Yet even though the guy was really scary looking, Cella just found all that intimidating scowling and raging anger so cute. Like teddy bear cute. Plus, he was so damn uptight! She didn’t know bears could be so uptight. Unless they were startled into a rage, bears were usually the most laid-back of all shifters, except lion males. Although Cella felt there was a huge difference between laid-back and just plain lazy.
Even worse for that poor bear was how all that uptightness brought out Cella’s worst feline qualities. Honestly, the more uptight the bear became, the more she playfully swatted at him. She couldn’t help herself. He was just so cute in his moral outrage!
“Cella!” MacDermot demanded, also now laughing. “What the hell did you do to the poor guy? I’ve never seen him look like that before. He was about to blow a vein in that big bear head of his!”
It was more than she could take. Cella rolled off the bed, hitting the floor, which miraculously made her hangover go far, far away.
CHAPTER TWO
Crush was dreaming about breaking through thick ice, pounding on it with his front legs, the seal under the ice giving him the flipper. Little bastard. But then the seal tapped at the ice. Once. Twice. Okay, so now he was taunting him?
“Crushek!”
Crush opened his eyes, looked around. Shit.
He turned the truck’s ignition key to get enough power to roll down the window. “MacDermot.”
She scowled and at first he thought she was angry. Then he realized she was just making fun of him. “Crushek,” she said, imitating his voice, then laughed, and rested her arms on the sill. “How long have we known each other, Crushek?”
“I don’t know.” He thought a minute. “Since the Evans case?”
“Wow. The guys were right.”
“Right about what?”
“That you mark time by cases, not by years.”
“Yeah, well ... I guess.” Crush heard another knock and looked forward. “There’s a cub on my hood.”
“We were going for a walk so that his father could get a little more sleep. When my boy’s up, he wants everyone up. And gets mighty vocal when they’re not.”
Smiling at the baby male lion, Crush asked, “Already roaring, is he?”
MacDermot sighed. “Pretty much.”
“We’re here, Miss Malone.”
Cella opened her eyes and looked around. Yep. She was here. “Here” being the Long Island town where she’d grown up surrounded by her family. To most people growing up “surrounded by family” probably meant they’d grown up with a mother, father, maybe a couple of siblings. If they had an extended family, perhaps a grandparent, a sickly aunt, or an orphaned cousin. But that’s most people. Cella wasn’t most people. She was a Malone. Not any Malone, either, but one of the Malones.
Sitting up and yawning, Cella pushed open the car door and stepped out. “Thanks, Mario.” Katzenhaus Securities, KZS, was the international feline protection agency she’d worked for since she’d been discharged from the Marines. And of all KZS’s perks (and there were many), Cella’s favorite was the KZS car service. They used the best and fastest vehicles in the world and manned them with armed and well-trained felines. It was perhaps one of the best limo jobs one could find, paying an incredible salary, but it was also one of the most deadly. Cella didn’t like to think about the number of times she’d run back to her car after she’d taken care of a contract, only to find her driver dead in the front seat. This scenario especially sucked when she was in unfamiliar or foreign territory.
Waving once more at Mario and holding her high heels and her purse in her hands, she walked down the street toward her parents’ house. Mario could have driven her all the way to her house, but no one who knew the truth about this block would come down it. And the driver, a bobcat from Massapequa, knew about her street.
“Morning, Cella!” cheery voices called out.
“Hey, Aunt Kathleen, Aunt Marie, Aunt Karen.”
It must have snowed last night, but not hard. Still, the cold felt good against her bare feet. This was her kind’s time of year. The lions and cheetahs could have their summers because the Siberian tigers had the winter. Snow, bracing cold, harsh winds. Lovely.
“Morning to you, little Marcella.”
“Morning, Uncle Aidan, Uncle Ennis, Uncle Tommy.”
Cella reached her parents’ home and went through the side gate into the yard. She walked around the side of the five-bedroom house and into the back. As comfortable with the freezing cold as Cella, her daughter was outside at one of the patio tables by herself, a tall glass of milk nearby, crayons all over the top along with coloring books. Cella sat down next to her, leaned over, and pinched her beautiful child’s cheek.
“How’s my little baby girl?”
Gold eyes just like her own looked Cella over before asking in a decidedly non-childlike voice, “Nice dress, Ma. Still working the docks?”
Smart. Ass.
Crush leaned out the window a bit, looking down at MacDermot’s feet. Sitting quietly there were her four dogs. Waiting. For her. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s a skill. I’ll admit.”
Crush settled back. “So you just happened to be passing?”
“No. We usually walk the other way. But one of my neighbors called. She knows I’m a cop. Apparently there’s a meth dealer hanging around, threatening everyone. A big, old scary guy in a blue pickup.”
“I am not old. I’m not even forty. Unlike others.”
“Discuss my true age at your own risk, buddy. But I’m sure it’s the hair. Although they got the ‘big scary’ part right.”
“Thanks.”
She laughed and handed him something wrapped in a paper towel. “A corn muffin?”
“I didn’t have any honeybuns.”
“I am not a grizzly, MacDermot. I’m a polar, and I am not a fan of honey.”
“Okay. Well, I didn’t have any walrus blubber hanging around, either.”
God, he was being an ass. “Mac—”
“I just figured youse might be hungry.”
Uh-oh. He knew what the appearance of that Bronx accent meant. Of course, he only noticed it because MacDermot’s time away from New York when she was a Marine had given her some kind of weird, flat accent. But when she got pissed ... look out. Even worse, she’d started pointing a gloved finger at him.
“I was just trying to be fuckin’ nice. Next time I won’t fuckin’ bother!”
MacDermot’s dogs snarled at him, and the cub slashed at his window while giving what could only be called a baby-roar.
Crush turned to the full-human and raised a brow. “You have quite the control of the wild kingdom here, MacDermot.”
She snorted, and they both laughed. Okay. He did like MacDermot. She was one of the few people—full-human or shifter—who didn’t get on his nerves.
“I’m sorry,” Crush finally admitted. “Jell-O shots are not my friend.”
“I told Mace not to have those. I was like, ‘What are we? A frat?’ Hey, do you want to come in for breakfast?”
“Nah. I actually need to get going. Gotta game today.”
“God, are you still playing on that shitty hockey team?”
He wanted to argue with her about the level of skill his NYPD shifter team had, but the reality was ... they really did suck. The shifter firefighters and EMT guys kicked their asses constantly.
She patted his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just hungover. When I got out here, I just meant to close my eyes for a few minutes and before I knew it—”