It Happens (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 6)

I didn’t want to work.

I wanted to snuggle with him in bed, but Zee had been off for over a week and the sheriff’s department he worked for wasn’t doing great. The flu had hit them hard, and they had over ten officers down with it.

Likely the only thing that had saved Zee was due in part to him not being there.

“I’m going,” he grumbled. “You’re going to stay here all day?”

I nodded. “I am.”

“You won’t leave. Not even for lunch?” he pushed.

I shook my head. “Not even for lunch. I’ll have pizza delivered here, and I’ll have them leave it at the front desk. I won’t come out until he’s gone.”

He blew out a steadying breath.

“Even if Turner calls you, and she’s lying in a ditch on the side of the road?” Zee pushed.

“I’m right here,” Turner pointed out as she curled the hair of the dead woman that she was working on. “And I don’t plan on going out either. Therefore, there won’t be a ditch for my body to find.”

“I’m going to check in on them,” Castiel pointed out. “Plus, I’ll spend my lunch break over here.”

“Perfect,” Turner drawled. “We get to see Castiel the Contemptible for lunch.”

Castiel ignored her, as did I, as we looked at Zee who still seemed half convinced.

“You know,” I pointed out. “Your area is still within driving distance of me. There’s no one saying you can’t come check on me.”

Zee’s shoulders seemed to loosen the slightest of bits. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“That way we can share some pizza,” I teased.

Zee winced. “I don’t do pineapple on my pizza.”

“Some people don’t like butt stuff, either,” Turner said, startling us all. “But butt stuff might be liked by other people. You can’t judge.”

There was a long pause as we all soaked in her words.

Then Zee shook his head.

“On that note, I’ll leave you,” he said softly, his hand coming up to curl around my chin. “You need me, you call. No hesitation.”

I looked him in the eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”

He frowned. “I just have a really bad feeling.” He looked down at the dead person we were standing next to. “You can fix this?”

The man on my table was definitely fucked up. He’d been one of the ones that’d gotten hurt because of me, and it just fucking figured that they’d bring him to my funeral home to make pretty again.

“I’m going to do my best,” I admitted. “They want me to try. If I can’t fix it up enough for them to do open casket, they’re just going to close it.”

Zee poked the man’s arm. “He almost looks fake.”

“The embalming preserves them,” I said. “And Turner has already started to do a little fixing on her own. I’m just making it perfect.”

He shrugged. “I guess so.”

I shooed him away. “Go. I’ll make sure to get the pizza you like.”

“Not any butt stuff…right?” he teased before he let me go, placing a chaste kiss onto my lips.

I rolled my eyes. “Pineapple? No. Butt stuff? That’s never off the table for me.”

His jaw clenched as he shook his head and walked away taking Castiel with him. “Jesus Christ, woman.”

Laughing, I went to work on the man, doing my best with the massive wound that was in the middle of the man’s throat.

Apparently, keeping up with the same axe motive, my stalker had decided to go and axe everybody that had seemingly hurt me in some way.

I actually had two of them in my fucking coolers right now.

Way to make a girl feel guilty.

Luckily the other person that’d fallen victim, a guy that I’d once had a spat with outside of the supermarket over him not putting a cart away about two months ago, wasn’t interested in being viewed. He’d wanted to be cremated, according to his ex-wife, so after he was released by the police, I’d be sending him in to be cremated.

“This guy probably died with one blow of his axe,” Turner surmised. “I asked Castiel to give me the details, but he wouldn’t.”

“That’s because I’m fairly sure that Castiel hates you,” I told her honestly. “What the hell did you do to him while I was away?”

She sneered at me.

“He was such an ass.” She rolled her eyes. “We went to your house and started to go through some things. Then he brought me here and asked me to walk him through our day. Then he found out that I walked alone to and from work sometimes, and it just degraded from there. Now he’s insisting he bring me to and from work if I ever don’t feel like driving.”

I sighed.

“Hey, what’s that?” Turner asked, pointing to something.

I frowned and looked at the gaping hole in the neck of the man I was working on.

They’d done an autopsy on him, I’d fixed him up, and was in the process of fixing the wound up on his throat with wire mesh.