by Paige Tyler
Addy nodded, a very knowing look on her face. “Let me get this straight. He came to your apartment. You had dinner. And you talked about personal stuff. I know I’m only sixteen and not nearly as experienced with guys as you are, but that sounds like a date to me.”
Rachel opened her mouth to deny it, but Addy cut her off.
“I know, I know. It wasn’t a date. But why wouldn’t you want to date him? He’s cute even if he is almost old enough to be my dad. And he seems really nice. He even played video games with Ben and me the other day.”
Rachel was pretty sure Knox wasn’t nearly old enough to have a sixteen-year-old daughter, but she didn’t point that out. Mostly because she was too busy trying to come up with an answer to Addy’s question.
If Rachel were simply judging Knox on looks, then she’d agree he’d be a catch for anyone. But while she’d enjoyed their dinner together—and yeah that kiss that almost happened had her more than a little curious—she simply couldn’t let herself trust the man. She had no idea if it was because she didn’t have faith in her own judgment or if it was her instincts screaming at her to stay away from a guy who was a former hunter.
Regardless, the sensation had been strong enough for her to run a background check on Knox. Yeah, it was horrible, but hey, he’d been the one who’d assaulted the SWAT compound with his hunter buddies, then he’d stalked her halfway across the country. In her opinion, that was good justification for snooping.
In the end, Rachel hadn’t found anything to justify her suspicions—not in the normal criminal check through the DPD or through the deeper federal scrub her STAT friend, Alyssa, had done for her. According to everything she’d found, Knox had told her the complete truth about his life. Not that it helped. She still couldn’t ignore that sensation inside telling her to stay away from him.
“It’s complicated, that’s all,” she finally said.
Rachel expected Addy to tell her it wasn’t complicated at all, but instead the girl gave her a knowing look and reached out to squeeze her hand. “Aaron and I have a very complicated relationship, too. For one thing, he’s older. Then there’s the part about my mom positively hating him.” She sighed. “I so completely feel you on this.”
Rachel didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or simply hug the hell out of the kid. So she did both. “Come on, we’ve been in this store for more than an hour and we still have to find a pair of shoes to go with your dress.”
Thankfully, the mention of shoes was all it took to focus Addy’s attention on something other than Rachel’s messed-up life.
* * *
Knox glanced at his watch. How long did it take to shop for a dress? You went to the store, saw one you liked, and bought it, right? Apparently not because Rachel and Addy had been in the upscale boutique full of wedding and prom dresses for almost an hour and a half.
Thinking he should probably check to make sure they didn’t get sucked through a mirror into an alternate dimension, he left his post by the entrance where he’d been standing guard and walked into the store.
Rachel and Addy were just stepping out of the dressing room, and he let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the gown draped over the girl’s arm. Finally.
He was about to round everyone up so they could get out of there when Rachel and Addy hurried over to a wall filled with more shoes than he’d ever seen in his life. The teen girl looked like she’d found nirvana as she eyed all the colorful footwear.
Knox groaned silently. They were nowhere near done, were they?
Despite the reality of being subjected to more shopping, he couldn’t help laughing as Rachel casually steered Addy away from the four- and five-inch stilettos, instead planting her firmly in front of ones with more manageable heels.
Knox considered asking if they needed help—just for the fun of it—when he caught sight of Addy’s mother sitting off to the side, not paying any attention to her daughter at all. Instead, she was staring at the blue gown Ben had quickly moved over to hold so Addy could check out the shoes, a disappointed look on her face.
He frowned, not sure why she was upset. Then again, he rarely understood women at the best of times. But as Jennifer’s gaze darted back and forth between the dress and her daughter, then the notepad and the cell phone on her lap, the picture started coming into focus.
While Addy had been shopping for her dress with Rachel, her mom had been sitting there working on her case. Maybe Jennifer hadn’t been aware how big a deal buying a gown with her daughter would be, but from the expression on her face, it seemed like she finally realized now what she’d missed out on.
Setting her notepad and cell phone on the table beside her, Jennifer stood and cautiously walked over to where Addy stood gushing about shoes, like she thought her daughter might rebuff her.
Rachel must have noticed the ADA’s hesitance because she gave Jennifer a smile and motioned her forward. Grabbing a pair of blue, low-heeled sandals, she handed them to Jennifer, then tugged Addy closer. The teenager laughed, and just like that, the gulf separating mother and daughter lessened a little.
As Addy and Jennifer oohed and aahed over the shoes, Ben handed Rachel the dress and smoothly extricated himself from the situation—well, as smoothly as a sixteen-year-old boy terrified of letting his best friend know he had a thing for her could do.
The kid wandered over to Knox with a look on his face that seemed to indicate he was glad he didn’t have to be responsible for the dress anymore.
“I think they’re almost done,” Ben said, clearly relieved.
Knox snorted. “Sorry, kid, but there’s a good chance they’re just getting started. Once Addy tries on a dozen or so pairs of shoes, going back and forth between the same ones over and over, they still have to find a purse that matches the whole outfit. Then there’s the endless jewelry and a wrap to keep her warm, of course.”
