“I need protection on Lucinda,” I said as I raised my head and looked at Thatch.
“Done.”
Damn, I liked his absolute conviction and support. Through the entirety of this shitshow, of the horror of what we’d uncovered, I readily admitted to myself that if it hadn’t been for Thatch, I would have handled Hazel’s death a hell of a lot differently. Most likely, I would have charged in guns blazing—again—and would have been on a cold slab by now.
I wasn’t ready to smile, but I meant the thank you that I offered him.
Thatch nodded, and as if only just realising his hands were still on me, he dropped them and took a small step back. “You ready to go back?”
“Yeah.”
CHAPTER SIX
DRESSED AFTER MY HOT SHOWER, I padded down the staircase and made my way to the kitchen. The sound of metal—I assumed pots and pans—travelled from there. My ears perked up in interest. “Wow,” I said when I entered the room. “You’ve cooked?” I didn’t mean it to come out as a question, but with smoke billowing out of the oven and steam appearing out of two of the pans on the stove, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.
Yeah, there was that one anomaly of the cookie-making incident, but beyond that, nothing before or since. And nothing that looked like a war zone.
The scent of burnt something registered. I winced, relieved I’d been too distracted to scent it before entering the room. With my gaze spanning the entire mess that was usually Thatch’s pristine kitchen, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time he had used it for anything more challenging than cookies. “So….” I didn’t get any further as Thatch’s exasperated glance met mine. I waited a couple of beats before taking a few steps further into the room. “Erm….” I really had nothing.
“Nope.”
“Nope?” I questioned. While Thatch was the ultimate control freak, I didn’t think his resolve was going to cut it this time. I shook my head and headed over to him. Side by side, we stood before the stove and I peered into one of the pans. My brows scrunched in confusion. “I’ve got to ask. What’s cooking?” I aimed for light, supportive, but instead, humour lit my words.
Thatch swept his gaze at me, and I angled towards him. His jaw tensed, his brain appearing to work overtime if the flicker of his eyes was anything to go by. “Spag bol,” he eventually answered.
I gave a single nod before casting my eyes on the oven. It was off, thank Christ, but wisps of smoke still filtered out. “And dare I ask what’s been cremated?”
His left eye twitched. “Garlic bread.”
I bobbed my head before grabbing a towel and lifting the lid off the back pan. A congealed mess greeted me. “And this?” I clamped on to the inside of my cheeks, trying desperately not to laugh. The more I took in the scene, the more the severity of the catastrophe I saw.
“Noodles.”
Pressing my lips together, I held back my snort, determined not to break. Between the red tomato splatters across the countertop and up the doors, the smoke, and the glob of pasta, I was rendered speechless. Yes, there was the whole alpha, control-freak part of Thatch, sure, but this was another level of incompetence that I struggled to get my head around. After stopping and starting a few times to figure out what to say, I settled on “How have you survived all this time?” I shook my head, genuinely bewildered.
His face heated, a deep red beneath his dark skin, and interest sparked in my chest.
“Come on. Spill it.”
He cleared his throat and took a few steps away, his backside ending up pressed against the unit. “I usually have Mary, my housekeeper, cook for me at times, and I rely heavily on takeout.”
I tilted my head and blew out a breath. This time I didn’t hold back my grin. “Okay. So why haven’t I seen said cook since being here”—it had been a while, so I was somewhat confused—“and why did you attempt to do this now?”
Red travelled further up his neck. My gaze followed the journey, mesmerised by its movement. Thatch huffed out a breath and angled his neck back. “I suppose I was trying to do something nice. The cookies were a success.”
But they were influenced by Hazel. I didn’t need to say my thoughts aloud. Instead, my eyes widened, and when he looked back at me, he appeared decidedly shifty. The heavy pounding of my heart picked up a little. “For me?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, okay.” Over the past few weeks, we’d had a lot of takeout, which I’d put down to our crazy hours. We were living and breathing our investigation. Occasionally, he’d pulled meals out of the freezer. I hadn’t even considered he hadn’t been the one to make them. Yeah, I knew he was well off and came from money, but still. It hadn’t even registered. I didn’t know if I should ask why. It seemed a little too personal, too delicate, which was crazy. All I knew was that despite my fierce attraction to him and that incredible kiss in the dam, there’d been nothing else between us. So this threw me for a loop.
“With everything that’s gone down over the last couple of weeks, I just wanted to do something nice. My gran gave me her recipe years ago, and I haven’t had anyone to cook for before.” He shrugged. “Yeah, we’ve made progress, shut down a couple more labs, but I know you’re anxious about your niece.”
I was. Lucinda now had an agent assigned to her, which helped my anxiety, but I wouldn’t relax until
