Ashley opened her eyes slowly, vaguely aware she was not in a bed. With her travels, she was used to not waking up in her own bed—sometimes she hardly remembered which place she technically called home—but she did usually make it to a bed. She blinked blurry eyes, feeling as if she’d slept more soundly than she had in weeks. Which seemed strange, since she remembered pacing the floor into the wee hours.
And then her gaze focused on the reason for her restlessness last night. The man who had plunged her into a situation she’d never found herself in before. Not being under threat. That happened occasionally. But she’d never found herself walking the floor, unable to sleep because she couldn’t get a man out of her mind. Worse, a man she’d just met.
He sat in the big chair across the room, a reading lamp aimed at the book on his lap, the only light in the room. The book she’d been reading last night, the loved but familiar story just enough to distract her whirling mind and allow her to sleep. Why he had it now, she had no idea. Perhaps he’d meant to stay awake reading. If so, it hadn’t worked, because his eyes were closed and his head lolled back against the chair.
Which gave her far too much of a chance to study the strong, corded muscles of his neck and the long, powerful length of his legs, stretched out and crossed at the ankles some distance from the chair itself.
It was a very pleasant sight. And she was glad he’d at least gotten some sleep.
Don’t want your bodyguard too tired to function.
That strange jolt of heat shot through her again as she realized other ways those words could be interpreted. Thank goodness she’d only thought them, not spoken them.
She made a note of how warm and comfy she was beneath this soft thick throw. Her pulse skipped a beat as she remembered she’d seen it before, folded across the very chair he was in now. Had she truly slept through him tucking it around her? That was hardly part of his bodyguard duties, to see to not only her safety but her comfort. So had he done it simply because beneath the tough, competent exterior he was a nice guy? Because this was, despite the use he was putting it to now, a family place? Or because—
She cut off her own thoughts before they could careen into silly territory. Telling herself not to be stupid, she raised up on one elbow to look out the window. The instant she moved, his head came up. She didn’t think she’d made any sound at all, and yet he was suddenly as awake as if she’d shouted.
“Morning,” he said.
Okay, that voice, that low, deep rumble shouldn’t be allowed first thing in the morning. She wasn’t awake enough to deal with it.
“Is it?” she muttered, glancing at the still dark windows.
To her annoyance, when she looked back, he was grinning. “Not a morning person? Although I’ll grant you it is early.”
“Define early.”
He glanced at the windows she’d just looked at. “I’d say we’re well into astronomical twilight, headed for nautical twilight.”
Okay, now she was really annoyed. She sat up. “Translation, please?”
“Nautical twilight is when the center of the sun is between six and twelve degrees below the horizon and—”
She put a hand to her forehead, rubbed. “Stop. Please stop.”
He relented. “I’m guessing it’s between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. Past time to get up and get to work around here.”
Her first thought was to find her phone and confirm the actual time, her second was to wonder if the phone had enough charge left to keep time, since it had no network to read it from, and her third thought was a sneaky little wish that he be way wrong.
“Don’t trust me?” he asked lightly.
She disentangled herself from the throw and stood up, stretching. “Did no one ever tell you it’s not nice to poke at a non-morning person at...whatever hour this is?”
“Must have missed that lesson.”
“We’ll see how you like it when I wake you up at midnight.”
Something flickered in his eyes, but he only said, “You already did.”
He had a point there. But she was cranky enough not to concede it just yet. She walked over to the kitchen to where she could see the clock on the oven. And grimaced.
“How close was I?”
“Congratulations, Mister Astronomer, it’s 5:52.”
“Good to know.”
He glanced back at the window again. “Get dressed and put your jacket back on.”
She blinked. “What?”
“We’re going outside.”
“What?”
“Not far,” he said. “Just over there.”
He gestured rather vaguely toward the waterside of the house. “Why?”
“I just want to show you something.”
What was this? Some kind of escape hatch or something he wanted her to know about? Someplace he wanted her to run to if something happened? With a smothered sigh and a yawn, she went back upstairs and dressed, sat and pulled her ankle boots back on, wishing she hadn’t vowed last night to not be a hindrance when the man was only trying to do the job he’d been hired to do.
She went back down to find him standing there, holding out her jacket for her to slip on. “Thanks,” she muttered. For that, at least.
She’d known it would be cold, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to this time of year. Before she’d packed for this trip, she’d compared the temperature averages of her destination with her home ground, and somewhat to her surprise, they were rather similar. Wichita might have Westport beat on the record high and low ends by over ten degrees, but the average lows were within a couple of degrees.