Ben stared at him like a pig checking out a Rolex. “A wrap?”
“Yeah. Like a coat but without sleeves.”
Ben looked even more confused. “Um. Do you think it will take them much longer to finish shopping? Seriously, when Addy invited me, I thought we’d be done in thirty minutes. I didn’t know buying a dress could take this long.”
Knox laughed. “You ever hear that old line about it’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey? Well, for some women, shopping is like that. They enjoy the process of the shopping more than buying. It gives them an endorphin rush or something. Regardless, guys don’t need to understand it. We just need to stand around patiently and carry the bags afterward.”
Ben nodded, quiet for a while, like he was considering what Knox had said. “I guess you’d have to know a lot about women since you’re dating someone like Officer Bennett.”
Knox was about to agree, until he realized exactly what the kid had said. “Wait a minute. Dating? I’m not dating Rachel.”
Rachel suddenly turned, throwing him a curious look from the far side of the room, and he lowered his voice as he spoke, just in case she could hear him. He remembered her saying something about werewolves having better hearing than regular people. His wasn’t any better than before he’d turned, but she’d done this werewolf thing longer, so hers might be.
“Okay, whatever you say,” Ben said, though he didn’t look convinced. “It’s just that I see the way you look at her. I might be in high school, but I’m smart enough to know that’s not the way a guy looks at someone they work with. I just assumed…”
Knox opened his mouth to tell the kid he was wrong, but right then he caught sight of Rachel reaching over to grab another pair of sandals to show Addy. The girl snatched them up and let out a squeal, making Rachel laugh. Knox couldn’t help but smile. He liked hearing her laugh.
He realized then that he hadn’t seen Rachel laugh much over the past few days, but truthfully, he didn’t know her well enough yet to say if that was normal
for her. For all he knew, she was always this serious and withdrawn. Something told him that wasn’t the case, though. He hated to think he was the reason for it.
Unfortunately, he was pretty damn sure it was his fault. All because he’d tried to kiss her the other night. The worst part was he could barely understand why the hell he’d done it.
The relaxation exercise they’d done had been amazing. He’d felt more alive than he’d ever felt in his life, his whole body tingling as his inner wolf emerged. But when he’d opened his eyes and found Rachel sitting so close he could feel the heat coming off her, he forgot about his claws and his fangs and focused completely on her.
Her eyes had been glowing the most vivid and beautiful green he’d ever seen, and it had been impossible to look away, almost like she’d hypnotized him. Then her scent hit him, surrounding him in licorice jelly beans and cinnamon and something else he couldn’t put a name to—something so tempting and feminine it had taken everything he had not to reach out and yank her body closer to his.
Knox hadn’t realized he’d moved to kiss her until their mouths were almost touching, but when her tongue slipped out to wet her lips, he’d about lost it. It had probably been a completely subconscious gesture on her part, but damn, he’d wanted to eat her up.
The mere touch of her lips to his had been like heaven, but then she suddenly jerked away. Or maybe he had. Either way, it felt like a chain linking them together had snapped, leaving him to float weightless for a moment before slamming back into reality with an impact that left him gasping for air.
He’d wanted to apologize, but before he could get the words out, everything had gone downhill and Rachel had told him without saying the actual words that what had happened would never happen again. Since then, she’d barely looked at him. And yeah, that werewolf training he’d been hoping she’d provide had come to a screeching halt, too. He’d tried to talk to her a few times since then, but each time, she’d refused to engage, her expression making him think she was a hundred miles away.
“So, what do we do now?” Ben asked softly, interrupting his musings. “Just stand around and wait for them to tell us what to do next?”
“That’s pretty much all we can do.” Knox sighed, knowing the words applied to this shopping marathon they were on as well as to the situation he found himself in with Rachel. “Hate to break this to you, kid, but women generally hold all the cards. Guys just have to sit back and see how everything plays out.”
Chapter 6
“We’re on the move, Ethan,” Knox said into the miniature radio mic attached to the cuff of his suit jacket. “We’ll be at the service entrance in three minutes. Have the vehicles waiting for us.”
“About damn time,” his coworker from the security company said with a groan. “My butt’s numb from sitting out here so long.”
“I hear you, dude.”
Knox chuckled as he followed Rachel, Jennifer, and the kids along the first floor of the Galleria Mall toward the service corridor that would get them out of there quickly without having to mess with the crowds. Theo had arranged the clandestine route with mall security, ensuring there’d be no one back there.
“Anything outside we need to worry about?” Knox asked over the radio.
He wasn’t too concerned someone would try anything out in public like this, but he wanted to be sure.
“Negative,” Ethan said. “All clear out here. We’ll be waiting at the door for you.”
Since Alton Marshall had already shown a willingness to deploy bombs in an attempt to get to the ADA, Ethan had been waiting outside with another teammate from DAPS, keeping an eye on their vehicles. It was a threat they all took seriously, which meant vehicles carrying members of the Lloyd family were never left unguarded ever.
The entrance to the service corridor was only a thirty-second walk from the dress boutique, and because there were restrooms in the same hallway, few people looked at them twice when they all turned that way.
