Bruins Peak Bears Box Set (Volume II) Read online

  Melody hustled out of the room with Lyric and the others. They went back to the marquee, but more time passed with no progress toward the main event. Melody hung around the flowered arch at one end of the tent, but when nothing happened, she roamed through the crowd in search of…what?

  She didn't see the Dunlap boys anywhere, and none of the other young men turned her head. What if Lyric was right and none of these guys was her true mate? Where could she go to find the happiness and connection she craved? What if she never found her mate? What if the fairy tale about Bruins finding their one true love and mating for life wasn't true? Or worse yet, what if it was true for every other Bruin on the Peak but not for her?

  She couldn't start second-guessing herself like that. Marla Dunlap, the girl everyone thought was strange, who never left her house or even looked sideways at a man, found her mate without even trying. Marla tried everything she could think of to avoid mating with Walker. She even ran away, but Fate brought them back together, anyway.

  What if, by some miracle, something like that happened to Melody? She would give anything to win her heart's true love like that. That would make her happy for the rest of her life.

  She waited and waited for the ceremony to get underway, but still nothing happened. She caught sight of Jasper Dunlap in the crowd. He hurried from one cluster of well-wishers to the next. He organized who would sit where and who would do what, but he didn't go back to the house. He was nowhere near ready to escort Marla down the aisle.

  Melody didn't see Aiken anywhere, either. This could take a while. Melody sank into a chair when Lyric came over. “Why so glum, chum? You're not still mad at me about what I said, are you?”

  “No, I'm not still mad at you. I just can't help thinking. What if I don't find my mate? What if I live my whole life alone?”

  Lyric leaned close to her. “You won't live your whole life alone. You're my little sister and you drive me nuts sometimes, but take my word for it. You're a beautiful young woman any guy would be happy to marry. Look at all these people. Have you ever known any Bruin—ever—who didn't find their true mate? Bruins don't live alone. They always find their mate, and they always get married. That's the way it is. It happened to Marla, it happened to me, and it will happen to you.”

  Melody brightened up. “You're right, Lyric. I never thought of it like that before. Thanks.”

  Lyric started to say something when a tumult interrupted outside the marquee. Melody started out of her chair. “What's going on? The ceremony can't be starting yet.”

  The two girls ran to the tent entrance, along with the rest of the wedding guests. Melody craned her neck to see over the crowd, but dozens of heads and shoulders blocked her view. Lyric jumped up and down. “Oh, look!”

  “What? What?” Melody panted. “What do you see?”

  “I can't see anything. Somebody's coming.”

  Truck motors roared, and tires skidded, but Melody wasn't tall enough to see. She gave up. “I'm going to sit down.” She headed back to her seat near the arbor. At least with all the people out of the way, she could get a good seat close to the ceremony.

  Lyric caught her hand. “Come on. I'm going to see what's going on.”

  Melody tried to jerk free. “You go ahead. You can tell me all about it.”

  “Come on!” Lyric urged. “I'm not going alone.”

  Melody sighed and let Lyric tow her out of the marquee. Lyric elbowed her way to the edge of the crowd. Voices tumbled and lilted on every side.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Those crazy kids!”

  “I told you something like this would happen.”

  “Who cares? I want to sit down.”

  Melody still couldn't see anything until the crowd parted and she found herself in an open space between the marquee and the house. Across the Homestead, three shiny pick-up trucks barreled up the driveway and parked in front of the shed. In sight of everyone, Austin, Aiken, and the three Dunlap boys jumped down bristling with weapons. Austin shouted to the boys and pointed toward the house.

  The five men converged on one truck and dragged something over the tailgate. Half the crowd went back into the marquee while the rest of the rubber-neckers milled around watching. For a moment, a glut of bodies swept in front of Melody. She moved from one side to the other to get a better look.

  When the crowd thinned a little more, she saw the three boys dragging something across the grass toward the house. Austin and Aiken strode on either side with rifles over their shoulders. Men and children rushed forward to surround the group and bombard them with questions.

