C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE
T
he elevator doors opened and Dez stepped out, her husband Mace behind her. She stopped immediately, her gaze moving around the packed hospital hallway. She knew most of the people there, but she could easily spot Cella’s family. They mostly looked like Dez’s friend. Black hair with orange and white streaks, gold or green eyes; the women curvy, the men built like linebackers.
But what worried Dez immediately was the weight of tragedy she felt throughout the entire hallway. She had no clue what had happened, getting one of those short-worded Dee-Ann Smith messages on her voice mail. God, was she too late?
No, no. She didn’t want to think like that.
After another quick look around, Dez saw Dee-Ann and she walked over to her. She stood next to a completely battered Ric Van Holtz, Lock MacRyrie, and Bo Novikov. They looked like they’d been through hell. Had they tried to stop what had happened to Cella? And if the guys looked like this ... what did Cella look like?
���Dee—” Dez began, but then Blayne was wrapped around Dez ... sobbing. Hysterically.
God, maybe I am too late.
Dee pulled Blayne off Dez and pushed her toward Novikov. “Come on.” She grabbed Dez’s arm and led her down another hallway and into an empty room, closing the door.
“What the fuck happened?” Dez got out before the door opened again and Blayne walked in.
“You can’t stay,” Dee told Blayne, “if all you’re gonna do is cry like a baby.”
Snarling, Blayne stepped into Dee, pointing her finger in her face. “She’s my friend, too, Dee-Ann!” The tears started again. “I love her.”
“Just yesterday you called her a bitch.”
“
How can you bring that up?
” Blayne wailed.
Realizing that neither of these two would give her the answers she needed—one talked too much and the other not enough—Dez walked back into the hallway. “Stay here,” she ordered before she went in search of Crushek. She knew the bear well enough to know he wouldn’t be part of the crowd, but she also knew he was there. Somewhere. He wouldn’t leave Cella alone.
And Dez was right. She found Crush at the end of the long hallway inside one of the rooms. He sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his knees raised, his gaze focused on the empty bed. She stepped up next to him and held out her hand.
Crush looked at it and up at her.
“Come on,” she said.
He took her hand, but mostly got himself up off the floor. She led him back to the room where she’d left an eye-rolling Dee-Ann and a still sobbing Blayne.
“Oh, Crush!” Blayne cried before running into the startled polar, her arms wrapping around his waist. “You poor, poor man.”
Dez closed the door, ignoring the look her husband gave her before she did.
“What happened?” she asked, figuring she’d at least get most of the story from the three of them together.
“Poor Cella’s life is over!” Blayne sobbed into Crush’s chest, but Dez decided not to take that at face value. Instead, she focused on Dee-Ann.
The woman shrugged. “She was hurt.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
See? That wasn’t enough information. So Dez then moved her attention to Crush, who was awkwardly patting Blayne’s back.
“It’s my fault,” he told her. “All of this. I think it’s my fault.”
Blayne looked up at him. “Your fault? How can you say that?”
“I should have known Baissier would do something. I just never thought she’d go after Cella like that.”
Nope. Still not clear, so Dez went back to Dee-Ann.
“She called me earlier. Said someone was following her. It never occurred to either of us that they’d take her out on the ice.”
The ice? Someone attacked her during one of those hockey games? With hundreds, maybe even several thousand shifters nearby? Then Dez remembered the way Ric and Lock had looked outside. They’d clearly been in a fight. But then ...
Dez looked at the three shifters. “Was Cella shot?”
Dee-Ann shook her head. “No.”
“They destroyed her leg,” Blayne whimpered.
“Well,” Dee corrected, “mostly just her knee.”
“Her ...” Dez scratched her head. “Was she kneecapped in the bathroom or something?”
“No. It happened on the ice.”
Dez studied the three idiots. “Are you telling me you dragged me here for a fucking sports accident?”
“Figured you’d wanna know.”
“I do want to know, Dee. Cella’s my friend. But I want details. Telling me ‘You better come to the hospital. They got Cella’ implies something different to me than a sports injury.”
“You don’t undertstand, Dez,” Blayne explained, pulling away from Crush as more tears flowed. “Her career is over. She’ll never play pro hockey again.”
“Is she going to be in a wheelchair?”
Dee pulled a piece of jerky out of her back pocket. Why it was back there, Dez didn’t want to know. “Doubtful,” Dee said. “Once she gets that knee replaced and all, she’ll probably be back at KZS early next week. We’re just waitin’ for them to finish the surgery.”
“Will she at least have a limp?”
“Nah. Our bodies take real well to replacement surgeries.” Dee held up her arm, pointing at her elbow. “Got this blown off during a hunt. Docs replaced it ... good as new.” To illustrate, she bent what looked to be a mostly unmarred joint.
Dez pointed at the door. “Get out. Both of you. Out.” She grabbed Blayne by the back of her jeans and dragged her to the door, opening it and shoving her out. “You, too, country. Out.”
“You sure are moody,” the wolf complained before she ambled out the door.
Slamming the door, Dez faced Crush. “What is going on?”
Cella opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was her mother ... and tears. Then she looked around the room. All those Malones. All that crying. Men and women. She felt like she’d just woken up in a casket after being misdiagnosed as dead.
“Mom?”
“Oh! My dear sweet girl!”
Her mother hugged her and Cella could feel tears dripping against her neck. At least she hoped it was tears.
