Bear Meets Girl

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A gentle pat on the shoulder woke Crush up. The smell of hot coffee actually got him to lift his head from the mattress. He wasn’t, however, still in bed with Cella. He knew her family would be back and he just wouldn’t feel right with them finding him in bed, cuddling up to Cella. So just before dawn, he’d reluctantly pulled away from her—God, she was so warm and smelled so nice—and sat down in the chair beside the bed. He’d put his crossed arms on the mattress and his head on his crossed arms. That was it until that gentle pat and the smell of coffee.

Rubbing his eyes and yawning, Crush sat up and smiled at the sweet face staring down at him.

“Morning, Mrs. Malone.”

“Morning, sweetheart.” Cella’s mother held out the cup of coffee for him and he gratefully took it. One sip and he was already on his way to feeling better.

“How is she doing?” Mrs. Malone asked.

“Good. She slept well. But that probably had to do with the drugs they gave her.”

“Pain meds, antibiotics, and something a little extra to ensure she sleeps, according to Jai,” Mrs. Malone rattled off. “I guess they can’t really afford for her to have a full-blown fever.” No, they really couldn’t. Although the fever helped badly wounded shifters to heal quickly, it also involved shifting back and forth from one form to the other, over and over, as well as a tendency to flail and jerk in one’s sleep. Not the best thing for Cella’s healing leg. So the doctors had doped her up more than they would most and hoped she’d quietly sleep through the night. Thankfully, she had.

Mrs. Malone walked around the bed and gazed down at her daughter.

“She’s doing okay,” Crush promised her. “She’s amazingly strong.”

“Just like her father.”

Crush couldn’t help but smile a little. “Just like her mother, I think.”

The tigress blinked up at him in surprise, her cheeks getting a little red. “Well ... thank you.” Mrs. Malone cleared her throat. “Detective Crushek—”

“Call me Crush.”

“Crush. Why don’t you get something to eat?”

Crush looked down at Cella, still sleeping soundly.

“Now don’t worry about Cella. I’m here and trust me when I say the rest of the family will be showing up very soon. Plus, I’ll want you around to help with any visitors.”

“Visitors?”

“One time her father was injured during a game. The hospital he was in had to call in extra security.”

“Fan invasion?”

“Exactly.”

“You have an excellent point.”

“I know I do. It’s my job to plan for the unforeseen.” She waved him away. “Now go. Get something to eat.”

Crush nodded, realizing he was starving. He’d been planning to get dinner after the game with Cella, so he’d only had one or two sandwiches, a steak, and a large pizza during the game.

Yep. Starving.

Standing up, Crush rolled his shoulders and nodded at Cella’s mother. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, Mrs. Malone.”

“You just spent the entire night watching over my daughter, Crush. I think it’s okay for you to call me Barb.”

“Or Mrs. M., which still seems respectful.”

“Barb is respectful enough if I tell you it is. Now go before my husband’s idiot sisters get here and make me much less pleasant.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Cella heard the bickering, but she chose to ignore it, keeping her eyes shut.

The meds had worn off, so she felt every moment of her leg threading itself back together, making the foreign object part of it. And, in a word, it fucking hurt. If everything went as planned, Cella knew the pain would lessen in another day, maybe two. But at this moment—it hurt.

And hearing her aunts bickering with her mother—again—was doing nothing but getting on her frayed nerves. But since Cella had been hearing her relatives argue since her first breath—rumor was that her mother got into a claw match with Aunt Deirdre seconds before Cella came out of the womb, which in retrospect kind of explained Cella’s general personality—it was easy enough for her to tune them out and go back to sleep. Especially when she had something else to focus on. Specifically Crush. He was worth focusing on rather than the pain. She’d woken up here and there during the previous night and every time she did, he was still there, holding her. He snored a little, but nothing that made her want to cover his face with a pillow until he stopped altogether. And his arm was always around her, keeping her close and immobile all at the same time. Yet she didn’t feel trapped by so much male holding on to her. Nope. She didn’t feel trapped at all. Amazing. Because usually Cella felt trapped when one of the bathroom stalls at the Sports Center got stuck and it took her longer than two seconds to get the door open. Like five seconds. One time it took her ten seconds and she freaked out so badly, she just tore the door off the hinges, apologizing to the maintenance guy she’d passed on her way back to the gym.

Christ, was she really starting to like this guy?

