Chapter 11

Cooper wore only his suit jacket and pants home the next morning because his dress shirt had been a ragged mess, along with Everly’s equally shredded panties. Thank God no one saw him or that probably would have sparked a lot of questions he didn’t have time for. He still had to shower and change before work. The guys wouldn’t appreciate him coming in covered in Everly’s exquisite feminine scent and reeking of sex. He, on the other hand, thought the combination was delectable as hell.

He showered off and got his uniform on as fast as he could, then went into the kitchen to grab something to eat. As usual, there wasn’t a whole lot there, so he made do with a bag of Doritos and a can of Cheddar ’n Bacon Easy Cheese. Thank God that stuff couldn’t go bad, or he’d never get his daily allowance of dairy.

He glanced at his watch as he shoved chips and cheese in his face. It was official—he was late. Damn, he hadn’t been late for work in…well…ever.

At least he wouldn’t be the only one showing up late. Werewolves couldn’t get drunk or hung over, but they could sure party hard as hell. When he and Everly had left the reception last night, most of his pack had still been there, wooing all the single ladies at the wedding. Cooper doubted any of his teammates had gone home alone. Hell, some of them probably hadn’t gone home at all.

He grinned as he sprayed cheese on another chip. Last night had been the best of his life hands down. While it had seemed over the last week like the fates were conspiring to keep him and Everly out of bed, last night proved the wait was definitely worth it.

Neither of them had slept a wink. Every time he thought they were both worn out and couldn’t possibly go again, he’d catch a whiff of her arousal or see some naked body part. His cock would harden for her all over again.

The best part was Everly was as hungry for him as he was for her. Every time he found himself reaching for her, it was to find her reaching for him. There was nothing she wasn’t up for, as long as it meant they were in each other’s arms.

Besides up against the wall, they’d made love in her bed, on the floor, on her dresser, on the island in the kitchen, and on the vanity in the bathroom. He quickly learned the where didn’t matter. Being inside her was all that was important. He would never get enough of her. He knew that now with a certainty.

Yeah, he had it bad for Everly. So bad that he wasn’t sure how he’d found the strength to drag himself out of her bed and leave this morning. If the other guys who’d found their Ones felt like this all the time, how the hell did they get any work done? Never mind that. How the hell did they even come to work? All he could think about was being with Everly.

He sprayed a mountain of gooey processed cheese on top of a Dorito, capped it with another triangular piece of crispy goodness, and then shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

As he crunched his way through breakfast, a nagging voice in the back of his head reminded him that everything with Everly wasn’t all cupcakes and rainbows. There was her dumb-ass family to deal with. He still couldn’t understand how her entire family had gone from nice and cordial to get-the-fuck-out in the span of thirty seconds.

What, did they think he had a few bodies buried in the backyard of his apartment complex? That would have made sense if they would have treated him shitty from the get-go. But they’d been relaxed and chill around him the first ten minutes he’d been there. Then her father had shown off that antique mirror, and it had all gone to shit—without explanation. Hell, he’d even checked to see if his fly had been open.

With the way her brothers had lined up to block the door, he’d thought for a minute that things were about to turn violent. Fortunately, Everly was too bullheaded and stubborn to let anybody tell her what to do. Her spunk was just one more thing he loved about her.

He froze with a red-orange chip halfway to his mouth, realizing what he’d just thought. Holy crud, he loved her. I love her!

Cooper said those three little words out loud a few times, arranging them into different phrases and enjoying the way they sounded as they bounced off the walls of his small apartment. It had been one thing to think she was The One, but to finally realize he was in love with her, well, that was another. He’d never felt anything like this for another woman, and it felt frigging epic.

He wondered how long he should wait to tell her—he didn’t want to freak her out or anything, but everyone knew women liked to hear it—when he realized that at some point, he would have to say those other three little words.

I’m a werewolf.

Cooper couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t play it cool, even when he was getting shot at or blown up. But the thought of standing in front of Everly and telling her he was a werewolf—and possibly having her reject him—filled him with a dread like he’d never felt in his life.

Sharing their secrets hadn’t been a big deal for Xander and Becker, but that was because the women they’d fallen for happened to be werewolves too. It had been damn near catastrophic for Gage. Mac had flipped out and almost revealed their secret to the whole world. Would Everly handle it any better?

