“I’ve seen her picture,” Becker said. “She’s really hot.”
Okay, that wasn’t the comment he expected. Then again, this was Becker. The information tech and electronic surveillance expert always said the first thing that came to his mind. As if to prove his point, Becker pulled out his iPhone and quickly found a picture of the journalist to show the other guys. They took one look at her photo and agreed that Ms. Stone was “smokin’.” Damn, sometimes they could be so shallow.
Cooper passed the phone back to Becker. “Isn’t Mackenzie Stone known for her in-depth investigative stories, ones usually involving corrupt politicians or major crime figures? What does she want with us?”
The rest of the unit stopped debating about whether Mackenzie Stone had a boyfriend or not to give Gage a worried look. For all the trouble they caused him with the bickering, the fighting, and the constant effort to move up the Pack’s command structure, they trusted him to protect and keep hidden the one thing they cared about—their identity as werewolves. Because if they were scared of anything, it was being exposed for what they really were.
Gage sat on the edge of the desk at the front of the room. “Ms. Stone said she wants to see how we operate so she can write a story on how we work together as a team.”
“Do you believe her?” asked Trey Duncan, the unit’s other resident medic and entry man.
“Honestly? I think it’s a load of crap.” At their surprised looks, he continued. “As Cooper said, Ms. Stone specializes in digging into serious stories that grab national headlines. I doubt she’s interested in writing a fluff piece about the city’s SWAT team. I’m guessing she’s seen all our accolades and figures there’s something fishy going on. I don’t know if she thinks we’re crooked or in league with the criminals we take down or what. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what her angle is. I’ve decided the best way to get her to go away is to bring her in and let her see what we do.”
Becker stared at him in disbelief. “You’re going to tell her we’re werewolves?”
Gage would have laughed if anything about this was funny. “No, I’m not going to tell her the entire SWAT team is made up of werewolves. But I will show her how hard we work and train, how much we care about the people of this city, and what we’re willing to risk for them. I’m going to be charming and friendly—we’re
all
going to be charming and friendly. By the time she leaves, Mackenzie Stone will realize we’re nothing more than hardworking, dedicated cops, not a story for the evening news.”
“And what if she doesn’t buy that line?” Mike asked from the back of the room. The smile he wore earlier was gone now. “What if she keeps digging?”
Gage met his gaze. “I guess it’s on me to make sure that doesn’t happen, isn’t it?” He scanned the room. “But I need all of your help to do it. As long as Mackenzie Stone is around, you’re going to have to stay in complete and total control. No one going half wolf on me, no one jumping a wall they shouldn’t be able to jump, no one running faster than they should be able to run. And definitely no fighting. You need to look like the best SWAT team in the country. Got it?”
Slow nods came from around the room, Mike included.
Gage took a deep breath. Until now, he hadn’t realized how hard hiding their secret from Mackenzie Stone was going to be. But his pack was depending on him to keep them safe, and that’s what he’d do.
As everyone stood up to get back to work, Gage added one more thing. “Ms. Stone will be here in less than an hour. I want that weight room cleaned up before she shows up. Get on it.”
That earned him some groans, but not nearly as many as he expected. Maybe this was going to work.
Mac took her car to the SWAT compound, leaving Zak and the news van behind on purpose. She wanted to send a clear signal to Dixon that she was agreeing to his terms—no video cameras, no recording devices, no divulging secret tactical procedures. Of course, she had no interest in secret tactical procedures, and wouldn’t have printed them regardless. She was after something else entirely. She rolled to a stop outside the gate and turned off the engine. She didn’t know what it was yet, but her instincts told her there was the mother of all stories behind that fence.
She grabbed her purse, but didn’t bother with the monster camera Zak had tossed in the backseat. She still had her trusty little camera tucked in her back pocket. And if Dixon wanted to take it from her, she had her iPhone.
She took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, and put on her game face. Sergeant Gage Dixon was no idiot. He knew she was snooping for a story. She had to remember not to underestimate the man simply because he was attractive as all get-out.
Mac headed for the gate to ring the bell, only to stop when she realized Dixon was already waiting for her. He was standing there in his navy blue uniform, which consisted of military-style pants bloused above combat boots and a skintight T-shirt that showed off every muscle he had—and there were a lot of them.
She dragged her mind out of the fantasy it was headed for and gave him a smile. “Sergeant Dixon, you didn’t have to meet me at the gate. You could have just buzzed me in.”
He opened the door, returning her smile with a devastating grin of his own. “What kind of host would I be if I did that? And if we’re going to be spending so much time together, maybe you can stop with the formalities and just call me Gage.”
Maybe this was going to be easier than she’d thought. “Okay, but only if you call me Mac—it’s what all my friends call me.”
“I like the idea of being friends, but if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll call you Mackenzie.” He grimaced. “Mac makes me think of a big, overweight trucker, and you definitely don’t fit that image.”
