The Intelligence Unit Series
The Guardian Chapter 11

Delia hadn't been exaggerating about the clutter. To be fair, her place wasn't so much messy as it was crowded. Bookshelves with a serious population problem lined an entire wall of her living room, the contents spilling over into stacks on the hardwood on either side. Another wall held a large array of photos, all framed and arranged in a precise geometric layout. Delia smiling at the camera from various sun-drenched and historic locales. Delia and Camila, grinning widely. Delia standing arm in arm with an older man with such similar green eyes and white-blond hair that Garza knew he had to be her father. Throw pillows of every size, shape, and color littered both the sofa and the oversized reading chair by the windows, and the area rug beneath his feet boasted its own bold pattern of bright blues and greens. A large telescope stood on the other side of the windows, three-make that four phonebook-sized astronomy guides piled on the small end table in the corner beneath a framed print of the stars and moon that was captioned Give Me Some Space, and Garza had to admit it.

The place was quirky and vibrant and unapologetic in its chaos. It was one hundred percent Delia.

"Sorry again for interrupting your Friday night," he said, sending a pointed glance at the chair where she'd left her crossword puzzle (which she'd been working on in pen, no less) on top of a blanket printed with a starry night sky.

"You're hardly interrupting. I was just hanging out with Al, trying to figure out a seven-letter word for 'enigma'. Third letter is s." She padded into the small, open-concept kitchen to the right of the living room and put the cake box on the counter. A couple ways he could go, there. He opted for the most obvious. "Sorry, Al is...?"

As if conjured by his name, a lanky black cat with white paws made its way to the kitchen to weave between Delia's feet. "My rescue. It's short for Albert. Yes, as in Einstein. What can I say, I'm nothing if not true to form."

"He's...friendly," Garza said, holding still while the cat trotted over to rub its head against his shins, then flop over in front of him while purring like a '68 Camaro. He might not be a cat person, but even he couldn't f**k that up. "And, by the way, your word is mystery," he added, his gut doing really unexplainable things at Delia's bright smile in response.

"I didn't know you were a word nerd!"

"I'm not, really." He lifted a shoulder. Let it drop. Kept his eyes on her smile, even though he knew far better, because he was a selfish bastard. "Just an expert on things that are hard to solve, I guess."

Her hair brushed the tops of her shoulders as she nodded. "That makes sense."

Delia turned toward one of the cabinets behind her, presumably for plates. The move sent the wide neck of her sweatshirt all the way off her shoulder, revealing an inky scattering of stars that stretched from the top of her arm down across her shoulder blade, then hugged her spine before trailing up into the hair covering the back of her neck.

"You have a tattoo," he said, methodically scanning his memory. "It must be new. I don't remember ever seeing it before."

Delia lifted a brow at him from over her shoulder, impressed. "I got it two years ago. It's the Pleiades. My favorite constellation."

Garza grunted a laugh. "Most people have a favorite flavor of ice cream. Favorite color. You have a favorite constellation?"

Her laugh in return was more genuine. It came right from her throat, rich and sweet, like butterscotch. "I'm way weirder than most people, Matteo."

He left that one alone. "You have a thing for astronomy."

Although it wasn't a question, Delia answered regardless. "Guilty as charged, Detective. The cat was almost named Ptolemy, but I thought it might be a step too far," she said, returning to the counter with a pair of plates. She opened the cake box, working and talking with ease. "My dad is an astronomer. I pretty much grew up with my head in the stars. Figuratively, of course."

A memory clicked into place in Garza's mind, surfacing from the way back. "Right. I remember Camila mentioning it. He's a professor, too, right? At Remington University?"

"Yes." The look on her face made it easy to see her fondness for her father.

"You're close."

Another non-question, but, funny, Delia didn't seem to mind. "My mother used to joke that she knew she was the odd person out when he named me. Cordelia"-she smiled-"is the inner moon of Uranus, after Queen Cordelia. The youngest daughter in King Lear. She was known for her devotion to her father and her unwavering honesty. If ever a shoe fit..."

"Not a lot of people can say they were named after a moon and a queen," Garza said-case in point, he'd been named after his tio, his mother's oldest brother.

A wry smile touched Delia's lips. "Let's just say I was never able to replace one of those cute little keychains with my name on it at Disney World. Anyway, I'm an only child, and it's just me and my dad, really. My mom lives in Finland. They got divorced when I was six." Garza accepted the double-wide slice of cake she dished up and slid in his direction, unpacking everything she'd said piece by piece. "That can be rough."

