“Mac, I thought you dropped the whole idea of doing a story on SWAT.”
“I did. But then I found out what Gage has been hiding and I…”
“Damn Mac, you just couldn’t let this one go, could you?”
She looked up, shocked. He actually sounded mad at her. “It could be the biggest story of my career.”
Zak sat back, studying her from behind his glasses. “But if you run with it, you’ll lose Gage.”
She gave him a miserable look. “I think I already have.”
He sighed. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”
Mac told him everything. Well, not everything. She didn’t talk about the sex, of course. Which meant there were huge periods of time throughout the weekend she didn’t mention at all. And she didn’t tell Zak the things Gage had shared with her about his life before SWAT, when he was an Army Ranger. She didn’t feel right sharing that.
But she told Zak the most important parts. About hanging around her apartment for hours doing nothing more than talking. About the feelings she had for Gage. And believing he’d felt the same things for her.
“So, what changed?” Zak asked.
She told him about going to her favorite restaurant out in Bonham and about Mike calling to tell them Hardy had sent men to kill them, then about the car ramming them, the chase through the woods, and finally the fight in the barn.
“Then when I went outside and saw Gage… Zak, he was…”
Mac faltered—again. Damn it. Why couldn’t she just say it?
“Was it illegal?”
She looked at Zak in confusion. “What?”
“Whatever Gage did,” Zak explained. “Was it illegal?”
“No.”
“Immoral?”
“No.”
“Did it save your life?”
She remembered the burning barn and the gunmen waiting outside to shoot her and Gage the moment they ran out. “Yes.”
“Now for a tough one,” Zak said. “Is Gage—or anyone else on the SWAT team—going to be hurt if you write this story?”
Exposing the truth was her job. She wasn’t responsible for what other people did with that truth once she exposed it. But then she thought about what Gage said—about people hunting him and his pack, conducting research on them, killing them—and she felt ill.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I don’t know what to do, Zak.”
He gave her a small smile. “I’m pretty sure you do, or you wouldn’t have come here to talk to me. You’re looking for someone to tell you it’s okay to do something your gut tells you is wrong. Sorry, but that’s not going to be me.”
Zak was right. “But there’s never been a time in my life when the story didn’t come first. I’m not sure if I know how to let this one go.”
“Mac, you just said Gage and the rest of the guys on the SWAT team would be hurt if you told anyone about what you saw him do tonight, right?” When she nodded, he continued. “Don’t you think Gage knew that?”
She remembered the terrified look on his face when he’d told her she couldn’t tell anyone what he was. “Yes.”
“And yet he did it anyway, even though he knew what it might cost him.”
Oh, God. If it hadn’t been for her, Gage would never have been in that barn in the first place. He would have taken out the bad guys in the woods. He’d changed into a werewolf because it was the only choice he had.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Gage loves you, Mac,” Zak said. “And I’m pretty sure you love him, even if you haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”
Mac covered her face in her hands. How could she have been so stupid? And why could Zak see everything so clearly when she’d been so blind? She’d just screwed up the best thing that had ever happened to her for the sake of a stupid-ass story.
“Go talk to him, Mac.”
She lowered her hands to look at Zak. He made it sound so simple. “But how do I even begin to apologize to him?”
“It’s not that complicated. Just open your mouth and say, I’m sorry.” His mouth edged up. “It’s pretty easy after that.”
She turned off her camera and shoved it in her pocket, then got to her feet and gave Zak a hug. “Thank you.”
He grinned. “For what? You already knew what you were going to do.”
She laughed. “Maybe, but I just needed my big brother to tell me I was doing the right thing.”
He opened the door for her. “Tell Gage I said hey.”
“I will.”
On the way to her car, she pulled out her phone and called Gage, but it went to voice mail. Damn it.
Gage lived across town, so Mac had almost half an hour to rehearse what she was going to say to him. If he even let her in. She’d bang on his door until he opened it if she had to. And when he did, she’d tell him she didn’t care that he was a werewolf. Then she’d make him see what he meant to her.
But when she got to his place and knocked on the door, there wasn’t any answer. His car wasn’t in its parking space, either. She took out her cell and called him again. Again, it went to voice mail. Maybe he was asleep. Though she didn’t know how he could sleep after what happened tonight. He probably knew it was her and was pretending he wasn’t home.
At the risk of looking like a complete stalker, Mac climbed behind the hedges to peek through the window. The living room was empty. So was the kitchen. She cupped her hands against the glass and leaned closer. Then she frowned. In the light coming from the kitchen she saw that the framed photos were no longer on the wall above the bookcase. That was odd.
She shifted to see better into the kitchen. But all she saw was a neat pile of stuff on the counter. She couldn’t make out everything from this distance,