Mac couldn’t help but laugh. He was the first guy who ever told her he wouldn’t call her by her nickname. Most guys would call a woman Hannibal Lecter if they thought it’d get them in her panties. Perhaps it was an indication that working Dixon—Gage—was going to take a different approach.
Not to mention a more subtle
touch
, she thought as he led her across the parking lot and into what he called the training-slash-maintenance building. It had a break room, a classroom, a small gym with basketball hoops, and a few rooms for storing tactical gear and other equipment.
“What’s in there?” she asked as they walked past a room that had the door closed.
If the door was closed, it was a place she wanted to see. And if he resisted, it meant she
really
wanted to see it.
Gage frowned. “Just another gym.” He opened the door to reveal a weight room. “We had a little accident and some of the mirrors got broken, but we should have it back in shape in a day or so.”
So much for a room full of those deep, dark secrets she’d been hoping for. “I guess you guys have to work out a lot, huh? To get all those big muscles, I mean.”
She figured a guy his size would appreciate a little love thrown his way when it came to maintaining his physique, but he only chuckled.
“We work out, but not as much as you think. We stay in shape mostly from the training we do. You know—a lot of running, climbing obstacles, carrying heavy gear and each other.” When she lifted a brow, he added, “To simulate evacuating a wounded man. The weight room is here more to give the guys something to keep their minds occupied between incidents, as well as help deal with stress afterward.”
She wasn’t sure how much she bought that. Somebody his size needed to work out—a lot. But she certainly enjoyed the spoils of his efforts. Gage had a nice body. She could only imagine how much better he’d look with his clothes off.
She immediately berated herself for forgetting why she was there.
Focus
on
the
dang
story.
They ran into four members of his team as he took her on a tour of the last storage room in the building. The men were repacking some kind of gear she didn’t recognize, but stopped when she and Gage walked in.
“Mackenzie, this is Officer Hale Delaney, one of our specialists in less lethal tactics and martial arts. Officer Eric Becker, computers and surveillance. Officer Landry Cooper, explosives and demolitions expert. And Officer Remy Boudreaux, shotgun breech specialist and assistant armorer.” Gage glanced at her. “Meet Mackenzie Stone from the
Dallas
Daily
Star
.”
Mac already knew their names and their specialties from the personnel file she’d made. She smiled and shook each of their hands. And like the other SWAT cops who’d rescued the hostages that morning, they were all big, tall, and muscular. Not to mention easy on the eyes.
As Gage led her over to the next building, he gave her a tutorial on how the SWAT team was organized.
“We have a lot of flexibility when it comes to how we operate, based on the mission,” he said. “We have two separate squads within the unit—Mike runs one and Xander leads the other. They can operate independently or together as part of the full team. If there’s more than one incident at a time, or if a particular mission calls for it, we break the team up into thirds, with me leading the third squad.”
“Do you always run the operation from the vehicle you were in today?” she asked as they entered the administrative building.
“Normally, no.” He gave her a wry smile. “I try to stay as close to the action as I can, but today was a little different because I needed to be there to communicate directly with the on-scene commander and the power company. Plus, we had the department’s crisis negotiator there because we were hoping to make a deal with the gunmen and avoid a confrontation, but that didn’t work.”
When they got to the main office, he introduced her to Officers Alex Trevino and Max Lowry, two of the team’s snipers. It seemed odd to see big, strapping men like them sitting at desks filling out forms.
“SWAT officers doing paperwork?” She shook her head. “Tell me it isn’t so.”
The two men laughed.
“Unfortunately, it’s the bane of all police work,” Gage said. “The more actual cop work you do, the more reports you have to fill out.”
While the admin part of the job might be boring, Mac did see one thing that caught her attention. Next to the office was a room filled with filing cabinets. If there was something interesting to find around here, that’d definitely be the best place to start.
She and Gage were heading out the back door of the building when they passed a set of stairs that led up to the second floor.
“What’s up there?” she asked when Gage didn’t offer to give her a tour.
Gage paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Some is storage, but most of it is barracks space.”
“Barracks space?”
“Yeah. You know—showers, a small kitchen, and a few bedrooms. In case we have to work late or need to keep a crew here on twenty-four-hour shifts.”
“Oh.” It probably didn’t look like a room at the Ritz, but she had a sudden urge to see it anyway. Where would men like Gage crash after pulling an all-nighter? “Mind if I take a look? Just so I can get a feel for how you spend your downtime?”
He shrugged and gestured up the stairs. “After you.”
Mac was about halfway up the stairs when it occurred to her that Gage might have asked her to go first so he could stare at her ass. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder to check and was disappointed to see he wasn’t even looking. Damn. If she couldn’t distract him with her feminine assets, this job might turn out to be tougher than she thought—and it was already tough to begin with.
As he’d said, some of the space upstairs was dedicated to storage, but there was also a small kitchen with a table and some chairs, as well as a large community shower, and a room with four cots that looked as if they would have fit in just fine on a military base…or a prison. Even the blankets were rough, made of uncomfortable-looking wool. The room also had a wall of gray lockers Gage explained held extra uniforms and personal gear.