Wait. No. She wasn’t starting to like this guy. She already liked this guy. A lot. Again, surprising, because he was nothing like the males she was usually drawn to. Nope. Crush was excessively polite, quiet, well-mannered, and absolutely trustworthy. Although, when she thought about it, all those qualities were important for any male to have if they were going to be around Cella’s daughter. Something she’d never really thought about because there had never been a male Cella had allowed around her daughter that wasn’t the kid’s father, a blood relative, or a schoolteacher.

Of course, it was too early to tell if all this thinking and analyzing about one bear was actually necessary, but it helped her fall back to sleep despite the continued bickering in the room.

Unfortunately, Cella didn’t have the chance to really enjoy much of that sleep because someone decided to touch her leg. It was a light touch, but enough to have her reaching up and grasping the throat of whoever was touching her.

Cella opened her eyes and looked up into the face of a nurse. A tiny, itsy-bitsy bobcat staring at her with wide eyes and a rather daunting-looking needle.

After having what he could only say was an astounding meal in the shifter-only lunch room—shifter-only locations did like to provide the best food and supportive furniture for all the different breeds since it cut down on violent explosions of rage—Crush headed back to Cella’s room.

The elevator opened on her floor and Crush stepped out, stopping at the giant bouquet of flowers standing in the middle of the hallway. Leaning to see around them, he caught sight of what could only be called a mane of white and brown hair.

“Novikov?”

The flowers moved a bit and scowling blue eyes glared at him. “Crushek.”

“Hi. Are you looking for Cella’s room?”

“I don’t know what to do with these.”

Crush went around the flowers so that he could look directly at the Marauder. “Do with them?”

“Blayne said I had to bring flowers. I told her to come with me, but she said she’d be here later because there was yet another emergency with the wild dogs.”

Wild dogs. What Crush deemed the chattiest of the shifter breeds. Mostly nice, though, unless their pups were involved.

“Okay.”

“I told her I could go practice and we could go when she was done, but she said I had to go now so that Malone doesn’t think all her friends are deserting her. I’m not deserting her. How can I be deserting her when we’re not really friends? We’re coworkers.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Well ... as far as coworkers go, she’s tolerable.”

Which probably meant Cella was as close to a friend as the Marauder was ever going to get from an actual teammate.

“Then I told her she should bring flowers from both of us and she said I should do it because it would be a nice gesture.” His scowl grew worse. “I don’t do nice gestures. I’m not a nice gesture kind of guy. Besides”—he looked the flowers over—“I think I may have gone a bit overboard.”

And Crush thought he was awkward in daily, non-cop-related situations.

“I’m sure if you explain all that to Cella, she’d totally understand.” And, even better, it would make her laugh her ass off.

“I guess. She gets me, ya know? She was probably one of the best enforcers I ever had. On most teams, I was not only the top scorer, I was the enforcer, too. But I didn’t have to worry about that with Malone around.”

“You should tell her that, too.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Then the Marauder just stood there. The guy with the fastest reaction time on record just stood there, beginning to look mildly panicked.

Not one to leave a fellow bear just hanging—even one who was only half bear—Crush pointed down the hallway. “I’ll show you where her room is.”

“Okay.”

They started walking, Novikov carrying that enormous bouquet of flowers.

“Speaking of enforcers,” Crush said into their moment of non-talking, “who’s going to replace Cella?”

“No one. Instead, I’m going to be stuck with a bunch of wannabes and MacRyrie, Van Holtz, and Bert.”

“Probably. Or you could ask Cella to help you out.”

“Help me out?”

“Let her pick out who should take her place. She’s got a good eye and she’ll worry if you don’t have someone she approves of backing you up.”

“Will that bother her? Asking her to do something after what happened?”

To Crush’s surprise, he didn’t think so. None of this would be easy for her, but for Cella, hockey went beyond just getting on the ice and playing. “I think Cella will handle whatever comes her way with great dignity.”

The Marauder stopped, looked over at Crush. “We’re talking about Cella Malone, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Dignity? Really?”

“Well, yeah. I know on the ice she can be ...” Crush’s words faded away when he saw little Josie suddenly run out into the middle of the hallway. She turned in a circle, her hands flapping wildly. She was panicking.

Crush walked toward her. “Josie? What’s wrong?”

Josie saw him and small hands reached for him, latching on to his forearm. “You’ve gotta get in there!”

She yanked him around the corner with an amazing amount of strength as Meghan ran to meet them.

“Thank God. I was just coming to look for you.”

“What’s going on?” Crush immediately thought of Baissier, worried she’d sent more trouble.

“Ma got a gun.”

