by Paige Tyler
“French, huh?” He considered that. “I think I have the perfect restaurant in mind. Tomorrow night good for you?”
“Perfect,” she said, although she didn’t know how she could ever wait that long. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too.” He leaned in again, putting his mouth close to her. “Especially since you did promise me it’d be the best date of my life.”
Everly’s face heated at the reminder. But she had said those exact words, so she couldn’t hold it against him for bringing them up, especially since her mind was probably wandering in exactly the same direction.
She smiled up at him. “Well, a promise is a promise. And I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
“I’m pretty sure I won’t.”
His eyes caught the light of the nearby streetlamp like they had in the bank, making them almost gold, and suddenly, she was having a hard time breathing. She’d never been around a guy who had this kind of effect on her.
“I’ll text you my address later,” she said. “Is seven o’clock good for you?”
He nodded. “Perfect.”
Even though the logistical details of their first date seemed to have been pinned down as well as they were ever going to be, Everly noticed that neither one of them moved. They simply stood there, gazing at each other, mere inches separating their lips.
Behind her, one of his teammates cleared his throat, and the trance was broken. Everly reluctantly stepped back. She turned and saw Khaki and the guys regarding her and Landry with knowing smiles.
“What?” Landry demanded.
“Nothing,” Becker said, still grinning.
Landry shook his head, his mouth twitching. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”
He fell into step beside her as she led the way to her silver Nissan Juke. She dug in her purse for her keys as she turned to him.
“Thank you,” she said. “And not just for walking me to my car. For what you did in the bank. You saved my life.”
“Any time,” he said. “Are you doing okay? Do you need to talk to someone? About what happened in there, I mean.”
Talking to him was all she needed. She smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m going to go home, take a nice, relaxing bath, and think about our date.”
His mouth curved. “Okay. But if you need to talk, call me.”
“I will.” Everly reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, suddenly self-conscious. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
He flashed her that gorgeous smile. “I’ll be there.”
* * *
It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time Everly let herself into the loft-style apartment she shared with Mia Barlowe. She tried to be as quiet as she could so she didn’t wake up her friend, but Mia was curled up on the couch watching the local news, nervously chewing on her thumbnail. The moment she saw Everly, she turned off the TV, then jumped off the couch and ran over to hug her.
“Thank God! I’ve been so worried about you. I heard about the bank robbery on the news and have been trying to call you all night. When I didn’t get an answer, I freaked out. Then someone posted a picture of you on Facebook getting checked out by a paramedic. I was just about to call the hospitals.” She pulled back, holding Everly at arm’s length. “Are you okay?”
Everly smiled, nudging her petite, dark-skinned roommate into the apartment so she could close the door. Then she turned and took Mia’s hands in hers. “I’m okay. You can calm down. I was in the bank during the holdup, but I wasn’t hurt.”
Mia eyed her skeptically, as if she thought Everly might be lying. “Come on. I have comfort food. You can tell me all about it while we eat.”
Everly let Mia lead her into the cozy, eclectic living room they’d shared since they’d graduated from college. She almost reminded Mia that it was practically midnight, but then realized she was hungry.
She winced as she took the bottle of water Mia thoughtfully grabbed from the fridge. Her friend had obviously been freaking out in front of the TV for hours. Everly felt terrible about not calling. Then again, she did have a good reason for being distracted.
“Was it absolutely horrible?” Mia asked as Everly took a slice of lukewarm pizza out of the box on the coffee table.
“Horrible enough to make me not want to go into a bank for a while. There were five guys with guns, and they didn’t seem to mind killing people. They shot the poor security guard in the back. I’m not even sure if he made it to the hospital alive.”
“I read on Facebook that he’s still in surgery, but the hospital seems hopeful.”
Everly was glad to hear that. “What about the other people who got hurt? Anything on them?”
Mia nodded as she reached for a slice of pizza. “They all seemed to be doing okay. The guard was the worst of the bunch. The news said there was a Dallas SWAT cop in the bank at the time of the robbery. He’s the one who saved everyone’s life, including some poor woman one of the robbers took hostage.”
Everly shuddered. “Yeah. It was me.”
“You?” Mia’s eyes widened, the slice of pizza halfway to her mouth. “Oh God! What happened?”
Everly thought about drastically editing the details of what had gone down in the bank, but Mia already knew most of it from watching the news, so she’d figure out if Everly was glossing over things. So, Everly told her everything from the moment she had met Landry until she had left him twenty minutes ago.
Mia flopped back against the couch with a sigh. “Most women would be thrilled to get out of a situation like that alive, but you come out of it with a date with a cute cop? I want your life.”
Everly sipped her water. “I’m not really sure you’d say he’s cute.”
“He’s not?”
“Not really. I’d probably go with gorgeous. Or devastating. I’d even go so far as to say he’s so sexy I had a hard time not kissing him right there in the middle of the crime scene,” Everly added with a grin. “But I would never call him cute.”
