Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler
Chapter 4
“So, does Trey know you’ve been stalking him?” Crystal asked as she watched Samantha try on yet another dress.
Samantha ignored her friend for the moment as she studied her reflection in the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door, checking out the little black dress she was wearing. After going through nearly half her clothes, she’d ended up going back to her trusted LBD, throwing on a silver chain necklace and oversized matching hoop earrings. It was the perfect blend of casual and elegant for a first date, and she probably should have simply picked it to begin with, but her head was spinning a bit.
“I have not been stalking him,” Samantha insisted, most of her attention now focused on which shoes to wear. She was leaning toward the black sandals with the kitten heels, but she wanted to see if there was anything else that might work.
“Oh, right,” Crystal murmured, pulling out a pair of black wedges with silver accents and handing them to her. “You’ve been investigating him. Following him around, taking pictures of him and his SWAT teammates, and snooping through his trash. Sounds more like stalking to me.”
The urge to stick her tongue out at Crystal was hard to resist, but she did, because she was an adult. And sticking your tongue out at people—even if they deserved it—wasn’t a very adult thing to do.
“I have been investigating him,” she said firmly, deciding to go with Crystal’s choice of shoes, then turning to check her makeup one more time in the mirror. “And don’t act like you don’t know why. Not after everything Trey and his teammates have been involved in.”
Crystal shook her head in exasperation. “The coyote thing again?”
“It’s more than that and you know it.” Samantha caught her friend’s eye in the mirror. “The list of unexplainable crap SWAT has been involved in boggles the mind. There was that crime boss who got all clawed up at the airport, then those Albanian mobsters who said some kind of creatures attacked them. And don’t even get me started on that naked SWAT cop in the middle of a blood-spattered crime scene. Or that blood sample I thought was his. I still haven’t figured out what happened to it.”
Crystal rolled her eyes. “You mean the sample that came back contaminated with animal DNA?”
Samantha had been sure she’d get something useful from the sample she’d collected at the black market organ-harvesting operation, but the lab she’d sent it to claimed it was contaminated and had destroyed it. Crystal had ribbed her for months about it.
“Yes, that one,” Samantha replied, ignoring the smirk on her friend’s face. “Toss in the wolves that people claim to have seen running around crime scenes where SWAT just so happens to also be, the city’s former chief of police trying to assassinate them, and mysterious federal agents scooping up suspects after SWAT has arrested them, and you can’t tell me all that doesn’t make you the least bit curious.”
Crystal’s dark gaze was assessing. “Sure, I’m curious. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to play games with a guy I’m interested in on the off chance I might learn a few secrets. I don’t mess with other people that way.”
The accusation hit a little too close to home and Samantha saw herself blush in the mirror. Her conscience had already spent the past few days berating the hell out of her for what she was doing. “It’s not like that. I’m not playing games with Trey.”
“Really?” Crystal asked, her expression downright dubious. “Here’s a simple question then: Is this thing tonight a date or part of your investigation?”
Samantha fussed with the big, bouncy curls she’d put in the ends of her long, blond hair. “Can’t it be both?” she asked after delaying as long as she could.
“No, it can’t.” Crystal sighed. “Look, if you’re going out with Trey Duncan because he’s a sexy guy and you have the hots for him, that’s one thing. But if you’re going to dinner with him tonight because you think it’ll help you dig up all his secrets, that’s another. They’re mutually exclusive and it’s screwed up. Not to mention something the friend I thought I knew would never do.”
The air left her lungs all at once, and before she knew it, Samantha found herself sitting on the edge of her bed, Crystal down on her knees in front of her, asking if she was okay.
“Yeah.” Samantha nodded even as she struggled to get over her minor panic attack. “It’s just that…I don’t have a clue what the hell I’m doing. Sometimes, I am so attracted to Trey that it’s hard to breathe when he’s around. But at the same time, I know he and the other members of his SWAT team are hiding something huge. I don’t what or how coyotes and wolves play into all of it, but I know it’s something big. And you know I don’t deal well with secrets. So I’m stuck between wanting this thing with Trey to work out and wanting to figure out what they’re hiding.”
Crystal shook her head in exasperation. “And you’re not worried that going for the latter will destroy any chance of the former?”
Samantha shrugged. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”
Frowning, Crystal opened her mouth to say something, but the ringing of the doorbell interrupted her. A glance at the clock showed that it was seven o’clock. Trey was right on time.
