Page 28 of Fierce-Zander

She laughed and checked out the containers of food and he realized his usual habit of eating right out of the carton was not going to work tonight.

Not the most hygienic thing with someone you weren’t dating.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got plates?”

“Yep,” he said. “Or you can just take whatever you want for yourself.”

“If you don’t have plates I could, but maybe it’s more fun to have a little bit of everything.”

“Kind of my thought,” he said, getting up to walk out of the room and over to the coffee bar. Thankfully Betsy had everything he ever needed in there so he grabbed two plates, some forks and napkins and returned.

“Not even paper plates,” Regan said.

“We are high end here.”

She let out a little giggle and then seemed to stop herself. “Thanks,” she said and then filled her plate. “So your father is going to help you out?”

“He is. After weeding out their dialogue, I got exactly what you said. My mother feels both guilt and relief that my father retired. My father is relieved to not be working full time but bored out of his mind and needs to occupy his brain. He was a great detective before captain and it will be extremely helpful to get a second set of eyes on things.”

“It seems it’s going to be a positive result for you both,” she said.

“Free labor always is,” he said, laughing.

She had a shocked look on her face. “That is a good way to look at it.”

“It’s not what I want, but he won’t take any money. It’s one of those arguments we had on Monday. Thankfully Betsy told me she’d keep an ear out and start keeping track of things my father might need or I could get gift cards for restaurants and he can take my mother out. It’s not really about money, but I’m not taking advantage of things either.”

“Everyone has their pride,” she said.

“They do,” he said. “And I’m glad to have company tonight.”

“I’m happy you asked,” she said. “Most tend to be afraid of spending time with me one on one.”

He lifted an eyebrow and chewed his lo mien quickly. “Afraid of you? Do I look like I am?”

She wasn’t much more than a slip of a woman that he could probably pick up with one hand.

And the thought of that had his mind imagining her legs wrapping around his waist as he did it.

Yep, he needed to stuff his mouth to occupy his brain with other thoughts.

“No,” she said.

“Then why say that?”

She chewed the small bite of chicken she’d picked up. “I tend to ask questions. People think I’m always analyzing them. It’stiring. Like I might be thinking if they mean everything they are saying or if I’m reading more into every word out of their mouth. As I said, it’s tiring. We are just eating dinner.”

“Kind of like a cigar is just a cigar?”

Her face turned light pink again and he’d done that on purpose to see if he could get a better read on her. “That is referring to a dream, but the same thing. This is dinner and not a session.”

“I’m not sure I could afford you,” he said, laughing.

She closed one eye at him. “I take insurance.”

He laughed. “Something I’ll keep in mind. But you could say I do a lot of the same things as you.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

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