Mia threw an unopened packet of Parmesan cheese at her, which Everly deflected as she laughed.
“You are so bad,” Mia grumbled. “But I’m willing to overlook it if this new boy toy of yours has friends.”
Everly was about to mention all the attractive guys on the SWAT team when her phone rang. She quickly grabbed it, hoping it might be Landry calling to make sure she got home safely. But when she saw the name showing on the screen, any thoughts of the hunky cop disappeared.
Mia frowned at the look on her face. “Who is it?”
“My father.”
Her friend grimaced. “I didn’t call him, I swear.”
Everly found her thumb moving back and forth between the green button and the red one, not sure what she wanted to do. She loved her dad like crazy, but he’d been treating her like she was five years old ever since she was five years old. She might be twenty-eight, but he didn’t see it that way. He was from the old country, and sometimes, it really showed. He could be a pain in the butt when he wanted, and was overprotective to a fault. If he knew she’d been involved in a bank robbery, he’d probably insist her brothers go to the bank for her from now on.
But even if he’d heard about the bank robbery, what were the chances he knew she was there? It wasn’t like he used the Internet. He didn’t even have a clue what Facebook was.
She pressed the green button before she could overthink it.
“Hey, Dad. You’re calling late. Is everything okay?”
“I am fine, Everly. I am more concerned about you,” he said in his deep, rough voice. “Can I assume the reason you did not call was because you were hoping we had not heard about what happened at the bank? Or was it simply because you do not care if your brothers and I worry about you?”
She rolled her eyes. Honestly, why did her father have to be so dramatic all the time? “I’m fine, Dad. I was never in any danger. You know how the news blows everything out of proportion. I didn’t call because I didn’t want to worry
you. And of course I care that you guys worry about me.”
“So the news is blowing the danger you were in out of proportion? What about this police officer who saved your life? Are they making him up too?”
She cringed. “No, Landry’s real. And the part about him saving my life is true. How did you even know about that? It wasn’t in the news.”
“Armand and Tristan went down to the bank. They asked, and someone told them. Your brothers can be very charming when they want to be.”
Everly jerked back and stared at the phone as if it had bitten her. Then she put it back to her ear, her hand tightening so hard on the small device she thought the glass cover would crack. “You sent them down to the bank to spy on me?”
She could imagine her brothers chatting up some poor female reporter, turning on the charm and laying on the French accents. It made her want to throw the phone at the wall.
“I did not send them there to spy,” her father said calmly. “I sent them there with instructions to go in and get you out if they needed to, but with that very large SWAT officer there to watch over you, it wasn’t necessary. What did you say his name was—Landry? I didn’t realize police officers were on a first-name basis with women they rescue.”
Everly didn’t know which part annoyed her more. The fact that her fool brothers intended to rush into the bank unarmed and save her from a bunch of killers, or the fishing expedition her father was on. She sighed. If her date with Landry went as well as she hoped, her father was going to find out sooner or later.
“Landry was behind me in line,” she explained. “We were talking and exchanged names. In fact, he was asking me out when the bank robbers started shooting up the place.”
“I see. And did you agree to go out with him?”
She really needed to have a conversation with her father about boundaries. But midnight was not the time. “Yes, Dad.”
Her father was silent as if considering that. “Then you must bring him by the house so your brothers and I can meet him in person. I would very much like to thank him for what he has done for our family.”
Everly wanted to ask if he planned on having her brothers chaperone the date too, but bit her tongue. She didn’t want to give Florian Danu any ideas.
“I’ll think about it. Have a good night, Dad.”
Mia lifted a brow. “Your dad already knows about Landry?”
Everly tossed her phone on the couch beside her. “Worse. He wants to meet him.”
Her friend popped what was left of the slice of pizza she was eating in her mouth and grinned. “I’d pay to have front-row seats for that.”
Everly could only groan.
Chapter 3
Cooper sat in the chair across from Doctor Hadley Delacroix’s desk, watching as she jotted down notes. He had no idea what she could possibly be writing. They hadn’t said more than ten words to each other in the fifteen minutes he’d been there. All she’d done was introduce herself and tell him to have a seat in the chair across from her big cherrywood desk…or on the leather couch along one wall. And there was no way in hell she was getting him on that couch.
He’d pleaded his case last night to Gage, telling him this shrink session was a huge waste of time, but the Pack’s lead alpha wasn’t interested in his opinion on the subject.
“With all the crazy crap SWAT has been involved in lately, it’s not surprising Coletti is toeing the line on this return-to-duty evaluation and psych assessment,” his boss said. “What the hell did you think was going to happen when you threw a two-hundred-pound guy ten feet through the air and into a plate glass window in broad daylight? You’re damn lucky Becker was able to hack into the bank’s security servers and fuzz up those videos, or you’d be looking at more than a couple days with a shrink. IA would have you down at the hospital drawing blood three times a day until they figured out what kind of drugs you’re on. Just play the game, talk with the psychologist the department assigns to your case, then get your ass cleared for duty.”
