Bear Meets Girl

by Shelly Laurenston

  “What the fuck happened?” Dez got out before the door opened again and Blayne walked in.

  “You can’t stay,” Dee told Blayne, “if all you’re gonna do is cry like a baby.”

  Snarling, Blayne stepped into Dee, pointing her finger in her face. “She’s my friend, too, Dee-Ann!” The tears started again. “I love her.”

  “Just yesterday you called her a bitch.”

  “How can you bring that up?” Blayne wailed.

  Realizing that neither of these two would give her the answers she needed—one talked too much and the other not enough—Dez walked back into the hallway. “Stay here,” she ordered before she went in search of Crushek. She knew the bear well enough to know he wouldn’t be part of the crowd, but she also knew he was there. Somewhere. He wouldn’t leave Cella alone.

  And Dez was right. She found Crush at the end of the long hallway inside one of the rooms. He sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his knees raised, his gaze focused on the empty bed. She stepped up next to him and held out her hand.

  Crush looked at it and up at her.

  “Come on,” she said.

  He took her hand, but mostly got himself up off the floor. She led him back to the room where she’d left an eye-rolling Dee-Ann and a still sobbing Blayne.

  “Oh, Crush!” Blayne cried before running into the startled polar, her arms wrapping around his waist. “You poor, poor man.”

  Dez closed the door, ignoring the look her husband gave her before she did.

  “What happened?” she asked, figuring she’d at least get most of the story from the three of them together.

  “Poor Cella’s life is over!” Blayne sobbed into Crush’s chest, but Dez decided not to take that at face value. Instead, she focused on Dee-Ann.

  The woman shrugged. “She was hurt.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough.”

  See? That wasn’t enough information. So Dez then moved her attention to Crush, who was awkwardly patting Blayne’s back.

  “It’s my fault,” he told her. “All of this. I think it’s my fault.”

  Blayne looked up at him. “Your fault? How can you say that?”

  “I should have known Baissier would do something. I just never thought she’d go after Cella like that.”

  Nope. Still not clear, so Dez went back to Dee-Ann.

  “She called me earlier. Said someone was following her. It never occurred to either of us that they’d take her out on the ice.”

  The ice? Someone attacked her during one of those hockey games? With hundreds, maybe even several thousand shifters nearby? Then Dez remembered the way Ric and Lock had looked outside. They’d clearly been in a fight. But then ...

  Dez looked at the three shifters. “Was Cella shot?”

  Dee-Ann shook her head. “No.”

  “They destroyed her leg,” Blayne whimpered.

  “Well,” Dee corrected, “mostly just her knee.”

  “Her ...” Dez scratched her head. “Was she kneecapped in the bathroom or something?”

  “No. It happened on the ice.”

  Dez studied the three idiots. “Are you telling me you dragged me here for a fucking sports accident?”

  “Figured you’d wanna know.”

  “I do want to know, Dee. Cella’s my friend. But I want details. Telling me ‘You better come to the hospital. They got Cella’ implies something different to me than a sports injury.”

  “You don’t undertstand, Dez,” Blayne explained, pulling away from Crush as more tears flowed. “Her career is over. She’ll never play pro hockey again.”

  “Is she going to be in a wheelchair?”

  Dee pulled a piece of jerky out of her back pocket. Why it was back there, Dez didn’t want to know. “Doubtful,” Dee said. “Once she gets that knee replaced and all, she’ll probably be back at KZS early next week. We’re just waitin’ for them to finish the surgery.”

  “Will she at least have a limp?”

  “Nah. Our bodies take real well to replacement surgeries.” Dee held up her arm, pointing at her elbow. “Got this blown off during a hunt. Docs replaced it ... good as new.” To illustrate, she bent what looked to be a mostly unmarred joint.

  Dez pointed at the door. “Get out. Both of you. Out.” She grabbed Blayne by the back of her jeans and dragged her to the door, opening it and shoving her out. “You, too, country. Out.”

