said. “I think it would be good to have someone like Diego in Brandon’s life.”
Beth’s face took on a thoughtful look. “And what about having someone like him in yours? Wouldn’t that be a good thing, too?”
Bree didn’t say anything. Considering her track record with men, she wasn’t sure she trusted herself when it came to the opposite sex. Since divorcing Dave—who turned out to be a real douche canoe—she hadn’t been so great at picking men. Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate. Granted, she could count the number of men she’d gone out with on one hand, but she’d genuinely hit it off with only a few of them. Unfortunately, none had been interested in having a relationship with a woman who had a kid. But she and Brandon were a package deal, and any guy who wanted to get serious with her needed to be okay with that. When it came to making decisions, her son came first.
Her sister sighed. “Look, I’m not saying you have to jump into anything, or make this out to be more than it is. All I’m suggesting is that you give it a chance and be open to where things go.”
Bree couldn’t deny there was something about Diego that made her want to take Beth’s advice and see where things went. This crazy connection she was already feeling with him was wild for sure, but also thrilling. Why not just take it one date at a time and see what happened?
So, she nodded in agreement and focused on her Caesar salad, hoping Beth didn’t dig any further into the dinner date she’d made with the big SWAT cop. Fortunately, with everything that had happened to her today, there was lots of stuff for her sister to focus on besides Diego. When she mentioned that Dave had been there, Beth forgot about everything else.
If there was anyone who disliked Dave as much as Bree did, it was Beth. Her sister despised the man with a passion.
* * *
Bree had talked to Beth for almost two hours after dinner before she decided she’d better catch up on some work. She stopped outside Brandon’s room on the way to her home office, wanting to see how he was dealing with everything that had happened today. Not merely the whole werewolf thing, but also doing first aid on those two police officers, the trauma of being held at gunpoint for hours, then seeing that man kill himself. Bree knew that if she was still seeing all those horrible images flashing through her head every time she closed her eyes, Brandon almost certainly was, too. They hadn’t discussed any of that stuff after leaving the SWAT compound.
But as she lifted her hand to knock on his door, she heard the familiar sounds of her son humming along with a song. She smiled and dropped her hand. She knew from experience that Brandon was lying in bed with Finn curled up at his side, headphones on, lost in thought.
Listening to music was Brandon’s way of shutting out the world when he needed to be alone with his thoughts. It was a habit he’d started during his father’s trial and something Bree never intruded upon. She wouldn’t now, either, even after everything that had happened today.
Turning, she walked down the hallway a bit and into the office she and Beth shared. Her sister was a mortgage loan processor who worked from home all but a few days a month, so she used it way more than Bree. But since Bree had taken off today to hang out with Brandon, she should probably at least check her email.
She groaned when she saw an email full of attachments from her boss. Lots of pictures meant another case for her to work. That’s what she got for being conscientious. Clicking on the message, she skimmed the email from her boss, then read through the file, randomly opening the attached photos as she did so. It didn’t take long to figure out why her boss had given her a new case right on the heels of the one she’d gotten five days earlier. The two cases had similar MOs—if not an exact match—which meant whoever had done the first job had likely done the second one.
Lexington Mutual Group, the high-end insurance company where she worked as an investigator, did the normal stuff like writing policies for cars and homes, but the most profitable part of their business came from underwriting risky propositions other