Crush stopped, Novikov right beside him and still holding those stupid flowers. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah,” Dee-Ann Smith drawled, her back against the wall, an ice pack to her face. “My fault.”

“You brought a gun to the hospital?”

“Hoss, I bring a gun everywhere.”

Wait. Did she just call him “horse” or ... forget it. He didn’t have time for this.

“She’d already slapped around a couple of little nurses,” the She-wolf went on, “so they sent for the bigger ones. I was trying to get her back into bed, when she snatched my .45 from my holster.” She pulled the ice pack from her face, revealing a swollen eye, cheek, and jaw on the right side. “That’s when the bitch clocked me with my own damn gun.” She pressed the ice pack back to her wounded face. “That point, figured I’d better walk away instead of cuttin’ her throat with my knife. ’Cause I was sorely tempted.”

“Right.” Crush looked at Meghan. “She didn’t threaten you, did she?”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Good.”

“But she is holding a black bear hostage.”

Crush rubbed his face with both hands. “I was gone fifteen minutes and there’s now a hostage situation?”

Meghan patted his shoulder. “Welcome to my world, Detective Crushek.”

The door opened and Cella snarled, “Where the hell have you been?”

“I went to get something to eat.” Crush and a large moving crop of flowers behind him walked in. He rested his hands on his hips. “You’re standing,” the bear accused. “Why are you standing?”

“Calm down, I’m not putting any weight on my knee.” Instead, she leaned against the wall and kept her brace-covered leg stuck out in front of her. It wouldn’t be such a problem, either, if it wasn’t for the black bear she currently had in a headlock who kept sobbing. Geez. Punch a big black bear in the nose, and he becomes all sorts of weak.

“Put the black bear down, Cella.”

“He’s in this position because he put his hands on me. I don’t like to be bear-handled. Unless, of course, it’s by certain bears.” She grinned and winked at him.

Crush’s face turned red and he glanced over at Cella’s mother and aunts. They hadn’t left the room, but they hadn’t actually been much help, either. Then again, they knew how Cella was when she felt cornered, and why get into the middle of all this when they didn’t have to?

“What do you mean he put his hands on you?”

“He tried to pin me to the bed. And not for what I’d call a fun reason, either.”

“These people are trying to help you.”

“Helping me is leaving me alone. Not ripping the bandages off.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a bit of a problem,” Cella’s mother explained to Crush. “While her knee still has some work to do before she can walk on it, her skin healed so fast that the bandages are sort of ... attached now.”

“They were trying to rip the skin off my legs,” Cella clarified. “Without a painkiller.”

“They were actually going to give her one.” Barb smirked at her daughter. “But little Miss Overreaction decked the nurse before she had the chance to give her the shot. That poor bobcat.”

“Where’s Jai?” Crush asked Barb, which was starting to annoy Cella. Why was he talking to her mother?

“On her way.”

“Hello?” Cella snapped. “I am right here. Mind not ignoring me?”

Crush glanced at her. “How much longer can you stand on one leg like that?”

“No idea.”

“If you put weight on that leg too soon, Cella, you’re going to risk permanently damaging it.”

“That sounds like my problem, not yours.”

“Good point. Besides, who cares? You’re off the team anyway. Out on your ass. That’s gotta hurt.”

Cella’s eyes narrowed, locking on the bear, while her mother and aunts backed up a little farther.

Crush jerked his finger over his shoulder. “Mr. Novikov brought you flowers.”

“It’s Bo, you geek. Bo. Not Mr. Novikov.”

“He’s planning to go without an enforcer now that you’re out. I told him to go with Gene Martin.”

“Are you insane?” Cella demanded, wondering what had gotten into the bear.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Everything! First off, he’s second string for a reason. Second, he should still be in the minors. The only reason he’s not is because his father pulled strings to get him in. And third, he gets even the tiniest cut and he’s ready to go straight to a hospital bed. He’s weak and kind of stupid. There’s no way he can replace me.”

“Who would you suggest?”

“The Reed kid.”

The flowers were suddenly flung to the side, revealing Novikov. He’d brought her flowers? Really sweet, but she was sure he’d only done that because Blayne must have talked him into it.

“Reed?” Novikov growled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“The kid has real potential and wolves are great enforcers. Remember my Uncle Jimmy?”

“Uncle Jimmy?” Crush blinked. “Do you mean Jimmy Caufield?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jimmy ‘I maul because it pleases me’ Caufield? That Jimmy Caufield?”

