Hero Bear

by Candace Ayers

  11

  Dmitry

  The job we were on—a stakeout of a suspected arsonist—had run long and I didn’t make it back to the house until after six. I had a slight gnawing in my gut all due to Kerrigan. My mind kept straying to her, the strange man who’d threatened her and what kind of trouble she might be in. Planning to confront her, I went straight to her bedroom and found the door cracked. The room was empty.

  I walked over to the office to see if she was still there, but she wasn’t. I tried the beach and scanned the waves to see if maybe she’d gone out for a swim. She was nowhere to be seen. The gnawing in my gut was worse than ever.

  Anyone seen Kerrigan?

  Immediately Serge’s thoughts filled my head. Nope. Hannah said she wasn’t looking too good when she saw her at the office today.

  Shit. Something was wrong. She was in some kind of trouble. But what kind, exactly?

  Megan says to check Mimi’s. They all talked about the happy hour deal when they were there the other night. Maybe she stopped for a drink. Everything okay? Roman’s voice was laden with concern which merely served to amp my fear up even more.

  I don’t know yet.

  I took off at a sprint towards Mimi’s Cabana. I had to cross Main Street and cut down Flamingo Lane, but as soon as I got close, I could smell her. Her natural aroma was mixed with the sour scent of fear and the pickling of alcohol.

  Found her.

  I all but ripped Mimi’s door off to get inside and what I saw incensed me and enraged my bear to the point I had to fight him to keep from an uncontrolled shift in a barroom packed with people. Kerrigan was there. So was the dickweed who’d been threatening her earlier—and he was touching her. His back was to me, but he was easy to distinguish from his clothes and stature. He had his arms around her so tightly that it looked as though he was trying to suffocate her.

  Mimi, a concerned look on her face, was behind Kerrigan and while I concentrated on counting to ten before I did something stupid like rip that fucker’s head off and sully Mimi’s Caribbean décor with spatters of blood and chunks of flesh, he stepped back. When he did, I saw the state Kerrigan was in. So much for counting to ten. She could barely stand on her own. The fucker had to have been holding her up. Had he been trying to take advantage of her in her intoxicated state?

  I was seconds from a gruesome kill when I was distracted by Mimi supporting Kerrigan and guiding her to a barstool. Kerrigan was falling backwards. Even with my shifter strength and speed, I was too far away to catch her before she hit the ground. The thump was painful to hear, but Kerrigan didn’t seem any worse for the wear. She just hiccupped and grinned, an embarrassed pink tinge to her face.

  Mimi spotted me coming and whispered to Kerrigan, “You didn’t hold it together honey.”

  “I really tried.” Kerrigan’s voice was watery and I was concerned I was going to see tears.

  I didn’t want to see the tears. I heard them on occasion. Smelled them, too, but that was different. I could almost pretend they weren’t real. I had a feeling I was about to be hit with a motherlode of tears. “You okay, Kerrigan?”

  Her head snapped to me and, the tears I’d been expecting vanished. Her brown eyes focused on me and she groaned as though seeing me was the thing she’d expected or wanted. “Oh.”

  I frowned. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  She took Mimi’s hand over mine and when she was on two feet again, she took a moment to steady herself. Blowing out a deep breath that smelled like beer, she nodded to herself and squared her shoulders. It would’ve been more convincing if she hadn’t also been chewing her lower lip.

  I ran my hand down my face and looked around, trying to spot the asshole who’d been touching her. He’d already slipped out. Fuck. I’d let him get away.

  Kerrigan stumbled when she took her first step, but still recoiled when I held my arm out to help her. That’s how it went. Getting out of the bar took forever. She took a few steps and then stumbled, but refused to accept my help. I let her go it on her own while we were in the crowd of people because I didn’t want to make a scene—or any more of a scene.

  As soon as we cleared the doorway, though, I swept her into my arms and carried her home. She weighed next to nothing, even while wriggling in an attempt to get down.

  “You need to put me down. Right now.” She hiccupped and burped at the same time, something that clearly embarrassed her. She groaned and buried her face in her hands.

  “You’re too drunk to walk a straight line. It’d take you until next week to get home at this rate.” I cut through someone’s side yard to make it home faster.

  “I can walk just fine. I don’t want you to carry me.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Put me down.” She hiccupped again. “You…you…overgrown teddy bear.”

  I cocked my head at her and looked up and down Main Street before crossing it. “Excuse me?”

  She sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t call you names.”

  She was apologizing to me. She’d done nothing wrong. I was the asshole, or the overgrown teddy bear, as she’d put it.

  “Kerrigan…”

  She shook her head and hiccupped again. “I don’t want to conversate with you. Hiccup.”

  I walked the rest of the way in silence, arriving at the house faster than I wanted to. I put her down on the front steps of the house to have a few words with her privately. “I think we—”

  She bent over, stumbled, hiccupped, took her shoes off, and then started weaving her way down to the beach. I watched her go, stumbling and falling two, three, times, before she settled into the sand at the edge of the water and let the tide roll over her feet. Following behind her, I was fully intent on taking advantage of her inebriated state to get her to open up and talk to me—to tell me what was wrong and why that asshat had been all over her earlier. I thought we’d finally get a chance to talk and the fact that her inhibitions were reduced by alcohol was a benefit in my mind. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most honorable plan, but I really needed to find out who the man was that had been hanging around and what the hell was going on with her. I also wanted to apologize for treating her so poorly.