  Austin swept his arm aside to clear the way. Lyric pulled Melody forward to follow alongside, and Melody caught sight of a battered wooden trunk in their hands. They bumped it along the ground, and they strained and sweated with all their strength to pull it. Even over the ruckus of shouts and questions and exclamations, Melody heard thumps and screeches coming from the trunk.

  “What is it?”

  “Where did they get it?”

  “Leave it to those three to come up with something to disturb this wedding.”

  “Leave them alone with their prize. Let's go get another glass of champagne.”

  “Did they kill something?”

  “What are they bringing it here for? Why didn't they leave it in the truck, at least until after the ceremony?”

  Questions and comments flew thick and fast. More people dropped away the closer the boys got to the house, but Lyric yanked Melody along to keep up. More than once, Melody broke free and would have returned to the marquee if Lyric had let her.

  The boys paused at the porch steps. Boyd came over and held a quick conference with Aiken. The boys caught their breath until Aiken turned around. “All right. Let's get it inside.”

  Lyric's fingers dug into Melody's arm tighter than ever. Melody peeled off one finger, but it snapped back down. “Come on. I'm going back to the marquee.”

  “You are not!” Lyric hissed. “We're not going anywhere until we see what's in that trunk.”

  “I don't want to know what's in that trunk. Maybe they got a raccoon or something.”

  Lyric gave her another vicious yank. “Come on. We're going in.”

  She didn't give Melody a chance to protest. The boys lugged the trunk across the porch. Austin opened the door for them, and then he and Aiken helped them lift the trunk off the ground. They carried it inside.

  Chapter 3

  Melody got lost behind Lyric's flowing skirts. She had no idea what was going on until Lyric pulled her into a dark doorway and down some hollow wooden stairs. Darkness crowded around her, but at least she knew she was going down into the Dunlap's basement. What were those boys doing, bringing their trunk down here?

  Over the resounding thunk of footsteps ringing on the stairs, the screeching and pounding noise got louder than ever. It stood Melody's hair on end. She never heard anything like it, and she hoped she never heard it again as long as she lived.

  Down, down, down they went into the dark basement until a single bare light bulb lit up the lower level. The Dunlap boys rested their hands on their hips and caught their breath. Foicks coughed into his shoulder, and Austin stood his rifle in the corner.

  Aiken walked over to the boys. “Well, now you got it here. What are you going to do with it?”

  Ash and Jana glanced at each other. Foicks snorted with laughter. “I dunno.”

  Aiken threw up his hands. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

  Just then, another thunder of footsteps tripped down the stairs. Brody, Walker and Mattox emerged into the stark light. “What's going on?”

  Aiken waved to the boys. “Well, go on and tell him.”

  The boys shifted from one foot to the other.

  “You promised you wouldn't get into trouble,” Walker remarked. “You promised this hunting expedition of yours would keep these boys from spoiling the wedding.”

  Aiken shrugged. “Yeah, I know. We couldn't exactly l
eave it behind, though.”

  “What is it?” Brody asked. “What's in the trunk?”

  The boys stared down at their shoes. Aiken smacked his lips and threw up his hands. Finally, Austin came forward into the light. “We'll show you, but we have to make sure the place is absolutely secure. We can't take the chance on it getting away.”

  “Why?” Brody asked. “What is it?”

  “You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I don't hardly believe it myself. You have to see it for yourself. Just wait until I get the door bolted.”

  “There must be a way to contain the trunk before we open it,” Aiken added. “We can't just turn it loose. It would tear the place apart.”

  “I guess you're not going to tell us what it is until we get the trunk open,” Mattox put in, “but if it helps at all, I've got a steel stock crate on my trailer out in the shed. I loaned it to Boyd to transport a milk cow to Dunlap Homestead for the tribe's use, and it's still out there. We could put the trunk in that.”

  Austin nodded. “Good idea. Go get it.”

