She packed with much less care than Ty would have expected of a Hart. She simply tossed everything from the small closet onto the bed and then loosely rolled each thing up. But the carry-on-sized bag had a designer label, and he was guessing the clothes did, too.
“Want some help?” he asked, more out of reflex than anything.
She paused with a sweater nearly the same color as her eyes in her hands. And those eyes were fastened on him in a rather intent way. Then she gestured toward the dresser near where he was standing and very sweetly asked, “Want to get my underwear out of the drawer?”
For an instant, he was taken aback. But only an instant. She was testing him, of that he was sure. He just wasn’t sure what she was testing for. So he merely reached out and tugged open the top drawer. He was met with a froth of lace and silky-looking fabric, in about three different colors. He gathered the whole lot and walked the two steps to set it all on the foot of the bed. And if he noticed the size and shape of the lacy bras in the process, well, what did she expect?
She was looking at him as if waiting for...something.
“Was I supposed to recoil? Or maybe start drooling?”
“No. I just expected you to tell me to do it myself.”
He shrugged and said easily, “I’ve got three sisters. I’ve done their laundry. Doesn’t faze me.”
Now she was staring at him in an entirely different way. “You’ve done your sisters’ laundry?”
“And they’ve done mine. My mom’s kind of equal opportunity that way.”
Suddenly she smiled, and it hit him like a runaway freight train all over again just how beautiful Ashley Hart was. “I like the way she thinks.”
“She’s the best,” he said succinctly.
“What does she do?”
“She’s a nurse, at the hospital in Braxville.” Ashley looked surprised. “What? You expected a socialite who dabbles because she’s a Colton?”
She gave him that too-sweet smile he was already learning to be wary of. “As you expected of me? No, I try to be more open than that.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to break the truce.”
“I’ll forgive it, since it was in defense of your mother. And by the way, the reason I reacted was that my mother was a nurse when she and my father met.”
He blinked. “Oh.” He hadn’t expected that. Realized he should have read the family background part of the file Eric had sent him a little more closely instead of focusing mainly on the subject of this operation.
“It’s one reason medical causes are so important to us,” Ashley added. “She’s seen firsthand the difference donations in certain areas and fields can make.”
He tried to think of something to say that would make up for him blowing their agreement to drop the assumptions. “That’s admirable. She must be happy to be in a position to do that.”
“It’s a calling, for her.”
He studied her for a moment. Tried not to notice how lovely she was, and focused on those eyes, and the intelligence gleaming there so obviously once you knew what to look for. “And for you?”
“Absolutely. There are many things I support, but spreading good medical care and practices is chief among them.”
So she wasn’t solely some environmental crusader, what some would likely call a tree hugger. He was always wary of people so sucked up into a single cause that they were incapable of seeing anything else and put everything into that basket, as his mother said.
They were passing the city limits when she asked with a frown, “Where is this safe house?”
She said it with a bit too much emphasis on the last two words, and he knew she was still none too pleased about this. He was glad he’d cleared this with the family earlier. It was easier to present it as a done deal than having to explain he was spiriting her off to a place he, in part, owned.
“It’s actually a fishing cabin.” He gave her a sideways look as he got on I-135 and headed north. They’d actually be within spitting distance of Braxville when they got off and headed west. “And the exact location you’ll keep to yourself. Please.” He only added the last because he’d seen her stiffen at the order.
She didn’t speak again, but her jaw was set. Ashley Hart clearly wasn’t used to being ordered around. And why would she be? She’d inherited billions upon millions from her grandparents and was the only child of her equally wealthy parents. Nobody told that kind of money what to do, unless she let them.
He thought about trying a softer sell, convincing her to just let him do his job, since the goal was to keep her safe. But at the moment, he didn’t think she was in any mood to listen. At the same time, he didn’t want her sitting there stewing, maybe thinking of ways to make this more difficult than it was already going to be. Because he had a feeling when she discovered one particular aspect of the Colton family fishing cabin, she was very much not going to be happy.
They were off the interstate, almost halfway there, and it had been done in silence. He glanced at her again. “Tell me something. If Sanderson had been going to build, say, affordable housing instead of luxury homes, would your reaction be different?”
“Making assumptions yet again?”
“No. Asking an honest question.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, but he’d swear he could feel her eyes on him as he drove. Then she said, “In the same place? No. The type of housing doesn’t matter, the destruction of habitat does.” His peripheral vision caught her tapping a slender finger on her knee. “Looking for hypocrisy, are you?”
“Just trying to understand.”
“What’s hard to understand?”
He shrugged. “Since most of your efforts in this kind of situation seems to be toward making people stop doing things, I can’t help wondering...who, exactly, are you saving the world for?”