With a sigh, her friend stood, pulling Samantha up with her. “Well, I think you’re crazy. If I had someone like Trey interested in me, I’d do everything I could to make sure he stayed that way. But if this is how you want to do things, I guess I’ll just wish you luck. And hope you don’t end up regretting this plan.”
“I hope I don’t, either,” Samantha said.
***
“Wait a second. What do you mean, it was destroyed?” Samantha asked as the hostess at the bar and grill showed them to their booth. “Why would someone destroy your truck?”
The woman gave them a curious glance before telling them to enjoy their dinner, then leaving them to look over the menus. North of the city center in the Greenville area, the restaurant had lots of exposed wood and bare lightbulbs strung along the ceiling in a way that surprisingly worked with the decor. Samantha had never eaten there, but Trey assured her they had the best burgers and cheese fries in town. If the aromas coming from the kitchen were any indication, he was right.
Admittedly, Samantha had been amazed at how relaxed she’d been on the drive across town. After her conversation with Crystal, she’d expected to be a little tense, but within minutes of getting into his new silver Jeep Gladiator and discovering they both loved that wonderful new-car smell, it felt like they’d known each other for years. Trey had totally floored her when he said he bought the pickup because his 1990 Ford Bronco had been destroyed. Samantha knew SWAT got involved in crazy stuff, but that was a story she simply had to hear.
“You remember when those guys attacked Diego in the parking lot outside the SWAT compound back in June?” Trey asked, glancing at the menu. “The ones we thought were high on delirium?”
Samantha remembered it very well. She’d gotten there less than thirty minutes after the shootout to find four dead assailants, their bodies still warm. There’d been a lot of confusion at the time about what had happened, but she definitely remembered it had seemed like a war zone to her inexperienced eyes. In fact, one of the vehicles in the parking lot had been ripped to shreds from all the gunfire.
“Crap.” She gasped, suddenly realizing the implications. “That shot-up vehicle in the lot was yours?”
Trey nodded sadly. “Yup. Diego swore he didn’t pick my vehicle to hide behind on purpose, but I think he’s being less than honest since he’s been hounding me forever to get a new truck. Regardless, he did, and it was totally destroyed. Every window was broken, all the tires were flat, and the engine block got turned into swiss cheese. My insurance payoff barely covered the cost of towing it to the junkyard. But on the bright side, it finally got me off my butt and into a vehicle made in this century.”
Samantha couldn’t help laughing. How anyone could find a silver lining in having their car shot up was beyond her, but the fact that Trey could was another indication of how amazing he was. Even if he failed to mention at least one of those men who’d attacked Diego Martinez back in June had somehow ended up with their throats torn out by some kind of claws.
“Since you’ve eaten here before, what do you recommend?” she asked, turning her attention to the menu.
“You can’t go wrong with anything they serve. It’s all basic comfort food that tastes like it’s homemade,” he said with a smile Samantha decided she was becoming dangerously addicted to. “We definitely have to get the cheddar fries to start with because it would be criminal not to. After that, I usually go for one of their cheeseburgers, but their chicken strips and chili dogs are good, too. Sometimes I can’t decide, so I end up just getting all three.”
Samantha stared at him, sure he was kidding. But from the sincere expression on his face, it seemed he wasn’t. “Mind giving me your secret? If I ate that much, I would be in serious trouble.”
The smile on his face slipped for a second as he glanced down at the menu in his hands. “I’ve always had a fast metabolism.”
Trey might have been wearing an untucked button-down, but Samantha had seen him in his tight uniform T-shirt more than once, so she had a pretty good idea of the kind of shape he was in, and it sure as hell had nothing to do with a fast metabolism. “Okay. I’ll share some of your cheddar fries, but I think I’ll limit myself to one entrée.”
When their server came over to take their order, Samantha got the classic burger with cheese and a side of guacamole along with an iced tea. She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as Trey ordered the chili cheddar burger with double beef patties and a full-sized bowl of chili on the side. And if that wasn’t enough, he also got a large order of cheddar fries with a double serving of bacon.
“Fast metabolism, huh?” she teased after the server left.
He shrugged, his gaze locked on hers, the warmth in his eyes enough to make it feel like someone had turned up the temperature. “I’m lucky that way, I guess.”
Resisting the urge to fan herself with her hand, she picked up the iced tea the server brought and took a sip. “How’d you find this place? I’ve driven past it at least a dozen times and never seen it.”
Trey sipped his beer before answering. “SWAT got called out to a barricaded suspect near here a few years ago. We ended up spending over twelve hours waiting for our negotiator to talk the guy out of the house and this was the first restaurant we saw after packing up. We all fell in love with the burgers—and the prices. We stop by to eat anytime there’s a call in this part of town.”