"Shockingly amicable, although, that's my dad's style," Delia said, the flash of fondness reappearing on her face, and huh. No hidden trauma over the divorce, there. "They called it irreconcilable differences, but they got along just fine. The fact that my mom is actually a lesbian? That is what put a damper on their marriage."

Thank God Garza's job dictated his need for a bulletproof poker face. "I guess that would do it. So, your father raised you, then."

"Yep!" Scooping up two forks, Delia picked up her plate and tilted her chin toward the living room in a wordless come on. "Another amicable decision. I saw my mom quite a bit the first few years after they separated, but she ended up moving back to Finland when I was nine. She was born and raised there, and I don't think she ever really got used to living in the U.S."

Arriving at the couch, Delia sat on one end, curling her bare legs beneath her as she continued with ease. "At first, that was hard, and I'll admit that I'm not nearly as close with her as I am with my dad. But she's happy now, and so am I, so in the end, I can't complain. Although, I will say I do feel the tiniest bit sad that I missed out on having siblings."

Garza couldn't help it. He snorted. "Large families have their downsides." He busied himself with getting comfortable at the other end of the couch, then maneuvering the topic back where he wanted it; namely, on anything other than him. "So, you and your father really are close, then, if it's just the two of you."

"We are, as the saying goes, two peas in a pod. I have to say I always found that expression a little strange, though, since there are almost always more than two peas in a pod. Most varieties actually have five or six, although depending on the genus and species... what?"

Well, shit. He hadn't been able to school his awe fast enough. Guess he might as well come out with it. "You pretty much always say what's in your head without reviewing it, huh?"

"Caught that, did you?" Smiling into her first bite of cake, she shrugged. "I know it makes me awkward, and everyone thinks I'm 'weird Delia'. It's true that I have pretty much no filter, although I do try really hard never to be hurtful with what comes flying out of my mouth. But I don't know how to be any other way. This is just who I am. Also, not related, this cake is fantastic."

"The cake is really good," Garza agreed after a bite of his own. "And for the record, I don't think you're weird." Delia's laugh was as wide open as the rest of her. "Well, you are in the minority."

"Tell me about your tattoo." Garza knew he was peppering her with questions (speaking of not knowing how to be any other way) and if this had been a date, they'd have reached the portion of the evening where shit got uncomfortable due to his shortage of non- cop social skills. Of course, if it had been a one-and-done-his specialty over the last two years-he'd have had Delia halfway to her first o****m by now. But he wasn't going there, no matter how much his c**k called him a spoilsport for it. This was the best conversation he'd had in ages. No sense f*****g it up with a whole bunch of feelings, even if they were of the primal variety.

"Sure." Delia jumped right in. "Lots of constellations are based on Greek mythology, and the Pleiades are no different. There are about three thousand stars in the cluster, but seven in the main constellation. They're named after seven sisters-Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno, and Merope."

"And I thought I had a lot of siblings," Garza said, and Delia pointed her fork at him after she took a big bite of cake.

"Exactly. Full house over there in the Pleiades, who, incidentally, got their name from their mom, Pleione. Dad was the Titan, Atlas."

"Now, him, I've heard of," Garza said. "Had to carry the world on his shoulders, right?"

Delia smiled. "That's the guy. Also, the father of astronomy."

"Good to know."

Silence, not uncomfortable, settled between them for just a beat before Delia continued. "So, one day, while traveling, the Pleiades and their mother met Orion, of Orion's Belt fame. He fell madly in love with the sisters and pursued them. Like, a lot." "Sounds like a restraining order to me," Garza said over a bite of cake, and Delia nodded.

"A big one. Orion was one persistent guy. After being chased for years and years, Zeus took pity on the sisters and turned them into doves so they could escape. They flew into the sky and became a cluster of stars within the constellation Taurus." Garza watched her as she spoke, wanting to memorize the openness on her face, the animated way she waved her fork around as she spoke, and Christ, she really was her own brand of beautiful. How had he never noticed?

"But here's the cool part," Delia continued, pulling him back to reality. "The Pleiades have their own mystery."

"It's like you're baiting me, here," Garza said, and Delia waggled her brows to tell him he wasn't wrong. More of his smile slipped out than he wanted, but f**k, it tasted good. "Spill it, Sutton. I don't have all night." "Only six of the seven Pleiades are visible in the night sky without a telescope."

His brows tugged in thought. "Okay, but we have telescopes. What's the big mystery?"