Well, one thing was for sure. No one could accuse SWAT of misappropriating tax dollars for their own comfort. The place was positively Spartan.
Mac turned to say as much to Gage when she caught sight of the pile of bloody gauze bandages on the counter. Gage must have seen the direction of her gaze because he hurriedly swept them into a trash can with his arm.
“One of the men got nicked during the hostage rescue,” he explained.
Martinez. She’d almost forgotten. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. It was just a little scratch. One of our medics patched him up.”
Mac wasn’t an expert on scratches, but that had certainly looked like a heck of a lot of blood for a scratch. She wished she could swipe one of those bloody bandages so she could get it tested, but there wasn’t any way to do it with Gage standing there. She would have to wait until they put the trash on the curb for pickup and dig through it. Until then, the bloody bandages were just one more nugget of information to be filed away for later.
As they walked through the bedroom area, she looked at the uncomfortable beds again, then glanced at Gage. “Do you spend much time here?”
He gave her a wry smile on the way down the stairs. “Unfortunately. I wasn’t kidding when I said we have to do a lot of paperwork. I stay here two or three nights a week just trying to keep up with it.”
Huh. Guess that answered the question as to whether he had a girlfriend. She already knew from his personnel file that he wasn’t married, but with work hours like his it was safe to assume he wasn’t seeing anyone, at least not regularly.
They ran into Diego Martinez on their way out of the building. He was carrying what looked like a footlocker on his shoulder. The thing had to weigh seventy-five pounds easy, but he held it like it was nothing. Maybe his injury hadn’t been as bad as it looked—or the designer drug he might be taking made him impervious to pain as well as super strong.
As Gage made the introductions, she searched for signs that Martinez was juicing, but his eyes weren’t dilated, his hands weren’t shaking, and his skin wasn’t cold and clammy. If he was taking drugs, it was the type that didn’t have any visible side effects.
She pointed to a series of buildings as they crossed the back of the compound. “What are those?”
Gage followed her gaze. “We use those to simulate different tactical scenarios. We can practice climbing, rappelling, going through windows, breeching doors, explosive entry—pretty much anything we want.”
As they got closer, Mac realized that what she’d thought were buildings were actually facades, like something on a Hollywood movie set. Gage gave her a tour, describing the kinds of things the team used them for in more detail. Even though she kept telling herself she was only there to look for evidence of some wrongdoing, she couldn’t help but be fascinated by the training he and his men did. She almost wished she
were
writing a fluff piece on them.
She found herself standing a lot closer to Gage than necessary, too. And it had nothing to do with her trying to play him. She might be a journalist, but she was a woman, too. And she couldn’t deny she was flat-out attracted to Gage. Hell, she wasn’t sure there were many women in the world who wouldn’t be attracted to the man. She knew she should fight it, but she didn’t. Instead, she put her covert mission on hold and gave herself permission to have fun.
He was one of those rare people who could talk about anything she brought up, including local and national politics. She was floored he knew the names and agendas of every political mover and shaker not only in Texas but on the national level and in Mexico, too. Before long, they were talking about topics that had nothing to do with SWAT, cops, or even journalism. And she was enjoying the heck out of it.
Mac didn’t even realize how much time had passed until she noticed they’d toured at least a dozen training buildings, an obstacle course, a climbing tower that was way too high in her opinion, two shooting ranges, and a beach volleyball court of all things. The next thing she knew, they’d done a whole circuit of the SWAT training grounds and were heading back toward the admin building. But instead of taking her there, Gage led her to a one-floor building without any windows. More storage, maybe?
“Last stop on the tour. I figured you might want to get a look at our armory.” Gage flashed her a grin. “No offense, but it’s been my experience that reporters seem to have an unhealthy fascination with the weapons SWAT uses for some reason.”
She smiled up at him. “No offense taken, since I’m a journalist, not a reporter.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About thirty thousand a year.”
He chuckled, but didn’t say anything as he opened the door for her. The building was a welcome relief from the blistering temperatures outside, and Mac pushed her sunglasses up on her head. A police officer behind the counter that blocked their entry into the back half of the building looked up when they entered.
“This is Senior Corporal Trevor McCall,” Gage said. “Beyond his normal SWAT duties, he’s also our senior armorer. He maintains and repairs all our weapons, modifying them when needed. McCall, meet Mackenzie Stone.”
She shook hands with the officer, marveling that here was yet another hot, muscular guy. She didn’t realize it was even statistically possible for that many attractive men to be in one place. This had to be a record or something.
“Come on back and I’ll give you the grand tour,” McCall said.
Gage waited for her to walk around the counter, then followed. There were actually two doors between them and the room where the weapons were kept—the first was made out of a wire material while the other was a solid metal door. Big safes and cabinets lined each wall, along with several shelves with storage bins.