  Lyric drew Melody back into the shadows so the men wouldn't see them, but she need not have worried. The men whizzed around making the trunk secure. Mattox, Aiken and Azer Mackenzie hauled the stock crate down the stairs with much cursing and injury. They set up the giant steel cage in the middle of the floor and fitted the trunk inside it.

  Mattox locked the cage door while Austin bolted the basement door from the inside. The men formed a circle around the cage and stared at the trunk. The thumps resounding from inside it bounced it along the floor until it banged into the steel bars. Deafening screeches echoed around the basement.

  Lyric hugged her arms over her stomach. “What in the world is that thing?”

  “There's only one other problem,” Aiken pointed out. “How are we going to get the trunk open without losing an arm?”

  Ash found a long-handled rake in the corner. “Here.”

  He tried to hand it to Aiken, but Aiken held up both hands. “This is your deal. You do it.”

  Ash's cheeks flushed. He cast a nervous snicker to his brothers, but the moment he confronted the trunk, tension scored his face. No one breathed.

  Ash inched forward, but he hesitated to move his rake near the stock cage. He looked around the room. Every face was trained on him in nervous anticipation. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he hitched his shoulder up to wipe it off. With a last manful effort, he took a step and stuck his rake through the bars.

  The trunk leapt and rocked worse than ever. Ash's hands shook, but he moved the rake into position near the trunk latch. He hooked the tines around the latch and flipped it up.

  With a crash, the lid flew back. Ash dropped his rake without bothering to withdraw it from the cage. He leapt five feet backward to get away from the cage. At the same moment, an inky shadow shot out. It rocketed through the air so fast no one could see it. It slammed into the bars and rocked the crate sideways.

  The next instant, a jet black panther landed on soft paws next to the trunk. It whirled around with a spine-chilling shriek. It hissed and spat and yowled to wake the dead.

  Everyone in the basement jumped back in horror. The panther bolted right and left inside the crate. It hurled itself against the bars in desperate fury, but it couldn't break free. It jabbed its paws through the bars and scratched the air with razor claws, but no one came near enough to get caught.

  The basement exploded in astonished cries. “What in the…?”

  “What is that thing?”

  “Where did you find that?”

  “Holy crap!”

  “Stay back! Don't go too close.”

  In its frenzy, the cat grabbed up the rake in its jaws. It snapped the wooden handle with one powerful crunch. That bite sank into Melody's guts. She stared at the thing with her mouth open. Its yowling and screaming turned her stomach. She would do anything to get away from that thing, but she couldn't move.

  The pitch black velvet fur soaked up all light touching it. Melody's mind couldn't register anything that black. Her brain refused to recognize it as a real thing. It embodied pure primal fear, the fear of something sneaking up to kill her in the dead of night.

  Mattox rounded on Jana. “Start talking. Where did you find that thing, and how did you catch it?”

  “We went hunting up Mackenzie country near that pit trap Walker told us about. It's the last stretch of country on the far edge of our territory.”

  Austin broke in, “It's the part of our territory closest to Burkes Road.”

  “We caught the smell and treed the thing on the upper ridge. Foicks tried to shoot it, but the blast broke the branch under it. It fell right in front of us. Ash and Austin shifted and got the thing pinned down. We tied it up and wrestled it into that trunk. Don't ask me how it got the ropes untied. I guess if it can bite a rake handle in half, it can bite through a rope.”

  “What are you going to do with it now?” Walker asked. “I'm getting married in a few minutes. You can't leave it here.”

  Ash fidgeted from one foot to the other. “Well, you know, we didn't really think about that. We hadn't planned that far in advance.”

  “I'll say you didn't think about it,” Aiken snapped. “I'd say you didn't think much at all.”

  Ash rounded on him. “Well, what do you want us to do with it? You said yourself we couldn't leave it where it was.”

  “It must be the first panther ever to enter Bruin country,” Brody remarked. “They usually stay away. They can't stand the Bruin scent everywhere.”

