Beast Behaving Badly

  He crouched in front of her, the dog under the couch whimpering and moving farther away. Good thing the couch was so big. “This is true, but I’d hate for these to go to waste.” He brought around the box he’d been hiding behind his back and placed it on her lap.

  She stared down at the box and sighed. “This isn’t a clock, is it?”

  “No. This isn’t a clock. I think you’ll like it.”

  Blayne didn’t seem too convinced, but she pulled off the top and moved the tissue paper around until she gasped and grinned. “Oh, my God!”

  “They should fit. Norm had to search like crazy to find your size, though.”

  “They’re ice skates.”

  “They’re hockey skates.”

  She held them up. “Sparkly red hockey skates.”

  “They didn’t have pink.”

  “I can’t play hockey in pink, isn’t that the law?” She dropped the skates in the box, tossed the box aside, and threw her arms around his neck. She hugged him tight, and he’d never been so glad he’d followed a whim before.

  “Thank you so much! I love them!”

  He hugged her back and kissed her neck. “Good. Now let’s get going.”

  She pulled back. “I’m still not sure what you want me to do. I haven’t gone ice skating since I was thirteen when Gwenie decided it was a good idea to teach me some derby moves. That humiliation alone was enough to ensure I never got on ice again.”

  “Well, I have uses for you and your exemplary stick skills.”

  “Such as?”

  He grinned. “I need a goalie.”

  What the hell had she been thinking?

  “Eek!”

  Why did she agree to this?

  “Ack!”

  Why didn’t she just say “no”? Or even “hell no”?

  “Ow!”

  Like her father had constantly told her, “You don’t think before you do, then you’re shocked when you end up on the wrong side of a shit pile.” As always, the cranky old wolf was right, and she’d ended up on the wrong side of a big, fat shit pile.

  Blayne tried to duck, but the hard piece of plastic slammed into the back of her head. “That’s it!” she roared, positive her skull must have cracked in several places from that hit. What good was a helmet if it couldn’t protect her precious cranium from small, flying, lethal objects? “That is it! I’m done!”

  She tried to shake off the two different gloves she had to wear, one for blocking and one for catching the puck, but he’d taped the damn things on her with duct tape since they were too big.

  After wearing nothing more than elbow and knee pads and some glitter with her derby uniform of tiny shorts and tank tops, she felt completely weighed down by the hockey equipment. Even worse, she had to use Bo’s grade school stuff, which was still too big for her! Plus she couldn’t see with the damn helmet that kept sliding all over the place. Christ! How big was this guy’s head anyway? She did, however, have the lovely bright red—and sparkly!—skates he’d gotten for her. She loved the skates. But that was all she loved about this vicious, violent sport!

  “I can’t do this anymore!” She struggled to get the helmet off, not easy when she couldn’t get off the gloves, which meant she couldn’t get a grip on the strap holding the helmet in place.

  Bo skated by her, not appearing to weigh his just-shy-of four hundred pounds by the way he managed to glide.

  “Wuss,” he teased as he glided by again.

  She snarled, her arms dropping to her sides. “I am not a wuss. I amsimply tired of being pummeled by that damn puck.” For hours! He’d been torturing her for hours! She was hungry and cranky and covered in little puck-size bruises!

  “Just a girl,” Bo tossed out as he skated around her in sexy little circles. She couldn’t explain why they were sexy, but damn him they were! “Can’t play in the man sports. You’ll need to stick with your little girly derby.”

  Blayne swiped up the junior hockey stick and swung at Bo. He caught the curved end of her stick with his own and skated backward, pulling her along with him.

  “You,” she hissed, “couldn’t handle derby. The Babes would eat you alive and you know it.”

  “Could I wear those shorts?”

  She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. The image of him in the Assault and Battery Park Babes short-shorts would stick with her for eternity.

  Bo pulled Blayne around the pond without looking behind him. He’d worked this pond so much as a kid, he instinctively knew its dimensions, so he didn’t need to look.

  “You trained on this pond, didn’t you?” Blayne asked. “When you were a kid?”

  “Yup. I came out here every day before school and after, during the winter.”

  “You miss it, don’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “You should visit more. I’m sure your uncle would love to have you.”

  “Blayne—”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Everyone loves having you back. You’re the town hero.”

  “And you know this because…”

  “Bob Sherman told me.”

  So startled, Bo almost tripped. “Bob Sherman?” he asked. “Who runs the gas station?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why were you talking to him?”

  “I bought bottled water from him this morning during my run—I put it on your account by the way—after I chatted with Craig and Luther Vanders outside of the farmer’s market.”

  “You talked to Craig and Luther?”

  “Yeah. They’re really nice. Gave me free fruit.”

  “They gave you free fruit?”

  “Yup. I offered to run back to Grigori’s place to get some money, but they said it wasn’t necessary. They really are sweet.”

  And stingy. Craig and Luther were stingy bears. They didn’t give anything away for free. A pear, a strawberry, a peanut. Nothing!

