Alpha Bear Detective: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (8 page)

Maria froze, all of last night’s events suddenly rushing back to the forefront of her mind. Could someone from Humans Against Shifters have followed her or Laura here? Could they know the address somehow? Was this another attack—getting her to come to the door and then shooting her? Would they try that in broad daylight like this?

There was another knock, and then a voice called, “Hello? It’s Levi.”

It felt like every one of Maria’s muscles relaxed at once—and then were taken over by a different kind of tension. She clutched at her coffee cup to keep from dropping it, and called, “Come in!”

She heard him unlock the door and come inside, and he poked his head around a couple of corners before finding her in the kitchen, sipping her coffee.

He stopped abruptly when he saw her. “Uh.”

Maria’s face grew hot as she remembered what she was wearing. And
not
wearing. She must look like Businesswoman Barbie. “My clothes—” she started stupidly.

“Oh, of course, you don’t have any—we’ll have someone stop by your apartment and pack you a bag, is that all right? A female officer,” he hurried to add. “We always send a female officer for something like this. I’ll call right away and get it set up.” He was already pulling out his phone.

Maria nodded, a little overwhelmed by the sudden monologue. Levi was looking everywhere but at her chest as he made the call.

He
looked good too, she couldn’t help but notice, especially for someone who must have gotten less sleep than she had.

He finished setting up the overnight bag, hung up, and then they were just looking at each other again.

“You’re back soon,” she offered as a distraction from…other things. “Is there any news?”

He nodded. “May I sit down?”

“Oh, of course—” Maria motioned to a kitchen chair, and he sat. His manners were surprisingly old-fashioned, she kept noticing.

Well, except when he was leaning toward her on a couch, fingers brushing her chin—

Ahem. Stop
, she told herself.

“News?” she prompted, when he’d settled himself.

“There was an anonymous threat left at the senator’s office today,” Levi said. “It read,
Too bad I missed last night. I won’t miss again. They’re dead
.”

“They?” Maria said faintly.

Levi nodded. “They’re specifically targeting you as well as the senator.”

“But why?” Maria asked. “I’m not anybody—there’s no reason to want to kill me—”

“You’ve been with me since the beginning.” They both turned to see Laura in the doorway, dressed in last night’s clothes and somehow still looking…senatorial. Laura was very good at that. “You go everywhere I go, you support everything I do. I thank you in my speeches. You’re outspoken for shifter’s rights on your own time. You’ve earned their animosity”—she smiled sadly at Maria—“as much as I wish you didn’t have it.”

Maria took this in. She’d always thought of herself as being invisible, behind the scenes, making things happen without anyone noticing. She’d never once thought that someone could target
her
for anything, positive or negative.

“Well,” she said, “I guess I’d better get to work stopping them, if I’m so dangerous to their agenda.”

Laura’s smile turned approving. “That’s my girl.” She turned to Levi. “I need to talk with the police and with my PR team about what’s being released to the press, and about what we’re going to do on Monday when Maria and I are ostensibly supposed to go back to work.”

Levi nodded. “I’ll get a team together to take you to the station—you can have a tactical meeting with the relevant people there.” He pulled out his cell phone.

Maria stood up. “I’m going with you,” she told Laura. “I need a change of clothes, but I can—”

“Maria, no.” Laura shook her head. “You deserve a break from all this.”

“So do you!” Maria protested. “You’re not getting one, though. And I don’t
want
a break, I want to help.” It was only sort of a lie—she didn’t want a
break
, she just wanted this all to be over.

“Actually,” Levi interrupted, “I wanted to talk to you about Humans Against Shifters, Maria. So if you wouldn’t mind staying behind, we can talk here while the senator goes ahead to the station.”

Maria looked at Levi, then looked at Laura, and sighed. “All right.”

Truth be told, she wasn’t that upset about having to stay back in the safehouse with a personal police guard, instead of venturing out into the world where shooters might be lurking.

She just hated letting Laura do it alone.

But Laura was
her
boss, not the other way around, so Maria just stood up and said, “Let me get you some coffee.”

She poured coffee for each of them—Levi’s in a regular mug, and Laura’s in a travel mug that she found in the cupboard. There was also a box of granola bars, and she got some out for Laura to bring with her.

Laura took them, but she said, smiling, “You don’t have to take care of me, Maria.”

“If I can’t go with you to discuss the people shooting at us, then the least I can do is find you something for breakfast.” Maria stood her ground, raising her eyebrows at Laura.

Laura shook her head, but she said, “All right. Thank you. Try to take some time off today.”

“I don’t have my laptop, so there’s only so much work I can do, anyway,” Maria told her. “Luckily I had my phone charger in my purse, so I’ll have my cell phone all day if you need anything.”

“That is not what I meant,” Laura started, but then there was the sound of a car outside.

“That’s probably Danny,” Levi said, but Maria noticed that he checked the driveway through the window before going to the door.

Paranoia was ruling the day, she guessed.

But it wasn’t just paranoia, because the shooter had said that he would try again. Logically, Maria couldn’t think of a way that anyone from Humans Against Shifters could know where the safehouse was, but that didn't mean it was completely impossible.

And the longer they stayed here, if they were going out and coming back, the greater the chance that someone would follow them. Maria shivered. There was a good argument for not going back to work on Monday.

Levi let his partner in, and they saw Laura out to the car and off to the police station to strategize. Maria sat back down in the kitchen and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug.

