She plunged into the trees. She had no idea where he was, but she had to find him. She had to confront him once and for all. Not only did he flatly refuse to answer her questions about his motives, he ran hotter and colder than ever. He spent more time with her than he needed to, but he made sure never to come too near her. He laughed and joked and helped her, but at times he suddenly caught himself doing it and retreated.
She didn’t find him in the trees. He could be anywhere. He could hide in these woods for weeks and wait for her to leave. He wouldn’t do that, though. He wanted her to find him. How could she do it?
Forgotten instinct reared its head in her soul. She sensed him out there somewhere. She could almost smell him. The musky male scent she smelled when he hugged her outside the supermarket imprinted on her brain, and she recognized it in the woods now.
Without understanding how she did it, she followed the trail up hill and down until the trees thinned out. Harmony looked out over a strange valley lined with grassy dells and planted fields. Machines moved back and forth between the fields, and the shouts of men sailed up to her ear on the wind.
She set off down the hill into the sunshine when a flash of movement caught her eye. She glanced sideways and Aiken stepped out of the trees. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’ve been hiding from you.”
Harmony gave him a light smack on the shoulder. “I knew you were. You’re a terrible host, leaving your guest alone like that.”
“You weren’t alone. You were knee-deep in conversation with Marla. What were you talking about—me, I suppose?”
“How did you guess?”
“What did she say?”
“She just said what you’ve always said, that it’s hopeless to think of anything happening between us—not that I think about it. You and everyone else keeps saying it so often I have to wonder if maybe you’re all trying to tell me something else.”
“What else would we be saying?”
“That it’s not as hopeless as it seems.”
Aiken set his jaw and turned away. “It’s hopeless. I’m sorry.”
Harmony darted forward and caught his arm. “Stop right there, Aiken Dunlap. You're not going to walk away from me this time. I refuse to believe it's hopeless until you tell me why. You and your whole family keep telling me over and over again nothing will ever happen between us, but when I ask for some explanation, I get a lot of static and hot air. You're not walking away from me until you give me a straight answer once and for all. What is it about me you find so offensive? Is it that I have no family of my own? Am I not good enough because I wasn't raised as well as you were? What is it? Do you have arranged marriages, and you're promised to someone else? What is it?”
He pulled his arm away. “Look, Harmony, it's complicated. You wouldn't understand....
She yanked his arm back so hard he spun around to face her. “It’s not so complicated you can’t give me a simple explanation. We’re speaking the same language here, aren’t we? I can understand you perfectly well, so start talking. Neither of us is leaving here until you tell me what the deuce is going on.”
He swung around with his hands balled into fists. He wrenched his arm out of her grasp by main force. His words fought their way out of his mouth through gritted teeth. “Don’t you think I’d love to be with you? Don’t you think I want that more than anything? I’m falling apart here. I can’t concentrate on anything. I can’t even take a walk in the woods without looking for you. I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be with you, but I can’t. I can never be with you—never—and it’s tearing me apart.”
She froze in horror. She couldn’t be hearing these words from him. He wanted her. He wanted her more than anything, but something stopped him, something monstrous. “Why can’t we be together?”
He covered his eyes with both hands. “For God’s sake, don’t ask me that. Ask me anything but that. I know it’s impossible that you could ever care about me the way I care about you, but if you really want to do something nice for me, if you have one scrap of compassion in your heart, please please please, just go get in your car and go back to town. Forget about me and don’t talk to me again. Leave me alone to rot away in misery. I can’t stand this one second longer.” His voice squeaked with the effort of speaking those last words.
Harmony flinched like he’d slapped her. She stared at his hunched shoulders and his hands covering his eyes. Leave him alone after what he just said? Not a chance. She took hold of his wrists and tried to pry his hands away from his eyes. “Aiken, look at me.”
He did his best to get away. “Leave me alone. I can’t look at you without wanting to die. I don’t want to want you and dream about you and love you when I’m never going to have you.”
She gave up tugging at his wrists and shook him by the shoulders. “Stop this, Aiken. I’m right here in front of you, and I’m not leaving you like this. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to torture you.”
“Of course you didn’t. You would never do that. You’re too good and kind and caring for that. It’s just this blasted....”
“What? What is it? Why can’t we be together? Why can’t you just come out and tell me?”
His hands flew away from his face. Faster than lightning, his hands closed on her arms. He clenched her in his fists and shook her face just inches from his foaming mouth. “You know, Harmony. You already know if you just think about it for a second. Think back to the moment when you knew you discovered something really unusual on Bruins’ Peak. Think back, and you’ll discover the answer.”
