Defender Cave Bear (Protection, Inc: Defenders Book 1) Read online

  “No way,” Tirzah said aloud. “That is impossible.”

  As impossible as hot Marines who turned into cave bears, she supposed.

  The impossible and absolutely adorable flying kitten flew into her kitchen. A few black hairs drifted down in its wake, catching the slanting rays of early dawn light through the blinds that Tirzah thanked her lucky stars she’d pulled.

  She followed it into the kitchen, where it was circling below the ceiling like the world’s cutest vulture. It looked down at her and meowed like it hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe it hadn’t. She didn’t have any cat food, of course, but she did have some lox in the refrigerator. She wasn’t sure how cats felt about smoked salmon, but it was fish so she figured it was worth a try.

  Tirzah got it out, then went to get a knife. The kitten let out a triumphant meow and plummeted down like a hawk. It landed with a thump on the cutting board, with all four paws planted in the lox.

  “Hey!” Tirzah protested. “I was just going to cut you off a kitten-sized piece. The rest of that was for my lunch.”

  The kitten made a sound that somehow conveyed the message of “finders keepers,” despite the fact that it consisted of a meow and was muffled by a giant mouthful of lox.

  “I have to cut it up,” Tirzah explained. “You’ll choke.”

  The kitten ignored her, growling as it worried at the lox. Tirzah put down the knife and pried the kitten off the pink slab. It flapped its wings, shedding more black hairs, then gulped down a mouthful and choked.

  Tirzah swatted it on the back, then held the struggling kitten in one hand and a knife in the other as she cut the lox into kitten-sized bits and scraped it into a saucer. She plunked down the saucer and released the kitten, then watched in amazement as it flew rather than jumped to the floor to devour its meal.

  A part of her still wondered if she was having an incredibly vivid dream. But the shed fur all over her clothes, the scratches on her hand, the paw-prints in what remained of the smoked salmon, and the sound of the kitten greedily gobbling up her lox had the unmistakable feel of solid reality.

  Tirzah supposed she needed to get some real kitten food. And a litter box. She didn’t feel like going out again, especially when that meant leaving the winged troublemaker alone in her apartment, but luckily she could order everything she needed online and get it rush-delivered to her doorstep within the next few hours.

  Unless the kitten was like those talking animals from the folktales Grandma used to tell. Those all went on their way once the princess helped them out, returned when she needed help herself, and left for good once she got to her happily ever after. When Tirzah had been a little girl, she’d have preferred the talking horse or hound or hunting cat to the prince. When she’d gotten older, she’d wondered why the princess couldn’t have both.

  Tirzah really hoped she wasn’t living in that sort of fairytale. The kitten had only arrived ten minutes ago, but she loved the little hellraiser already. The idea of a kitten-less apartment suddenly seemed very lonely.

  The kitten finished its meal, licked itself thoroughly, then waddled to Tirzah and climbed up her legs, digging in its claws with every step.

  “Ow!”

  But before she could scoop it up, the kitten was in her lap. There it turned round three times, curled up into a ball that could fit into the palm of her hand, and closed its golden eyes. A disproportionately loud purr rumbled up.

  Tirzah guessed the fuzzball was staying.

  “And now for you, Pete Valdez,” she muttered to herself. “Mr. Hot Marine Bodyguard Cave Bear. Let’s see how good you really are before I decide to hire you…”

  CHAPTER 2

  P ete Valdez shook a frying pan over the blue flame of a gas burner. The hash browns were getting nice and crispy, just the way his daughter had always loved them. Sure, his return to civilian life and being a live-in dad had been a little rocky. Okay, it had been incredibly rocky. But he was determined to make it work. Starting with fixing Carolina her all-time favorite breakfast before she headed off to school.

  Right on cue, his daughter wandered into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Her long black hair hung straight down her back. She was in a nightgown he remembered, white with a faded print of rearing black horses. When he’d last seen her in it, the hem had hung to her ankles. It was now nearly up to her knees. He couldn’t believe how much his little girl had grown up. He kept having to remind himself that she was an actual teenager now.