  My plan didn’t work, though. Kerrigan had nothing to say to me.

  12

  Kerrigan

  I didn’t want to hear a word Dmitry said. Not a word. I was still too drunk to trust myself with rational conversation. Who knew what might come out of my mouth? Besides, whatever he wanted to talk about was probably going to sting like hell. Something along the lines of, “I never should have put my hands on you. Please don’t tell anyone, blah, blah.”

  When he sank down next to me in the sand, I didn’t look over at him. I’d already spent too much time dying inside over the way he’d carried me back from Mimi’s. I kicked off my sandals and then leaned back to get to my pants button.

  “What are you doing?”

  I stood back up and walked to the water. “Going for a swim.”

  I kicked out of my pants and then threw my shirt onto the small pile before wading out in the water. It was cold against my overheated skin, the sand rough under my toes. Still plenty of daylight left. I should’ve been embarrassed to be swimming in my bra and panties in the late afternoon on a public beach. I wasn’t.

  Up to my hips, up to my breasts, up to my chin. When I couldn’t touch the sandy bottom of the ocean floor, I breaststroked out deeper. I’d swim across the ocean if that’s what it took to get far away from Nicky Knuckles and his slime ball threats. I even wanted to get away from Dmitry.

  I swam out farther and farther until I could look back at the beach and not see him through my water-spotted glasses. Floating on my back, I stared up at the bright blue sky until my eyes burned and I had to squeeze them shut.

  The alcohol was still flowing through my system, making my problems just a bit out of reach. I felt like my fingertips could just graze them, but not pull them close. They loomed, just out there on the horizon, remin
ding me that they would still be there when I sobered up, tomorrow, next week, maybe forever.

  I was pitiful. My life was pitiful.

  I held my breath and let myself sink under the water. Blowing out my breath, I sank even lower. My eyes closed, my lungs tight, I paddled my arms to keep myself under. I felt free there—cloaked. I pretended no one would be able to find me and I could float under the water and never have to worry about a thing.

  No rent or mortgage, no exorbitant student loans, I’d just float in the ocean, under the waves. It wouldn’t matter if I sucked at my job and no one liked me, or if the only man I’d been intimate with wanted to pretend it never happened. It wouldn’t matter because the fish didn’t care.

  My lungs burned, but I stayed under. I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want to be up top, up above the waterline. The world was too hard.

  Something brushed against my leg and I felt something massive wrap around me, dragging me upwards. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know what it was, who it was. Dmitry. More specifically, Dmitry’s bear.

  We crested the surface and I sucked in a huge breath of air and coughed.

  Next to me was the largest animal I’d ever seen face to face. Snow white with a black nose and Dmitry’s dark blue eyes, the bear was awesome—as in awe-inspiring. It opened its mouth and roared, revealing huge, razor-sharp teeth and a black tongue. Still, I felt no fear.

  I bobbed in the water next to it and found myself smiling. I was clearly still drunk. Running my hand over its head, I felt something melt inside of me. There was pain and heartache in the real world, above water, but there were also amazing, extraordinary, incredible things. I was stroking the head of a polar bear shifter. The most beautiful polar bear I’d ever seen. He was growling while I did it, but still, he was letting me.

  Then, a split-second later, the bear was gone and Dmitry was in front of me again. My hand was still stroking over his head and face.

  I should probably stop petting him. Yeah.

  He stared at me with a furious scowl and shook his head. “Out of the water.”

  I sighed. The beer buzz was still with me, strongly, but not enough to keep me from feeling down that he looked at me like that, like he hated me.

  Dmitry wasted no time in wrapping his arm around my waist and all but dragging me back to shore. When we got close enough to stand, he let me go, stepping ahead of me, but grabbed my hand to pull me after him. Wow, he had a tightly formed ass—and no tan lines. When I giggled, he glared at me over his shoulder.

  His shirt and pants were in a pile next to mine and he stepped into his pants with his back still to me. He seemed to be waiting for me to do the same, but I wasn’t putting my clothes back on. I wasn’t ready to go back to real life just yet.

  That just seemed to deepen his scowl. Especially when he turned around and saw me sitting in the sand in just my bra and panties. He threw his hands up. “What the fuck was that?”

  I furrowed my brows. “What was what?”

  “That! Were you trying to drown yourself?” He put his hands on his hips and glared down at me. “You went under and you didn’t come back up. You about gave me a heart attack.”

  “You’re a shifter. You’ll be fine.” I waved him off. “Do shifters even have heart attacks?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. “Kerrigan, you can’t… I forbid you to drown yourself! Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I have to say that to you. You can’t just swim out and go under like that!”

  “I wasn’t drowning myself. I just wanted to be under the water for a while.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “It’s nice under there.”