He liked to believe she would. She seemed like the most stable and even-keeled woman he’d ever met, but he was scared. You never knew how someone would deal with a piece of information like that. If she lost it, it wouldn’t be just his ass that was devastated. The Pack would be in trouble as well.

Maybe he shouldn’t tell her at all. Did she really have to know everything about him for them to be happy?

Cooper gnawed on that for a good long while, along with some more chips. When he looked down, he realized he’d eaten the whole bag. Hell, the can of cheese was spewing air now.

Tossing them in the trash, he washed his hands then guzzled a bottle of orange soda. He’d just grabbed the keys to his Jeep when his cell rang. “I have sucky news and god-awful sucky news,” Dennis said without preamble. “Which do you want first?”

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Cooper said. “Most people start by saying, hey, how are you, but if you insist on being all about the job, let’s start with the sucky and work our way up to the god-awful sucky part.”

“Jed still isn’t talking,” Dennis said. “But his youngest brother Jackson is. Turns out he was at the house when our bomber showed up there. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the guy because Jed didn’t want to spook the buyer.”

“That does suck.”

“Yeah, but while Jackson didn’t see anything, he did eavesdrop on the conversation. And this is the part where things start to really suck.”

“What do you mean?” Cooper asked.

“Jackson overheard a lot of words of a military flavor. He didn’t know what half of them meant, but our profilers are sure the bomber is somebody with a military background, maybe even active duty.”

“Shit.”

Cooper sat on the edge of the couch. He felt like someone had just let all the air out of his happy balloon. The idea that there was a soldier out there responsible for setting off a bomb that killed a fellow cop was fucked up. It was like fate was forcing him to take sides between the two halves of his life—military and law enforcement. No matter what, it was going to end badly.

“Yeah, I thought you might say that.” Dennis sighed. “You ready to hear more?”

“No, but we might as well get the rest of it out of the way,” Cooper muttered. “I can’t imagine how it could get any worse than it already is.”

“It does,” Dennis said. “At six o’clock this morning, there was another bombing at the industrial area. This one directly targeted the main lobby of a defense firm called Soldier Support Systems Incorporated—Triple S-I for short. No deaths, but the people who arrive at that hour got hurt pretty bad.”

“What?” Cooper shot to his feet. “Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?”

“Don’t blame me—you said to start slow. Besides, I’m telling you now. That’s why I called in the first place, to ask if you’d be willing to come over to the industrial area and poke around with me. We’ve already got a field team out there collecting evidence, but I wouldn’t mind your take on the situation.”

Cooper agreed, but not before cussing his friend out for being a complete shithead. Then he hung up and called Xander.

“I already heard,” Xander said the moment he answered. “Get over there, if they want you, and let me know if you need any help. Try not to step on any FBI toes, huh? We’re trying to rebuild some bridges here.”

Cooper didn’t have a problem finding the defense firm that had been hit by the bomber. It was surrounded by emergency vehicles—unmarked federal sedans and SUVs making up the majority. News vans and crime scene gawkers filled the nearby parking areas to overflowing, and some enterprising guy with a food truck had shown up. The guy was going to make an ass load. The line already stretched a hundred feet.

Triple S-I looked more like an ordinary office building than anything associated with the Department of Defense. Other than the big military icon on the side of the building, there was nothing that even suggested what kind of work the company did.

Cooper ducked under the crime scene tape and made his way to the front entrance. The building used to have a row of big picture windows and glass doors along the front, but the bomb had blown out the glass and most of the wall.

As he made his way through the debris to get inside, he breathed in the overwhelming odor of hydrocarbons that always hung in the air after an explosion. Back in the day—before he’d been blown to shit in Iraq—he used to love the smell. Now it only reminded him of the pain that came from being temporarily airborne.

Glass was scattered across the tile-covered lobby. It was everywhere—stuck in the walls, the furniture, even the ceiling. He winced at all the blood. There were spatters and puddles here, there, and everywhere. The only saving grace was that the bomb had gone off before most of the employees had come to work. If it had been later, a lot of people would have gotten killed. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the garage bomb had been set to go off around the same time. No doubt Dennis would be working that angle.

Since the device had blown into the lobby instead of all over the grass and pavement outside, the FBI had chosen to set up a temporary collection area in a conference room off to the side of the bomb scene. They’d move everything to the forensic labs later, but right now, they were hoping to get lucky and stumble over something that would wrap this up fast and tight.