She pictured all of those big cops in here, eating their weight in burgers and hot dogs. “I get the feeling you and your teammates spend a lot of time together outside of work.”
His mouth edged up. “Yeah. Our team is like a big family. We get together at least once or twice a week in addition to the weekends. And even when we’re not getting together as a pack, smaller groups of us hang out together all the time.”
Samantha stared at him, wondering if she’d heard right. She opened her mouth to ask but was interrupted by the server showing up with a ridiculous plate of fries buried in melted cheese and crumbled bacon. Her mouth watered at the sight and she eagerly reached for a fry, moaning as the combination of cheddar, fried potato, and crispy bacon hit her tongue.
She was helping herself to another when she remembered what she’d been going to say before. “When you were talking about your teammates, you called them a pack.”
Trey paused, a handful of cheesy fries halfway to his mouth. “I did?” he asked, the words coming out light and casual.
She nodded. “You did.”
“It’s just a nickname we have for the team.” He shoved the fries in his mouth, then wiped his hands on his napkin before undoing a few buttons on his shirt and tugging it to the side to reveal a tattoo of a wolf head on one side of his muscular chest. As far tattoos went, it was amazing. And as far as chests went, it was spectacular. “We all have this same tattoo, so we call ourselves a pack. Goofy, I know.”
Samantha laughed, telling herself that made complete sense. But if that was the case, why did she still think it was total BS?
They ate in comfortable silence for a while before curiosity got the better of her. She was tempted to dig a little more into the pack thing but decided against it. After the quick answer he’d had to her first question, he’d probably be prepared and already have a logical answer to whatever other questions she asked about his team.
“How did you end up in SWAT?” She nibbled on another cheesy fry. “Did you go straight into that when you became a cop, or did you do something else for a while first?”
“Actually, when I first moved to Dallas, I worked as a paramedic.” He picked up his bottle of beer. “I was a combat medic in the army for almost six years and was sure that’s what I wanted to do for a living after getting out.”
She’d known he was in the army before becoming a cop because that had been in the personnel record she’d been able to put together on him. But she hadn’t known he was a paramedic. “What changed your mind?”
He fell quiet for a moment, the crease in his brow making her think maybe she’d brought up something he didn’t like to talk about.
“I found out that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you want to,” he said softly. “Hell, at one point, I thought I’d make a career of the army. In fact, I was only a few weeks from reenlisting when things changed.”
She sipped her iced tea, not wanting to push. While she wanted to know everything she could about Trey, forcing him to talk about something that obviously upset him didn’t sit well with her.
“I was in a firefight in Afghanistan,” he murmured, pausing to slowly eat another fry before continuing. “I was hurt bad and my best friend was injured even worse, but somehow, we both made it out. The army wouldn’t have let me re-up even if I’d wanted to—they had concerns about internal damage if I ever tried to do another airborne jump—so I got out and joined Dallas Fire and Rescue. The first time I showed up at the scene of a major car accident, every injury and death I saw in combat came back to me, and I realized I’d made a mistake. I left DFR the next day, but I still wanted to be able to help people, so I joined the DPD. I did about a year in patrol before my SWAT commander suggested I join the team.”
Samantha didn’t say anything as the server placed their plates of food before them. Part of her wanted to know what had happened to Trey in Afghanistan, but the other part didn’t. The thought of him being hurt made it hard to breathe.
Not trusting herself to speak right then, she concentrated on biting into her burger. It was juicy and perfectly grilled with the perfect ratio of cheese to beef.
“I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be a paramedic anymore, but I heard somewhere that you’re one of the SWAT medics.” She glanced at him as she dunked her cheeseburger in a pile of ketchup. “That means you treat your teammates’ injuries, right?”
Trey looked confused for a moment and Samantha hoped she hadn’t slipped up and said something she shouldn’t have. “I read in the paper that you’ve received several commendations for using your paramedic skills to treat your teammates’ injuries,” she added.
He shrugged. “It’s different when it’s my teammates. Time has helped blur some of those old memories, too. It’s not as bad as it used to be.”
“I’m glad.”
Samantha had never known anyone who’d been in the military, but she could imagine the atrocities Trey had seen in the army. No one should have to experience that stuff.
“You were right about this place,” she added, hoping to lighten the mood. “These burgers are awesome.”
As they ate, Trey talked about what it was like to be part of SWAT. While she didn’t learn any deep, dark secret that might explain any of the weird crap that had gone on around the team, she learned enough to know Trey did some really dangerous stuff, he adored his job, and he loved his teammates.
