Page 47 of Shifter For Hire (For Hire 2)

God, he was weird and sweet. She decided to stop teasing him. “I love you too, Gerard. I choose to be with you. I choose to make you my man forever. How do you like those apples?”

He looked confused, and she snorted in amusement.

“We’ll be just fine.” Lachelle picked up her cell phone and dialed. Her sister came on the line right away. “Hey, sis, I have something to tell you.”

“It’s about Gerard showing off for the camera, right?”

“Ugh, girl, I can’t control him anymore.”

Gerard squeezed her waist and frowned at her. She winked at him.

“I’m not aware you ever could,” Janessa shot back.

“Listen, it’s serious down here. I have to go in to talk to my commander and tell him about what really happened yesterday. It’s all over the news. Patrick can’t cover this mess up.”

“And you want Declan’s help?”

Lachelle drew in a breath and blew it out. “No, I want my big sis with me. Maybe I can put off the time that I meet him and make it tomorrow. I’m not sure he’ll let me bring you into the office when we talk, but I would sure like you to be there.”

Her doorbell rang, and she moved from Gerard’s lap to allow him to answer it.

“So what do you think, Nessa? Can you guys make it down? I won’t ask for any more favors after this.”

“Well,” Janessa began.

Gerard opened the front door, and Janessa walked into the apartment grinning and holding her cell phone to her ear. Declan followed her in carrying their son. After him came ten additional big guys and girls to completely dwarf Lachelle’s apartment.

Lachelle let her phone fall on the floor, and with tears in her eyes, she darted over to hug her sister tight.

The front walk into the station was covered with news media personnel. Lachelle wondered how they knew what time the horde of shifters would descend upon the place. Then again, she didn’t put it past some of the officers she worked with not to run their lips about it.

Janessa squeezed her hand, and Lachelle shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not like I broke the law keeping a pet dragon.”

“I’m not a pet,” Gerard grumbled.

“Of course you aren’t, baby.” She chuckled under her breath and climbed out of the car after him.

When the first reporter charged over, Gerard stepped in front of her. The man pulled up so fast he stumbled. She got a kick out of watching the idiot crane his neck all the way back as he tried to meet Gerard’s eyes in spite of his five foot nothing stature.

The first guy broke the ice because the crowd came running over, shouting questions left and right. Lachelle scanned the area and spotted some of her fellow officers standing around. None moved to control the crowd, although they appeared to be wound tight.

Declan and his men climbed out of their vehicles and joined her and Gerard on the street. He tried to stop Janessa from coming as well, but she ignored him. “I’m not going to let my sister walk in there without me. We all do this together, or none of us will.”

Gerard laced his fingers with Lachelle’s, something she had taught him to do. He enjoyed it when their skin touched in any capacity. Her heart raced out of control as they started into the building, and because it agitated him to know she was nervous, she worked to calm down.

The last thing any of us need is to have Gerard go off.

She pushed the idea of him burning down the police station out of her head.

“Waverly,” her commander barked, approaching her. The commander was a black man as big as the shifters. But for his brown eyes, he might have been one of them. “What’s all this?”

“This is my family,” she said and gestured. “My fiancé, my sister, her husband, and, um…his cousins.”

“They’re monsters!” someone shouted. “That’s the one from the video, sir.”

“Arrest him!” another called.

Two uniforms started forward. People shouted from every corner. Someone let the reporters in, and they snapped photos, yelled questions, filmed, and generally made a nuisance of themselves.

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