Even though he was in uniform, Cooper flashed his badge as he walked into the conference room. The female agent glanced at it, then handed him a pair of gloves.

Every inch of the big table in the center of the room was covered with metal and plastic fragments. Dennis wasn’t there, but there were three other feds looking at evidence with magnifying glasses and writing down notes. They glanced up as he snapped the gloves on and walked over to the first table, but didn’t say anything.

He surveyed the twisted bits of metal, melted hunks of plastics, and random pieces of glass and wood from the lobby. He immediately found the key fob circuit board rigged to initiate the device. Beside it was a rudimentary, delay arming circuit. He picked it up with a frown. It looked like something a twelve-year-old would make from an old Radio Shack hobby kit.

While everything indicated this bomb had been made by the same guy, the design was poor and the work rushed. The first device had probably taken him months to make. This one had taken hours.

Cooper set down the arming circuit and slowly moved around the table. The fed there gave him a look that said he’d checked and hadn’t found anything, so Cooper didn’t have to. Cooper ignored him and looked anyway.

He frowned as something caught his attention. It was a bent piece of metal from a dog tag. He picked it up to study it more closely with a magnifying glass. There were a few letters stamped into it. Twisted, smeared, and impossible to read, but letters nonetheless.

“Hey, you find something?”

Gut twisting, Cooper lifted his head to see Dennis coming into the room, an expectant look on his face.

“What?” he asked, stalling.

“Did you find anything? You were standing there with a really serious look on your face, so I thought you’d made a big discovery.”

Cooper opened his mouth to tell Dennis about the dog tag, but nothing came out. He gave himself a mental shake and tried again. If the FBI could recreate the name or social security number on that tag, it would almost certainly lead them directly to the bomber, he was sure of it. Then why were his werewolf instincts shouting at him to keep his damn mouth shut?

He knew it was crazy, but he’d spent the past four years of his life trusting those instincts, and they’d never let him down before. So he pushed down the human side of himself that was telling him he was being a dumb-ass and gave Dennis a shake of the head.

He set the piece of dog tag on the table. “Nothing worthwhile beyond the fact that it’s the same bomber and that he made this one in a big rush.”

Dennis nodded. “Pretty much the same conclusion my guys are coming up with. Didn’t hurt to have you take a look anyway. I’m going to talk to Arnold Braun, Triple S-I’s owner and CEO, and see what he has to say. Want to join me?”

Cooper stripped off his gloves and followed him out of the room.

Dennis led the way back through the lobby and into an area filled with a maze of cubicles, until they reached a big corner office in the back of the building. The gray-haired man seated at the fancy walnut desk was on the phone when they walked in. Thanks to his keen werewolf hearing, Cooper could hear the person on the other end of the line giving Triple S-I’s CEO a rundown of the injuries sustained by the employees who’d already been taken to the hospital.

When he was done, Arnold Braun dropped the phone back in its cradle with a heavy sigh. Dennis introduced himself, then Cooper. While Braun answered their questions, he was too upset to be much help. Cooper wouldn’t have been surprised if the man broke down and started crying.

“Why would someone attack my company like this?” he asked. “We’re not a weapons developer. We don’t even have any security-related contracts. We handle minor support contracts for our deployed forces, like food, supplies, construction, and administration services. Nothing controversial. We feed and shelter people, do the little things so the soldiers can focus on their work. Why would someone bomb us and hurt so many innocent people?”

Dennis didn’t have the answer to that question, and neither did Cooper.

“Did you or your employees get any emails or threats from service members or people who recently got out of the military?” Dennis asked.

Braun shook his head. “No. I go out of my way to hire as many former military men and women as possible. I like to do whatever I can to help those who’ve served.”

Dennis nodded. “Can I get a list of the employees who typically arrive early for work, and maybe arrange to meet with the senior ones?”

Cooper knew exactly where Dennis was going with that. If there was someone pissed at an employee, it was most likely going to be a supervisor. Dennis might be completely wrong, of course, but it was a good place to start, especially if one of those supervisors turned out to be on the list of people who’d been in the parking garage around the time of the first bombing.

“I’ll have my assistant get it for you,” Braun said. “As far as meeting my senior people who come in early, I’ll arrange that, but it might take a little time. Most of them are at the hospital right now, either getting their own injuries tended to or helping others who were hurt.”

