“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” Cooper’s mouth edged up. “Don’t worry. This is all going to work out.”
Khaki knew it was insane, but she actually believed him.
They were heading for the door when Xander’s cell phone rang. It was Becker saying the FBI had some tips they wanted the squad to check out.
“I am curious about something though,” he said to Cooper after he hung up.
“What’s that?”
“What does Khaki smell like to you?”
Khaki frowned. What kind of question was that?
But Cooper didn’t seem as confused as she did. He shrugged. “She smells like a werewolf…a very feminine werewolf. Good, actually.”
“Does she smell the same all the time?” Xander asked.
It was Cooper’s turn to frown. “What do you mean?”
“How about the other day, when we did yoga,” Xander asked. “What did she smell like then?”
Where exactly was Xander going with this?
Cooper’s mouth quirked. “Oh, you mean when she gets aroused?”
Khaki blushed. “Oh God, you guys knew?”
“It’s no big deal,” Cooper said. “We can smell when all women get aroused. It’s a smell that’s hard to miss.” He looked at Xander. “But in Khaki’s case, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on us lately.”
Now Xander was the one who was confused. “What do you mean, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on youlately?”
“She smelled really amazing when she first got here.” Cooper gave her a sheepish look. “It got all the guys going. But after a couple days, the effect seemed to fade away. We thought it was because we were getting used to her, but now I think it’s because she was already falling for you, Xander. I think your pheromones shifted so that the rest of us stopped getting smacked so hard with them.”
“So the other day, during yoga…her scent didn’t…drive you crazy?” Xander asked.
Khaki covered her face with her hands. Could this get any more embarrassing?
Cooper laughed again and shook his head. “Afraid not. Most of us were too busy trying to twist ourselves into pretzels.”
That was a relief. Maybe now she wouldn’t have to take twenty showers a day.
* * *
“So what kind of tip are we supposed to be checking out?” Alex asked from the backseat as Xander parked the SUV at the curb.
Xander cut the engine and opened the door. “An anonymous tip reported seeing several men carrying big black bags and what they thought might be weapons into a house rented by two women.”
Khaki surveyed the neighborhood as she hopped down from the front seat. Judging from the dilapidated houses and cracked sidewalks, this part of Oak Tree had seen better days.
Alex snorted. “You’re kidding, right? Big black bags and things that might be weapons?”
Xander came around the front to join her and Alex. “If it helps, the tipster said the women living there looked like they were really scared.”
Khaki laughed at the look on Alex’s face. She couldn’t blame him. There had been three more meetings with the feds this week, and it was getting beyond old. Everyone had been sure the gang was going to hit the third, and supposedly last, bank over the weekend. The fact that they hadn’t made most people think they’d already left town.
But the feds were keeping the task force together on the off chance that someone could come up with a lead that either pointed toward the next target, or at least gave them some idea who the hell these guys were. Khaki couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t like they had a choice. It was either stay in Dallas and hope to get lucky, or wait for the crew to strike another bank in some other city, then play catch-up. Just because everyone was working hard, didn’t mean they were getting any closer to apprehending these guys. Outside of a list of potential banks that might be ripe for the picking and a collection of anonymous tips, they really didn’t have anything. But Sergeant Dixon wanted them to keep helping, so Khaki and the rest of the squad took turns running down the tips that came in.