“It’ll be okay, baby.” Her mother pulled back and stroked her hair. “You’re going to be just ... just ...” Eyes wide, she looked at Cella’s aunts who just days before she’d threatened to bare-knuckle fight. They all smiled down at Cella, then Kathleen began to cry, then Margaret, then ... good God, even Deirdre. Then all of them were crying. It was pretty ... strange.
In fact, Cella looked down at her leg to make sure she still had it and yup! It was there. It was bandaged and had a brace on it to keep it immobile while it healed. Cella could tell she was currently being pumped full of all sorts of painkillers because she knew her body was knitting itself back together and that often hurt. A lot. But she didn’t feel a thing. So here she was. Breathing. Surviving as Malones liked to do. And yet her uncles couldn’t even look at her. God ... did she have scars on her face? Did one of those hyenas hit her with his skate? Was she hideous?
Then Cella remembered that this was her family she was dealing with. They were emotional basket cases on their best days. So rather than panic, she looked around the room until she found her daughter. Meghan stood in the back of the room, Josie next to her. What Cella loved was the absolute look of annoyance on her kid’s pretty face. Okay. So if Meg was going to stay with the family, at least she had the potential to one day run this bunch. She had attitude to spare.
Even better, Meghan knew her mother. One look and she was pushing her way through the crowd of uncles, aunts, and cousins until she was by her mother’s side. She took Cella’s hand, holding it between both of hers. “Could you guys leave us alone, please? I need to ...” She took a long, dramatic pause Cella was mighty proud of. She’d taught the kid well. “...
talk
to my mom for a bit.”
“Of course, of course,” Kathleen said, hustling all the aunts, uncles, and cousins out of the room. But it was Cella’s dad who took hold of his wife’s shoulders and, with a wink at Cella, led the still sobbing woman out of the room.
Once the door closed and Cella was alone with her daughter, she let out a sigh. “No feline should sob unless she’s been hit with a baseball bat.”
“It’s always gotta be so extreme with you.”
Cella laughed, grinning up at her daughter. “It’s in the DNA, kid. You might as well get used to it.”
Still holding her mother’s hand, Meghan sat on the bed. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t do anything.”
“It’s not about doing anything. It’s about ... empathizing.”
“Empathizing?”
Meghan’s eyes crossed. “Yes, Mom. Empathy.”
“Sounds like weakness.”
“It is not ...” Meghan gritted her teeth. “Why do you make me crazy?”
“Isn’t that my job? It’s my mother’s job, and as you can see, she does it well.”
“All I’m saying is that I know how much hockey means to you. It meant everything—”
“No. You mean everything to me, baby.
You.
The rest is just gravy.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Learn to knit.”
“Mom.”
“I’ll figure out something. There’s more to life than hockey.”
“For everyone else, but not for you.” Meghan thought a moment. “There’s the female team.”
“No.”
“They don’t have the same rules that—”
“Exactly.” Cella gaped at her daughter. “Do you not like your mother’s pretty face? Do you hope to see me missing eyes ... teeth? Do you care so little that you’d suggest the all-female team?”
“You bare-knuckle box!”
“Men! Males, as you’ll one day learn, are easy to manage. If the same shit that went down last night had happened while I was on the all-female team ... I’d be missing legs. Both of them.”
“I heard they’re not that bad ... anymore.”
“They’re that bad. Trust me. Coed, all male, or nothing. Because all-female is just painful trouble and suffering.”
“Always with the drama.”
“I’m a Malone,” Cella explained again, making sure to let out a long sigh. “Once you grasp that, the drama explains itself.” She thought a moment. “Any chance you can get everyone else to go away? Far away?”
“I can try. They usually listen to me.”
“I know.”
“No, Ma.”
“What?”
“I see your mind turning. I will not be running this family anytime soon.”
“Of course not. You’re only eighteen. But another fifteen years or so ...”
“Like you’re ever going to let me boss you around.” Meghan dropped Cella’s hand. “You’re so full of crap.”
“Crap? Really?”
“Not everyone has to express themselves with profanity.”
“No. But what fun is it
not
to express yourself with profanity?”
Meghan stood. “I’ll get rid of everybody.” She walked to the door. Stopped. “Your team’s—”
“No,” Cella said quickly. “I can’t see them tonight.”
“Okay. That scary She-wolf and Detective MacDermot?”
“First off, the She-wolf is Dee-Ann and she already said you could call her that.”
Her daughter’s lip curled a little. “Yeah.”
“Forget it. Tell them to come by tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Her daughter glanced at the floor, then asked, “What about Mr. Crushek?”
“Crush is here?”
“Of course, he’s here.” Meghan nodded. “And he looks really upset.”
“He does?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah. Let him come in.”
“Okay.”
“Are you going to go home with the family?”
“No,” her daughter replied in her all-business tone. “And Mr. Crushek has until I get back before he has to leave, too. No canoodling.”
“Canoodling?”
“You know what I mean.”
“But do
you
know what you mean?”
“Of course, I do. I read.”
Cella ordered herself not to laugh because her daughter was as serious as a heart attack.
“I’ll ask Aunt Jai to stop in, too.” Hand now on the door, Meghan warned, “And, Ma, do
not
move that leg.”
Staring at her daughter, Cella sat up a bit and jerked.
Gold eyes narrowed on her. “
Ma
.”
The kid was so easy!
“I’m not moving my leg. Besides, right now I’m so high on whatever painkiller they’re giving me that I feel like I’m floating anyway.”