The meeting with Braun ended shortly after that, and Cooper spent the rest of the day at the crime scene helping collect evidence and move it to the FBI lab facilities. Before he left for the day, he got Dennis to promise he’d call once the FBI had the meeting set up with the senior members of Triple S-I. He wanted to be in on that.

As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, he tried to understand for about the hundredth time that day why he’d lied to one of his best friends about something as important as that dog tag. He didn’t like the idea that he was protecting a killer—even if it was a fellow soldier—no matter what his inner werewolf demanded he do. Hopefully, Dennis and his forensic team had already found that scrap of dog tag and were tracking it back to the person responsible for the bombings even now. That didn’t do much to calm the confusing twist of emotions roiling through his gut, but it was something.

Cooper was so distracted with those thoughts that he didn’t realize he was on his way to Everly’s until he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. His mouth curved. His inner werewolf might be wrong about concealing evidence, but it was right on target when it came to Everly. She had a way of making him forget everything but her, and right now, he could use a little work-related amnesia.

Cooper was still thinking about Everly as he strode up the sidewalk. As sweet as the distraction was, it was why he didn’t notice the tingle in his senses that normally alerted him something was wrong. By the time he heard rapidly approaching footsteps, the attackers were already on him.

He spun around just in time to see Armand Danu swinging a baseball bat at his head. What the hell?

Cooper blocked the bat with his left forearm, but the bone cracked under the blow. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but he couldn’t think too much about the pain because Giles, Claude, and Tristan converged on him too, swinging and bashing with three more baseball bats, like they were trying to kill him.

He kept one arm up to protect his head and face, but that left his back and ribs exposed, and they weren’t shy about taking advantage of his vulnerability. His first instinct was to draw the Sig .40 at his belt, but he clamped down on that thought. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on here, but he couldn’t just shoot Everly’s brothers.

A bat came down hard across his back, cracking ribs and hurting like hell. The pain brought on an involuntary shift, and Cooper felt his fangs and claws start to extend. He retracted them with a snarl. The werewolf inside him might want to rip the four men apart, but he didn’t. But just because he didn’t want to kill them didn’t mean he was going to stand here and let them beat him to a pulp.

He caught the bat that Giles was swinging in a pretty good imitation of Babe Ruth. The business end smacked hard into his palm, cracking a few bones and tearing some ligaments. The stab of pain made him grit his teeth, but he held on and jerked the weapon away from Giles, then reached out and grabbed him by the arm, tossing him into the shrubs a couple yards away. He could have easily smashed the jackass into the nearby building, but he knew Everly would be upset with him if he did—even if these shits deserved worse than that.

He turned to see Armand coming at him, ready to tee off. Cooper stepped into the man’s swing, lifting his left arm and letting his upper ribs and lat muscles absorb the brunt of the impact. It still fucking hurt like hell, but without the added force of a full-arm extension behind it, the blow didn’t do a lot of damage.

Cooper clamped his left arm down, trapping the bat beneath it, striking out with the heel of his other hand at the same time. Armand went flying back with the force of the blow, air whooshing out of his lungs.

Cooper tossed Armand’s weapon aside just as Tristan came in swinging at his head like a madman. Shit. Not even a werewolf would survive an impact that hard.

His hold on his inner wolf slipped a bit, and even though he fought it, Cooper couldn’t stop the low growl that erupted from his throat. At the same time, the muscles of his shoulders and arms began to twist and flex. If he didn’t end this shit soon, his body might shift solely in order to protect itself.

While Tristan’s swing was aggressive, it was also out of control. Cooper easily ducked under it and came up with his hand around the youngest brother’s throat. Claude tried to dive at him, but Cooper lashed out with a roundhouse kick to the man’s chest, sending him to the ground.

For the first time since the assault had started, he was blessedly clear of his attackers.

Cooper tightened his grip on Tristan’s throat, lifting him two feet off the ground and giving him a shake. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Are you seriously trying to get yourself killed?”

He didn’t expect Tristan to answer since he was gasping for air at the moment, but before he could put Everly’s youngest brother back on the ground, he sensed movement off his right shoulder. He looked up, expecting more trouble—and found it. Armand and Claude stood there holding two large caliber pistols pointed right at his head.

“Let him go, or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Armand ordered.