Levi came back in and sat down with his own mug, and said, “All right. Let’s talk about Humans Against Shifters.”

“They’re a shifter hate group,” Maria began, and started running through all of the information she’d learned from researching them for Laura and seeing them at protests.

Levi asked questions as she went. “Do you know where their headquarters is located? Do you know if they stockpile weapons? Could they be classified as a militia? What other prominent members are there? Do you know if any of them have ever been arrested for a violent crime?”

Maria answered them all as best as she could—she didn’t know where their headquarters was, but she knew where their leader, George Lisle, lived. She didn’t know if they stockpiled weapons, but their mission statement and their messages had been getting more and more suggestive of violence as time went on. She had a list of the members she knew and information about each of them, “—but it’s on my laptop,” she finished.

Levi nodded. “We’ll get that to you as soon as possible, then.” He made a note.

“I’ll tell you as much as I can remember, though.” She ran through the list of names as best as she could and all of the facts she could recall off the top of her head.

Levi took quick and careful notes, and sat back when she was done. “That’s a lot of information.”

Maria nodded. “I looked up all of this after Laura took office, and we wanted to keep track of anybody who might—ruin an event, or try and sabotage something, or interrupt one of her speeches. But we never thought they’d try to
kill
us!” Her voice went a little high at the end.

“Hey.” Levi’s own voice was soft, and he leaned forward, holding her gaze. His eyes were a warm hazel, she noticed for the first time, with little hints of green. “I am going to take care of this for you. I promise you, these people will not succeed in hurting you again. All right? You’re safe now, because I’m going to be standing between you and them.”

Maria couldn’t help but feel warmer, safer, after those words. She wanted Levi there with her. But—“If they’re shooting at me, I don’t want you standing between me and them,” she said. “I don’t want
anyone
in the way of this! No one should get shot, and especially not because of me!”

“No one will get shot because of you.” Levi’s voice was rock-solid, and he reached across the table and took her hand. “I hope that no one will get shot, period. But if anyone does, it’ll be because of
them
, not because of you.” He squeezed her fingers—his hand was so large that hers was engulfed by it.

Maria took a shaky breath and nodded. “I know. Sorry. I don’t know why I can’t keep it together.”

“I think I do,” he said wryly. “It might have something to do with the events of the last twenty-four hours, maybe? And the fact that it seems to me like you think you have to take care of everything yourself?”

Maria bit back a protest of,
But I do have to take care of everything myself!
Even she knew that wasn’t actually true. “I do have responsibilities,” she insisted instead.

“Sure, and so do I.
My
responsibility is dealing with this,” he held up his notebook, “so that you can take care of all of
your
responsibilities without having to worry about gunmen hiding in the bushes.”

It was all true. But, “I can’t pretend like this isn’t happening,” said Maria softly. “I have to think about what I can do to help stop it.” After all, her life could literally depend on it.

He held her gaze for a long minute, then dropped his eyes. “I know. And I wish like hell that you didn’t have to do anything, that we could have caught this guy last night and put a stop to it already. But in the meantime, you have to at least let me do some of the work.” He smiled, inviting her in on the joke.

Maria made herself smile back. “I guess I can allow that.”

Levi was somehow able to act protective and take charge of the situation without treating her like an idiot or a child, something her parents had never managed. Plus, he was so…kind, and genuine, and he was holding her hand through this—literally, actually holding her hand right now—when he probably just wanted to get on with his job.

Which, it suddenly occurred to her, meant that he was going to leave, and she was going to be alone in the house with only her phone for company, and no idea when he or Laura would be back.

It was fine. She was
fine
, she was a grown-ass woman who could stay alone in a perfectly safe house. She didn’t need a police escort to sit around for an afternoon.

“Okay,” Levi was saying. “I’m sorry, but now we’re going to have to go over last night again.”

Maria took a deep breath. “That’s fine. Where do you want to start?”

They walked through the previous night again. Levi asked questions about Sutherland’s gun, mostly, and how he’d looked, where she thought he’d hidden himself, how he’d been running.

He didn’t let go of her hand the whole time.

When he was done, he closed his notebook and hesitated. “Is there anywhere you might be able to go, out of town? Anyone you could stay with, family or friends? That might be the safest thing for you right now.”

Maria shook her head. “I’m staying with Laura.”

Levi sighed. “I had to try. All right, if you’re staying here, is there anything you want? We’ll bring you more food later, but if there’s anything that would make you more comfortable…”

“Just my clothes and my laptop.”
And could you stay here 24/7? Just to be my bodyguard? I’d let you sleep in my bed…

“Okay.” Levi looked uncertain for the first time since he’d gotten here. “Is there anything else you need? Anything I can do for you?”

Maria hesitated for a long moment…and then even as she knew it was wrong, even as she knew it was stupid, she let go of all rationality and leaned across the table and kissed him.

He kissed her back immediately, his hand clenching around hers, and his other arm coming up around her shoulders. She flirted her tongue against his lips, and he opened his mouth to hers, drawing her into a hotter, wetter kiss.

It was
exactly
what she needed.

She’d expected him to call a halt immediately, but instead he let the kiss go on, and on and on…Maria slid half-out of her chair to get closer, and his hands ran down her sides to settle on her hips.

He drew her into his lap and she went willingly, settling on his thighs and threading her fingers into his thick black hair. His arms came up around her, enveloping her totally, and for the first time since the shots rang out last night, she felt safe.