  Instead of asking about the Vanders brothers, he asked about Bob Sherman, also referred to as Mean Old Bob Sherman or That Old Bastard Bob Sherman. “You talked to Bob Sherman? And he…talked back?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t feel bad because you can’t do that. Not everyone has that skill.”

  “Can’t do what?”

  “Be chatty and friendly. I’m a firm believer not everyone needs to be, and it really irritates me when people try to force others to do it. Like they’re not being normal if they’re not talking, talking, talking.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “More important,” she went on since nothing ever deterred the woman from her ultimate goal, “If you’re staying with your uncle when you visit, you won’t have to talk to anyone but him. And the most you two do in the mornings is grunt at each other. So it’s a win-win for both of you.”

  “You’re not clear on the whole ‘letting it go’ concept, are you?”

  “Uh… Bo?”

  “Okay, fine.” He didn’t want to argue with her. They were having such a good time, why ruin it? And let’s face it, if he hadn’t snuffed the life from her for blowing her nose on his shirt, he had to be crazy about her. That was the only explanation that made sense to him. Of course, how she felt about him, he still didn’t know. “I’ll visit Grigori more often.” Not hard since he just had to do it more than once in ten years to keep his promise, but those were little details she didn’t need to know.

  “No, no,” she said, frowning. “I don’t mean—” She stopped skating, bringing him up short. He was impressed by her technique and about to tell her that when she motioned toward the far side of the pond with a small tilt of her head.

  Bo looked across the ice…and sighed. “Shit.”

  They were all standing on the outside of the pond, wearing hockey uniforms from the town’s weekend team. A group of locals who got with other locals to play when the mood struck them. Most of them bears that Bo had grown up with. If this were Ursus County’s main la
ke, about ten miles from where they were standing, Bo wouldn’t have thought much about the locals showing up. But this pond was on Grigori’s territory, and no one would come out here without an invitation because no one wanted to fuck with Grigori.

  Snarling a little, Bo glared down at Blayne. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”

  “I thought they’d give me more time to talk you into it.” At least she didn’t try to lie to him.

  “Is this why everyone’s been so nice to me today?”

  “It was my only stipulation. But I told them I couldn’t promise that you’d definitely do it.”

  Which was why they were doing it this way. Bears. Sneaky.

  “Blayne Thorpe,” Raymond Chestnut called out. “Is Mr. Important still up for a little friendly game then? Like you said? Or is the tiny feline ready to run off into the woods and hide?”

  Blayne scowled and Bo admitted, “Actually, that’s him being nice.”

  “Oh.” Her scowled faded. “All right then.” She gazed up at him. “So are you going to play?”

  “I really don’t want to.”

  “Think of it this way, Bo, a couple of hours out of your life that they’ll remember for the rest of theirs? Is that really too much for you?”

  She could have hit him with a crowbar and it wouldn’t have slammed into him with the same force the way her simple words did. Because she was right.

  He stroked his hand down her cheek and yelled over his shoulder, “The feline is in.”

  The boys cheered, and the blinding grin he got from Blayne made every second of the next few torturous hours worth it.

  “But I’ll expect a backrub when we get home,” he told her, skating with her over to the snow and ice covered dirt so he could help her get her skates and pads off.

  “Okay,” she replied, “but only if I can be naked when I’m doing it.”

  He didn’t know why her words caught him off guard, but he ended up face down on the ice anyway. Shocked, Blayne stared down at him for several seconds before she raised both arms in the air and began singing that song from the movie “Rocky” that she still didn’t know the words to. “Flying somethin’ now… Feelin’ somethin’ now… lalalala now…”

  Chestnut skated up behind him and, grabbing hold of the back of Bo’s jersey, lifted him to his feet.

  “Don’t worry, Novikov. If that one there wanted to rub me down naked, I’d have tripped over my own skates, too. Although”—he watched Blayne badly skate around the ice—“I’d insist on no singing, if I were you.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The Canadians showed up to be the opposition. Mostly polars and grizzlies that they’d all known and grown up with over the years.

  They decided on positions and agreed to a few basic rules that included no permanent injuries before separating and heading to their team goals.

  That was when Bo noticed them. How could he not when it was pretty much the entire town—Ursus County and the local Canadians—sitting around waiting for the game to start. He quickly scanned the crowd and saw Blayne standing by herself. He skated to the edge of the pond and motioned her over.

  “What’s this?” he asked when she stood in front of him.

  “Um…”

  He took off his helmet and shook out his hair. “No ‘um.’ What is this?”

  “They just showed up.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not sure I’m appreciating your tone lately.”

  “My tone?”

  “It implies I’m not being truthful.”

  “Maybe we should ask the chief and my uncle about how truthful you are, she of the crocodile tears.”

  “You’re enjoying that way too much.”

  “I guess I kinda am. Besides,” he leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, “I like that you have a devious side, Blayne Thorpe.”

  Blayne grinned. “Your accent’s coming back.”

  “What accent?”

  “Now who’s not being truthful?” She stepped away from him and turned.

  “No kiss?” he called after her as she walked away, catching everyone’s attention.

  Blayne looked at him over her shoulder. “Did you have to yell that?”

