The Wolf Marshal's Pack (U.S. Marshal Shifters 3)

“That would be very sweet of you, Colby,” Doreen said gracefully. She glanced at Aria. “Always look for a man who’s willing to help with the dishes. I dated my share of men before your father, but none of them ever helped me wash up after dinner. Not until him.” She paused. “Of course, half the time he also suggested we just do paper plates and eat outside, like animals—”

“Animals being, of course, notorious for their use of paper plates.”

“—but you can’t have everything.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It occurred to her that she should maybe try to keep up the flimsy pretense that her relationship with Colby was strictly professional.

“I mean, I’d keep that in mind if that were at all relevant to our situation.”

Her mother snorted. Colby, his hands now covered with soapsuds, smothered a laugh of his own at that undignified sound coming out of Doreen Clarke, of all people.

“Okay,” Aria conceded. “It’s a little relevant to our situation.”

She went up to the sink and bumped shoulders with Colby.

“You’ve proved your willingness to wash dishes. Why don’t you go do Marshal things like... establish a perimeter? If that’s a real thing? And I can chat with my mom for just a second, if that’s okay.”

Colby shook the water off his hands. “I can establish any perimeter you like.”

When he was safely out of earshot, Aria turned back to her mom.

“Yes, we’re going to go on a date. But any guy might run for the hills if you start praising his domestic skills in front of him before we’ve even had dinner.”

Doreen had been patting the blackberries dry, but now she stopped, fixing Aria with a serious, warm look. She looked like she was weighing whatever she was going to say next.

“Honey, I don’t think the reason you’ve stayed single all these years is because you were heartbroken over Mike. He was a good boy, but he just wasn’t right for you. And I worry that you wound up thinking that if things couldn’t work out with him, they wouldn’t work out with anyone. And that’s not true, baby.”

“I know that.”

In theory. She knew it in theory. She breathed in the clean scent of the dish soap, which was, according to the bottle, designed to smell like “mountain freshness.” Not that she had any clue what that meant.

“Mom, what’s ‘mountain freshness’ supposed to smell like?”

“Dish soap,” Doreen said promptly. “And this tendency you have to change the subject with a joke—you get that from your father. Especially when it’s not that funny.”

“It’s sweet that you’re trying to tell me I can still find love even though I’m humorless and the house is a mess.”

“I never said you were humorless. I just implied that you had the sense of humor of a man in his sixties.” That voice was far too sweet to be believed. “If you want to come to any conclusions based on that, they’re your own. And I’m only saying—”

Aria put one arm around her mom. “I love you,” she said quietly. “But can we do this later? When there’s less going on?”

Doreen took a deep breath, and Aria could feel that rarest of things: her mom was agreeing to let this go.

“I’m only saying that a proper vinaigrette requires a balance of flavors. If you’d just read the cookbook I gave you last Christmas, you’d know.”

Aria smiled. “Do people actually read cookbooks?”

“People who want to learn how to cook do.”

“I know how to cook!”

“I’ve seen nothing to indicate that,” Doreen said loftily.

Colby knocked against the wall right where the living room changed into the kitchen. “The perimeter is officially established. And Mattie’s solved her Rubik’s cube, so she’s officially smarter than I am.”

Mattie, grinning ear-to-ear, was tagging along behind him, swinging the Rubik’s cube at her side. “Am I really?”