Ashley Hart paced her small suite, focusing on the patterned carpet rather intensely so she didn’t look up and glare at her innocent phone again. She’d barely stopped herself from blasting her irritation to the skies via a social media post, but she’d vowed long ago to keep her family, especially her parents, out of all her timelines. She didn’t want to be listened to because she was a Hart of the Westport Harts, but because she was right.
Because she was telling the truth.
She stopped at the window that looked out toward the small town. She knew it was half the size of Westport, but that was probably the smallest difference between it and the oceanfront community she’d grown up in. Yet, in a way, looking out over the vast flat of the Kansas prairie was sort of like looking out over the vastness of the Atlantic. It was an interesting comparison, in any case.
She turned and paced back, this time waving her hand over the silent phone to light the lock screen and check the time.
Ten minutes. This guy had ten minutes to show up or she was leaving. She was already fuming over this whole thing, anyway. Her parents were overreacting. This was hardly the first time she’d made someone angry with her. When she’d been overseas, in an especially rural area, she’d had an entire community angry with her for helping their long-time enemies set up a medical clinic. And back home, she’d had other communities—for that’s how she sometimes thought of them—here in the US calling her names she hadn’t even known the meaning of. Sometimes her social media feeds held as much anger and threats as accolades and appreciation, almost always hidden behind the cutesy names and the general anonymity of the internet.
Why this threat was so different, she didn’t know. Except that it had been sent to her parents instead of her. She loved them, adored them in fact, but she was twenty-seven now, and while she always listened to them, they did not tell her what to do.
Except when they did.
What they’d told her this morning was to stay in her hotel room until the security they’d arranged arrived. A top-ranked firm, they’d said, as if the Harts would settle for anything less. She wondered, somewhat idly as she paced, what need there was for something called Elite Security here in Kansas, in the middle of—
She caught herself. She hated when she fell into the trap so many in her circle did, dismissing everything between the coasts as flyover country. It was called the heartland for a reason, she reminded herself. And hadn’t the size of the group that had shown up to meet with her and discuss their concerns told her they cared as much as she did about what happened here?
And yet, even with the awareness she worked so hard at, she still had almost slipped into that dismissive mindset. No wonder many people here disliked people like her.
Enough to make threats to her parents? Apparently.
But if she’d been going to let threats stop her, she would have given up her various causes long ago. Because whether she was trying to preserve something or change something, it seemed there was always someone who was against it. Sometimes they came around. Sometimes they did not. The times she liked best were when she and the opposing interest were able to reach a compromise that both found acceptable, if not perfect. Then she felt as if she’d truly accomplished something.
Unlike now, stuck here in this room.
That was it. She was done with this. She needed to get moving. She wanted to spend some time researching. One of the people at the meeting had worked at the local library and mentioned there were extensive references there about the very thing she was here for. The library wasn’t that far away, according to her map app. She could easily walk it. And she’d like a nice walk outside, some fresh air.
She liked doing that in different places, seeing how different the air smelled. From the salt-tinged air of her home turf to the cool, exotic scent of a rain forest to the air here that seemed impossibly tinged with both dust and damp at the same time, she loved it all. She thought that maybe she would come back here in the spring, when the vast fields were green and growing. She wanted to see where so much of the food the nation ate was actually produced. And perhaps one day, she might write a paper on the subject of how each region of the world, probably each microclimate, had its own distinct scent. It would be interesting to visit places scientists said had the same climate and see if they smelled the same.
She laughed at herself, but also promised her curious mind that someday she would take time for such esoteric projects.
Decided now, she glanced in the mirror over the large dresser. The black jeans and mock turtleneck sweater would do, she decided, and her hair still had a little wave at the ends that brushed her shoulders, from having been in a bun to keep it out of her way while she traveled. She picked up the black hoop earrings from the top of the dresser and slipped them back in place, then grabbed up her jacket and the rather oversized bag she carried while traveling. She liked having her tablet at hand to make notes with as various ideas came to her. And she would need it at the library, anyway.
She would stop at the desk and leave a message for this security person, saying where she’d gone and to meet her at the library. Or not, she added to herself with an inward smile.
It was a pleasant ride down, and as the elevator doors opened at the bottom, she stood back to let the older couple she’d been chatting with on the way exit first. As she waited, she glanced around the lobby, her gaze snagging on a man coming in through the glass front doors. Nice, she thought. No, better than nice, she amended, as she watched him stride across the lobby. Dark hair, short and a little tousled looking, tall—very tall, a couple of inches over six feet, she guessed, and...well, built. Or well-built. Lord, she was grinning at her own silly mental jokes now.
“Don’t blame you, honey,” the woman who had introduced herself as Ella Roth whispered, looking back over her shoulder. “That’s a fine hunk of man.”
Ashley felt herself flush slightly. She wasn’t in the habit of being so obvious. But that was indeed a fine hunk of man. She wondered where he was visiting from. He didn’t have the air of a big city guy, but of someone used to the wide-open spaces. She couldn’t quite picture him walking between towering skyscrapers.
