Page 34 of Off the Grid
“You’d think,” she commented, unable to quite keep the bite from her voice. “But chefs are thehelp. Nothing’s going to change that, at least in my mother’s eyes.”
“Wow.” The word slipped out, dripping with disdain.
“Yeah, wow.” Sometimes, she hated rich people.Okay, I’m rich people. Clearly, we’re not all bad. Pretentious people—that’s who I hate. Pretentious, up-their-own-asses, pandering-to-society, worried-what-people-might-think douchebags.“Anyway, what about you? You must’ve gone to college to become a Fed. Where?”
“University of Houston, in their honors program. I wanted to stay close to home.”
“You’re from Texas?” The question blurted out.
Leo arched a brow.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she hastily added. “I just— I’m surprised. You don’t have an accent.”
“The bureau trained it out of me.” He shrugged, then grinned. “Agents can’t go around sayingy’allin the middle of an interrogation.”
“Are you being serious?”
“No.”
She frowned at him.
“Okay, okay.” He laughed it off. “Yes, the bureau tries to train people out of their accents, because the best thing an agent can do is always try to blend in, no matter the surroundings. But I grew up in a pretty Hispanic neighborhood, so southern accents weren’t really our thing.”
“Well, you’ve got the rest of the southern-boy thing down.”
“What does that mean?”
McKenzie stared at him.Really?Could he possibly not see how annoyingly perfect he was? “You know—the chivalry stuff. Saving the damsel in distress, defending the innocent.”
He stopped and put a hand to his chest. “Was that— I mean, could that possibly have been a compliment? Coming from you?”
“Of course not,” she mocked. “I’m a New Yorker. We think chivalry is dead. Life is every man or woman for themselves.”But damn if I couldn’t be convinced otherwise…
“I’m touched, really.”
“So…” She dragged the word out, turning the conversation back around. “You went to college, then joined the marines, and now you’re a federal agent. Your mom must be proud.”
All that mirth on his face fell right to the floor with a splat. Okay, the actualsplatwas from his backpack, which slid from his shoulder and dropped heavily to the ground. But the effect was the same.
“She is,” he answered in a measured tone. “Now.”
That little slip of a word instantly sparked her curiosity. “But she wasn’t before?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on—I told you all about my mommy issues.”
Leo glanced up at the sky, drawing her eyes to the same spot. They’d paused in a little bit of a clearing, and without a thick layer of tree branches overhead, it was evident that the blue sky was quickly giving way to sunset. Orange-and-red beams reached out like fingers dragging ice into fire. “It’s getting dark. We should probably make camp for the night, and this is as good a place as any.”
“Nice try.” McKenzie tossed him a pointed look. They were similar in a lot of ways—getting him to reveal personal information was like pulling teeth. Guarded hearts couldn’t hide from one another. She knew all the tricks. “Spill.”
He took a sweater out of his bag and laid it over the dirt in the small clearing they’d wandered into. Then he sat and patted the spot by his side. McKenzie sank down just as he fell back, crossing his hands behind his head. She grabbed the Twizzlers from his bag and slid one out of the package, then took a bite while she waited for him to fill the silence.
“I didn’t…grow up the way you did. I’ll put it that way.”
McKenzie snorted. “Lucky you.”
“I’m not sure I’d say that,” Leo murmured softly. A sad laugh spilled from his lips, landing like a drop of water in a still lake, causing ripples.