"We have them, sure," Delia said. "But the Greeks didn't. They explained the missing star with a couple of different stories-one sister was cast out by the rest, one sister abandoned the others. Or, my personal favorite, one turned herself into a comet and flung herself across the night sky. There are lots of stars in the cluster, obviously." Putting her plate down on the coffee table, she turned to reveal her shoulder again, which-yep-showed the seven larger stars with dozens of tinier ones dotted all around them. "But the constellation is so beautiful when you see it in the night sky, all these bright, beautiful stars bound so closely together in their own perfect pattern. It takes my breath away, every time."

"You're really comfortable in your own skin, aren't you?"

The question was a left-fielder, one Garza had shocked himself by voicing. Delia, too, blinked her surprise, but she bounced back, lightning fast.

"Well, yes, but you seem pretty self-assured, too."

He hadn't meant to blab his thoughts, but since he had, he might as well see it through. "Not like you."

"Seriously, Detective Badass?" Delia asked.

Garza let go of half a smile. "I thought I was Detective Grouchy Pants."

"Oh, my God." Her face went adorably red, pushing Garza into dangerous territory for how much it turned him on. "I'm so sorry. I was upset, but I really shouldn't have called you that." "Why not? You meant it, right?"

"At the time," she admitted. "But the whole truth is, I really do think you're a badass. I have ever since you carried that ugly recliner up an entire flight of stairs into the apartment Camila and I lived in senior year."

He laughed. "Christ, that thing was a monstrosity." His sister had been in love with it, though, and he'd been unable to tell her no. "Still. That hardly makes me a badass."

"Maybe not. But all this stuff going on with Peyton and my work and...everything else"-the fear she'd banked flickered across her face as if it were brand-new, poking into Garza like pins-"it makes me so flustered and scared. Meanwhile, you're over there with glacier water in your veins."

"I'm a cop, Delia," he said quietly. "Like you said the other day, my normal isn't normal. Anyway, just because I'm composed doesn't mean I'm not scared sometimes." "Really? You get scared."

Her doubt was a billboard, and even though he knew he shouldn't, he put his plate down and kept talking. "I've been shot at more times than I can count, and each one of those could've been the end of the show for me. Hell yes, I get scared. I wouldn't be human if I didn't. I just know how not to let it derail me."

"How is that even possible?" Delia's voice wavered, then slipped into a whisper. "As soon as that guy grabbed me in that alley, I froze. My brain wouldn't let me do a single thing. How do you learn how to fight that?"

For a slice of a second, Garza defaulted to the deep-seated protective instincts that normally made him a good cop. But it was ridiculous, really. Delia was smarter than ten of him combined. She didn't need help taking care of herself.

But the tension taking over for the easy smile she'd been wearing only seconds before told him she did need something, and he'd already missed her feelings once.

He couldn't do it again.

“Freezing up is a very common response to life-threatening situations," he said, catching her gaze and holding tight. "The same one I had the first, God, two dozen times I was faced with a bad situation. But I learned that if I didn't control my fear, it was going to control me, and then I wouldn't be able to do my job, not to mention that it might get me or my partner killed. So, I had to train myself to react differently."

Her brows winged upward. "You just trained your brain not to freak out?"

"I didn't say it was easy," Garza qualified. "Or that it worked right away. But, yeah. In the end, I trained my brain not to freak out."

"I told you. Detective Badass," Delia said.

"Maybe a little. But you know how you're comfortable being you?"

She nodded, and Garza didn't wait for his defenses to catch up with his mouth. "I'm like that when I'm working a case. Being a cop just makes me feel right. Which is kind of screwed up, considering some of the things I've seen, but..."

Damn it, he was making a mess of this. Nobody had ever understood his devotion to his job-not his family, not his ex, not even his unit-mates. He should've just kept his f*****g trap shut, like always. He should've-

"I know what you mean."

Garza sat perfectly still, even though every one of his muscles had gone bowstring tight. "You do."

If Delia heard the doubt in his tone, she didn't show it. "Sure. I'm the same way with numbers. Everyone calls me crazy. Most people don't even try to get it." Shrugging, she popped the last bite of cake into her mouth with a smile. "But I'm okay with that. Math, numbers, patterns, they just speak to me. What was it you said? They make me feel-" "Right," they both said at the same time.

As if powered by something completely out of his control, Garza moved toward her. Delia returned the favor by meeting him halfway, her lashes fanning downward as she dropped her gaze to his mouth, and he knew-he knew there were a hundred different reasons why he shouldn't kiss her.

He did it anyway.