Page 36 of Serve ’N’ Protect

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“What am I thinking?” What he’d been thinking was holy shit.

“Holy shit,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Okay, you do know what I’m thinking.” He barely knew his times tables up to fifteen. The woman was a numbers savant.

“I was head of the math club in high school. At first, I only took up sports so people wouldn’t think I was a total geek. Then I found I loved sports, too, so I stuck with both.”

“You’d get along great with Matt’s wife, Trista. She’s a whiz with numbers, too.” He’d learned the hard way never to play poker with Trista. He’d lost his shirt that night. They all had. “I have no idea how you did that.”

She shrugged. “Everyone has their specialty. Yours is running down bad guys and other manly, take-no-prisoners stuff. Mine is numbers.” As if someone had flipped a switch, her face lit up, every nuance becoming animated. “When I’m doing an audit, I see the numbers on paper, but I also see other numbers in my head. Profit and loss. Income streams. Balancing numbers and finding things other people miss gets me stoked, and numbers never do one thing that most people always do.”

“What’s that?”

“Numbers never lie. They either add up or they don’t. If they don’t, then there’s a problem.”

“You’d make a killer IRS agent.” Although, he’d hate for her to be the one auditing his taxes.

“Nah.” Cassidy retrieved the book she’d dropped on the floor. “Working for the government isn’t for me. I like being my own boss for once. Are these your books or John’s?” She indicated the other six books on the table.

“Mine,” he answered and her brows rose. “I do read.”

“I can see that.” She held up his very worn version of To Kill a Mockingbird then pointed to the other books. “I’m just surprised you enjoy the classics.”

“Why? Because I’m a cop? That’s stereotyping.” Markus recalled how many times Nick Houston, another of his closest K-9 friends, liked retelling the story about how Andi, his now wife, was equally shocked to discover Nick enjoyed the classics, like The Count of Monte Cristo.

“You’re right. It is. I’m sorry.” She looked genuinely contrite as she set the book on the table and picked up his even more worn copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. “Is there something I should know? Are we going to war?”

From the way her lips pursed it was obvious she was mocking him. “That book is more than just about fighting wars. It’s about conflict resolution for a war on the battlefield or a war of words, and it isn’t just about brute strength or who’s got the biggest weapons.”

He paused when she turned the book over to read the back copy. “Sun Tzu was a Chinese general, but he was also a brilliant strategist and philosopher,” he continued. “His teachings provide the essential elements for any conflict resolution strategy. Rushing into combat isn’t always the answer. Sometimes, intelligence can dissolve conflict, thereby avoiding a deadly confrontation.”

“Wow. You sound like quite the philosopher yourself.”

“I am.” To survive his crappy childhood, he’d had to be.

“Seriously?” Again with the raised brows. “Did you go to school for that?”

He nodded. “I have degrees in philosophy and psychology.” The philosophy had come first. Then he’d wanted to learn why his father had fucked up his and Kelly’s lives so radically, so he’d taken up psychology as well.

She leaned forward. “When did you have time to get all these degrees?”

“I went into the marines at twenty.” The second his sister had left for college he’d been out the door. He would have bolted sooner but he’d refused to leave Kelly alone in the same house with Steven. She wouldn’t have survived. “The military paid for my online tuition. Since then, anytime I get the urge to blow something up with a surface-to-air missile, I try to find a more peaceful solution.”

“That is philosophic.” She began tapping a finger on her chin. “I wish I could apply those principles to my clients.”

“Is that client still holding back with those receipts you need?”

“Yeah.” She made a dismissive gesture. “But it’s not worth getting into.”

“It’s after four,” he said, glancing at his phone. “Let’s hit the gym. Wear shorts, and bring your medical file.”

Cassidy swallowed audibly then licked her lips. If he wasn’t mistaken, and he wasn’t, the emotion emanating from her eyes could be only one thing. In the marines, he’d seen it in the eyes of his enemy.

Cold, stark fear.

Chapter Thirteen