  “Is that a no?”

  “Yes. It’s a no. No kiss for you.”

  “Oh, come on!” everyone called out, startling Bo.

  “You can’t leave him hanging like that!”

  “Kiss him!”

  “Go on and kiss him, cutie!”

  Then someone began to clap and chant, “Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him!” And everyone joined in.

  Blayne marched back over to him. “I blame you for this.”

  “You’re the one getting to know everybody. If I had my way, we would have never left my uncle’s house.” He leaned down and added in a whisper, “Or my bed.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll still be there when we get home tonight.”

  She reached up, placing her hands on his shoulders, and pulling him down until she could reach him while on the tips of her toes. Blayne kissed him and the whoops and catcalls faded to nothing more than background noise as he pulled her in close and kissed her back.

  “They’re all staring at us, aren’t they?” Blayne asked when they finally separated.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not shy.” She winked at him and headed over to the residents who had lawn chairs and benches out for everyone to sit on. Marci had saved a seat for her.

  “You two are looking happy,” she said.

  “Not as happy as Grigori was when he got home this morning.”

  “Uh… um…” Flustered, Marci immediately turned back to the pond where the two teams were warming up. “This is very exciting,” she rambled on. “Very few of us have seen Bold Novikov play in years.”

  “You guys don’t have a professional team nearby?”

  “Only minor teams from other bear towns come this far north. The professional teams won’t come out here because we’re not very welcoming of other species.”

  “Oh.” Blayne thought about that a moment. “But everyone welcomed me.”

  Marci’s smile returned. “That we did.” She leaned in and whispered, “The whole town’s talking about how you handled Kerry-Ann. She’s usually real intimidating.”

  “Is that because of her beady little eyes?” Blayne asked in a whisper. “Because with a little makeup, I could totally help her with that.”

  Marci took Blayne’s hand between both of hers, “I am learning to adore you, Blayne Thorpe.”

  His uncle, the only one anyone trusted to be ref of this game since he was too hard on Bo to ever ignore his mistakes, was about to drop the puck when they heard all the laughter. They briefly paused to focus over at the onlookers.

  “Seems that tiny girlfriend of yours is fittin’ in pretty well, Bold Novikov,” Raymond remarked, obviously impressed.

  “She does have a way about her.”

  “It must be the dog in her, because wolves…”

  Both teams sneered in agreement about wolves until Grigori leaned in and asked, “Are you two girls done talkin’ or should we forget all this and start braiding each other’s hair instead?”

  Bo focused back on the game, doing his best to push Blayne out of his mind. Not easy when he could still taste her on his lips.

  His uncle dropped the puck and Bo went for it, trying to get control of it. Bad move. What he should have done was remember how these impromptu pond games were played. If he had, that Canadian polar would have never been able to bash Bo’s skull in with his stick before skating off with Bo’s puck.

  Blayne cringed when she saw Bo go down from that hockey stick to the head.

  Looks like dinner tonight will be clear soups. Or straight intravenous feeding.

  Bo slowly sat up, shaking his big head. Probably all that ringing in his ears was confusing him. But it didn’t last long. His head came up and he snarled, his gaze locking on the polar who took his
puck and was busy trying to get past Bo’s goalie.

  Bo got to his feet.

  “Uh-oh,” Marci said to the woman beside her. “His tusks are out.”

  “They’re not tusks,” Blayne argued. “They’re fangs. Like the mighty saber-toothed cat of yore.”

  “Yore?”

  “He probably got it from his ancient Mongolian ancestors,” Blayne added.

  “I doubt it,” a sow sitting behind them said. “Saber-toothed cats were from a long-extinct subfamily of cats. Mostly from North and South America. Bold Novikov’s lion kin come from ancient China but I believe can be traced back to ancient Africa where the first…”

  The sow’s lecture faded out when Blayne turned around and stared at her.

  Grinning, Marci said, “This is my daughter, Rebecca. Did I mention she has her Ph.D. in paleontology?”

  Now Blayne stared at Marci.

  “Like ‘Jurassic Park,’ dear.”

  “Ohhhh. Right.” Because that was a movie she’d seen. “Well, whatever. They’re fangs, as far as I’m concerned. Not tusks. He’s not a walrus.”

  “Although he’s been known to eat walrus.”

  Blayne shuddered. “Thanks for that, Marci.”

  “Just involving myself in the conversation, dear.”

  Right. Sure she was.

  Blayne returned her attention to the game, but of course that was around the time she was hit with a splash of blood across her face and neck from whatever Bo did to some poor Canadian polar that got in his way.

  Trying hard not to laugh, Marci reached into her large designer bag that was part traveling medical bag and part purse, pulling out a large white cloth.

  “You,” Marci coughed back a laugh, “poor dear. Let me clean you off.”

  “It’s always nice to know that morbid embarrassment follows me wherever I go.”

  During a timeout, Bo skated over to the sideline where Blayne was waiting.

  “Where did all that blood come from?” he asked.

  She glared at him, but didn’t answer. Since she seemed relatively unharmed, he didn’t worry about it.