The Dragon Marshal's Treasure (U.S. Marshal Shifters 1)

“She made that nutcracker for his sister, my aunt Claudia, but Claudia didn’t like it and my dad did, or at least he liked it enough to keep it and then enough to buy fifty million more of them. But this one wasn’t even his favorite. It was always mine, because I liked that he’d taken it even though it was a girl’s toy, I liked that he hadn’t cared about that. But I don’t think it really meant anything to him that his mother had made it. He just hit a certain level of success where he realized he was supposed to have some kind of cute, eccentric hobby or collection, and he looked around and landed on nutcrackers. He only started loving them after he got so many of them. There’s some technical psychological term for that, when you change your beliefs to suit your actions. Or maybe he just likes owning things.”

She felt incredibly awkward in the ensuing silence, and she had only herself to blame. Of course he would have nothing to say to that. He’d been making conversation and she’d turned it into a therapy session.

“Anyway!” she said brightly. “I bet that’s more talking about nutcrackers than you expected to do today, right? Or ever? Let me show you the less unnerving parts of the house.”

She walked swiftly down the hall and flung open the first door she could find.

“This,” she announced, “is a linen closet.”

To her complete surprise, Theo whistled like she’d just opened up a treasure chest. He stepped forward and delicately separated some of the blur of stacked white tablecloths and bedsheets like he knew exactly what he was looking for. In between blinks, she could almost see how he had done it—she could almost pick apart some gradations of cream and ivory and ecru—but then it all melted back together.

He was holding a bundle of lace.

“Look. This is handmade. Linen, not cotton.”

No wonder they sent him out for appraisals.

“How can you tell? That it’s handmade, I mean.”

“The color,” he said simply. “You can wash machine-made, but you can’t wash old handmade lace without it falling apart. When it gets this little beige tint in it, it’s the real thing. It’s more beautiful, too.”

He unfurled a little and laid it on her arm. It was strange to have something so dainty against her body; strange to have him putting something so obviously valuable on her bare skin. But it did let her see what he meant.

Through the gentle veil of the lace, her skin looked smooth. Her complexion was dark enough to show the refinement of the weave. It was beautiful and it made her beautiful.

She took in the impossibly fine crosshatching and all the patterns. “It must have taken forever to make.”

“Forever and much squinting and hard labor.” Now he sounded rueful. “It’s a shame that so many of the beautiful things in the world are only made through struggle. But better struggle than ugliness.”

“I’m sure we have plenty of beautiful things around here that only exist because of ugliness.”

Her dad had never wanted to acknowledge, even in passing, that their beautiful house and beautiful life were built on underpaid workers, slashed benefits, broken promises, and grief. She could understand not wanting to dwell on it, and she had never expected him to change the world. But he’d had the power to do so much more good than he’d ever done, and her anger that he wouldn’t even try had eventually split them apart.

She had felt a funny relief when the accusations had first come out.

Oh, she’d thought. We didn’t just see things differently. There wasn’t a compromise we should have found. He wanted to be even worse than the world already was. Okay.

“I try to be on the side of the lacemakers,” she said.

“I know. Tiffani told me.”

He still hadn’t moved the lace from her arm. His hand wasn’t directly touching her, but it was close enough that she could feel his warmth. His heat, really.

Theo went on, “You’re a knight in shining armor taking up quixotic causes.”

He didn’t say it like he was joking.

“I hope they’re not as quixotic as they feel. Anyway, mostly I just listen and organize flag football games and go around explaining why they should keep sex ed in schools.” She shouldn’t have said that, but now that the concept was floating there between them, she grew bolder. After all, there was no way all of this was one hundred percent in the cause of courteous professionalism. She ran her finger down the fabric, feeling the raised bits of embroidery. “Did they teach you all about lace in the Victoria’s Secret section of your sex ed?”

He laughed. “I was more home-schooled than anything else, so no, thankfully. Lace, yes. Victoria’s Secret, no.”

“Why lace?”

“My family—” He hesitated. “My family appreciates valuable things.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“By their standards, most people.”