Bruins' Peak Bears Box Set (Volume I)

by Sarah J. Stone

  “Bring it up here if you want to. I need someone to talk to while I eat.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She groaned when she tried to sit up. “Listen, Aiken, I heard what you said before, and I won’t make any moves on you. I promise, but can’t spend the next however many days alone up here. Bring your pancakes up here. You can help me get started on my investigation.”

  “Your investigation: how are you going to do that in bed?”

  “I won’t be able to visit your greenhouses until I get on my feet, but you can start filling in the gaps so I know who’s who when I get out of this room. You can start by telling me the names of your father, your mother, your closest relatives, and the names of any children living on the place. You can handle that much, in between mouthfuls of pancake, can’t you?”

  He gaped at her. Then he burst out laughing. “Yeah, I can handle that. Hang on; I’ll go get the plate. You can help me eat them.”

  He hustled out of the room, and by the time he came back holding another tray with a tower of steaming pancakes on it, Harmony had managed to sit up against her pillows.

  Her eyes boggled at the pancakes. “Holy cannoli! I thought you were joking.”

  He sat down in the same chair and balanced the tray on his knees. He pointed to her tray with his fork. “Get started while we talk. Do you need any more syrup?” He produced a glass bottle from his pocket.

  She tried to twist around to lift her tray onto the bed, but winced in pain instead. “Could you give me a hand?”

  He set his own tray on the floor and placed hers on her knees before resuming his seat. “Now, you want to know the names of my family. There’s me and my little sister Marla. She’s seventeen. My father...”

  “I wish I had my notebook. I should write all this down.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ll run through it all now, and we’ll find you some paper and a pen later. My father is Jasper Dunlap, son of Orson Dunlap, Jr. and Rose Mackenzie.”

  “Mackenzie. I know that name. They’re on my list of families to investigate.”

  “You’ll find everyone on the Peak is related to everyone else.”

  “How do you stop people marrying someone related to them?”

  “Everyone is pretty careful not to let that happen. Everybody knows who’s related to whom.”

  She eyed him. “You just said ‘whom’.”

  “Yeah; isn’t that the correct word?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use the word ‘whom’ in a sentence.”

  “Well, now you have.”

  “You must have had some higher education.”

  “Nope; I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

  “I’m not disappointed. I’m just surprised. If you didn’t have any higher education, you must have learned that here, from your family.”

  “That’s right. Most of us do.”

  “So, you learned everything you know about running a business, and comparing prices at the supermarket, and running a commercial produce operation, all from your family?”

  “That’s right.”

  She shook her head and stuck another forkful of sausage in her mouth.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you believe I could learn all that from my family?”

  “I believe it. I just find it amazing. You’ve obviously gotten a very thorough education. I’d say you have acquired a better education than just about everyone in Iron Bark. I doubt there’s one high school graduate in Iron Bark who could use ‘whom’ correctly in a sentence.”

  “If you find that amazing, you’re going to find a lot of things more amazing up here. Kids on the Peak get a very good education, and they are very well treated. They have dozens of close relatives looking out for them and plenty of free time to challenge themselves in the woods. Every kid should grow up the way we do.”

  “I can believe it, after what I’ve seen. So tell me the kids you’ve got growing up here now.”

  “There are just my sister Clarissa’s three boys, but there are about five others down the valley at the next Homestead.”

  “The next Homestead; is there more than one?”

  “This is the main one. There’s another one closer to the greenhouses. My uncle Yuki lives there with his family.”

  “Is that your father’s brother?”

  “That’s right. When my father took over the family from his father, his younger brother Yuki built a Homestead down the valley for himself and his wife.”

  “Do they have children?”

  “They have eight boys, but they’re all older than me.”

  Harmony gazed out of the window and chewed her scrambled eggs.

  Aiken observed her from his chair. He’d worked through the first six pancakes and not made a dent. “Is there something bothering you?”

  “I’m just thinking about a story I heard in town. As a matter of fact, the story came from Bain Campbell’s father, so you can imagine how credible it actually might be. He said a little girl killed his friend in the woods, and the body was never found. When I questioned Bain about the killing, I couldn’t find any record of any girl living here. Now you tell me you have three boys here and eight boys down the valley. That’s a lot of boys and no girls.”

  He returned her gaze without answering.

  “So go on with your family tree. Your father is Jasper. Who’s your mother?”

  “Beatrice Farrell, older sister of the late Duke Farrell and daughter of Regis Farrell and Amber MacAllister. My oldest sister, Clarissa, is married to Floyd Cunningham, with three sons, and my brother Boyd is married to Lara Dodd with no children. Does that answer your questions?”

  “So it’s Clarissa, Boyd, you, and Marla?”

