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He nodded but didn’t answer right away. His attention lingered on the photo above her. Desiree noticed, then looked back at her notes, clicking her pen twice, the sound loud in the cramped room.
They worked in silence, pages flipping, and highlighters squeaking. The only sound besides their shuffling was the relentless buzzing of the desk lamp. A full hour passed, both of them absorbed in the files. At 7:18, Desiree’s stomach gave a low, percussive growl.
She ignored it. Brandon did not. He checked the wall clock—a ceramic plate shaped like the state of Texas—and closed the folder in front of him.
“It’s time for dinner,” he stated firmly, already moving toward the kitchen before Desiree could object.
He heard footsteps behind him a few seconds later. “We should finish this first,” she told him as she caught up, folder in hand.
Brandon shook his head. “You can’t read case files on an empty stomach. That’s basically a code violation.”
The kitchen was a hodgepodge of kitchen trends from the past thirty years. White tile counters, cast iron pans hanging above the stove, a wooden cross nailed over the window, a rooster cookie jar that had seen better days. Brandon moved through it with practiced speed, pulling pasta, canned tomatoes, and garlic from the pantry along with a bag of Parmesan from the stainless-steel fridge.
Desiree stopped in the doorway, arms folded, watching as he lit the burner under a battered sauce pot. “I thought you’d be more of a steak-and-potatoes guy.”
Brandon tossed a clove of garlic onto the cutting board and started mincing. “You end up eating chili four nights a week at the station, you learn to cook Italian on your days off.” He didn’t look up as he spoke, just kept slicing, hands moving quick and sure.
She set her folder on the counter but didn’t open it. “Is this a family recipe, or are you winging it?”
“Recipes aren’t my thing. I’m better at improvising.” He dumped the garlic into hot oil, then added the tomatoes, stirring with a wooden spoon that had been sanded down to a nub.
Desiree drifted closer. “I’m not really great at improvising.”
“You’re definitely a structure girl—but I think you can let yourself relax and not plan so hard all the time.” Then, realizing she might not like his observation, he quickly added, “I hope you don’t take that the wrong way.”
She didn’t answer right away. When she finally did, she shrugged, saying, “Maybe it’s good you came into my life then. You can teach me how.”
“You seemed to do pretty good at the tree lighting ceremony last night.” He reached out and pulled her over, placing her hand on the wooden spoon’s handle and guiding her hand around the pan. “My dad used to cook pasta for me after Little League. He always overcooked it, made the noodles so soft you could drink them, but he’d pretend it was the only way real firemen did it.”
She snorted. “Real firemen, huh?”
He smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “His words, not mine.”
Her hand stayed on the spoon. He didn’t let go. The sauce bubbled and popped between them, the scent filling the space between them.
“You can let go now,” she said, but she didn’t pull away.
“I know,” he told her, but he didn’t. Her fingers were warm under his, the tendons in her wrist shifting as she kept the spoon moving in slow circles. He could see the pulse in her throat, quick and steady. Her hair had come loose from behind her ear, a dark strand curving along her jaw. Gently, he reached out and gently tucked it into place.
“Brandon,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look up into his eyes.
“Yeah,” he lazily murmured, wondering if she might confess something to him. Perhaps that she was beginning to have feelings for him—the same as he did for her—that went well beyond professional camaraderie.
“We’re burning the sauce,” she said instead, jolting him back to the present.
He looked down. She was right. He let go of her hand, grabbed the pot handle, and yanked it off the burner. A thin ribbon of smoke curled up toward the ceiling.
“See?” She was smiling, actually smiling, the kind that reached her eyes. “This is why you need structure.”
After inspecting the sauce and saving what he could from the untainted part, he returned it to a low simmer to keep it warm. “And sometimes, you can salvage something even when it doesn’t go to plan.”
Next, he dropped the pasta into boiling water, then reached for a loaf of grocery store bread and started slicing it for garlic toast. “You want the truth about that chain-of-custody issue?” He asked, his tone changing as he got ready to tell her something he didn’t share often.
She kept her eyes on him as she leaned against the counter. “Tell me.”
“Everyone knew someone set that fire,” he confessed as he busied himself with melting butter and adding some garlic salt to the spread. “But nobody wanted an arson case on the record that couldn’t be solved. Not the mayor, not the old chief. Definitely not the DA. It was easier to call it an accident and move on.”
“But you didn’t move on,” she pointed out.
