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?”

“Yourgun?”

“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.