But stepping out into the night—or early morning, apparently—chill accomplished one thing. Ten feet out, she was thoroughly awake. She would have grumbled that this better be worth it if it hadn’t felt rather good. She could see the faint glint of light reflecting off the lake. She could see stars, lots of them, but also dark patches of cloud that masked them. There was just enough light to see a wide expanse of water, but without a trace of a breeze only the faintest of ripples. No city lights reflected here, and even the other buildings she could see farther south were still dark in this...astronomical twilight. She fought a smile as she drew in a deep breath of the chilly air.
“What?” he asked, and she realized she’d let out a “Hmm.”
“Just thinking how, even at the same time of day—” she shot him a glance “—or night, and at the same temperature, places can smell and feel so different.”
“Missing your salt air?”
“More noticing than missing,” she said. “But this feels more like home than, say, Santiago’s salt air, so it’s not that, per se.”
“How about the Amazon?”
She wasn’t surprised. She already knew he—or Elite—had done their homework. His knowing about Simon had proved that. “Whole different kind of smell and feel.”
They walked a little farther, then he stopped. “This’ll do. Have a seat.”
She wondered if this was some sort of test. Did he think her too finicky to sit on the ground? Hadn’t his homework on her time in the Amazon included that she’d lived in a native hut for nearly six months?
She quickly sat to prove her point. Fortunately, the ground was dry. He dropped down beside her. And said...nothing. And she was wondering again what this was all about, this sitting here in the dark, waiting for...what?
She did noticed the sky seemed to be getting lighter. When the center of the sun is between six and twelve degrees below the horizon...
Maybe she should be wondering about where his job as a security expert took him instead of assuming she was the more well traveled one. She had made some assumptions of her own. Again.
“Here we go,” he murmured.
She glanced at him to see what he was looking at, but he seemed to be simply staring out toward the lake. Or toward the other side of the lake. The east side, unless she’d gotten her directions seriously turned around. Which told her, belatedly, what to look for. As she thought it, she saw it, the slight demarcation between land and sky. He was staring out toward the horizon, and—
East. The faint line slowly became more definite. And then she saw the first distant change in color, from black to near black, then even lighter. The world seemed impossibly silent, as if everyone and everything was holding its breath, waiting.
And then the sky was a deep dark blue. Almost the color of his eyes. She suppressed an unwelcome imagining of what his reaction would be if she said that, that his eyes were the color of the sky just before sunrise.
The blue got lighter, the clouds more visible. “Welcome to dawn,” he said, his voice so soft it seemed part of the quiet around them. The way he said it, with quiet appreciation, made the simple words sound almost...poetic. And that was something she never would have expected. “And we’re not alone,” he added.
She felt a jolt over his words. And then she felt an entirely different kind of jolt over the warm touch of his hand to her face as he gently turned her head toward the trees to their left.
“Down low,” he whispered.
She looked and saw movement. A low slinking trot and the flick of a thick bushy tail as the creature disappeared into the trees.
“A fox?” she asked.
“Yes. An armadillo would be shinier.”
He’d said it in a completely neutral tone of helpful instruction. But she was learning about him already, and knew he was teasing her. “And have a skinnier tail,” she said seriously.
She saw his grin even in the faint light and felt crazily as if she’d won some prize.
Your professor was a fool...
His words, practically a declaration, echoed in her mind. Stop. Don’t be a fool yourself. Just enjoy the thought of Simon’s face at being called a fool.
And then everything changed again. The undersides of the clouds seemed to catch and reflect the growing light. Suddenly there was color, orange, yellow, pink, painting the clouds with the surest of hands. The horizon became a physical thing, accented by the silhouettes of trees made ebony by the brightness behind them. And then, between two of the tallest trees, the edge of the sun cleared the horizon and light arrowed across the lake, streaking it with fire.
She’d seen sunrises around the world, in some beautiful places, but somehow none had moved her more than this welcome to morning in a place she’d never thought to be. She felt a burst of understanding as sudden as that rush of light: this was what they meant by heartland.
Past time to get up and get to work around here.
He hadn’t been teasing about that. This was the world he’d grown up in, where by dawn many had already been long at work.
And that he had wanted her to see this meant...she wasn’t sure what.
“Somebody else late getting home for the day,” he said, pointing now that it was light enough to see. Not allowing herself to admit she preferred the touch of his hand on her cheek, she looked. It took her a moment, so perfectly matched was the creature to the surroundings, but again it was the movement that let her focus in time to see a large bird winging silently into the trees as if that arrow of sunlight were its only predator.
“Owl?” she asked, having just gotten a glimpse of its head.
“Great horned one,” he said. “There’s a pair that’s nested in those trees for at least three years.”
“Shades of that wizard book again.”
She got the grin again. And felt that same rush of pleasure that made her beyond nervous. This was ridiculous. She was here because she had work to do, work that had indirectly brought this man into her life. And when it was done, when the situation was resolved, he would be out of her life again. So becoming infatuated with the man’s grin—never mind his touch—was a fool’s errand.
That she would never do.