“No, no. I mean ... when you got here last night. You weren’t your usual scowling, non-talkative self. You seemed a more depressed scowling, non-talkative self. Anything I can help you with?”
Crush locked gazes with her, let out a breath. “Not unless you can get me out of this.”
“Get you out of ... oh.” She smirked. “Heard about the transfer, huh?”
“Yeah. I heard about it. I have very good connections. Now can you get me out or not?”
“What makes you think I can get you out?”
“Heard you had some pull.”
“Crushek, in the NYPD’s shifter division, I’m just the crazy full-human that apparently smells like cat and that everybody steers clear of when I get pissed off.”
He had to laugh. “Predators always know when to run, MacDermot.”
Cella sat back, smirking at her nearly eighteen-year-old daughter, Meghan. Okay. So Cella had lied to the bear. She couldn’t help it. Watching the look of horror on his face when he’d thought she’d left her toddler daughter all by herself while she went out partying kind of made her morning.
Well, actually ... waking up with all that delicious naked bear flesh had made her morning. The rest of it was really just the icing on top of that cake.
Examining the coloring book her daughter was working on, Cella stated, “I see they’re really challenging you in that private school I’m paying for.”
“I was watching the kids this morning,” Meghan said about her young cousins, her attention still locked on what she was doing, “and we were coloring.”
“But the kids are gone.”
“I don’t like to start things and not finish.” She carefully added a little orange to the sun at the top of the page, of course making sure to not go outside the lines. Cella fondly remembered her own coloring books. Nothing had been in the lines. She hated lines. Hated limits. Amazing since Cella had done so well in the Marines. No one thought she would, especially her family. They were so certain she’d wash out during Basic that they didn’t even complain when she said she’d signed up. In fact ... they’d all laughed at her. “Our Cella Malone? A Marine? Yeah. Right.” But the Marines had given Cella the freedom she couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. Freedom from her family. From the Malones. At least for a little while.
“There.” Her daughter pushed the coloring book away. “Done.” She placed the crayon on the table. When Cella was gone, Meghan would come back and put all the crayons back in the box—in their original order. “Did you have breakfast?”
“Well—”
“I’ll make you something.”
“Why do you bother asking me when you’re going to make me something anyway?”
“It’s polite.” Meghan leaned in and kissed Cella on the cheek. “Did you have a good time last night at your party?”
“Eh. It was okay. Mostly full-human cops and their full-human wives.”
“Your cat killer friends and that dog didn’t come?”
“First off, they, we, are not cat killers. If you want to be accurate, we’re killer cats. And that dog has saved my life a few times. Respect that.”
“I don’t know why you still do that job. You don’t need the money anymore.”
“What? You think Boston University is going to pay for itself? Speaking of which, did you get that paperwork in?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I do not want to pay for an apartment in that area, Meghan. Make sure you get a dorm room.”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“Why are you getting so cranky?” Cella frowned. “You have been so cranky lately.”
“I haven’t been cranky.”
“You’ve been totally cranky. At least to me.”
“I don’t mean to be. It’s just very stressful right now.”
“It’s your final semester, Meghan. You’ve already been accepted to college and you’re doing great in school. You shouldn’t be stressing about anything. Just relax. Try and have a good time. I honestly don’t know where you get this intensity from. It’s definitely not a Malone thing. And you didn’t get it from your father. I remember him when he was seventeen.”
“You’re not going to tell me another Dad-and-hash story are you? Because I don’t want to think about my father as some loser.”
“Your father was never a loser. Besides, he grew out of that phase. Look at him now. A responsible accountant about to marry the feline of his dreams.”
As always when Cella mentioned Brian’s upcoming wedding, their daughter got the strangest expression on her face. Cella had begun to think she was upset about the whole event. Seemed typical for a teenager to feel that way but ... but Meghan was far from typical. And she had to know this didn’t change anything. Not between her and her dad.
Cella tossed her shoes up on the table and caught hold of her daughter’s hands. “Talk to me, Meghan.”
“About what?”
“I mention your dad, you get weird.” Cella tilted her head to the side, studying the beautiful girl she adored. “Is it the wedding?”
“No, of course not.”
“You know this doesn’t change anything between you and your dad. He loves you, Meghan, and so does Rivka.”
“You just like Rivka because she’s another cat killer.”
“You love Rivka and we are not cat killers. Stop calling us that. We are protectors of the cat nation. Like the Marines or—”
“The C.I.A.?”
“Well, you don’t have to get nasty.” Tired of this same damn argument—Meghan, like Cella’s mother, Barb, was not a fan of Cella’s career as a Katzenhaus contractor—Cella released her daughter’s hands and grabbed her shoes. “You know, Meghan, I’m just trying to be helpful and let you know I’m here for you.”
Meghan rolled her eyes. “Ma ... is there anything about me—or you, for that matter—that screams let’s sit down and talk about our feelings?”
“I’m trying a different approach. I’m trying to be ... ya know ... a proper mother. Thoughtful and caring and ... and all that other shit.”
“Ma, being a hockey enforcer for a guy nicknamed the Marauder, killing on order from a thousand yards away, and being the kind of mom I don’t want my male friends around because all they do is stare at your breasts and drool ... these are your strengths. Let’s not stray too far from that. Okay? Great. Now I’m going to make you some waffles. You’ll eat, and then you can go upstairs and shower off that funk of ... of ... ?”
“Bear,” Cella admitted.
“Right. Bear. Yeah, you can go wash that off and you and I will pretend we never had this discussion, okay? Great. Thanks!”
Cella watched her daughter head back into the house they shared with Cella’s parents. Cella had known all those years ago when she headed off to the Marines that she was taking a risk. The risk of losing her daughter. But what was she supposed to do? Raise another Malone She-tiger? So the kid could end up sitting around all day with all the other “aunts,” plotting and planning?
“Just a few more months, Malone,” she reminded herself. Just a few more months and the kid would be out of here and off to college, to do whatever she wanted. Meghan’s whole world was open in front of her with absolutely no limitations. And that’s why Cella had risked everything. Some days she still risked everything. And she’d keep risking everything until her kid had everything she’d ever dreamed of.
Picking up her shoes, Cella headed into the house. Her mother, rushing out the side door attached to the garage to handle some rich full-human’s wedding, quickly kissed her on the cheek.