Hungry Like the Wolf(48)
He chuckled. “Four years in the Army Bomb Squad, two tours in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. You learn to notice everything or you get blown into a pink mist real quick.”
Something in his tone told her he wasn’t joking. “I see. Well, thanks for thinking about me. I was getting hungry.”
He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, emphasizing his biceps. His arms weren’t as big as Gage’s, but they were close. The perturbed look was back on his face now. What the hell was going on with him? Just yesterday, this cute guy was staring at her butt like he was in love with it. Today, he looked at her like he wanted her the hell out of here.
“Mind if I ask you a question, Ms. Stone?”
She set her coffee down on the bench and picked up her notepad. “Not at all. And call me Mac.”
“Okay then, Mac. Are you screwing with my boss’s head just to get a story?”
Mac was pretty sure her jaw dropped. And people said she was direct. “I don’t know what you mean.”
God, that sounded horribly lame.
He snorted. “Sure you do. It’s a simple question. Do you honestly care about Gage or are you planning to screw him over to get the story you’re after?”
If anyone else on the team had asked her that question, she probably would have BS’d her way through it. But she didn’t think she could do that with Cooper.
“Does it matter how I answer?” she asked. “You have no reason to believe me even if I tell you the truth.”
“Just answer the question. I’ll know if you’re telling the truth.”
Mac wasn’t sure how he could tell, but she believed him. “Yes, I honestly care about Gage.”
“So, he’s important to you?”
“Yes.”
Why the heck was she answering like she was on a witness stand? She was supposed to be the one asking questions.
“Are you in love with him?”
She didn’t know why she even hesitated. How could you fall in love with any man that you’d just met a few days ago? Even if he was as hunky, sexy, arousing, and tempting as Gage. Hell, she hadn’t even slept with him yet.
She opened her mouth to tell Cooper she wasn’t in love with his boss, not that it was any of his business, but she couldn’t get the words out. She might not know if she loved him—she was a practical woman, and practical women didn’t fall in love in three days—but she felt something for him. Something stronger than she’d ever felt for any other man.
She was still trying to figure out exactly what the hell she felt when Cooper stood. “I think I have the answer I was looking for.”
Mac frowned up at him. “But I didn’t say anything.”
His mouth curved. “You said plenty.”
She watched in confusion as he headed for the door. “Hey. Aren’t you going to let me interview you?”
He stopped in the doorway to look back at her. “I’m boring. Nobody wants to know anything about me.”
Mac gazed down at the blank page on her notepad. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Cooper had just Dr. Phil’d her butt. Because as crazy as it sounded, things seemed a whole lot clearer than they’d been a little while ago.
***
Mac was snooping around the upstairs bedroom a few hours later, and finding nothing, when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her waist. Even though she knew it had to be Gage, she let out a little gasp of surprise anyway. He chuckled softly, his warm breath brushing her ear and making her shiver.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I thought you would have left already. Find anything interesting up here?”
She wrapped her arms around him, leaning back against the hard wall of his chest. “I was hoping to find a stash of needles and steroid bottles under the mattress, but no luck.”
Since finishing the one-on-one interviews, she’d spent hours covering just about every inch of the compound—with Xander’s complete knowledge and permission. She’d skimmed through the rest of the files, then pawed through every storage space and equipment room she could find before coming up here to do a detailed search. Nothing. No drugs or anything indicating that anything inappropriate was going on.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Gage said. “I could go buy some if it’d help. I’ll need a prescription first, though, so it might take a while.”
She turned in his arms, surprised at how relieved she was to see him back safe and sound. She hadn’t even realized she’d been worried. “How’d it go at the mall?”
He stepped back with a heavy sigh, and she immediately missed the warmth of his arms. “Better than I thought it would. There was a teen with a gun holding hostages in a sporting goods store. He was upset that some girl had made fun of him and wanted to kill her and everyone she worked with. It was tense for a while there, but Kendrick finally talked him down. It took almost four hours to convince the kid to walk away.”