That was sweet. “Thanks.”
“Sure. If there’s anything particular you need, let me know. It’s a good crew, and I trust them all.”
She started making mental notes. “I have a few things. I’ll text them to you.”
His phone buzzed and he looked down, scrolling through quickly. “Huh.”
“What?” She ate the rest of her bagel, licking her fingers. It figured the best honey in the world would be found in bear country.
He slipped the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Intel on your parents’ murder. I wanted to double-check that they were really killed by a serial killer and not the Kurjans or another immortal force that somehow knew about you.”
She felt a chill. Right to the spine. “And?”
His voice softened. “They were killed by a serial killer. He targeted happily married couples, and your folks fit. The guy even confessed.”
At least whatever she had going on hadn’t gotten her parents killed. She missed them so much. “He’s serving out his sentence right now. Sometimes it makes me so mad that he gets to breathe the air on this planet and my parents don’t.”
“I can fix that,” Sam said, his gaze serious.
“Um, thanks. But no.” She believed in the system and didn’t need to go outside it.
Sam half shrugged. “It’s your call. Also, a deep dive on Kyle, the moron ex-fiancé, showed that he’s a harmless dumbass and not a threat to you. The guy has no connections in the immortal world.” Sam leaned down and tugged a box of stuff from behind the counter. “After our raid, I hit an all-night shopping mall for you. It isn’t much, but it’s something.” He pushed the box her way.
She set down her coffee. “I love presents.”
“Good to know.”
She slowly opened the box and nearly squealed. “Colored pens. A lot of them.” She happily dug out several different sets of colored pens, a couple of notebooks, and then a sign that said: The Doctor Is In. “Oh, Sam. This is all so nice of you.” Her heart swelled inside her chest. Nobody knew her this well.
“I noticed the huge number of colored pens in your junk drawer when we were at your house, so I figured you liked to play with colors. Or work with them, I mean. The notebooks can be used for work if you end up keeping notes on the bears.” He finished his coffee and set his mug on the counter. “The rain is getting thicker, and a storm is moving in, so stay here for the day.”
She angled her head to look out the window, wanting to jump his bones again. He was so sweet and dangerous and hot all at the same time. The present he’d found was better than any jewelry could be, for her. She shook herself back to the day at hand. “Is there somewhere they can wait under shelter?”
“Why don’t you set appointments first thing, so they can come back and not just hang out in the rain?” he muttered, frowning. “Although, bears aren’t the best at time. It bothers them.”
She wet her lips. “There’s a whole community here, right? Maybe there’s a place I could create an office that’s not at our cabin. I mean, your cabin.”
He grinned. “It’s ours. Haven’t you figured that out by now?” Snagging her neck, he leaned down for a hard kiss that turned soft and then firm and then deep. Finally, he leaned back. “Have fun fixing the bears, honey.”
That was a sentence she never would’ve imagined hearing. She laughed.
* * * *
Sam ducked out of the cabin and into the rain. “She’ll take you one at a time and might try to find office space later today.” Then he turned toward headquarters.
“Sam?” A young female named Jellie caught him by the arm.
“Yeah?” He paused. In his experience, Jellie was pretty shy. Short for a bear at around six feet tall, she had light brown hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin was a soft pink, her nose pert, and her yellow sweater bright in the stormy day. “You okay?”
She slipped a pouch out of the front pocket of her jeans. “For you,” she whispered.
He took the pouch, frowned, and looked inside. “It’s a tea?”
“It’s a poultice,” she whispered, angling her body between him the rest of the bears. “For your problem.”
He lowered his head closer to hers. “What problem?”
She turned beet red. Not crimson, not damask, but the color of ripe beets at the end of summer. “You know. Your problem.” She drew out the syllables of the last word. “Put some on your hand during the day and the nerves will get activated.” She patted his arm. “Oh. I think I’m first today. Good luck.” She turned and ran up on the deck to the front door.
He slipped the pouch in his jeans and turned for headquarters. Seriously? Why couldn’t everyone mind their own business? He strode quickly through the rain along the path to the main buildings and the mechanic’s shop, going right past to the innocuous building that looked like a storage unit but actually housed an IT setup better than NASA had right now.
An older bear named Buck was coming out just as he was going in. “Oh. Hey.” Buck clapped him on the shoulders, his beefy hand bigger than the Christmas platter Sam’s mom used for ham. “Stop by our cabin later today, would you? Missy is making you a tea.”
Sam’s temples began to thrum like somebody was hitting them with hammers. “A tea?” he ground out.
Buck nodded, his eyes soft. “Yeah. It has Panax ginseng and zinc in it. You’ll be right as rain in a heartbeat.” Whistling happily, he strode off into the rainy trees.
Sam watched him go, drew out his phone, and looked up uses for Panax ginseng and zinc. Holy fuck. Seriously. “I don’t have erectile dysfunction,” he yelled into the woods. He was about to lose his temper. So he shook his anger off and strode inside, heading down to the basement and the main control room.
Bear, Nessa, and Garrett were already in place, looking at a map on a screen.
He paused. “Nessa? How are you?”
She looked over, her eyes clear. “Great. The babies are solid again—I can sense that much about them. But they do like to stay under cover.”
So long as they were okay, Sam was happy with the outcome.
“There’s no discernible pattern,” Bear said, studying a series of green blips.
“No,” Garrett agreed, frown lines cutting into his face. “Hey, Sam. We’re looking at the most recent kidnapping locations.”
Sam rolled out a chair and studied the screen. The locations appeared random. “So the question is, how are the Kurjans finding these females?”