  He threw his hands up. “It’s nice under there. Great. I’m glad. I’m glad that you had a nice time enjoying your near-drowning. You’re drunk, clumsy, and accident prone as hell. You can’t be taking risks with your life like that. You could’ve gotten caught on something. Then what? What would you have done then, huh?”

  I met his angry stare and hiccupped. “P.O.L.A.R. would’ve gotten a better, more competent replacement.”

  “Not fucking funny. I’m not fucking laughing right now, Kerrigan. See my face. Serious as shit.” He pointed his finger at his chin. “You’re a fucking menace to yourself.”

  13

  Kerrigan

  “You think I don’t know that?” My calm demeanor seemed to throw Dmitry for a loop. I just kept staring at him, accepting that we were going to have whatever conversation he wanted. That’s how things seemed to work—everything on his terms.

  He paced in front of me, his bare feet leaving a trench in the sand. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think you have the time.”

  “Try me.” He came to a stop in front of me and stared at me. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  I hiccupped again and pulled my knees into my chest, locking my arms around them. “I owe someone money.”

  “The guy who’s been hanging around you?”

  I didn’t even need to ask how he known about Nicky Knuckles showing up. The bears seemed to know everything. “Yeah. I borrowed a lot of money from him and I’ve been paying it back, but he wants more.”

  “You borrowed money from a loan shark?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes. Well, no…but, yes.”

  “Well, which is it?”

  “I didn’t know that’s what he was at the time. Not really. I needed money and I heard his name mentioned around campus a few times. So, I went to him.”

  “How much did you borrow?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  Dmitry swore and started his pacing again. “Why, Kerrigan? What would possibly make you do that? Ten thousand dollars from a loan shark? Jesus.”

  “He was my last resort and I just did it.”

  “What’d you need it for?”

  I looked past him, out at the ocean. It was calling me back. “School. I was a year away from finishing my master’s. I did everything else. I took out student loans, applied for grants and scholarships, worked two part time jobs. Still, I needed more.”

  “For school?” It was obvious he thought I was an idiot.

  “Yes, for school. I didn’t know…anything. I didn’t know who he was or how he would be.” I shrugged. “But, I’ve made the payments. I haven’t missed a month since I took the loan, but he keeps leaning on me for more.”

  “And now he’s threatening you?”

  I met Dmitry’s eyes and nodded before looking away. “He wants double.”

  “Or what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Or what, Kerrigan?”

  “Or the usual. What do men always threaten women with? He’s a typical sleezeball and certainly not original.” I rested my chin on my knees and sighed. I’d quickly lost pretty much all my buzz. It was probably for the best.

  “Fuck.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll handle it. I’m just trying to hold him off until I get paid on Friday. I’ll sign over my paycheck, and he’ll go away for another month.”

  “You won’t have anything to live off of. And that won’t put a stop to it. You jump through that hoop and he’ll demand triple next month.” Dmitry squatted in front of me and met my gaze. “What exactly do you mean by ‘the usual’? What is he threatening you with? Be specific and spell it out for me. I have to be sure.”

  I blinked away sudden tears. “He has girls in Miami, apparently. He wants me to…you know…work off some of my debt by servicing his clients.” I didn’t know what I was going to do. Drinking had been so temporary it had hardly been worth it. And in the end, even that had landed me right in the arms of Nicky Knuckles.

  “You’re saying he runs a prostitution ring in Miami and he’s threatening to pimp you out if you don’t increase the payments?”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat and stood up. My life sucked. I scooped up my clothes and turned to walk away.

  Dmitry growled and stopped me with a hand on my waist. “You�
�ve got bruises.”

  I looked over my shoulder at what I could see of my lower back. Sure enough, there were bruises from Nicky’s fingers. I was so drunk at the time, I hadn’t even felt them. “They’re not gonna kill me.”

  I pushed Dmitry’s hand away and started towards the house. There was no point in explaining anything else to Dmitry. He just wanted to judge me and point out what a lonely idiot I was.

  “Kerrigan, stop.”

  I kept walking. I still swayed a bit, but I walked with enough determination that I made it to the house and up the first flight of stairs to the front door without a problem.

  “He can’t do that.” Dmitry caught my arm and pulled me to a stop. He didn’t let go and when he looked at me, I wondered if he was remembering the same thing I was remembering. He just shook his head and frowned, though. “I will not let him do that.”

  I looked down at my feet and wondered where I’d left my shoes. “People like him do what they want. Don’t worry about it, though. It’s not your problem.”

  “It is my problem.”

  My heart skipped a beat and I looked up at him, a sliver of hope daring to emerge. “Why?”

  “You work for P.O.L.A.R.” He let go of me and stepped back. “You’re part of us. Part of the team.”

  Right. Part of the team. Hardly. I was the weakest link. In fact, my job with the team was skating on such thin ice I was about to drown in the pond. I sighed and pushed open the door. “Ha! That’s a laugh.”

  Hannah was coming out of the kitchen and spotted me. “Kerrigan! What happened to you?”

  I looked down at my underwear and sandy clothes clutched to my stomach. “Um… Nothing. Nothing happened. I’m going to take a shower and then head to bed. It’s been a long day.”

  She looked behind me at Dmitry, and frowned. “I’ll walk you up.”