Page 30 of His Reluctant Savior

“Let’s get some guns picked out for you,” he said before walking away, leaving me frustrated and confused.

This weird instant attraction to Dalton intrigued me. He was my polar opposite, but I’d always been drawn to his goodness. He was the sunshine while I was the shadow. No amount of darkness seemed to dull him throughout the years, not even with the death of his husband.

Dalton sat at the kitchen table, sipping on a beer as I sauteed some garlic, onion, and ginger in the pan while the jasmine rice steamed on the stove.

“Smells good,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

“Bò Lúc L?c.It’s Vietnamese.”

“Have you been?”

I shook my head, adding the marinated beef to the pan. “Nope. I haven’t traveled much at all.”

“You don’t want to go somewhere exotic with all that money you make?”

I craned my head back to him and smiled. “Nope. I’m kind of a homebody.”

“Interesting.”

I scoffed. “Is it, though?”

“Yeah, I thought you would be traveling the globe whenever you got the chance.”

“Honestly, I work a lot. But what am I going to travel for? It’s kind of boring to do it alone. Sometimes, I just like to sit at home and do absolutely nothing. It helps me unwind.”

“Other people travel alone.”

“I’m not everybody.”

He chuckled. “Fair enough. You definitely have a point. So, there’s no one serious in your life?”

“No.”

“Has there ever been anyone serious in your life?”

As the meat simmered, I turned to the kitchen island and began slicing cucumbers. “Well, aren’t you a nosy Boy Scout?”

Dalton took a pull on his beer bottle as he smirked. “Iaman FBI agent. It’s my job to be nosy. Besides, now that you’re back in my life in a way, I am curious about you, wondering if you ever found love or companionship.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always? So, can I help do something?” He changed the subject, assuming I wasn’t interested in that particular conversation, but I didn’t really mind. I liked Dalton asking me questions.

I gave him an evil smirk resembling Sully’s demented smile. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me while I wield a sharp knife.”

“Noted,” he said dryly.

“Assassin humor. Anyway, no, there hasn’t been anyone serious. Part of it is personal, and the other part is the risk-taking… Well, before I got kicked out of the other syndicate. You remember what happened then.”

“Do you think staying single has more to do with your uncle?”

Boy Scout was as intuitive as ever, but I said nothing. “The organization I’m currently partnered in… we’re all LGBTQ+.”

He raised a brow, and his jaw dropped. “Nowthat’sinteresting.”

“I won’t go into all the details because you’re a danger to us, obviously, but yeah, we’ve all been nearly killed because of who we are. So, we’ve become a sort of family. No, not sort of. Wearea family—a family who would kill and die for each other. Being blood-related is irrelevant.”

I washed two tomatoes and thinly sliced each one before I pulled out some basil and mint, along with a small container of red onion, which had been marinating in rice wine vinegar and sugar.

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