“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.