Knox moved up to join Rachel at the front of the group as they walked through a door at the end of the corridor and slipped into the part of the mall few paying customers probably ever saw, and for good reason. While the rest of the Galleria was all glitz and polish, the behind-the-scenes part was a maze of boring passageways.
When Theo had mentioned using the service corridors to get in and out of the mall faster, Knox had pictured a few narrow hallways, but his imagination had been sorely lacking. The place was a combination of storerooms, service elevators, stairwells, catwalks, and doors leading to who the hell knew where. If Theo hadn’t provided a floor plan for them, they would have gotten lost in here for sure.
Knox led the way through the labyrinth, Addy and Ben several paces back babbling about something on Netflix they wanted to see when they got back, while Mrs. Lloyd brought up the rear, cell phone shoved against her ear again.
The silence between him and Rachel became hard to ignore, even with their footsteps echoing along the hallway, the near-constant conversation between the two teens, and the ADA snapping random questions into her phone. But since they were only a few minutes from the exit, he wasn’t sure what he could possibly say, especially in front of everyone.
But he had to say something.
“You got any plans for dinner later? I thought we could get together and talk a little more about…stuff.” He almost rolled his eyes at how unsmooth that sounded, but he was too late to take it back now. So, he doubled down. “My treat in repayment for the shepherd’s pie.”
Rachel gave him a sidelong glance. “I was planning to grab some pizza later with Diego.”
Knox bit back a growl. She’d said she and Diego were friends, but that didn’t stop the insane twinge of jealousy from surging through him. He fought it down and turned to ask if maybe they could try it again later in the week, but beside him, Rachel slowed, her eyes swirling with bright-green color.
He slowed, too, a strange tingle running up and down his spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“It’s an ambush!” Rachel shouted.
Spinning around, she lunged for Addy and Ben, then slammed her shoulder into the first door she reached, dragging the two teens inside the room. Knox didn’t hesitate. Turning, he launched himself at Jennifer just as automatic weapon fire ripped through the silence of the passageway.
He took the ADA down as carefully as he could, twisting while still in midair so he landed on his shoulder with most of her weight on top of him. But there was only so much he could do to be gentle when bullets were chewing up the wall and floor around them.
Still lying down, Knox used one arm and his feet to scramble backward with Jennifer, pieces of Sheetrock and tile raining down on both of them as he propelled them into a storage room across from Rachel and the kids. Ben had his body draped protectively over his friend’s, and Knox absently wondered how the girl could possibly miss how much the boy cared for her.
Knox got on the radio and let Ethan know what was happening while Rachel did the same over her DPD channel. Backup would be there soon, but they’d have to keep themselves alive until it arrived.
“There are two in the stairwell to the right and another one on the catwalk directly across from them,” Rachel yelled as they both moved to their respective doorways and began to return fire. “You deal with the one up high. I’ll keep the others occupied.”
Knox pondered the intelligence of charging straight at three men armed with automatic weapons, but Rachel was already moving, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting her go alone.
As Knox drew his Glock and stepped out to follow, a voice in the back of his head reminded him that he’d been in a situation like this before and it hadn’t ended well. He resolutely pushed those warnings aside and forced himself to stop thinking and instead move and react.
Rachel darted down the wide corridor, heading toward a three-way intersection at
the end, avoiding the incoming rounds like she somehow knew exactly where they were going to land. That didn’t keep Knox from trying to rush ahead of her, unable to ignore the protective instinct threatening to overwhelm him.
The guy up on the catwalk emptied a full magazine from an MP5 while his buddies hidden on the stairwell did the same. If he and Rachel hadn’t been moving so fast, they probably would have been filled full of holes. But while the rational part of his mind told him this was insane, another part—the part that wanted to rip the men limb from limb—assured him this was completely normal.
Knox didn’t think as he snapped his Glock into position out of pure instinct and put three rounds into the chest of the guy on the catwalk. He was already turning his attention to the stairwell and the other two attackers there before the first man tumbled to the floor of the hallway with a heavy thud.
For a moment, it looked like both he and Rachel were going to go down in the storm of bullets coming from the stairwell. Hell, the rounds were so close he felt a few of them tug at the material of his suit. But the remaining two bad guys must have realized this whole thing wasn’t going to end well for them because they turned and bailed up the stairs.
“Stay with Jennifer and the kids!” Rachel yelled over her shoulder before charging up the steps after the escaping men.
Knox growled in frustration and started to go after her only to stop when he realized he couldn’t leave the ADA and two teenagers alone. There could still be other hired killers lurking around the service area waiting for an opening to make their move.
So he was forced to stay where he was and stand guard, the seconds ticking down as Rachel moved farther away. Heart beating fast, gums and fingertips on fire, it was all he could do not to shift. He was so freaked out he nearly shot Ethan when the other man came running up from the third passageway near the stairwell. Ethan had his weapon drawn and his eyes widened when he saw the dead body on the floor.
“Mrs. Lloyd and the kids are in there,” Knox shouted, pointing with his free hand as he ran past Ethan. “Stay with them. I’m going after the two that got away.”