Cooper ground his jaw. He dropped Tristan none too gently, feeling a perverse sense of pleasure when the man stumbled backward and fell on his ass. Then he turned to face Armand and Claude. He let his legs start to shift, feeling the power trembling through him as he prepared to strike. This was no longer a game—if it ever had been one. A head shot would kill a werewolf. Period. The end. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

He moved a bit to the left, putting Armand between him and Claude. He didn’t want to kill Everly’s two oldest brothers, but if they pulled the trigger, he’d be forced to move. He liked his odds of ducking Armand’s first shot. And before he could get off a second, Cooper would be on him. Claude would be forced to hesitate for a fraction of a second or risk hitting Armand. That would give Cooper all the time he needed to reach him too.

He waited, listening for the sound to start everything and end it—for some of them. But the sound never came. The two men just stood there, their weapons pointed at Cooper. Apparently, they weren’t ready to kill him in cold blood. So, what exactly were they doing?

“Seriously, guns?” he finally asked as Tristan slowly climbed to his feet. “Don’t you think you’re carrying this overprotective brother thing a little far?”

“This was a warning. Stay away from our sister,” Armand said, as if Cooper hadn’t spoken. “Or the next time we come back, we’ll kill you.”

Cooper stared at Everly’s oldest brother, his inner wolf telling him the man was speaking the truth. Even so, he had the craziest urge to tell Armand he could have just called him with the threat. Or texted. This was the twenty-first century, after all.

Wisely, he let that urge pass without comment.

A moment later, the four brothers turned as one and walked away. Cooper watched them go, wondering what the hell had just happened. Was this some kind of French thing he didn’t understand?

The Four Brothers Stupid drove out of the parking lot in one of Armand’s minivans. The irony of four toughs escaping justice in a frigging minivan was not lost on Cooper. He chuckled, which only reminded him he’d just been beaten by four grown men with baseball bats. He hurt all over. He’d heal, but they’d busted up a few bones and bruised up a lot of real estate.

That was about the time he realized he was bleeding all over the sidewalk. Shit. So much for spending the night with Everly now. He’d better bail and call her, saying he had to work late. He’d be more presentable by tomorrow. That would also give him time to come up with a convincing explanation about any scratches and bruises that might remain. He sure as hell didn’t want Everly finding out he’d gotten in a fight with her brothers. She’d blow a gasket for sure.

Cooper was about to head to his Jeep when Everly walked up onto the sidewalk from the parking lot, her arms full with grocery bags.

“Was that my brothers in Armand’s minivan?”

She looked over her shoulder, standing on her toes to get a better look at the road exiting the apartment complex. When she turned back around, she was close enough to see his face and reacted exactly how he expected—she freaked.

“Oh my God!” She dropped her bags where she stood and ran over to him. “What happened?”

Cooper gave her a smile. Or tried to, anyway. His jaw didn’t feel like it was working quite right. “It’s nothing,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “Nothing?” She looked over her shoulder at the parking lot again, then back at him. “Oh, hell no! My brothers did this, didn’t they?”

“It was a misunderstanding—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Misunderstanding! Landry, they beat you up!” She lifted a gentle hand to his face, her eyes bright with fury. Muttering something that sounded like, “I’m going to kill my brothers,” she dug her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m calling the cops. I’ll have those idiots arrested and put in jail until they’re a hundred.”

Cooper gently took the phone away from her and slipped it back in her bag. Then he took her hands in his and held onto them tightly.

“You can’t call the police on your brothers,” he said. “I’m a cop, and they came at me with weapons. If you have them arrested, they’ll go to jail for a long time. No joke, Everly. They’d be looking at decades in prison.”

She opened her mouth then closed it. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, I get that. And even though I’m so mad right now I want to scream, I really don’t want my brothers in jail.”

“Exactly.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m going to head home so I can fix myself up. I’ll call you later, okay?”

Everly’s eyes widened. “Hell no, that’s not okay. There’s no way I’m going to let you go home and take care of yourself. You’d probably do something stupid and medieval like trying to cauterize your cuts with a hot butter knife. We’re going up to my apartment where I can take care of you.”

Cooper would have preferred to deal with his injuries on his own. The last thing he needed was for Everly to notice that his cuts and scrapes had magically closed by the time they reached the second floor. But what could he say? She was so damn cute when she was feisty.

“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll come upstairs with you on one condition.”

She gave him a sharp look. “What’s that?”

He motioned over his shoulder. “We go back and pick up your groceries first. I saw a bag of Doritos in there.”