Bear Meets Girl (Pride #7)(21)

“I need a boyfriend or my aunts are bringing in a matchmaker so they can possibly hook me up with a distant relative.”
With a snort, Crush picked up Lola and put her in front of her food bowl.
“What’s that mean?” Malone asked.
“It means you’re insane. I thought you just acted crazy for the crowd. But no”—he faced Malone, briefly studied her pretty face—“you’re really crazy.”
“Crazy’s relative,” the woman with Malone remarked. When Crush only stared at her, she smiled and added, “I should introduce myself. I’m Jai Davis.”
Crush tipped his head to the side and studied her. “Jai Davis? Head of the medical team for the Carnivores?”
“You know the head of our medical team?”
He shrugged at Malone’s question. “They mention her at the beginning of every game.”
“Wow,” Malone said, eyes wide. “You really are a fan.”
“Why are you here?” he barked again, annoyed with having strangers in his house. “In my space?”
“I’ll tell ya what ya can do with your space—”
“Cella.”
Hearing her friend’s voice, Malone took a deep breath and said, “I need a favor.”
“From me?”
“Yes. From you.”
Crush sized the feline up before answering, “No.”
“No? What do you mean no?”
“I mean no.”
“But I haven’t even told you what it is yet.”
“I know. But I don’t deal with crazy in my private life.”
Malone crossed her arms in front of her chest, gold eyes locked on him until she snapped at her friend, “And you can stop laughing.”
Her hand over her mouth, Dr. Davis choked and mumbled, “Excuse me,” before quickly walking out of the kitchen.
“Thank you very much, cop, for embarrassing me!”
Crush gawked down at the feline, mouth open.
“What are you looking at me like that for?”
“I embarrassed you? Is that what you just said to me?”
“Your point?”
“You’ve been embarrassing me since I met you. It’s like your goal or something.”
“My goal is to get you to loosen up. You’re so uptight.”
“Why do you care if I’m uptight or not?”
“Because I’m a caring and giving person.”
Imitating her stance, Crush crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, she finally admitted, “All right, fine. In truth, I just like how your face gets all red when I embarrass you.”
“Honesty. How nice of you to finally use some.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I only torment those I actually like.”
“Why would that bit of information make me feel better? That’s like saying ‘I only set fire to the ones I love.’ ”
“It’s nothing like that. I just think you take yourself too seriously. Although, after meeting your brothers, I can see why you’re more tense than most polar bears.”
“Tenser.”
“What?”
“It’s not ‘more tense,’ it’s ‘tenser.’ ”
“Really? You’re correcting my grammar?”Frustrated again—because she was kind of right—Crush snapped, “It’s not like I invited you over here to abuse you about your grammar. You came over uninvited.”
“Because I need your help.”
“In some wacky scheme?”
“Of course it’s not wacky. I just need you to pretend to be my boyfriend so my aunts don’t bring in a matchmaker in the hopes of getting me married off to my cousin.”
As the feline stated her purpose in coming to his house, Dr. Davis walked back into the kitchen. But she took one look at Crush’s flabbergasted expression, covered her mouth, turned, and ran out again, her laughter floating in from his dining room.
“You really think that’s a reasonable request, don’t you?” the bear asked her.
“Define reasonable.”
“Not crazy?”
“What do you mean by crazy?”
The bear rubbed his eyes with both hands and Cella marveled at the size of them. Although the way his biceps bulged kind of pulled her away from his hands.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Realizing he was now watching her, Cella answered honestly, “You’re kinda hot.”
“Is this your way of seducing me into doing what you want?”
“No, I only seduce for fucking. But for you to pretend to be my boyfriend, I was going to offer access to the owners’ box for the rest of the season. But in this particular instance, I was actually doing neither. Simply noting your hotness.”
“Okay. But you are willing to bribe me into being your boyfriend. Something a cop always loves to hear.”
“It’s not like I’m trying to bribe you into doing something illegal. That would be wrong.”
