Caleb moved a little closer, his shoulder so near her arm that she could feel his warmth again. “Would using your ability to make your lives easier have been so bad?”
She shrugged as they continued down the steps. “It’s hard to explain, but I never felt right about using my ability for something so cheap. It made me feel like I was misusing it.”
Brielle expected Caleb to laugh at her and call her silly, like Julian had done so many times. But instead, he grinned.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “It’s definitely not the way I would have handled the situation had I been in your shoes. If I had gotten your gift at that age, I probably would have used it to rob a bank or something. The fact that you resisted the urge to go the supervillain route says a lot about you.”
She laughed. She had to admit it was nice to hear Caleb say something like that. She’d certainly never gotten praise like that from Julian, that was for sure. “You should probably refrain from being too impressed. Because, while I didn’t ever want to use my ability, that doesn’t mean I never did. Mostly because my brother has his own unique ways of forcing my hand.”
“What do you mean?” Caleb asked as they reached the wide street at the base of the stairs and started across it. “Because I gotta tell you, that sounded a little ominous.”
She couldn’t help but laugh again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. It’s just that Julian has always been good at getting into trouble and usually left it up to me to find a way to get him out of it. Unfortunately, that usually meant I had to use my ability, whether it was for finding ways to get money to bail him out of jail or fighting to keep someone from killing him. Once I even had to break into a jewelry store to return the stuff he’d stolen before they realized it was missing. And yeah, there was other stuff, too. Sometimes it scares me to think about how many times I broke the law for my brother.”
Brielle wasn’t ashamed of what she’d had to do for Julian, but that didn’t keep her from looking away into the darkness out on the water, wishing she hadn’t been quite so honest with her criminal confession. Did Caleb honestly need to know about the jewelry store thing?
He stopped and put his hand on her sleeve, gently turning her to look at him. “Before you start worrying that I’m going to judge you for your wayward youth, I should probably let you know that I have more than a passing knowledge of what it’s like to be on the wrong side of the law. And for reasons not nearly as noble as saving a sibling’s ass.”
She gazed up at him, wondering if he was making that up to make her feel better. Then she thought about the way she’d seen him fight, both on this mission and the previous one, and how he’d always seemed on the ragged edge of control or well beyond it.
“Yeah, I can see you having problems with the police.” She smiled. “You definitely have that proverbial bad-boy vibe going on.”
Most guys would have preened at least a little at that description. In her experience, men liked to think of themselves as being dangerous. Caleb didn’t seem to notice the label. Probably because he really was dangerous.
“I’d like to be able to blame my inner omega for all the trouble I’ve gotten myself into over the years,” he said casually, taking her hand and leading her out onto one of the concrete piers in the bay. “But since I’ve been getting into trouble since I was old enough to walk and the werewolf thing didn’t happen until much later, I guess I can’t use that as an excuse.”
They stopped halfway down the pier to lean against the metal railing and look out over the dark water. Brielle wanted to ask Caleb about his formative years and where he’d grown up. She got the feeling he’d gotten into as much trouble as Julian. And yet, he had ended up completely different than her brother. Then again, Caleb was different from any man she’d ever met.
“If you got in so much trouble, how did you end up working for STAT?” she asked, moving closer to him, telling herself it was the heat rolling off him in waves that she was seeking. “I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t have recruited you if they thought you were that much of a troublemaker.”
He snorted as he leaned in a little closer to her, still gazing down at the soft waves lapping the base of the pier. “I think you’re giving them a little too much credit. STAT was so eager to get their hands on another werewolf that they simply ignored my background, figuring that was Jake’s problem to deal with.”
“Even if you’re right about the people at the top seeing you as nothing more than a risk/reward calculation, what does any of that matter when it’s obvious your teammates couldn’t care less about your past?” she asked, looking over and capturing his eyes. “You guys are closer than Julian and I have ever been. Or ever will be. He might be my brother, but in all the ways that matter, I’m on my own. I can only dream of what it’s like to be part of something bigger, knowing you’ve got someone on your side.”
Caleb regarded her silently for a long moment, his face unreadable. “I meant what I said earlier when I told Hudson that you’re part of the team. After what you did for Misty and all of us in Siberia, I know Forrest and the rest of my teammates think of you like that, too.”
She let out a little laugh. “That’s a nice thought, but somehow, I doubt it’s that easy. They all know I only agreed to work with STAT to find my brother. Doing one thing right isn’t going to outweigh that fact. People don’t trust that quickly.”
“I would normally be the first to agree with you since I’m not big on the whole trust thing myself,” Caleb murmured. “But when it comes to my team—my pack—I think you’ll find it’s easier than you think. You risked your life for them. That’s all they’re going to care about. So give them a chance, okay? Like you said, they accepted me, even with all my baggage. If you let them, they’ll be there for you, too.”
Brielle didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, she found herself blinking to keep tears from welling in her eyes. Where had these emotions come from? Was she so needy for acceptance that merely thinking about being part of the STAT team was enough to make her cry?
Sadly, the answer to that question seemed to be yes.
She and Caleb stood there at the metal railing, gazing out at the passing ships and chatting about some of that baggage he’d mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, beyond getting him to admit to having been in jail more than once, she couldn’t get anything else out of him. If she didn’t know better, she would think he didn’t want to make himself look bad in her eyes, which was insanely hilarious. He was amazing. Nothing he could say would change that.
“Why hasn’t there ever been anyone else?” he asked quietly. “I mean, you’ve mentioned several times that it’s just been you and Julian. Why aren’t you with a guy?”