“Yeah?” said the youngest guy on the team, Max. Maybe it was the glint in his blue eyes or the mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, but of all the guys, he seemed to be the one who had a bit of bad boy in him. “Show us.”
To do that, she’d have to push her pants down, and she wasn’t about to do that. Khaki opened her mouth to tell them as much, but a woman’s voice interrupted.
“What are you trying to do, drown this poor woman in werewolf testosterone?”
Khaki turned to see a pretty, dark-haired woman coming into the room, a smile on her face. While the woman wasn’t a werewolf like them, all the guys greeted her warmly. One sniff of the scent on the woman and the engagement ring on her left hand told Khaki why they gave her such a warm reception.
Mike made the introductions. “Officer Blake, meet Mackenzie Stone, Sergeant Dixon’s fiancée,” he said, confirming what Khaki already knew.
Khaki smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
Mac ignored Khaki’s outstretched hand and hugged her instead. “Call me Mac. Nobody calls me Mackenzie but Gage, and he does it just to be stubborn.”
Khaki laughed. “Mac works for me. And call me Khaki.”
“Will do.” Mac smiled again. “Gage said he gave you the rest of the day off to look for an apartment. I thought you might like some help.”
“Aww, Mac,” Becker complained. “Khaki was just about to show us the scar on her thigh.”
Khaki’s face turned three shades of pink.
“Then I got here just in time,” Mac said.
Khaki laughed and opened her mouth to agree when her nose picked up the delectable scent that could only belong to one man on the team. Riggs stood in the doorway, his arms crossed over his broad chest and a frown on his face.
“In time for what?” he asked.
“To take Khaki out to look for an apartment,” Mac answered.
Riggs’s frown deepened, but he didn’t say anything. Khaki refused to let his sour mood affect her. Thanks to the other guys on the team, things were back on track, and if Riggs didn’t like it, too bad. She didn’t need him to like her for this new job to work out. She had teammates who were willing to give her a chance, a new friend in Mac to help her get settled in, and a chance to be part of something special—a pack of werewolves who were just like her.
Who cared what the glowering, sinfully handsome, yummy-smelling Corporal Xander Riggs liked or didn’t like?
Chapter 3
Khaki yawned as she followed Cooper, Max, and Hale out of the admin building to the sandbox where the team gathered for physical training—or PT as Becker called it. “Sandbox” was a good term for it. About thirty feet square, it looked like a kid’s sandbox, only bigger. Khaki wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing sit-ups and push-ups in there, but it was better than exercising on the scrub grass that made up most of the compound.
When Becker had told her they did PT, Khaki had gotten excited. Like most police departments, Lakefront expected their officers to exercise on their own time. Even though she loved working out, doing it before or after the graveyard shift made going for a run or heading to the gym a chore.
But apparently Sergeant Dixon was serious about PT. The team did it together three times a week. And according to the other guys in her squad, it tended to be intense. Becker, who would be running this morning’s session, was still inside ironing out a few last-minute details with Corporal Riggs.
Khaki yawned again as she took her place in the loose circle the team had formed in the sandbox. Beside her, Cooper glanced at her.
“You sure you’re up for this? It looks like that jet lag thing is seriously kicking your butt.”
It was nice to have a coworker express some concern about her well-being—even if Cooper was essentially saying she looked like crap. It had been a while since anyone had bothered to care.
“Mac and I looked at nearly twenty apartments until we found one she thought was both a good deal and in a good part of town,” she said. “Then she kept me up half the night decorating the place and meeting all my neighbors. I don’t know how she does it—I’m exhausted.”
Not that Khaki was really complaining. She’d enjoyed hanging out with Mac. It was always difficult to make friends in a new place, but after spending five minutes with Mac, Khaki felt as if she’d known her for years. She still couldn’t believe that Mac knew about the SWAT team’s superhuman abilities and accepted them. Khaki broke out in a cold sweat when she even considered the idea of telling her parents and sisters about what had happened to her.
“Yeah,” Cooper agreed. “Mac is a bundle of energy when she’s focused on something. You could have taken the day off to get moved in. I’m sure Sarge wouldn’t mind.”
Khaki shrugged and started loosening up like everyone else. “Sergeant Dixon told me to skip PT this morning, but I didn’t think that’d be a good way to start my first real day of work here.”
Cooper nodded as if he understood, but before he could say anything else, Dixon, Riggs, and Becker came out to join them. Dixon made a few quick comments concerning the day’s work schedule, then mentioned something about equipment that needed to be shipped out for repair, before turning the session over to Becker.
Eric Becker had struck her as something of a goofball the day before. An attractive, muscular, and hunky as hell goofball, but definitely not a guy who liked to be taken too seriously. Becker started them off with fifty wide-arm push-ups, followed by fifty crunches, followed by fifty more push-ups—close arms this time—and suddenly Becker seemed a lot more serious than he had the day before. Within minutes, everyone was sweating, including Khaki. Then the guys pulled off their shirts, and the serious workout started.
