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

She slid her hand around his and shook it firmly, like they were concluding a business meeting. To her relief, he laughed.

“First let me finish showing you around. It’s a big house, and I’d hate for you to give my tour service a bad Yelp review.”

Theo looked completely scandalized by that. “I would never leave you a bad Yelp review.”

It was such a bizarre thing for him to get so earnest and passionate about that she was oddly touched by it. How many people would feel that strongly about not saying mean things about someone online?

“I’ve done it once or twice,” she said. “But mostly when it’s related to work. If I take the kids on the outing and the store clerks follow them around or the restaurant staff are rude to them, I tend to see red.”

“Any tool can be used justly to defend those who need their champion,” Theo said. There was nothing in his eyes but approval. “Sword, Yelp review. Whatever weapon comes to hand.”

“For my quixotic quest. I’m Don Quixote trying to slay dragons by tilting at windmills. It’s hopeless.”

“I hope making people be gracious to children is one of the least quixotic of your goals,” Theo said. “But I often choose honor over effectiveness myself. And always over slaying dragons.”

It was uncanny. Here she had been stuck in her own head turning over antique concepts like family honor and in had walked a man who said the word offhandedly, like he was expressing a preference for Coke over Pepsi. Even the people she worked with, good people who wanted to change the world for the better, talked about policy and procedure first, ethics and morality second, and honor not at all. She had always thought her outmoded belief in it was an embarrassing hamper to her purposefulness, but now, looking through his eyes, she could see it instead as her foundation.

“Now you sound like a knight,” she said, smiling at him.

Theo coughed. “Definitely not a knight.”

“That’s insistent. What, did knights kill your whole family?”

“Not my whole family,” Theo said.

Hot, smart, honorable, and equipped with a deadpan sense of humor so dry he could toast a bagel with it. But if she whiled away the whole day flirting with him, she’d never get her date.

She folded the lace back up and gently put it down on top of a stack of linen.

“Ready?”

“You don’t have to do this if it’s too difficult for you,” Theo said. “Really. I’ve wandered around houses before.”

She shook her head. “I want to just say goodbye to the place and get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

He looked at her and then nodded. “It’s your Band-Aid. Your call.”

She liked that. A lot of men would either coddle you or throw you to the wolves, not offer to protect you and then respect you enough to believe you when you said you didn’t need it.

Luckily or unluckily, most of the house was devoid of attractions that interested Theo as much as the handmade lace had. He obviously knew a lot about everything—she could tell it by the way he measured the thickness of a marble counter with a little tape measure from his pocket and the way he wrote down the manufacturers of the exercise equipment—but none of this was anything he cared about. He didn’t talk to her about the furnishings, which he obviously found cheap in taste if not in money, but about everything else. He asked her about her work, about her interests. She asked him about what he did as a Marshal and about what his own tastes were, as far as houses went.

This felt like a date, she realized. A strange date, to take a man through your childhood home so he could strip it for parts, but a date nonetheless. It would have felt natural enough to hold his hand.

Then she took him into her dad’s office.

“Behold the inner sanctum,” she said. “This is where the corruption happens.”

“I’ll brace myself,” he said somberly.

But his partner was already there. She was in constant motion, taking out files and locked safe boxes, but she never seemed to be in a flurry: she had a graceful fluidity that Jillian was only used to seeing in athletes. Maybe she was the sporty type.

“Hi,” Jillian said, extending her hand. “Jillian Marcus, unfortunately.”

“Gretchen Rose. As far as fortunately or unfortunately, it depends on the day. I’m sorry to have to be pawing around in here.”

She had a warm, natural smile, straightforward enough to put Jillian at ease. Mostly because she was friendly while still being honest. She hadn’t said that she was sorry to be prying, only that she was sorry she had to. It wasn’t rote sympathy but something clearer: I know where the blame lies, and I know it’s not with you.

Then she noticed Theo, in her peripheral vision, was mouthing something to his partner. Ate? Was he telling her about the cookies? No—date, probably. No wonder he flushed when he realized she was looking at him. He must have been trying to explain that the boundaries of their relationship had become a little bit fuzzy.