  “Morning, Lina,” he called. “Made you breakfast.”

  “Caro, remember? I haven’t gone by Lina for ages.” Then she looked abashed. “Thanks for making breakfast, Dad.”

  “You’re welcome, Caro. I swear, I’ll get used to it any day now.”

  “Just in time for her to change it again,” teased Pete’s mother as she came into the kitchen and made a beeline for the coffeepot. “What’s wrong with Lina? Lina is cute!”

  “Right, Abuelita,” Caro replied. “Lina is cute. I don’t want to be cute little Lina. I want to be sophisticated, teenage Caro.”

  Pete poured his mother a cup of coffee, then turned to his daughter. “You shouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Enjoy being a kid while you can, kid.”

  To his dismay, Caro looked genuinely hurt. “Don’t you like Caro? Is that why you keep calling me Lina?”

  “No!” Pete started to reach out to pull her in for a hug, then stopped himself just in time. Goddammit. He tried to cover up the movement by picking up the spatula, but Caro had registered it. That kid always had been too sharp for her own good. Her brown eyes were starting to brighten with tears.

  “Hey. Hey, come here, Caro.” Pete put down the spatula, mentally braced himself, then beckoned her into his open arms.

  Caro stepped into his hug, laying her head against his chest. He forced himself not to flinch. No matter how often he experienced it, the pain was always worse than he remembered. Wherever she touched him, his skin burned like she was a living flame. Every fiber of his being screamed out that he needed to let go of her, before he did himself irreparable damage.

  Pete held on to his daughter, forcing himself to hug her for long enough for her to be reassured. But he was gritting his teeth so hard that he couldn’t speak while he held her. Reluctantly, he broke off the hug and took a step back.

  Always before, Caro had been the one to let go. And she obviously remembered that too. The tears in her eyes threatened to spill over.

  “Caro is a beautiful name,” Pete said. “You’re right, it’s more sophisticated. And it suits you. I just need to get used to it, okay?”

  She nodded, a little doubtfully.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve grown up so much that you don’t like hash browns any more,” he added, shaking the pan under her nose.

  That distraction succeeded. She grinned. “Nope. Gimme.”

  Pete divided them onto three plates, then cracked eggs into the pan. Scrambled for Mom, fried for himself, and an omelette stuffed with pepperjack cheese for Caro. At least that much hadn’t changed.

  When he’d been a Recon Marine, Pete had never minded the stress or the exhaustion or the danger. The lack of life’s little pleasures like beer and baseball and burgers had annoyed him, but no more than that. But he’d hated spending so much time away from Carolina, especially since his missions were often so secret or remote or both that they couldn’t even exchange phone calls or emails. She was the best thing in his life—always had been, ever since she was born—and the job he’d taken to provide for her had meant they rarely saw each other.

  When he’d been forced to leave the Marines, after getting kidnapped, experimented on, and given “powers” that felt more like a curse, he’d figured the one good thing would be that he could live with Caro and be an in-person Dad, not a mostly absentee one. And it was good. Just…

  Well, he’d make it work. That was what a Marine did. You got handed some shitty situation, you didn’t complain, you fixed it if it was fixable and made the bes
t of it if it wasn’t. If he couldn’t fix his… whatever the hell was wrong with him… he’d learn to live with it. Because there was one thing Pete would endure any amount of pain for, and that was to make sure his Caro always knew she was loved.

  “Hey!” Caro broke into his thoughts. “Dad, can you drive me to the subway station this weekend?”

  “What’s at the station?” Pete asked, grating cheese into her omelette.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “The subway. Duh.”

  “The subway to where?”

  She coughed, then mumbled, “Refuge City,” as if he’d more likely to let his little girl go into the big city all by herself if he didn’t quite hear its name.

  The cave bear inside Pete’s mind, a vast and brooding presence, stirred and growled, Protect our cub.

  On it, Pete replied silently. To Caro, he said, “Not a chance.”

  “Daa-aad! People my age who live in the city take the subways by themselves all the time!”