“Well ... I just call him Uncle Jimmy. He’s one of my godfathers. He bought me my first car when I was stationed in Korea that year. Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Because I think part of me hates you right now.”

“You had to buy your own first car?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I’m ... forget it.”

Novikov pushed past Crush. “You can’t be serious about Reed.”

“I’m completely serious about Reed. Don’t let that hillbilly accent fool you—”

“Hey!” Dee-Ann complained from the hallway.

“—he’s good. And he could prove that to you if you gave him the chance.”

“No one gave me the chance and I proved myself.”

“Only because you’re a friendless loser who never worries about how he might come off to people.”

“I am not friendless.”

“Then name two friends you have that aren’t Blayne Thorpe.”

“Well—”

“And don’t mention those two Eurotrash foxes you sometimes have hanging around.”

“They’re not Eurotrash. They’re from Maine.”

“Whatever. Here. I’ll make it easy on you. Name one friend you have that’s not a fox financially living off you or a crazed wolfdog who thinks her derby team is more important than my hockey team.”

Novikov looked around, saw not only Cella waiting for his answer, but her mother and all her aunts. That’s when he suddenly pointed at Crush.

“Him.”

“Him? You don’t even know his name.”

“It’s Crushek.”

“First name?”

Watching Novikov try to remember what she was sure Blayne had told him, Cella bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing.

“Lou,” he finally answered. “Lou Crushek. Crush for short.” Novikov scowled at Crush. “Right?”

His mouth hanging open, Crush stared at his current favorite player. “Huh?”

“That’s your name, right? And we’re friends, right?” Novikov pushed between clenched teeth.

“Uh ... yeah. Okay. Sure.”

“See?” Novikov said to Cella, clearly feeling triumphant. “I have friends.”

“Clearly. It must also help he’s not really a threat since he doesn’t play hockey professionally. Unlike Reed.”

“Are you saying that some flea-bitten wolf referred to as ‘one of the Reed boys’ is a threat to me?”

“That’s why you’re not giving him a chance, right? Because you’re afraid he’ll make you look bad?”

“Like hell he’ll—”

“Then give him a shot.” Cella shrugged, trying to keep it all casual. “It couldn’t hurt.”

“He needs work.”

“Cella can help him,” Crush volunteered.

“I can?”

“You can. When your leg’s healed.”

“But I’m off the team.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t help the hillbilly.”

“Perhaps I’m too devastated by this entire tragedy to—”

“Yeah. Blah, blah, blah,” Novikov cut in. “The least you can do is work with the guy.”

Wondering how the hell she’d gotten backed into this corner by two idiot bears, Cella dropped the black bear in her arms so she could cross them over her chest to show exactly how annoyed she was.

“Cella?”

“Fine! I’ll do it. But give me a couple of weeks, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Excuse me.” Jai pushed her way into the room, her eyes going wide at the sight of Cella. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Then get your ass back there. I swear to God, I leave you alone for five goddamn minutes ...”

In the end, Crush sat with Cella while they removed the bandages from her leg and replaced the brace. He knew it was painful for her, but she handled it really well. It seemed that her issue was less about the removal of the bandages than about the way it was handled. Cella wasn’t much for getting pounced on.

Once she was back in bed, her leg propped up again, a healthy lunch on its way to her room, her mother and aunts off to buy her magazines and candy, Cella finally looked at Crush and accused, “You set me up.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“So is this some psychological thing? I’m supposed to help the team so that I can recover from my trauma?”

“I’m not really a therapist, Cella.” He relaxed back in the chair and put his feet up on the bed. “I just don’t think you should limit yourself.”

“Limit myself to what?”

“Either you play or you’re not involved with hockey.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Or you can just tell me.”

“After-school specials always say you need to learn life lessons on your own.”

“You’re actually using after-school specials as a guide to how to manage me?”

“It’s no stranger than Dez using National Geographic to handle her husband.”

She chuckled. “That makes a little more sense, I think.” She played with the blanket they’d put over her. “Are you heading home soon?”

“No.”

“You’re not?”

“Are you leaving tonight?”

“No. I’m not leaving until they’re sure the knee has healed up properly.”

“Then you have your answer.”

“You’re staying until my knee heals?”

“Pretty much.

“Think the hospital will let you stay?”

“No one’s asking me to leave.”

“Because you’re a bear?”

“ ’Cause I’m a cop. The benefits of the badge.”

“Must be nice.”

“I think so.”

Dee-Ann Smith walked into the room and Crush watched Cella bite her lip to prevent her from laughing at the poor She-wolf’s swollen face.