Play the game. Right. Obviously, Gage had never met this particular shrink. It looked like the last time this woman had played games was when she was three years old—and she probably hadn’t liked them even then. Cooper could be charming when he wanted to be, but something told him that his werewolf charisma would be totally wasted on her.
As they sat there in silence, interrupted only by the scratching of her pen and the occasional rustle of a piece of paper, Cooper took the time to study Hadley Delacroix. She wasn’t like he’d pictured. He knew that was shallow as hell, but he assumed she’d have a mousey hairdo and horn-rimmed glasses, as well as a lab coat to go with her ultra-conservative, take-me-serious outfit.
He’d been way off target. For one thing, she wasn’t wearing a lab coat, and her leopard-print blouse screamed anything but conservative. For another, her fingernails were extremely long and painted a flashy color. And while he’d been right about the reading glasses, they weren’t horn-rimmed. She had a seriously distinct fuck-off vibe that was hard to miss too. If Delacroix had been a werewolf, she would have been an alpha for sure.
Thank God she wasn’t. That was all he and his pack needed—a shrink on the department payroll who knew the entire SWAT team was made up of werewolves.
As the minutes wore on, Cooper tried to keep his rising anger in check. He didn’t have a problem with psychologists per se. It was just that he’d dealt with enough of them after getting blown up in Iraq to know they couldn’t do a whole hell of a lot for most people. They’d tried to get him to come to grips with life as a cripple when it looked like the lower half of his body was going to be nothing but a bunch of dead weight. Then, after the “miracle” had occurred and his back had healed, they’d spent months trying to medicate his nightmares out of existence with drugs he couldn’t stand.
Ultimately, he never blamed the shrinks for not getting anything right with him. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t have a clue how to deal with a blown-up, screwed-up EOD tech, much less one who was discovering he was a werewolf.
He forced himself to think pleasant thoughts of Everly and their dinner plans, when Dr. Delacroix finally looked up and fixed him with those sharp eyes of hers.
“Why don’t we start by you telling me what happened in the bank yesterday?” she said bluntly.
So much for the getting-to-know-you chitchat. “Don’t you have the report already?”
She nodded. “I do. But they’re just words on a piece of paper. I’d rather hear the events from your point of view instead.”
“Why?”
Delacroix lifted a brow and regarded him in silence for several long seconds. “Why what?”
He rested his ankle on his knee. “Why do you need to hear it from my point of view? You’ve read the reports about what happened in the bank. I’m sure the one from IA was especially interesting. Maybe you’ve even seen the videos from the bank’s security system. After all that, I’d think a person with your obvious intelligence would have already come up with plenty of opinions on exactly what happened in there, and what that says about me and my ability to do my job.”
Cooper hadn’t intended for his words to come out quite so confrontational, but he had to admit that after all the time he’d spent talking with the doctors from the Veterans Administration, he wasn’t really a fan of sharing. In his experience, doctors liked to ask a lot of questions, only to toss you in some neatly labeled box regardless of how you answered.
Delacroix leaned back in her chair and regarded him with a look that seemed to suggest she’d anticipated his answer.
“Officer Cooper, I think you have some misconception concerning my role in this fitness-for-duty evaluation,” she said calmly. “I’m not an employee of the Dallas Police Department. I’m a completely independent psychologist paid on retainer by the State of Texas to perform various forensic and mental health tasks within my field of expertise. I’m not being paid to judge your technical performance during the robbery or provide psychiatric treatmen
t. You were just involved in a traumatic incident that required you to shoot two men and physically engage with three others. Your departmental leadership is concerned these encounters could have an adverse effect on your ability to do your job. You aren’t here for therapy. My task is simply to ensure you’re mentally and emotionally fit to return to your SWAT duties, as well as recommend additional resources should you need them.”
Cooper couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter. “Which is a nice way of saying you’re supposed to figure out if I’m insane, right?”
A slight smile curved her lips, but then it was gone, replaced with her usual professional expression. “I’m not really a fan of that word. My task is to understand what happened in that bank and determine if your reactions and emotions at the time—and now—are in line with those of other people in your profession. Anything you tell me of a personal nature is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality and won’t be provided to the department. They simply get my final report concerning your suitability to return to duty.”
“And if I don’t feel like talking about what happened in that bank?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
She shrugged. “I certainly can’t make you talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m getting paid to conduct an undefined number of one-hour sessions until I arrive at a suitable determination. If you’d rather spend our sessions talking about the weather, that’s fine with me. I get paid a large sum of money from the state regardless.”
“But if we spend all our time talking about the weather, you won’t be signing my fitness-for-duty certificate, will you?”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t.”
Cooper ground his jaw. This was going to suck pond water, but he couldn’t see any way out. “So, what do you want to know?”
She sat up straight and picked up her pen, holding it poised over her notepad. “Instead of asking you to recount the entire event, maybe it would be easier if I started with a specific part of it, just to get the ball rolling.”