Jai stood in the doorway again, but after a moment of wide-eyed staring, she shook her head and said, “I’ll wait in the dining room for you, Cella, because I ... I ... I just can’t.” She burst out laughing and again walked away.
“How do you get rational, well-respected people involved in your insanity? I mean is it something you taught yourself to do or is it part of your sociopathic nature?”
“First off, I’m not a sociopath. I looked closely at that checklist and I’m in the clear.”
“Checklist? You mean the Robert D. Hare Psychopathy Checklist?”
“I don’t know. It was online.”
“But being a sociopath was such a concern for you that you felt the need to check it out online?”
“Once, but I’m in the clear. So you gonna help me or not?”
He leaned in and said, “Not.”
“So you’re just going to make me have to beat up an old woman?” 
Startled, the bear stood tall again. “When did beating up old people come into play? How is that an option?”
“I didn’t say that was an option. She’s just going to make me do it.”
“You’re blaming the potential victim of your elder abuse?”
“First off—”
“Again with the first off?”
“—she’s only ‘elder’ in the strictest sense.”
“You mean by actually being old?”
“And second, I’m the one being abused.”
“And you get there how?”
“Because she’s the one who’s going to challenge me to a bare-knuckle brawl when I refuse to marry my cousin just so she can ruin my relationship with my kid.”
“So if anyone comes up to you and says, ‘I challenge you to a brawl,’ you just have to do it? Is that how this works?”
“No. Of course not.” Jeez. Where did the bear get his crazy ideas? “But if my aunt officially challenges me to a brawl, I have to say yes or lose respect among the Malones.”
The bear placed the palms of his hands against his eyes and again rubbed them. “Why?” he finally asked.
“Because that’s how Malones settle things.”
“But that’s not normal.”
“Define normal.”
“Not you!” He dropped his hands, black eyes scowling. “Your world of brawling with old people is not normal. Verifying from the psychopath checklist that you’re not a psychopath is not normal. Coming to my house on a random Sunday to bribe me to be your boyfriend is not normal!”
“You wouldn’t be my boyfriend, just my pretend boyfriend.”
Roaring, the bear suddenly picked Cella up, tossing her over his shoulder.
“Hey! What the hell?”
Ignoring her, he stalked through his house until he went out on his porch and down his steps. There, on his lawn, is where he dumped her.
Crush walked back into his house and slammed the front door, locking it. Then he stalked back to his kitchen and stood there for a moment to get his raging annoyance under control before he walked back into his dining room.
Dr. Davis still sat at his dining room table, all calm and controlled. He could see the mountain lion side of her, watchful but not panicked.
He sat down across from her. “I’m sorry about—”
“No apologies, please. We did come here uninvited.”
“I just don’t know how to ... she’s just so ... my life is usually so ...”
“I get it. Your life is quiet and normal and Cella is anything but.”
“Actually, up until about two weeks ago, my life was kind of a nightmare. Until my recent transfer, I was undercover. Every day that I woke up, I didn’t know if I’d see the end of it. Would they realize I’d tapped their phones? Did they have a cousin that maybe I’d previously arrested? Would they find out I had photographed them dealing? But all that seems less of a challenge compared to her.”
“So in other words when you come home you like peace and quiet?”
“I don’t know. I will say that I’d like to come home and not see someone beating up on the elderly.”
The doctor laughed, gold eyes bright. “I understand that, which is what Cella wants, too. She’d really rather not get into it with her aunt. But Deirdre doesn’t make it easy on her or anyone.”
“This is going to sound really wrong but ...”
“Why am I friends with her?”
“You two couldn’t be more different. Unless I’m missing something.”“You’re not missing anything. We’re both felines, but when she shifts she’s four hundred pounds and nearly nine feet long from nose to tail. I’m one hundred and fifty pounds and not even seven feet. She’s loud, I’m skulky. She loves to attack from behind. I’m known to pounce from overhead.”