“I’ll do one better. I’ll email him copies of our notes.” Not that he needed them. Miller was a research fiend. “That will save him a few keyboard strokes.”
“All right. I’ll let him know to be on the lookout.” Cole paid the road particular attention. “I’ll be close if you need me.”
I used his distraction to study his profile, and my fingertips itched to trace the lumps down the bridge of his many-times-broken nose. “You drew babysitting duty tonight, huh?”
“We rotate.” Cole returned his attention to me. “Would you have preferred Miller?”
“No,” I blurted. “It’s nice. Seeing you.”
Nice was probably not the best word choice. Every single time we bumped into each other, one of us left the confrontation raw.
Shifting his weight onto his rear foot, he gave me breathing room between him and the door at my back. “I should have told you I was sending Thom in my place.”
“I was —” relieved, disappointed, relieved, disappointed, relieved “— not expecting him. It all worked out, though.”
“He told us you handled yourself out there.” What looked an awful lot like pride lit up his face. “He said you went straight for the snout.”
“More like the snout went straight for me.” A shudder rippled through me. “It was like a bad first date where the guy is convinced the cost of dinner has purchased him a goodnight kiss.”
His voice grated. “Speaking from experience?”
An unwelcome realization dawned on me. Since Cole was on guard duty tonight, he had tagged along on my dinner undate with Wu. He must have sat in the parking lot, idling in his SUV, while I tried black sesame ice cream for the first time and made nice with the man who was about to become a stylish fixture in my life.
“A little,” I admitted, thinking of Joey Tacoma and the horror stories Maggie had shared with me over the years. “Most boys we – on me.” After Joey, none of them even tried. “Now Mags, she could tell stories that curled your toes. She was the social butterfly.” Use of the past tense caused the words to get hung in my throat. “One upside to discovering I’m charun? I can blame all those failed first dates on interspecies incompatibility.”
Much to my surprise, Cole laughed. A soft huff that managed to sound as startled as the smile I gave him in return. That’s when it hit me. We had been carrying on a conversation, one spiked with landmines of personal information, yet he wasn’t grinding his molars into dust.
All those words he always seemed to be chewing over, the ones stuck in his craw, well, maybe a few had escaped in my yard the day we clocked that six-minute mile to the pond.
“I read your report.” He eased back another step, and I followed him to the curb. “I had no idea the NSB was microchipping the lower charun. That’s valuable information. It will make identifying them easier in the future.”
“You already placed an order for top of the line chip readers, didn’t you?”
“Santiago is hacking their systems as we speak,” he said, which was answer enough. “He plans on mapping their infrastructure and using it to construct our own information portal.”
Hearing that didn’t surprise me. “How did he gain access?”
“Thom hunted down another lower charun, tranquilized it with his saliva, then removed the microchip while it was unconscious. Santiago took it from there.”
“Well, since it looks like we’re stuck with Wu, at least he’s good for something.” Even if he didn’t know it yet. “That reminds me. He and I talked about more than the ubaste. We discussed the fires too. I’d like to bounce some of our theories off you later if you have time.”
Cole pulled out his cell. “I’ll text Thom and let him know I’m taking his shift.”
“You don’t have to go that far,” I insisted. “We can hash it out over the phone.”
“I don’t mind.”
I fidgeted with the strap on my pack to give my hand something to do besides itching for an excuse to touch him, and the movement caught his eye.
Cole fixated on the strap, no, on my hand. “What is that?”
I looked down and spotted the origami ring. “Oh.” I flexed my fingers like I was just as surprised to see it as him. “Wu made it for me out of the fifty I tried to use to pay my half of the bill.”
“You’re still wearing it,” he said flatly.
“It’s cute.” And I was an idiot for not removing it sooner when any member of my coterie would sniff it out and know who made it and wonder why I had yet to unfold the bill and return it to my wallet. Whimsy was not an excuse they would buy. “I shouldn’t have worn it out, though.”
“No,” he agreed, “you shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not a mark of ownership.” Though, according to Thom, Wu was all about marking his territory where I was concerned. “It’s just a fun thing.”
“With charun, it’s never just a fun thing. Gifts carry meanings.”
“There.” I slid off the ring and put it in my pocket. “Better?”
Without answering, he popped the snaps on his leather bracelet, exposing the thick ridges of heavy scar tissue built up around the rose gold band that circled his wrist. Holding out his offering, he waited until I extended my arm in acceptance before securing it in place. The band was four inches wide and sized to fit him. On me, it looked more like an archery bracer. His heat still warmed the metal fasteners, and his scent was engrained after so many years of wear. It was all I could do not to bring it to my nose and inhale the potent combination of leather and man.
Gifts carry meanings.
What did this one say?
The leather bracelet and his matching watch kept his bands, Conquest’s mark of ownership, concealed. Exposing them could mean so many things. That he was no longer ashamed of the connection, that he no longer cared to hide who and what he was, or simply that he had five more tucked away in a drawer at the bunkhouse and could afford to lose one.
“Cole.” I spun it around my wrist. “I…”
Headlights flashed in the distance, their familiar shape giving away the driver’s identity.
“That’s Rixton.” I glanced back at Cole and found him fixated on where I had tucked my arm against my chest, cradling the gift he’d given me like it was precious, and it was. Whatever the symbolism to him, it meant everything to me. “Guess I’ll see you around?”
“Not if I do my job well you won’t.”
With a nod, he walked away, leaving me to be eaten alive by my curiosity as he made a quick turn down Burberry Street then dipped into the shadows cast by a hedge acting as a privacy fence on the corner. I was searching for signs of where he’d gone when Rixton slowed in front of me, lowering his window as he rolled to a stop.
He leaned out and followed my line of sight. “Who was that?”
Rixton must be distracted if he wasn’t calling me out on the mysterious who being Cole.
“A friend,” I murmured, tucking my hand behind my back.
Without meaning to, I had set him up to crack a joke at my expense, something along the lines of “Yeah, your boyfriend” but he didn’t rib me as I joined him. There was too much darkness gathered in the cab for him to dispel it with humor. The numbers struck me again.
Four kids. Four.
No wonder Rixton had been rendered mute.
“I spoke to Dawson before I left the house,” Rixton said at last. “He’s driving down too.”
Made sense. He would have to liaise with his counterpart in Madison. “Has he given you anything on our cases yet?”
“The Hensarling Farms fire was started in the southeastern corner of the field. Wind speed and direction must have been calculated for maximum damage. That or Rowland got lucky. The fire swept up and across the property, destroying ninety percent of the crops before the fire department got it contained. The same accelerant responsible for starting the initial blaze was found in the drip torch basin.” He shook his head. “For Dawson, it’s an open and shut case.”