But for an uber-rich East Coast sort, he found it interesting that her clothing was so simple. Even her jeans weren’t some fancy designer-label type, but instead the classic brand that he himself wore.
To determine this, he realized he’d been looking at what was admittedly a nice trim but curved backside, which was not someplace he wanted to go. This was a job, she was a client—or rather her parents who owned half the world were clients—and so unattainable to an average guy like him, it was incalculable.
But, he thought as he followed, that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate.
Chapter 4
Ashley was glad he was a half step behind her. She was having trouble keeping her expression even as she analyzed two very unsettling facts. No, three. One, he was entirely too attractive for her to maintain her usual buffer with men she was forced by circumstance to be around. Two, her heart had nearly stopped when he’d smiled. And three, when she’d made him laugh, she’d felt a rush of pleasure that had completely startled and disconcerted her.
Maybe it was just because he had a great laugh. It had the same rough edge as his voice did, which somehow made it even more special. And he’d looked surprised, as if it had been a long time since he’d laughed.
My father’s company is...in kind of a mess at the moment. It’s kind of the main topic around here lately.
It seemed there was reason for him not to laugh easily just now. She made a mental note to do a little research on that, too. Only in the interest of knowing whom she was dealing with, of course. And because she felt a bit foolish in assuming that since he was a Colton, and related, even distantly, to that branch of the family, that the presidential connection would be front and center.
His vehicle was a black SUV of the sort her parents—and probably that presidential branch of his family—often used when attending official functions. He stopped to talk with the valet, and Ashley thought she heard the words, “No one went anywhere near it, Ty.” She knew she hadn’t mistaken the admiring look the young woman gave him. Understandable.
When he gave her the option of front seat or back, she gave him a sideways look, wondering if he expected her to assume she’d be driven around as if he were a glorified chauffeur.
“Back windows are tinted dark enough that you wouldn’t be seen.”
She raised a brow at him. “Are you saying a threat is imminent and I should hide myself?”
“Not yet, although that may change. And if it does, you’ll need to follow orders without question.”
She gave him a slightly sour look. “I’ve never done that very well.”
“So your father said.”
“Did he?” She’d have a word with Dad when she got back home. The last thing she wanted or needed was him spreading the idea she was hard to deal with, which was how that would be interpreted by many. Her goals depended on cooperation, which was hard enough to get. Starting with a distorted perception of herself made it that much harder.
Without addressing his follow-orders comment, she merely said, “I’ll sit in front, then.” She smiled at him, again too sweetly. “Until I’m ordered otherwise, that is.”
“Up to you,” was all he said. He opened the door for her, but since it was his vehicle and he was standing there anyway, she didn’t quibble.
“What if I wanted to drive?” she asked once they were inside the car, as much out of curiosity as out of an uncharacteristic need to prod this man.
“Sure. Just show me your defensive and tactical driving certificates and it’s all yours. Seat belt,” he added.
She frowned as she reached for the belt and fastened it. “Tactical driving? Is that like offensive driving?” She knew what that meant. Her parents’ actual chauffeur, Charlie Drake, had explained it to her a decade ago. She’d just passed her first defensive driving test, at the behest of her father, and joked that she was now ready to learn offensive driving, being completely unaware there really was such a thing until Charlie explained it.
“It’s more specific.”
“Like?”
“Threat assessment. Motorcade tactics. Attack recognition and avoidance. Escape and evasion. High speed in reverse. PIT and counter PIT maneuvers. TVI, if you prefer. Want me to go on?”
Her brow furrowed as she dug for a memory. “PIT...pursuit intervention technique. I’ve read that. But not TVI.”
He’d been reaching to start the vehicle, but now drew back slightly and turned to look at her. “Tactical vehicle intervention. Almost the same thing, with a little more flourish and some different approaches.”
She nodded. “I’ll remember.”
“Why?” He looked genuinely curious at her interest.
“Because I always do,” she said simply.
She could almost feel his interest sharpen. “Always?”
“Pretty much. Sometimes it takes longer to call it up, but it’s almost always there.”
“Just verbal or images, too?”
Definitely interest, Ashley thought, as she studied him in turn. “Both. And to a certain extent, video.”
“So if you’ve seen someone before, you’ll remember them later?”
If you mean you, then yes, I’ll remember you. Probably a lot longer and more clearly than I’d like to. Then again...
“Ms. Hart?”
She snapped out of the uncharacteristic meandering of her mind into odd places. Belatedly remembered who—or rather, what—this man was. A bodyguard. Of course, he’d be interested in her ability to remember people she’d seen or met. And no doubt would care less if she remembered him. This was a job to him, and if she were guessing right—and she was fairly sure she was, from a couple of his comments—one he wasn’t really happy about.
