Dreya shrugged and headed for one of the bedrooms to drop off her bag. She was used to people threatening her. If it wasn’t cops like Braden telling her they’d arrest her and put her in jail for life, it was other thieves—or guys like Thorn trying to track her down and kill her over something they thought she’d stolen.
She dumped her bag on the floor. There was a full-sized bed, a dresser, two nightstands, and a closet. She walked over to look out the window, but there wasn’t much to see. Just a grassy lawn with some thick woods beyond it. She gave the latch on the window a little wiggle, checking to see if it would slide up easily. It did. That was nice to know.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned in time to see Braden standing in the doorway, a knowing expression on his handsome face.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Dreya wasn’t thrilled at the idea of eating with the cop who’d been planning to put her in prison twelve hours ago, but she was starving. Besides, it wasn’t like she had a lot of other options. She nodded and followed him into the kitchen. Braden tossed his leather jacket over the chair and began rifling through the cabinets with her.
“Found appetizers,” he called out from behind her.
She turned at the rustle of cellophane to see him holding out a bag of Oreos, one of which he popped into his mouth. She couldn’t help but smile as she took a handful of the heavenly things and bit into one. She hadn’t eaten anything since eight o’clock last night, and she’d always loved Oreos.
Braden set the bag down, then took two glasses out before opening the fridge. She was worried he was going to grab a couple of beers—not a good pairing with Oreos—but instead, he came out holding two cartons of milk, one regular and the other fat-free. When he lifted a brow, she pointed at the fat-free carton, figuring she could eat more cookies that way. He poured a glass of skim for her and regular for him.
“Anything on the menu besides cookies?” he asked.
Dreya looked into the cabinet she’d been peeking in before being tempted with the Oreos and saw a jar of spaghetti sauce and a box of pasta. She pulled them out and held them up.
Braden nodded. “That’ll work.”
Dreya opened the jar and box while he dug out the pots and utensils. When she measured out the pasta in normal serving sizes, Braden reached around from behind her and dumped the rest of the box in the water.
“If they meant for it to be more than one serving, they would have created a better way to seal the box,” he pointed out, tossing the empty carton in the garbage.
She didn’t bother to argue as he dumped the whole jar of sauce into another pot and cranked up the heat.
They sat at the kitchen table eating Oreos and ruining their appetites as they waited for dinner to cook.
“So,” he said casually as he dug another cookie out of the bag. “Are you planning to tell me who the hell these people are? Because I still haven’t figured it out.”
For a moment, Dreya thought about keeping that to herself. He’d been planning to send her to jail after all. That by itself took him off her Christmas card list—permanently. If he wasn’t worthy of a Christmas card, should she really be telling him classified information about the secret organization that wanted to hire her, even if she didn’t want the job?
But then she remembered the way Braden had stopped the videotape in the MPD interrogation room and the look he’d gotten on his face when Danica and Clayne had shown up out of the blue to snag her away. Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t looked angry about the feds swooping in to take credit for his work. Instead, he’d seemed like he was worried about her—as completely insane as that sounded.
Telling him what she knew was the least she could do. Besides, what harm could it do? It wasn’t like she was planning to stay around here that long anyway.
“They told me this place is called the DCO,” she said. “Don’t ask me what it stands for, because I don’t know. It’s some covert operations gig, like the CIA, I guess. They seem to think my talents could be useful to them.”
“You mean your ability to climb buildings and break into places?” he asked softly, biting into another cookie.
Clearly, the man had never learned the concept of serving size. She got the feeling that if she didn’t take the bag away from him soon, he’d eat the whole thing.
“Of course my ability to climb buildings and break into places,” she said as she picked up her glass. “It’s not like I have any other talents they’d be interested in.”
“I don’t know about that.” His mouth quirked. “I’m betting you have all kinds of talents that no one knows about.”
She didn’t rise to the bait, not sure if he was fishing for evidence to use against her the next time he hauled her in for questioning or if he was trying to be charming. With cops, it could be hard to tell the difference.
Across from her, Braden downed half his glass of milk, then got up and went over to check the pasta.
“Do you trust them?” he asked. “More important, do you want the job they’re offering?”
Dreya sipped her milk while she considered that. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “The guy who offered me the job—John Loughlin—seemed okay. I mean, he was nice enough to destroy the DVD you had of me climbing that apartment wall and running across the cable. So there’s that.”
She almost laughed at the grimace on Braden’s face at learning that his best piece of evidence against her was gone. When he didn’t say anything, she continued.
“It’s hard not to appreciate a job that allows me to use my natural talents. I’d like to think I’m a good thief.”