  “You sure are moody,” the wolf complained before she ambled out the door.

  Slamming the door, Dez faced Crush. “What is going on?”

  Cella opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was her mother ... and tears. Then she looked around the room. All those Malones. All that crying. Men and women. She felt like she’d just woken up in a casket after being misdiagnosed as dead.

  “Mom?”

  “Oh! My dear sweet girl!”

  Her mother hugged her and Cella could feel tears dripping against her neck. At least she hoped it was tears.

  “It’ll be okay, baby.” Her mother pulled back and stroked her hair. “You’re going to be just ... just ...” Eyes wide, she looked at Cella’s aunts who just days before she’d threatened to bare-knuckle fight. They all smiled down at Cella, then Kathleen began to cry, then Margaret, then ... good God, even Deirdre. Then all of them were crying. It was pretty ... strange.

  In fact, Cella looked down at her leg to make sure she still had it and yup! It was there. It was bandaged and had a brace on it to keep it immobile while it healed. Cella could tell she was currently being pumped full of all sorts of painkillers because she knew her body was knitting itself back together and that often hurt. A lot. But she didn’t feel a thing. So here she was. Breathing. Surviving as Malones liked to do. And yet her uncles couldn’t even look at her. God ... did she have scars on her face? Did one of those hyenas hit her with his skate? Was she hideous?

  Then Cella remembered that this was her family she was dealing with. They were emotional basket cases on their best days. So rather than panic, she looked around the room until she found her daughter. Meghan stood in the back of the room, Josie next to her. What Cella loved was the absolute look of annoyance on her kid’s pretty face. Okay. So if Meg was going to stay with the family, at least she had the potential to one day run this bunch. She had attitude to spare.

  Even better, Meghan knew her mother. One look and she was pushing her way through the crowd of uncles, aunts, and cousins until she was by her mother’s side. She took Cella’s hand, holding it between both of hers. “Could you guys leave us alone, please? I need to ...” She took a long, dramatic pause Cella was mighty proud of. She’d taught the kid well. “... talk to my mom for a bit.”

  “Of course, of course,” Kathleen said, hustling all the aunts, uncles, and cousins out of the room. But it was Cella’s dad who took hold of his wife’s shoulders and, with a wink at Cella, led the still sobbing woman out of the room.

  Once the door closed and Cella was alone with her daughter, she let out a sigh. “No feline should sob unless she’s been hit with a baseball bat.”

  “It’s always gotta be so extreme with you.”

  Cella laughed, grinning up at her daughter. “It’s in the DNA, kid. You might as well get used to it.”

  Still holding her mother’s hand, Meghan sat on the bed. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? You didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s not about doing anything. It’s about ... empathizing.”

  “Empathizing?”

  Meghan’s eyes crossed. “Yes, Mom. Empathy.”

  “Sounds like weakness.”

  “It is not ...” Meghan gritted her teeth. “Why do you make me crazy?”

  “Isn’t that my job? It’s my mother’s job, and as you can see, she does it well.”

  “All I’m saying is that I know how much hockey means to you. It meant everything—”

  “No. You mean everything to me, baby. You. The rest is just gravy.”

  “So wha
t are you going to do now?”

  “Learn to knit.”

  “Mom.”

  “I’ll figure out something. There’s more to life than hockey.”

  “For everyone else, but not for you.” Meghan thought a moment. “There’s the female team.”

  “No.”

  “They don’t have the same rules that—”

  “Exactly.” Cella gaped at her daughter. “Do you not like your mother’s pretty face? Do you hope to see me missing eyes ... teeth? Do you care so little that you’d suggest the all-female team?”

  “You bare-knuckle box!”

  “Men! Males, as you’ll one day learn, are easy to manage. If the same shit that went down last night had happened while I was on the all-female team ... I’d be missing legs. Both of them.”

  “I heard they’re not that bad ... anymore.”

  “They’re that bad. Trust me. Coed, all male, or nothing. Because all-female is just painful trouble and suffering.”