They matched, she realized suddenly. Beneath a lightweight jacket, he was also in black jeans and a black-knit shirt, although his was a crew style. Which was nice, because it would be a shame to hide that very muscled male neck. And the way he moved, making her all too aware of what was obviously a powerful body beneath the clothes...
There she was, flushing again. She needed to get outside in cooler air. Her weather app said it was about fifty-six outside, not much warmer than it likely would be at home. That would do it.
Maybe she should wait until he was gone before approaching the desk to leave her message. She didn’t want to be caught blushing at the sight of a total stranger. But the idea of dodging said stranger didn’t sit well with her. And he was headed toward her.
Toward the elevators, idiot. Not you.
But then his gaze locked on her. There was no other word for it. And he did, in fact, head directly toward her. As if he’d recognized her. Knew her.
Belatedly it hit her. Oh, surely not. This couldn’t be the guy, could it?
Of course it could. Look at him. Isn’t he the living image of what every woman would want as a...protector? A bodyguard?
She sighed inwardly. Kansas might not be the first place people thought of for top-notch security firms, but if this guy was any example, they obviously could grow them right.
“Ms. Hart,” he said, as he came to a halt before her, holding out a photo ID. He had a voice that sent a ripple through her. Deep, and the tiniest bit rough. “I’m with Elite Security.”
Of course you are.
She saw Mrs. Roth, walking toward the lobby, look back at her and smile, giving her a thumbs-up gesture. She resisted rolling her eyes.
“You going to check my ID?” he asked, and her gaze snapped back to his face. He looked just as good up close. Better, in fact, with those dark blue eyes and annoyingly thick eyelashes. And that jaw.
“Don’t need to,” she said with a barely suppressed sigh.
“You always need to,” he said, rather sternly.
It didn’t seem wise to explain that she didn’t have to because all of this was just her luck. Not only having to worry about her parents’ fears, and tolerate the only thing that would ease them, but end up with a guy who looked like he’d walked off the cover of a men’s fitness magazine. She would have said some Hollywood tabloid, except he looked too tough for that make-believe world.
But then she laughed silently at herself, knowing anyone and everyone would laugh in turn at the idea of Ashley Hart moaning about her luck. She’d won life’s lottery when she was born not only into the Hart family but to two people who adored her as much as they adored each other, which was saying something.
“Yes, you’re quite right,” she said. “I was...thinking of something else.”
She looked at the ID card with the logo of an encircled globe in the upper left corner. Were they that big that they covered the world? Then she hit the photo, a typical ID card picture with no expression, just that chiseled face and those eyes, looking...annoyed. At having to stay still long enough to have his picture taken? At having it taken at all? Or was annoyance just his default mode? She imagined he could get away with a lot of it, with those looks.
She looked back at the living man before her, not that she really needed to compare him to the image; there was no mistaking him. Something in the way he was looking at her made her want to look away again. And in fact she did, ashamed of herself even as she did so.
This was going to be a definite pain.
“And,” he added, “you’re forgetting to ask for your code word.”
Her gaze shot back to his face. Now she was thoroughly annoyed. Not at him, but at herself. How often had her parents lectured her never to trust anyone who came to her claiming to be from them who didn’t have the code word? It had been part of her life since she’d been old enough to understand, but somehow this man had blown it right out of her mind.
She stiffened her spine. “You’re quite right. What is it?” The moment she asked, she knew this would be amusing.
“Fluffy.” She’d been right. Even the look on his face as he said it was amusing.
“My childhood pet,” she said, unable to resist grinning at him. “I was seven.”
“I’ve got no room to talk. My dog was Ripper.”
“How very male of you.”
“Says the girl who named her...cat? Dog? Fluffy.”
“Actually, she was a turtle.”
He blinked. “You named a turtle Fluffy?”
She nodded, still grinning. “Because she wasn’t.”
She saw his lips start to curve, actually saw him fight it. “At seven, how did you even know it was a she?”
“My dad and I worked it out. He made me look everything up and go through it step by step, length of shell, shape of plastron, length of front claws, that kind of thing.”
“Don’t they live a very long time?”
“They can, yes. Fluffy’s still going strong, although she’s teaching at my old elementary school now.”
He didn’t fight the smile this time, and she felt like she’d been given an award, which sent up a red flag in the back of her mind. But before she really recognized the warning for what it was, the name printed on the card, with the bold signature above it, very belatedly registered. Tyler Colton.
Jolted, she looked back at him.
“Colton?”
“That’s what it says,” he said flatly, his amusement and his smile vanishing.
Her first thought was the former president, and without much thought—a rarity for her—the question poured out. “Any relation to the—”
“Yes.” He said it bluntly, and with obvious irritation. “But I’m not in the family business.”
She gave yet another inward sigh. No wonder her parents had decided upon this company. Nothing like having someone connected to a former president looking out for your, as her father put it, strong-willed daughter.