She cowered from his fuming passion. “What are you talking about?”
“The bear, Harmony. Do you remember the bear? What did the bear mean to you? What did you feel for the bear?”
She stared up into his raving eyes. “What are you trying to tell me? What does the bear have to do with you and me?”
He tossed her away from him. “Of course you don’t understand, and you never will. What’s the point of talking about it? It just makes this situation worse for me.”
“Why can’t you just tell me straight out what you want to say? If you really care about me and I really care about you, why can’t we be together? Is it your family that forbids it? Do you have some terrible disease I don’t know about? Is that why you people keep your distance from outsiders?”
Aiken searched her face for some shred of hope. All at once, he caught her up in his arms. He kissed her hair and pressed her to his heart. “I don’t care. I love you, and you love me. Don’t you love me, Harmony? Don’t you feel we belong together?”
Before she could answer, he covered her face with kisses. He drowned out her answer with his lips and drank the happy whispers into himself.
“I don’t care what they do. We’ll leave here. We’ll never see Bruins’ Peak again, but we’ll be together. They can live without us. We’ll go live somewhere else like ordinary people. No one has to know where we came from or who we are.”
Harmony devoured his kisses with rising excitement. He cared about her. He said he loved her, and she loved him. Oh, she loved him! The words soared out of her soul on wings of joy. She loved him! She would hazard anything for him. Whatever barrier kept them apart would collapse before their love.
His raging passion subsided now that he held her in his arms. He nuzzled into her hair and tasted her sweet lips. She craned her neck to lift her face to his, and her arms circled his barrel chest. She touched those sharp muscled corners the way she so often dreamed of touching them. She followed the curve of his shoulders to the sloping lats leading down his back. She inhaled his scent in the fullness of her mounting desire.
His hands grappled over her body. His tongue dove into her mouth and brought the juicy wetness bubbling from her depths to burn her buried flesh. He burrowed under her shirt to find her breasts, and they rose to welcome him.
He squeezed her nipples to tortured points and fought his way into her waistband to find the delicious center between her legs, but just as fast, he pulled away. He turned his back on her with a groan. “I can’t. This is insane. I can’t.”
Harmony choked on her own grief. Her arms hung empty and powerless. “Why can’t you?”
“We’re just too far apart. We’re fire and ice. We would destroy each other. I can’t do this.”
She drew near his back, but when she raised her hand, she dared not make contact with his body. Her soul seethed in torment. “Please, just tell me why.”
He growled over his shoulder. “I would rather die than give you up, but I can’t do this. It’s forbidden. It breaks all our most stringent laws.
Harmony exploded. All her raw, tensed emotions, dammed up for days since she first laid eyes on him at the Kerrs’, burst forth in a torrent of blind fury.
She pounded her fists against his back and screeched at him. "That's crap, Aiken Dunlap. You don't give a flip about me and you never did. How can a bunch of people have laws keeping two people who love each other apart? You’re making all that up to manipulate me. It’s crap. Do you hear me? Crap! If you really cared about me, you would stand up to your family or whoever it is that’s making you think we can’t be together. You would tell them you love me, instead of telling me over and over again you can’t. You can’t, you can’t you can’t. That’s all you ever say, and I say it’s crap. So there. What are you going to do about that?”
He turned around, and his face cleared for the first time. He grabbed her pounding fists and pulled her toward him. “Hey, come on. Don’t hit me. It’s not as bad as that. You know I care about you.”
She flailed against his hands. “Isn’t it enough that you have this huge wonderful family to support you and I’ve got no one—not one person in the whole world who cares about me? Why do you have to go rubbing my nose in it and make it a hundred times worse?”
He tried to put his arms around her, but she struggled against his embrace. “I never wanted to rub your nose in it. I only wanted to help you and protect you so you didn’t get hurt.”
“What do you think I have to go back to? What do you think my life will be like when I leave here and go back to town? What do you think I have to look forward to, now that I’ve seen how you live? Everything here is so wonderful and beautiful. Everyone loves each other and helps each other. I’m a worm in the dirt compared to you.”
“Stop it. You know you’re not a worm in the dirt.”
She threw off his arms and spun away. “Leave me alone. Don’t tell me you love me if you won’t fight to have me. Don’t tell me anymore than I’m special or that you care about me and want to protect me when you’re the one who’s hurting me worse than anybody.”
He tried to catch up with her, but she stormed away.