  “Always with the drama.”

  “I’m a Malone,” Cella explained again, making sure to let out a long sigh. “Once you grasp that, the drama explains itself.” She thought a moment. “Any chance you can get everyone else to go away? Far away?”

  “I can try. They usually listen to me.”

  “I know.”

  “No, Ma.”

  “What?”

  “I see your mind turning. I will not be running this family anytime soon.”

  “Of course not. You’re only eighteen. But another fifteen years or so ...”

  “Like you’re ever going to let me boss you around.” Meghan dropped Cella’s hand. “You’re so full of crap.”

  “Crap? Really?”

  “Not everyone has to express themselves with profanity.”

  “No. But what fun is it not to express yourself with profanity?”

  Meghan stood. “I’ll get rid of everybody.” She walked to the door. Stopped. “Your team’s—”

  “No,” Cella said quickly. “I can’t see them tonight.”

  “Okay. That scary She-wolf and Detective MacDermot?”

  “First off, the She-wolf is Dee-Ann and she already said you could call her that.”

  Her daughter’s lip curled a little. “Yeah.”

  “Forget it. Tell them to come by tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Her daughter glanced at the floor, then asked, “What about Mr. Crushek?”

  “Crush is here?”

  “Of course, he’s here.” Meghan nodded. “And he looks really upset.”

  “He does?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yeah. Let him come in.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to go home with the family?”

  “No,” her daughter replied in her all-business tone. “And Mr. Crushek has until I get back before he has to leave, too. No canoodling.”

  “Canoodling?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “But do you know what you mean?”

  “Of course, I do. I read.”

  Cella ordered herself not to laugh because her daughter was as serious as a heart attack.

  “I’ll ask Aunt Jai to stop in, too.” Hand now on the door, Meghan warned, “And, Ma, do not move that leg.”

  Staring at her daughter, Cella sat up a bit and jerked.

  Gold eyes narrowed on her. “Ma.”

  The kid was so easy!

  “I’m not moving my leg. Besides, right now I’m so high on whatever painkiller they’re giving me that I feel like I’m floating anyway.”

  “I’ll be back,” Meghan threatened.

  Once her daughter walked out, Cella relaxed back in her bed and stared across the empty room. After a minute, she announced to no one, “I am so high.”

  “So,” Dez reasoned, “basically, her leg will be stronger than it was.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she’ll be, without even any physical therapy, back on her feet in like three to four days.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And yet they’re all acting like they’re mourning her death.”

  “Just the death of her career.”

  “One of them. I mean she’s in KZS. I’m relatively certain the half-a-mil they pay her per year—”

  “Wait. How much?”

  “Oh, yeah. KZS pays really well. They tried to hire Mace when he left the Navy but he had plans with Smitty.”

  “So even though we’re paid better than any full-human on the force, no matter the rank, we’re still paid less than everyone else?”

  “Civil servants, baby.” Dez stared at Crush for a moment and he tried not to hide from her straightforward gaze. Finally, after a moment, she told him, “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is my fault. I should have known Baissier was going to do something like this.”

  “That she’d hire hyenas to break your girlfriend’s knee at a hockey game? I don’t think anyone would see that coming.” She pointed her finger at him. “And you’re not that guy.”

  Confused, Crush asked, “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I mean, you’re not that guy who takes revenge on his foster mother by cutting her throat while she sleeps.” She pointed at the door. “Dee-Ann’s that guy. She’ll do that shit in a heartbeat. Cella, too. Not you. You do that shit, you’ll never live with yourself. And then you’ll drive me, your partner, crazy with your Mr. Depression act. So let’s not pretend that you’re the guy who can hunt someone down and exact revenge.”

  “So just let it go?”

  “Look, I get it. What happened to Cella sucks. And this ... uncaring bitch deserves some pain. But I’m not sure what she did would be considered a mitigating factor for her eventual murder in a court of law. And, yeah, you have claws and fangs, you’re a predator, yada yada—”

  “Yada yada?”

