“This morning,” Kellan said. “When we were at the scene of the house fire, you said if I thought you wouldn’t take a slim lead and run with it, then I didn’t know you very well.”
She pulled the Mustang to a stop about a block from the park, using the time it took to quiet the engine and cut the headlights to replay their earlier conversation in her mind. “I guess I did.”
Walker dropped his voice to a low rumble, matching the relative quiet and darkness of their surroundings. “And I guess I don’t. So tell me.”
He had to be kidding. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me something about you so I know you better.”
Oh God, he so wasn’t kidding. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You want me to fork over a running biography in the front seat of my car? That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
“Relax, Moreno. I’m not asking for a head count on the skeletons in your closet,” Walker said with a shrug. “But we are about to go put the full court press on some dirtbag to try and catch a lead in your case, so the way I see it, a little insight is probably better than a lot of assumptions. Plus, we’ve got time to kill. So go on. Enlighten me.”
“You first,” her deeply trained defenses made her say, surprise filling her chest as Kellan answered without hesitation.
“Okay. I like my pizza cold.”
Isabella bit her lip two seconds too late to trap her incredulous laugh. “You’re serious. We’re giving up personal information, and that’s what you’re going to lead with?”
“You didn’t really think I was going to give you something juicy on the first go, did you?” He looked at her through the scant ambient light in the car, his gaze still unwavering even as she leaned in closer to pin him with an inquisitive stare.
“Fair enough. Can’t say I pegged you as the cold pizza type, though, what with your sister training to be a chef and all.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he said, taking off his seat belt and easing a little lower against the passenger seat, melting into the shadows. “I’ll eat it warm, too. After a couple of walkabouts through the Middle East, I learned not to be terribly choosy. But the funny part is, the cold pizza thing is actually Kylie’s fault.”
“Does she know that?” Although his sister was far from stuffy or snobby, Isabella had to imagine cold pizza wouldn’t appeal to her culinary sensibilities.
But Walker nodded. “She does. It was mostly just the two of us growing up. Our mom wasn’t in the picture and our dad worked two jobs, so we had to fend for ourselves in the dinner department a lot of the time. Frozen pizza was my specialty, but one night we lost power during a thunderstorm and I couldn’t warm up the leftovers I’d put in the fridge. We ate them cold because we had no choice, but Kylie ended up liking the pizza better that way. After a while, we both started looking forward to the cold leftovers more than the hot meals.”
Isabella laughed, picturing the two of them camped out with their pizza straight from the fridge. “How old were you then?”
“I guess I was about fifteen and Kylie was maybe ten that first time,” he said after a pause. “But we shared a lot of pizza in those days, just me and her.”
“No wonder you two are close,” Isabella said, and the pared-down, God’s honest smile on his face slid through her like a summer breeze.
“Yeah, we are.” Walker tilted his head, gesturing toward her with a lift of his stubbled chin. “Your turn. Tell me something about you.”
Whether it was the cover of the near-darkness blanketing the front seat of her car or the ease at which Kellan had told her such a personal thing about himself, Isabella had no clue. But instead of playing dodge ball with the topic like her gut demanded, she said, “I don’t drink coffee.”
Surprise streaked over his face, illuminated by the glow of a nearby streetlight as he shifted in his seat. “No way that’s a legitimate truth. How do you function?”
“On sheer determination, mostly. Well, that and I drink enough tea to fill a bathtub on any given day.”
Walker’s soft laughter filled the space between them, easing her tension by another notch. “Is there a particular reason you don’t drink coffee, or should I question your sanity in general?”
“I promise, I’m not insane,” Isabella said, lifting a hand to caveat with, “At least not where my dislike for coffee is concerned.”
“I see.” Although his tone was clearly prompting her to continue, he didn’t push out loud, and hell if that unassuming, deep blue stare didn’t knock the story right out of her.
“When I was fourteen, my cousin Marisol and I wanted to act grown up, but we were too chicken shit to do anything high-level, like take whiskey from either of our parents’ liquor cabinets.”