“Everyone,” she said, sounding puzzled.
He could risk a glance on this smaller road and looked at her. “But you don’t want them to do anything with it? Kind of like having a beautiful piece of jewelry and never wearing it, isn’t it?”
Her brow furrowed. It seemed she was considering it, at least. “I gather you’re not an environmentalist,” she said, her mouth quirking.
He looked back at the road, traffic lessening the farther they got from the interstate. “Not an answer to my question, but I’ll bite. I think we should protect what we have on this planet, but not worship it.”
He’d probably really ticked her off now. But at least she wasn’t stewing about the safe house.
To his surprise, after a moment she said, “I understand that. There are many who cross that line into thinking humans should be removed altogether.”
“Excluding themselves, of course,” he said dryly.
“I’m not sure some I know wouldn’t include themselves.”
“Now that’s scary.”
“On that, we agree.”
“Hey, miracles happen,” he quipped. And when he heard her laugh, it was much more gratifying than it should have been. And he couldn’t help smiling.
Mr. Tyler Colton was... Ashley wasn’t sure what he was. All she was sure of was that, aside from being armed—she’d caught a glimpse of a handgun on his belt beneath the jacket—he wasn’t what she had expected. She’d seen flashes of the kind of authoritative demeanor she’d never liked in her family’s personal security people, although there she had long ago resigned herself to the necessity. Her family was prominent and wealthy enough to be targets for all kinds of unsavory people.
She’d had to accept it there, so she supposed she might as well accept it here. Besides, this man was a lot more intriguing than brusque and rather crusty Mr. Patrick who led the home team, as it were.
Not to mention gorgeous.
Yeah, that, too.
But he’d surprised her with the jewelry comment. In one sentence, he’d presented his viewpoint in a way that made more sense than most of the arguments she heard. And she couldn’t deny there was validity to it. She wasn’t one of those rabid sorts who placed people at the bottom of the hierarchy of things to care about. She just happened to believe people should be more careful, that they could be more careful and do a lot less damage.
She studied him while he was focused on driving. She told herself it was because she needed the distraction from being a passenger, and almost believed it. But he really was very smooth, as smooth as their driver back home. And from what he’d said, he’d obviously been well trained.
He was also the first man in a very long time to spark this kind—or almost any kind—of interest in her. She was all too aware that in her position, as the only child of very wealthy parents, and the heiress to her grandparents’ vast fortune, she was an obvious target for fortune-hunting males. Because of this, she very rarely let anyone past the gates, as it were. So rarely that it startled her that the thought had even formed. Then again, looking at that profile—those chiseled features, that jaw, the slightly tousled hair that somehow made her fingers itch—it was no surprise. Obviously, they would be spending some time in close proximity, so she supposed she’d be better off admitting his appeal so she could steal herself against it.
“Is this what you usually do?” she asked in a very impersonal tone.
He didn’t look at her, but he did answer. “Personal protection? It’s a lot of what we do. But not all.”
We, she thought. She didn’t guess he was short on ego—how could he be, all six feet two of him, broad shouldered and solid muscle, with that hair and those amazing dark blue eyes?—so he clearly felt a part of a team, not a solo act. That was telling. “What else?”
“Risk assessment. Corporate security. Event security. On occasion, we work a support role for a bigger operation, coordinating with government agents for an official visit.”
“You sound like a sales brochure.” She made sure it didn’t sound like a dig.
“We’re good at what we do. My boss has built a good thing. We’re not as big as Pinkerton, but we’re as good.”
She shouldn’t, she supposed, be surprised he knew who handled their security at home. Her father had gone with the storied company not solely because of their long and famous history, but because he knew several of their people and trusted them.
“Speaking of that, Pinkerton’s got offices in Omaha, St. Louis and Oklahoma City. So why us?”
“If you’re laboring under the misapprehension that my parents discussed this with me, I’m sorry. They didn’t bother.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “They probably didn’t want the fight.”
She drew up straight. “Are you saying I’m stubborn again?”
“Are you saying you’re not?”
“No. I happen to think stubborn is just a facet of persistence, which is a very useful quality.”
One corner of his mouth—he really did have a rather lovely mouth—twitched. “Well, that’s a nice way to pretty it up. Doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, though.” She started to say something about that being his job but before she could, he added, very quietly, “Especially when it’s someone you love and you’re afraid for them.”
Her parents. He’d been talking about—and apparently thinking about—her parents. The instant he put it that way, the moment he planted the image of her parents afraid for her, her retort died unspoken. And the stubborn faded away.
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“I thought you said you always remember.”
“I do.” It only gets foggy when emotion gets in the way.
She was feeling emotions—and other things—around this man that she would do well to ignore.