  Everyone started talking at once.

  “Well, get rid of it.”

  “How?”

  “We should keep it.”

  “Are you daffy?”

  “Look at it. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “I hate it. Let's kill it.”

  At last, Mattox held up his hands and bellowed for attention, “One thing is certain. Whatever we decide to do with this thing, none of us can stay down here. We've got a wedding to attend, and I'm sure everyone is wondering where Walker is. We have to leave it here until after the ceremony. Then we can talk about it and decide what to do.”

  Everyone nodded and started to relax. They all wanted to get out of that basement. All of a sudden, the basement door flew open. A shaft of light shone down the stairs, and hard heels pounded down into the dark. A flash of white glistened under the light bulb, and Marla sailed into the room. “What the devil is going on down here? Everyone is waiting for us out there, Walker, and you…” Her gaze settled on the panther, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

  “We're just on our way up now,” Walker murmured. “You can tell your family I'm ready.”

  Austin frowned. “That door was locked from the inside. How did you get in here?”

  Marla held up a key on a chain. “I found the spare. Now, are you coming or not?”

  The panther's screeches drowned out any reply. It smashed its black body against its prison in manic desperation to break free. Aiken gazed at the thing and let out a shaky breath. “We can't leave it like this. It will injure itself.”

  “Let's blow its brains out,” Foicks chirped.

  “You went to a lot of trouble to drag it back here,” Aiken pointed out. “If you wanted to blow its brains out, why didn't you do that at the tree?”

  The cat screamed in pain every time it slammed into the bars, but rage and terror kept it careening from one side to the other. The crate groaned and clanged with every blow.

  “We should sedate it or something,” Brody remarked. “Find a way to calm it down.”

  “How?” Austin asked. “It won't be quiet until it finds a way out.”

  “I have an idea,” Mattox replied. “I have a cattle prod in my truck. We can electrocute it and knock it out.”

  “You might kill it,” Brody countered.

  “I can calibrate the shock based on the animal's weight,” Mattox replied. “I won't kill it. It will fall unconscious, and we can put
it back in the trunk while we talk about what to do with it.”

  Marla held her skirts up. “Are you coming or not? We've got hundreds of guests out there waiting for us, and you guys are stuck down here like gangsters.”

  Walker's shoulders heaved. “All right. Go get your prod and do it.”

  Mattox ran out and came back with his tool. He switched it on, and a loud electric hum filled the basement. He dialed the controls and stepped forward to face the panther.

  The cat went ballistic. It bared its fangs at him and slashed the air with its claws. It roared and howled. Mattox didn't dare go near that cage. After a moment of tense waiting, he turned back with his face covered in sweat. His eye fell on Lyric, and he passed his shirt cuff over his eyes.

  He swept the ground and caught sight of the broken rake handle. He picked it up, and with some help from Ash, he lashed the cattle prod to it. He advanced on the cage with renewed resolve.

  With his pole in his hand, he didn't have to come anywhere near enough to put himself in danger. He held the pole in a white-knuckle grip and eased the prod toward the cat.

  The cat saw him coming. It batted the prod with its paws and tried to bite the stick with its teeth. It hooked the cattle prod and would have yanked it out of Mattox's hands. At the last second, he shoved it forward hard. The tip jammed into the cat's chest. A loud, sickening crackle filled the air, and the distinct stench of ozone stung Melody's nostrils.

  The cat let out a piercing scream. It flipped sideways with an unnatural convulsion. It launched itself off the ground and came down on its back. It twitched all its legs at once and lay still.

  Everyone stared at the thing in stunned shock. The panther gave one last spasm and didn't move again except for the slow rise and fall of its chest in breath. Its mouth relaxed open, and its pink tongue hung out to drool on the floor.

  Mattox pulled the cattle prod back and let out a shaky sigh. “Phew!” He took the prod off the stick and put it in his pocket. “Let's get out of here.”