In the Company of Wolves (SWAT, #3)(76)
Eric had been planning to man the grill for the day, but Cooper had volunteered to do it instead, so Eric could spend most of his time with her and her pack. Even if Cooper was Eric’s best friend, it was still a nice thing for him to do.
It had only been two weeks since that night at the Stones’ place, but she and the rest of her pack already felt at home in Dallas—and at the SWAT compound. Mostly because everyone had gone out of their way to make them feel so welcome. In fact, Sergeant Dixon—Gage—had put on this cookout especially in their honor to officially welcome her pack to the area. If there was one way to win over her pack, Jayna knew it was with free food. The fact that the food was so good only made it that much better.
“So, how did the session with Internal Affairs go?” Xander asked as he and his girlfriend, Khaki, sat down at the table with them.
Both SWAT officers had their plates piled high with food, mostly of the meat variety. Jayna could understand why. Since becoming an alpha, she’d noticed a desperate hunger for meat more than anything else. But her body was stronger and faster than it had ever been, her senses were sharper, and her natural werewolf weapons—claws and fangs—were still filling out to their full size. She guessed all those changes took a lot of protein.
Jayna jerked her attention back to the conversation as Eric mentioned Detective Coletti. That was the nosy Internal Affairs guy who’d had Eric on limited duty ever since the situation out at the Stones’ farm. As far as the district attorney was concerned, they had no problem at all with anything Eric had done.
According to Gage, the DA was only concerned about Frasheri, and after they’d flipped a few of the low-level Albanians, the case against the mob boss was moving ahead at full speed. With all the money, drugs, and weapons Eric had led them to in the self-storage unit, Frasheri was going away for decades. The DA couldn’t care less about why Kostandin and his men had shown up at the Stones’ house, but the detective from Internal Affairs was a different matter. He’d questioned Eric almost every day since that night. Gage assured Jayna that Coletti was just doing his job, but as far as she was concerned, the guy was a complete ass.
“He asked me the same questions we’ve been going over for the last two weeks,” Eric said. “Why do I think Kostandin and his thugs attacked the Stones’ home? Have Jayna and Megan ever had any dealings with the Albanians? How did Kos and Liam end up with their throats torn out?”
Eric had kept his story simple. Jayna and her pack were just some friends visiting from out of town. Kos and Liam must have gone out there looking to get some revenge against Gage’s future in-laws, and Jayna and her friends had just gotten caught in the crossfire. Eric had suggested he was only guessing and that he didn’t know why bad guys did what they did.
“Coletti might think there’s more going on than I’m telling him, but he’s got nothing to back it up,” Eric added. “I finally think he’s ready to give up and move on. Officially, he’s waiting on the medical examiner’s report to close out the investigation, but I heard she turned in her report this morning.”
“You mean that hot blond in the lab coat at the Stones’ farm that night?” Trey asked as he bit into a burger. “She was so checking me out.”
Max frowned. “Why the hell would she do that?”
Trey grinned. “Because she finds me incredibly attractive, of course.”
“Dude,” Alex said. “She works in a room surrounded by dead people all day. I’m not sure her thinking you’re attractive is a good thing. She could be measuring you up for a body bag for all you know.”
Everyone laughed except Xander. He was regarding Eric thoughtfully. “And you’re sure there’s no loose piece of evidence floating around out there that can come back and haunt us?”
Eric shook his head as he slipped an arm around Jayna’s waist. “Nah. We’re okay.”
That seemed to settle the issue, and everyone got down to some serious eating. Jayna was glad to see the guys from her pack joining in with the fun, ribbing and joking like they’d been part of the SWAT pack for years—just another sign that staying here had been the right thing to do. Chris, Moe, and Joseph were more relaxed and outgoing than she’d ever seen them. Hanging out with all these mature alphas was good for them.
She’d been a little worried about that, concerned the guys would be on edge all the time with alphas around to remind them of Liam. But that didn’t happen because none of Eric’s pack were the least bit like Liam.
Her bigger concern, however, had been finding a place to live and jobs for all of them. But all those fears had turned out to be as silly as all the rest. Eric’s entire pack had busted their butts looking for jobs that would work for them, but it was Ethan and Kathryn Stone who had come through in the end.
The older couple had been a little freaked out when they’d discovered there were werewolves in the world and that their daughter was marrying one, but they’d gotten over it surprisingly quickly. And after seeing how well Chris, Moe, and Joseph had handled the horses, Ethan had talked to a few friends and gotten all the guys, Megan, and Jayna jobs working at a horse rescue and rehabilitation center. The facility took in wild as well as domesticated horses and racehorses that had been injured or mistreated. The place was privately funded, and while the pay wasn’t great, it allowed them to all work together. The people who owned it had immediately picked up on the fact that the injured and abused horses were amazingly calm and relaxed around her pack, which was something that even Gage couldn’t explain. Megan and the guys adored working there, and in the end, that was all that mattered.