“It’s freezing, Davy, have a heart. Where are we supposed to eat?”
“Anywhere but inside the house.” She stuck her pretty nose in the air.
“Fine.” Stubborn, suspicious woman. Couldn’t she even accept a peace offering in good will? “We’ll eat in my car.”
Jack turned his back on her and headed for his SUV, which was parked at the bottom of the steps.
“Coming?”
He heard the front door close behind him. A minute later they were sitting in his car, in the dark, balancing pizza between them. They ate in silence as the car windows began to steam up.
“Beer?” He popped a can and passed it to her.
Davina took it.
“I don’t like beer,” she said before she took a long gulp. She grimaced. “It smells like cat pee.”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never gotten that close and personal with a cat.”
He watched her as she munched on a slice of meat lover’s pizza. She closed her eyes on every bite as though she’d been given gourmet food. She didn’t take any of the topping off or complain about the fat content. For some reason that made him feel pretty cheery.
“I love that car,” Davina said through a mouthful of pizza.
“I know, honey, it will be okay.” Honey? He pretended the word hadn’t come out his mouth.
“My parents bought it for me when I finished college,” she said. Her eyes were staring into the past rather than out into the garden. “It was cream back then. The money from my first job after college went towards paying for the repaint. It was perfect.”
He wouldn’t go that far. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.
“My first car was a Nissan Sunny. It had a hole in the floor and the passenger door fastened with string. Bright yellow. Girls loved it.”
He’d loved that wreck of a car too.
“Hole in the floor, huh?” Davina said with a smile.
“Ventilation. It was in the days before environmental control and GPS.”
“Way before.”
He grinned.
“If the Pink Lady is really dead, then I might try to get a Mini Cooper next,” Davina said.
Jack was relieved to hear that she was at least considering the possibility of the car being a write-off. But a Mini?
“What is it with you and sissy cars?” he said without thinking.
“The Mini is not a sissy car. It was in The Italian Job.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You know that just because something is in a movie, it doesn’t make it good, right? Liz Hurley was in a movie. Enough said.”
Davina smiled at him through the darkness and made his stomach muscles clench.
“Passenger 57,” she said. “With Wesley Snipes. It was the height of her acting career.” Davina relaxed back into the soft grey leather seat and sighed. “At least she got to be in a proper movie.”
She sounded so wistful, it made Jack’s chest tighten. He wasn’t sure if it was the intimate environment, or the darkness outside or even the fact that his belly was pleasantly full – whatever it was, he was beginning to think that messing with Davina had been a bad idea. He cleared his throat when it didn’t need clearing – really, he needed to clear his head. Davina was peering inside the boxes. Looking for something that obviously wasn’t there. At last her cat-like eyes stared up at him.