“Where’s my gun, feline?”

“Your gun?”

“Yeah. The one you assaulted me with and then used on that black bear.”

“I didn’t use the gun on the bear. I just had him in a headlock. He’s lucky I didn’t use a sleeper hold on him.”

“Gun?”

Cella shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen it since I hit you with it.”

“Trifling,” Smith snarled before crouching down and disappearing under the bed.

“You shouldn’t have gotten in the middle,” Cella said.

“I was trying to help your dumb ass, you ungrateful heifer.”

“Didn’t need your help, backwoods.”

Smith wiggled out from under the bed. She had her gun and tucked it back into its holster. “Don’t make me cranky, whore, or I’m liable to break that knee of yours all over again.

“Blow me.”

The She-wolf gave the finger and walked out. Two seconds later, she walked back in. “When you’re feelin’ better ... dinner?”

“Sure. Can I bring Crush?”

“Sure. See ya.”

“Yep.” Cella reached for the newspaper someone had left on her side table, checking out the front page news. “Don’t try to understand our friendship,” she said to Crush without looking up from her paper. “Just accept it.”

“I’m thinking that’s a good plan.”

Forced to stay in a hotel while a specialized crew cleaned up her house—they usually handled crime scenes—Peg was relieved to at least be back at her office. Her assistant told her she had lots of messages from “concerned bears,” but Peg was in no mood to talk to any of these people. She just had to get her paws on Whitlan.

For nearly fifteen years Whitlan had been one of the most important snitches for the FBI and NYPD. He’d ratted out his fellow scumbags with an almost childlike glee. And Peg had used him for almost the same thing. Only she hadn’t been trying to stop drugs from being smuggled into the country or guns moving from one state to another. Instead she’d used Whitlan to tell her who the hunters were and exactly where they were hunting. BPC had shut down big-game hunters all over the Eastern Seaboard. It was something that had made her invaluable to the bear community and gave her a name to be feared and respected among the other species. But what she hadn’t known, just like the FBI and the NYPD hadn’t known, was that Whitlan was ratting out any fellow scumbag that got in his way or fucked with his business, while constantly moving his own product and doing his own deals. He’d made a fortune running guns, selling dope, and trafficking humans. But his hobby? That was hunting shifters. Especially male lions and bears. So while Peg and BPC were taking out some single, lowlife hunter in Jersey that Whitlan just didn’t like, Whitlan was in Delaware or Connecticut or someplace else with a full hunting party, taking down some grizzly with four kids and a wife in Yonkers.

Unfortunately, by the time Peg had figured out what Whitlan was up to, he’d already hunted, killed, and stuffed one of the sons of Jebediah Meirston, patriarch of the Meirston bear clan, a very old and very powerful jewelry merchant family. Jebediah himself had come to Peg asking her to help him find the hunter who’d killed his boy, and considering how much money the Meirstons gave to BPC, her assistance was not in question. Yet the more Peg had dug into what happened, the more terrified she’d become, because she soon realized what a fool she’d been. Just like the FBI and the NYPD. Only when the news got out that she’d let some full-human play her, there’d be no trial, no newspaper headlines. She’d be lucky if there’d even be a grave because bears didn’t really tolerate stupidity. And God, she’d been so stupid.

Even worse was that as soon as she’d finally gotten a true lead on Whitlan, so had that goddamn boy. Anyone but Crushek. If it had only been one of the Group or those ridiculous cats, she wouldn’t have worried. But Crushek ... he was one of the few who could convince Meirston of her involvement because everyone knew Lou Crushek was “old-school honest.” Whatever the hell that meant.

The door to her office opened and Gray and Chazz walked in, ignoring her assistant’s requests for them to wait. Well, she’d known this would be coming....

“How could you?” Chazz demanded. “How could you do that?”

Considering that neither of these idiots knew what was really going on, she could see why they didn’t understand how Lou could bring her down. And although killing their brother would do nothing but make matters worse for her, she’d had to do something and she’d gone with crippling him. Not hurting his arms and legs because that wouldn’t stop him, either, but his little feline girlfriend? That was his weakness. So she’d done what she’d had to do.

“Look, boys, I’m sorry about your brother—”

Chazz scowled. “Our brother?”

“Forget our brother,” Gray snapped. “What about the goddamn team? How could you do that to the Carnivores?”

Peg sighed. Yeah, she’d been right from the beginning. Of the three, the contrary one got all the brains.