  Pete was unsurprised but relieved to see his mother’s silent head-shake. Caro saw it too and scowled, deprived of the opportunity to appeal to her Abuelita.

  “I don’t care what other people’s parents let them do,” Pete said. “It’s not safe. You can go to the city this weekend if you want, but not without your Abuelita or me.”

  Caro scowled harder. “I hate it here. There’s nobody my age. There’s nothing fun to do. If we were in the country, I could take riding lessons, and if we were in the city, I could find fun stuff to do just stepping outside. This is the worst of both worlds.” Dramatically, she declared, “Suburbs are the soulless embodiment of the death of the American Dream!”

  Pete and his mother stared at her, then Caro burst into giggles. Pete chuckled, but there was also an ache in his chest. When he’d been her age, he’d desperately wanted to be treated like a man, but had all the emotional maturity of a toddler. Caro too was poised between worlds, swinging between acting like a little kid and talking like a college professor.

  “Don’t live in the suburbs once you leave home, then,” Mom said.

  “I won’t! Look out, Refuge City University, here comes Caro!”

  Caro had a point about the suburbs, and it was true that this neighborhood was almost entirely populated by retirees. But it was safe. And right now, with… things… the way they were, safety was more important than anything.

  Pete slid the omelette on to her plate. “Eat up. You’ll need that protein for energy, so you can get good enough grades to get in.”

  Caro dug into her omelette with an enthusiasm that couldn’t be faked. Gulping down a bite, she declared, “Discussion topic! Is a hot dog a sandwich? Support your reasoning.”

  Pete grinned. She’d been amusing herself with discussion topics since before he’d left, and could spin them out for hours if they were on a long car ride. Obligingly, he said, “It’s not a sandwich. A sandwich has bread, not a bun.”

  “Not a sandwich,” said Abuelita. “Just because something has a filling doesn’t make it a sandwich. A taco isn’t a sandwich, and neither is a ravioli.”

  They both waited expectantly for Caro, who always took the contrary position if Pete and his mother agreed.

  Caro held up a finger. “I say it’s a sandwich! Dad, would you define a hoagie as a sandwich?”

  He saw the trap coming, but had to say, “Sure.”

  “And what is used to enclose the filling in a hoagie?” Caro asked.

  “A bread roll,” said Pete.

  “A BUN!” said Caro triumphantly.

  “A bread roll!” retorted Pete.

  “Define the difference between a bread roll and a bun,” said Caro.

  They had an enjoyable argument about the definition of sandwiches over breakfast, during which Mom got out her phone and pulled up the USDA’s definition of “sandwich,” which specifically ruled out both hot dogs and tacos as sandwiches, and Caro countered by taking out her phone and producing the New York State definition, which defined them “any bread product surrounding a filling and meant to be eaten with the fingers.”

  “An excellent and productive discussion,” Caro announced, having finished her omelette. She ran off to shower.

  “Don’t slam—” Mom began to shout after her.

  BANG! The bathroom door slammed with a sound like a gunshot. Pete, who had gotten used to that, didn’t so much as blink.

  A second later, the door popped back open and Caro stuck her head out. “Dad! Forget Refuge City. Let’s do a cook-off this weekend! You, me, and Abuelita. We each cook something delicious—possibly sandwiches, which as we now know include any bread product with a filling and meant to be eaten with the fingers—and then we all vote on our favorites.”

  “Sounds great, Caro,” Pete said, inwardly crossing his fingers that he wouldn’t get any 24-7 bodyguarding jobs between now and then. “Are you in, Mom? How about your famous taco sandwiches?”

  His mother hesitated, then said, “Of course I’m in. Let’s do it Sunday.”

  “Oooooh,” Caro sang out. “Abuelita’s got a hot date Saturday with her boooooooooyfriend!”

  Pete chuckled, thinking Caro was teasing her grandmother over her book group or yoga class or something like that. But to his surprise, Mom looked genuinely put on the spot. “Caro, be respectful. It’s not a ‘hot date,’ it’s Shakespeare in the Park.”

