“You’re not the snippy clerk I thought you were when I gave you the job.”

“Actually, I am snippy,” she confessed. “I got picked on a lot when I was younger.”

“By other kids, I gather.”

Not by other kids. By her stepbrother and her stepfather and her stepbrother’s friends. But she wasn’t going to open that can of worms. “Something like that,” she said after a minute.

He glanced behind them at Tad, who’d struck up a conversation with a couple at the next table and was speaking animatedly.

“He mixes well,” he said.

She nodded. “He never meets a stranger,” she said with obvious affection. “I’m the opposite. I had to learn to bluff when I went to work for Cal. I’m not used to people and I don’t mix well. I’m an introvert.”

“So am I,” he replied easily, smiling at her surprise. “We’re taught to put people at ease during questioning and to behave in a professional manner. But I had to work at sounding pleasant and interesting. I just wanted to chase bad guys.”

“I love detective shows,” she said. “Especially Sherlock Holmes.”

He laughed. “I grew up watching him. I think it had something to do with why I chose a life in law enforcement. I like solving crimes, too.”

“There are all these books about the Locard’s Exchange Principle, and how you can take just a seed and find out where a perp was from,” she said excitedly.

“You read true crime,” he guessed.

“Oh yes. I love forensics.”

“You should have studied it.”

She made a face. “I really wanted to, when I was twelve.”

“What happened?”

“There was this vet. He had a book on pathology he was going to lend me, so he took me back to his office to get it.” She sighed. “He was like an octopus. I made an excuse and got out. When I told Mama, we never went back there again.”

His black eyes flashed. “Twelve years old,” he said gruffly. “Damn him!”

“He left town years ago. I understand there was at least one death threat.”

He searched her pale silver eyes. “You don’t really like being touched by men,” he said.

She looked up at him with vulnerable pale eyes. “I had sort of a bad experience in my teens. After the overbearing vet.”

“What was it?”

She hesitated.

He brushed his knuckles over her soft mouth, staring at it intently. “Tell me.”

“There was this boy,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “He hit a relative of mine and I rushed in to save him.” She swallowed. “I got two broken ribs. My friend got a concussion.”

“What happened to the boy?” he asked curtly.

“He was arrested and prosecuted. He went to jail.”

He stopped dancing and stared down at her. “For how long?”