  “—but at the end of the day, my friend ... you’re still a cop. Old school. You’d never let anyone get away with exacting revenge, either, no matter who or what the hell they were or their perfectly good reasons.”

  “But I feel like I owe it to her. I feel I owe Cella.”

  “All you owe Cella is flowers, maybe some festive balloons, a ride home from the hospital, and nuzzling. You know, bear love.”

  “Bear love? Something else you saw on National Geographic?”

  “Or Animal Planet. Both are very helpful in dealing with my husband and my new crop of friends that aren’t canines.”

  “I just ...” Crush stopped talking, lifted his nose, and sniffed. Reaching over, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Cella’s daughter stood on the other side, Dr. Davis’s daughter right next to her. It looked like the two girls were in a heated discussion about something, but when the door opened, both froze. He felt like he’d caught them doing something, but he didn’t know what.

  “Hi, Meghan. Everything okay?”

  Wide-eyed, the girl nodded while she shoved her friend away. The kid took off and Meghan stepped closer. “Mom’s awake.”

  Cella yawned and looked up at Jai. Once again, she was writing on a chart attached to a clipboard. What was the woman’s obsession with clipboards?

  “Are you all right?” Cella asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  Jai lifted her gaze to Cella’s and glared.

  “I had no idea everyone was so invested in my career,” Cella muttered. “That they’d all be so upset.”

  “Can’t we just be empathetic?”

  “What is that word?”

  Before Jai could hit her with her clipboard—she was clearly thinking about it—the door opened and Josie ran in, stumbling to a stop by the bed.

  “What is it?” Jai asked her daughter.

  “Detective Crushek ...”

  “What about him?”

  “Meghan and I went to find him and he was talking to Detective MacDermot and ... he wants revenge.”

  Cella frowned. “Against t
he Minnesota team?”

  “Huh?” She shook her head. “No, no. Against his foster mother or something?” She leaned in and whispered, “He’s an orphan?”

  “He is, baby, but he handles it really well.”

  “Not right now. He’s really mad about what happened to you, Aunt C.” Not surprising, really, if Baissier did have something to do with all this. Then again, Cella felt like she’d gotten off lucky. Fact was, if Baissier wanted Cella out of the way, she could have had Cella shot in the head while she was walking to the Sports Center. That was how KZS would have handled it.

  “Where is he?”

  “Meghan’s bringing him in, but she wanted me to warn you first.”

  “Warn me?”

  “You can’t let him.”

  “I can’t?” Cella asked, enjoying this, probably because she was high, but Jai slapped her shoulder anyway. “Ow!”

  The door opened again and Meghan walked in, Crush behind her. At first, Cella smiled because it looked kind of comical. Her too-skinny, barely six-foot, very clean-cut daughter followed by a six-nine, three-hundred-pound cop wearing a black Black Sabbath T-shirt, and looking like he’d just been released from prison. Thankfully, he hadn’t. Her daughter was perfectly safe. And realizing that made Cella’s smile a little wider. She might be high, but she knew she trusted the bear. He cared, which meant little Josie was right. Crush would take the blame for this on his giant, bear shoulders. He shouldn’t. None of this was his fault; this was just the world they all lived in. The cruel heartless games that they—the Group, KZS, BPC—all played. It really wasn’t something he could control or manage and getting into it with someone like Peg Baissier would do nothing but get him seriously hurt.

  And Cella cared! She cared if the bear got hurt. She cared if he was upset about all this. That made her smile even more. It was nice to care about someone who wasn’t related by blood or the fact that they were pregnant the same time Cella was.

  Frowning, Crush looked up, but when he saw her, he stopped, his hand on the door, his gaze on her, a small smile spreading across his face. And they stayed like that for a bit, both of them smiling at each other.

  She was bruised and battered from the hockey game, her left leg in a brace that held it immobile, an IV attached to her arm, her black hair haphazardly piled on top of her head by a rubber band—but she was sitting up in bed and smiling.