  “In this family: We have cousins and extended family scattered all over the place.”

  She nodded. “All right. So tell me about Floyd and Clarissa. What kind of parents are they?”

  “They’re the same kind of parents you find all over this mountain. They take good care of their kids. I would introduce you to the boys right now, except they’re running off in the woods somewhere. They finished their lessons early yesterday, and Clarissa let them go.”

  “When will they come back?”

  He shrugged. “When they feel that they're ready.”

  “Don’t you mean when they’re hungry?”

  “They can find their own food in the forest.”

  “Do you mean like finding a cheeseburger hidden under a rock? I doubt that.”

  “They don’t eat cheeseburgers. That’s junk food, and kids up here don’t eat junk food – ever. No, I mean like hunting, fishing and gathering wild food. We all learn that from a young age. Those boys can take care of themselves in the woods for days without coming home.”

  “Then what’s to bring them home? What’s to stop them staying away forever?”

  “They usually come home when they come up with a question they can’t answer themselves. They come home for answers they can only get from adults.”

  “Are you trying to tell me they come home because they want to learn? Do you really expect me to believe they come home of their own free will because they want more schooling?”

  “I didn’t really think of it that way, but now that you mention it, that’s exactly why they do come home. They want to learn, and they get that from adults.”

  “That’s amazing. It’s so opposite to the way they do things in town.”

  “Maybe that’s why no high school graduate in town can use ‘whom’ correctly in a sentence. Maybe you should try it our way for a change.”

  “Maybe we should, but I don’t make decisions about the kids’ schooling. I can only determine that your kids are doing well. That’s my only job.”

  “Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “So you grew up like that, too? You had that kind of freedom? How did you wind up going into your father’s business?”

  “Everybody does it. I grew up knowing I
would help Boyd run the business, so I learned all about business, growing things, raising livestock, managing bank accounts, and all that sort of thing. It isn’t rocket science. I find it easy.” He found her studying him. Her fork dangled between her fingers. “What?”

  She broke out of her trance, and a twinkle sparkled in her eyes. She pointed at the stack. “You’re not making very much progress there.”

  “That’s ‘cuz you’re letting the whole team down. How many have you had – two? Here.” He forked four more pancakes onto her plate. “Get busy. The West wasn’t won on salad.”

  “Hey! That’s too many. I can’t eat all this.”

  “You need to build yourself up. Here. Have some more syrup.”

  Harmony held up her hand. “Whoa, Trigger. That’s tons.”

  He resumed his seat, and for a while nothing but the sounds of chewing filled the room until Harmony took another bite of sausage. “Where did you get this sausage?”

  “That? I made it.”

  Her head shot up. “You made it? It’s incredible.”

  “Yep; it’s venison and cranberry. You like it?”

  “It’s mind-blowing. I’d ask for the recipe, but I don’t know how to make sausage.”

  “Then I’ll just have to provide you with a lifetime supply. It’s my own special blend of herbs and spices.”

  She snorted, and pancake crumbs sprayed the bedspread. “Shut the front door!”

  He cracked a grin. “It’s true. I’ve always been into hunting and all that stuff. I like doing stuff with the game I catch and turn it into food for the whole family. It took me a long time to perfect that recipe.”

  “You’re a renaissance man.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Harmony couldn’t stop beaming at him, but she pushed the tray away. “Sorry to let the team down, Champ, but I’m finished. Thank you. That filled the hole.”

  He carved off another triangle of three stacked pancakes and jabbed his fork at her. “So do you think you might be able to get up and take a walk around the house later?”

  She lay back and pulled the covers up to her chin. “Later. Much later.”

  He finished eating, but while he chewed, he watched her eyelids flutter and sink. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be joking and talking to her about his private life. He should get out now and leave the family explanations to his mother or Clarissa—someone who could keep their head around her.

  He had to get away, but he couldn’t even take refuge in the bear anymore. The bear thought of nothing but Harmony. It dreamed about her and searched the woods for her scent. He was obsessed with her, this fragile human female who didn’t even know he was the one she met in the woods.

  He watched her sleep for a long time while he worked his way through the pancakes until not one remained. What in the name of Jesus was he going to do with himself? How could he go and fall for a human woman?

  He sat in the same chair, the way he had for two full days before she woke up. He didn’t want to be anywhere else but at her side. He couldn’t be anywhere else but at her side. Telling himself to give it up did no good. He had to be with her.

  He hated himself for feeling this way. He hated his life. He could never be happy again. He couldn’t be happy with her and he couldn’t be happy without her. His life was ruined.

  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 then 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 can 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 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 towards 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 her.

  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 had smelled when he hugged her outside the supermarket had imprinted on her brain, and she recognized it in the woods now.

  Without understanding how she did it, she followed the trail up the 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.