His pack.
She didn’t realize they’d been talking for hours until she looked around and realized that it was almost closing time. The burgers and cheddar fries were gone down to the last little nibble. Heck, there wasn’t even any cheese left on the plate to scrape up. A warm sensation swirled inside as it dawned on her that she’d never been on a relaxed, effortless date in her life. And even though she’d eaten more than her share of cheese fries to go along with her burger, when Trey asked if she wanted to go for ice cream, she didn’t even consider saying no.
There was an ice cream shop just a few blocks away that made fancy desserts using liquid nitrogen. The place looked like a lab, complete with billowing steam coming out of the high-tech mixers. There were so many flavors on the menu and toppings to go with them that it was difficult to choose, but she and Trey finally decided on double scoop waffles cones with cheesecake-flavored ice cream mixed with pieces of Oreo cookies.
As they sat on a bench in front of the shop, eating ice cream, Trey told her about his family and growing up on a soybean farm in North Dakota. From the warmth in his voice, it was obvious he loved the wide-open spaces and working the farm with his family, but he admitted the idea of becoming a farmer like his parents, brothers, and sisters hadn’t been something he wanted to do.
“That’s why I joined the army,” he added. “I wanted to see some more of the world, and once I did, there was no way I could go back. I mean, I go back to visit my family on the holidays, and they’ve come down here to visit me a few times. But it’s hard for them to get away from the farm for long, so I mostly make the trek to see them.”
She smiled. It was nice to hear he was close with his family. “I can understand not wanting to move back to North Dakota after traveling around the world for six years in the army, but what brought you to Dallas? Were you stationed in Texas when you got out of the military?”
Trey didn’t answer and when the silence continued to stretch out, Samantha got the feeling he wasn’t comfortable discussing it. Maybe it was too personal. Or maybe he’d finally caught on to the fact that they had spent the whole night talking about him. She hadn’t necessarily intended to do that, but whenever he’d posed a question about her background, she found herself steering the conversation back to him.
“You don’t have to tell me why you settled in Dallas if you don’t want to,” she said softly, finishing up her cone and realizing that his was long gone. “I get that some things are too personal to talk about on a first date.”
“Yeah, I guess they are.” His mouth curved into a small smile. “Is that your way of asking me out on another date? You must be eager to use up your second favor.”
Samantha laughed, relieved she hadn’t messed anything up beyond repair. “Do I need to use a favor to go out with you again?”
She hoped that wasn’t the case. And not merely because she still wanted to learn whatever it was he was hiding from her. The truth was, there was something special about this man. Something that attracted her to him like the proverbial moth to a flame. And she desperately wanted to know why that was.
“No, you don’t need to use another favor to get a second date,” he murmured, his gaze becoming more heated by the second. “You just need to say yes.”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Then Trey was slipping a hand into her hair and tugging her closer on the bench, his very warm mouth coming down on hers. The kiss stayed casual and chaste for all of two seconds before his tongue slipped between her lips. She couldn’t stop the moan that came out. He tasted delectable. And it had nothing to do with ice cream or what they’d had for dinner. There was simply something there she couldn’t seem to do without.
He deepened the kiss with a groan, nipping and biting lightly on the tip of her tongue and her lower hip, tugging and teasing until she had to wonder if lip-gasms were a real thing.
She had no idea her fingers were in his hair, yanking and pulling him exactly where she wanted. Not until she heard him growling. Crap, he was growling. A deep, rumbling sound that vibrated up through his chest and right into her soul.
No. Actually, those vibrations settled between her legs—right there where all good vibrations belonged.
Samantha was damn close to climbing into his lap right there, on a busy street in front of the ice cream shop, when Trey suddenly pulled back. He was breathing as hard as she was, his eyes reflecting the yellow glow of the nearby streetlamps. It only made him that much more mesmerizing.
“Tomorrow night…five o’clock?” he whispered, his warm breath tantalizing against the sensitive skin of her lips. “I’ll pick you up at your place again?”
It took a few moments for her rattled mind to figure out what he was even talking about, but when she did, all she could do was nod. He wanted to see her again tomorrow night. Yes, that was exactly what she wanted, too.
Grasping her hand, Trey stood, taking her with him, and they walked back to his Jeep. As he helped her into the passenger seat, then walked around to the driver’s side, Samantha realized Crystal had been right. She was being absolutely stupid to risk the chance of being with Trey simply to learn a few secrets that probably didn’t matter anyway.