This was what he was thinking as he walked out the doors and automatically scanned the parking lot.

And this was what erased from his mind when he saw the pickup. Model a few years old and taken care of. Some upgrades in order to add flash, not too many not because the owner didn’t like flash but because he couldn’t afford it.

And Walker knew this because the owner was leaning against the driver’s side door. He was Hispanic. And the plates were from Texas.

Fuck!

They locked eyes and Walker held his gaze as he moved to the Viper. The man pushed away from his truck when Walker neared the Snake. Walker looked away to bleep the locks, open the driver’s side door and toss his bag across the driver’s seat to the passenger’s. Then he slammed the door, turned and rested back against the car, arms across his chest, legs crossed at his ankles, eyes leveled at the man.

In the past two weeks, they’d had no meeting but Walker had had the chance to get a brief from Tate about Angel Peña though it wasn’t thorough. This was because Peña was liked and Tate couldn’t dig too deep without pinging on radar. He knew he was a respected cop. He knew he’d had commendations. He knew that Peña considered his occupation a calling, not a job. He knew that Peña’s tactics were controversial. And he knew this was overlooked because his close rate on cases was exceptionally high.

Now he saw he was short, Lexie’s height which meant she’d tower over him in her heels. Decent enough looking guy but Walker was no woman so he really had no clue. Liked his mama’s cooking if the slight gut that protruded over his big belt buckle was anything to go by. Knew to take care of himself anyway because the rest of him was made like a bulldog, strong, tough and bulky. Walker also knew he was a proud Texan as well as a proud Mexican just by the pickup but the cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans, Western-stitched sports jacket and plaid shirt with those pearl snap buttons told the rest of the story, especially considering his belt buckle had a Mexican flag on it.

He stopped three feet away.

“Tyrell Walker,” he stated.

“Detective Angel Peña,” Walker replied.

There it was. Neither had the upper hand. Not yet.

Peña’s gaze slid to the Viper then back to Walker.

“Nice wheels,” he remarked.

Walker did not reply.

Peña held his eyes, surprisingly not uncomfortable with the height difference that was near to a foot. The world did not fit Walker’s height or size nor did most of the people in it. He had never had a problem with this. He’d duck his head every once in awhile knowing his frame intimidated most men, his bulk made them underestimate his speed and both (for some you could add his color) made most people, men and women, mistake his intelligence. This put him at a near constant advantage.

It occurred to him vaguely at that point that Lexie was one of the few women who fit him. Even in bare feet, she was tall for a woman. But she wore heels almost all the time. He didn’t have to bend or stoop as much with his wife.

He liked this too.

But now, he saw that Peña was not intimidated and he also didn’t underestimate Walker. He found this surprising and disquieting.

This meant Peña had spent some time digging and he’d dug deep. Walker just had no idea what he’d found.

“Figure,” Peña ended their silence, “you know I got an interest in Alexa Berry.”

“Walker.” His correction was a low, swift, deliberate rumble and he was shocked as shit to see his response surprised Peña so much it took two seconds for the man to hide it.

“What?” Peña asked softly.

“Walker,” he repeated. “Lexie’s last name is now Walker.”

Peña, face now closed, studied Walker but even with his face closed off, he did it intently.

Walker let him then he was done letting him.

“Got a wife to get home to, Peña. You gonna stare at me much longer?”

Peña blinked. Then he asked quietly, “How is she?”

“She’s the wife of a man who doesn’t like it much when a man he doesn’t know asks how she is.”

“That’s an interesting response, Tyrell,” Peña noted.

Walker did not reply even though he wanted to tell him not to call him Tyrell. His mother called him Tyrell. When his father was pissed, which was often, he called him Tyrell. Therefore no one called him Tyrell.

But he didn’t tell him this.

Peña carried on. “She’s a friend.”

“Now that’s interesting considering she hasn’t mentioned you.”

Another score. That one hurt. He thought he factored larger in her life.

“Things she’s tryin’ to forget, I reckon,” Peña guessed inaccurately.

And Walker didn’t hesitate to inform him of this fact. “You’d reckon wrong. Lexie doesn’t need to forget. She’s smart enough to learn the lessons life’s got for her, eyes open, no bullshit.”

“That may be so but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things she wants to leave in the past,” Peña returned.

“You got one right,” Walker told him, his point hard to miss and he was done so he decided to move them in that direction. “You come all this way for this shit?”

“She’s worth the drive and the vacation time.”

It was a true answer but it was one he didn’t want to hear.

Therefore Walker moved. Pushing away from the Snake, he shifted to open the door, again making a point that was hard to miss.

Peña didn’t miss it but Peña also wasn’t done.

“Win those wheels at a game?” he asked and Walker slid his eyes to him as he opened the door and started to move around it in order to the fold into the car. Peña knew he didn’t have a lot of time and kept going. “Know you got the talent not to f**k around. Been years but circles in Dallas still talk about you. Wouldn’t sit a game without at least a twenty-five K buy-in.”

Walker kept moving.

Peña kept talking. “Makes a man wonder why, you drive a Snake, you sit only high stakes games, yet over a three day weekend you’d haul your ass in a f**kin’ car across three states to sit a game with four men who, all together, couldn’t offer up five K much less twenty-five each.”

Walker stopped, straightened and turned inside the door.

And he did this because Peña had just shown how deep he’d dug.

Walker gave him his attention but nothing more.