  In the exact same teasing sing-song she’d used before, Caro said, “Abuelita’s got a hot date Saturday with her booooooooooyfriend—and Shakespeare!” Her final word was punctuated with another slam of the bathroom door.

  Pete and his mother looked at each other. That was the first he’d heard of his mother dating. It was hard to wrap his head around.

  “A boyfriend, huh?” Pete asked.

  A faint blush darkened her cheeks. A little defensively, she said, “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s someone I met at my yoga class. This will be our first date. I’ve never brought him home. Caro’s just heard us talking on the phone.”

  “Whoa, whoa!” Pete held up a hand. “It’s fine, Mom. You’re allowed to date.” He wasn’t entirely joking when he added, “If you give me his full name and date of birth, I’ll run a background check.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she said, then added thoughtfully, “If I get serious about him or anyone else, though, I’ll give you all the info.”

  Pete stared at her. That sure sounded like she was ready to take a flying leap into the dating pool.

  His mother, dating for the first time in ten years. His little girl, growing up. Himself, changed. Everything that used to be solid was unsteady under his feet.

  “Go to work, mijo,” his mother said. “I’ll drive Caro to school.”

  Pete knew perfectly well what that meant: his mother, who was just as sharp as her granddaughter, hadn’t missed what had gone down between them at breakfast, and intended to have yet another talk on the subject of “War changes people, you can’t expect your father to be exactly the same as he was the last time you saw him, but he still loves you more than anything.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Automatically, he bent his head to let her kiss his forehead, their old ritual to wish him safety. And then flinched away from the searing agony.

  “I—” Pete’s voice ran down. He couldn’t tell her what was going on. He didn’t even understand it himself. But he did know that revealing that there was a hell of a lot more wrong with him than combat trauma could do nothing but bring pain and danger down on the ones he loved most.

  If anyone needed to bear that pain, it was him.

  The wrinkles deepened around his mother’s brown eyes. He’d hurt her anyway, and he knew it. There was nothing either of them could say.

  Mom gestured with one hand. “Mijo. Go, before Caro comes out and starts an argument.”

  Pete went. But he didn’t get two steps before Mom reminded him, “Your laptop?”

  He scooped it up from the sofa where he’d left it the night before, still in its carrying case.
There was another thing he found hard to get used to: he was working a job where they actually issued laptops to employees. Not that Pete had ever used his for much.

  He got into his car and tossed the laptop into the back seat, then set out through the placid suburbs and toward the city.

  It was over an hour later when he finally made it to the underground parking lot of the Defenders office, and his temper was frayed by the endless traffic jams and all the assholes who’d cut in front of him, making him even later. It was obviously going to be one of those days.

  Pete scowled even harder when he saw all the other cars in in the lot. He’d hoped to not have to deal with anyone but his boss, Roland. And Roland’s sensible, sturdy car was there, parked neatly in the slot reserved for him.

  But so was Ransom’s latest rental car, every one of which seemed to have been selected for anonymity and which he switched out every month, like he was some kind of fugitive dodging the cops. This month it was a dull red Honda. Merlin’s ridiculously tiny British sports car looked like a toy beside it. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Carter Howe, who wasn’t even a member of the team, was back again. He’d parked his show-off Ferrari across two spaces. The lot was full of empty spaces, so it didn’t squeeze anyone in. But still. It was the principle of the thing.

  Pete parked his Ford as far from Carter and Merlin as he could manage, then reluctantly headed for the elevator. He paused with his finger hovering over the button. Carter wasn’t on the team—he just showed up occasionally to do tech stuff, then disappeared again. For all Pete knew, he’d come in early and was already on his way out. And a pampered rich guy like him would definitely take the elevator rather than the stairs.

  Pete headed up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. Even if he missed Carter, there was still Merlin and Ransom to contend with. And if you weren’t looking forward to something, the best thing to do was get it over with as fast as possible.

  He stepped onto the first landing, and came face-to-face with a velociraptor. It stood as tall as he did, lean and predatory, its fangs glistening white against its black hide.