“I can vouch for that.” He glanced over his shoulder at her as he stirred the pasta. “Though exceptional is the word I’d go with.”
She took it as a compliment, even if she was pretty sure he hadn’t intended it that way. “Plus, there’s one particular aspect of the job offer that makes it intriguing.”
“What’s that?” he asked as he used a fork to fish a piece of the spaghetti out and casually dropped it in his mouth.
She smiled as he made funny faces, trying to keep the hot pasta from burning him as he nibbled, and completely unconcerned that she was watching his antics. Oddly enough, Braden reminded her of Rory in some ways. Her friend used to be oblivious to what people around him thought, too.
“It’s not something I can talk about,” she said.
“Because it’s classified?”
“No, just personal.” There was no way she was ever going to mention herspecialattributes around him. “Suffice it to say, there are reasons to think I might actually fit in here.”
The fact that the DCO apparently had other people like her working here—and weren’t freaked out about it—was important to her. Or at least made her curious. She’d always wondered if there were others like her in the world.
Dreya waited for Braden to point out that a thief like her wouldn’t fit in anywhere, but he didn’t. Instead, he took the pasta off the stove and drained off the water using the lid. She would have needed a strainer—or at least oven mitts—to do something like that without burning herself.
“I’m hearing all kinds of reasons why this is a good deal, so what’s holding you back?” He set the pot on the stove again. “It must be serious. I’ve been watching you worry over it ever since we got here.”
She hadn’t realized she was so transparent. Then again, maybe it was just Braden. She’d overheard him tell Danica and Clayne that he understood her better than anyone. As crazy as that was considering he was a cop, now that Rory was gone, that was probably true.
Dreya watched as he divided the spaghetti onto two plates in a sixty/forty split. She opened her mouth to tell him that was way more than she could eat, but he’d already dumped half a pot of the sauce onto each plate and was carrying the whole steaming mound of carbs over to her. Guess it was too late to complain now.
She stared in fascination as he twirled the pasta around his fork with gusto, wondering if he was going to eat all of that.
He looked up when he realized she wasn’t doing the same. “Do you need more milk? Or would you rather have a beer?”
She shook her head. Beer with spaghetti would actually be worse than beer with Oreos. “I’m good.”
“So?” he prompted as she slowly twirled pasta onto her fork. “Why aren’t you jumping at a chance to work for these people?”
Dreya chewed slowly. She was hungrier than she’d thought. Maybe she could eat this whole plate full of empty carbs. “It’s a little hard to get psyched about working for a group of people who threaten to send you to jail if you don’t at least entertain their job offer.”
Braden lifted a brow. “They said that?”
“Yeah. If I don’t give them an honest effort—whatever the hell that means—for five days, John said the DCO will hand me over to you and the MPD, and off to prison I go.”
“And if you hang around for five days?”
She shrugged, twirling more pasta around her fork. “Then I’m free to go on my merry way with a clean record.”
Braden frowned but didn’t ask how the DCO could manage something like that. “So, I guess you’ll be staying then?”
She didn’t answer, mostly because she still wasn’t sure herself.
“You aren’t thinking about doing anything stupid, are you?” Braden demanded. “Like getting arrested again.”
She stabbed him with a murderous look. “What’s it to you? I thought you’d be thrilled at the idea of sending me to prison.”
He put down his fork, scowling at her. “This isn’t about me, Dreya. You almost got yourself killed two months ago when you decided to steal from Thorn. Hell, when you disappeared, I thought he had killed you. But then you showed up in town, and I figured that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally smartened up and gotten out of the life. And you want to know something funny? I was damn glad to hear it. Because that meant I wasn’t going to have to see you end up in prison or find you in the Potomac like I did your friend Rory.”
If she hadn’t been so exhausted and mentally drained, she would have torn into him about having the gall to utter Rory’s name. Like any cop cared what about happened to a fence like her friend. She wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t curious about exactly how much Braden had figured out about the whole thing.
“You know about what happened to Rory?” she asked. “And about Thorn?”
“Not everything.” He loaded his fork with spaghetti. “If I did, I would have arrested Thorn already. But I know you’re the one who stole that diamond from him and that a lot of innocent people died before he got it back—including your best friend.”
She swallowed hard. Part of her wanted to admit that he was right, that Rory and those other people had died because of her. But she couldn’t, not without Braden using it against her the next time he arrested her.