“Yes, I remember people. Places I’ve seen. Things I’ve seen done.”
“Accurately?”
“Quite.”
He gave her a slow nod. “Good to know.”
Watching as he finally started the car, she could almost see him filing that bit of knowledge away, as if it were something he might need to reference later. Or in the manner of a man who wanted to know all the tools at hand.
She was seized with an uncharacteristic attack of nerves as the silence spun out in the car. He drove, as she’d expected, with a quiet competence. And smoothness. She had a tendency toward motion sickness when not driving herself, another reason she’d chosen the front seat. But she had the feeling she could probably read a book with him at the wheel, he was that smooth.
“You’d be a great chauffeur,” she said before she thought. She wondered if he’d take offense.
“A connoisseur of chauffeurs, are you?”
“Not by choice.” She now felt compelled to explain. “I tend to get queasy as a passenger.” He gave her a slightly alarmed look, as if he were wondering if she was about to demonstrate here in his car. “I’m fine,” she added hastily, wondering how on earth he was able to rattle her when she was usually the queen of keeping her cool, as her best friend Kate said. “You’re very smooth.”
“So I’ve been told.”
She nearly gaped at him. But then she caught the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth she could see. And suddenly she was laughing. And relaxed.
“I love this library,” she said, feeling better now. “I had my meeting there yesterday. It’s just beautiful. They remodeled it a few years back. There are stained glass windows that are a wonderful touch. I want to get a closer look at them. I didn’t have time yesterday.”
He didn’t answer until they were pulling into the parking area of the long, low white building. He parked, shut off the motor and turned to look at her.
“So this is a...personal visit? We’re not walking into some kind of protest rally?”
She laughed, gestured at the nearly empty lot. “Does this look like a rally to you? Let alone a protest?”
“Just checking. I saw video of that group out in Inman.”
“I actually had nothing to do with that.”
“Except to stir them up.”
Her laughing mood vanished. “If you followed my media feeds, you’d know I repudiated what they did. It was far too early for that kind of response.”
“Seems like they went off the moment your name was attached to the wetlands issue.”
“I can’t help that.”
“Like I said, you stir them up. That’s what activists do.”
“I’m not an activist, I’m an advocate.”
“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
She was frowning now, feeling a bit beleaguered. “Is that all you think I do?”
“Isn’t it?”
“If any of the causes I espouse devolve into screaming protests, it’s only after I have spent considerable time and effort under the radar to avoid it. I meet, negotiate, offer solutions, work toward compromise long before I ever turn to garnering public support and protest. That is my utter last resort. And I consider it a failure on my part.”
She’d had to explain herself and her approach often before, but she usually managed it without the irritation even she could hear snapping in her voice. Something about this particular man truly set her off. With an effort, she got control of emotions she didn’t usually have to rein in, and set herself to what she called her pleasant chat mode. She was not going to let this man divert her. He was doing a job and to keep her father from ordering her straight back home, which would mean she would have to defy him to get her goals accomplished, thereby causing more tension at home, she had to let him do it. So she would, and otherwise she would ignore the guy.
Too bad he was also the sexiest guy she’d come across in a very long time.
Chapter 5
“This library has some very forward thinking ideas,” she was saying as they reached the entrance, which was shaded by a large awning-style overhang. “I especially like their Automatic Advance Reserve program, where you can sign up for your favorite authors and they’ll notify you when they release a new book and hold it for you to check out.”
“Not bad for flyover country, huh?” he said, irked at her apparent surprise that small-town Kansas could actually be, if not ahead of the curve, at least even with it.
She gave him a sideways look. “Not bad for anywhere. I’m going to suggest it to several places.”
“Don’t you just buy a book if you want it?” He was genuinely curious, not for the first time.
“Yes,” she admitted easily. “But not everyone is as fortunate as I am.”
Well, that’s the understatement of the century... But he supposed he had to give her credit for even being aware of that. Many in her position weren’t.
Once inside, he looked around with interest. It had been a while since he’d been in a library, and he was a little surprised she was so enthusiastic about it. But he had to admit this was nice. The equipment was modern, and it ran from communal areas with comfortable chairs that could fit in a living room to computer stations to a magazine section, with more print magazines than he’d seen in quite a while in a space with windows that showed the outside.
But it was the stained glass windows she’d mentioned that really caught his attention. The train in the window to the children’s area was fun. A pair of windows farther on represented the sunrise and moonrise. Then there was one that was almost a mural and, according to the title, showed the progress of knowledge. That was a bit esoteric for him, but he did like the one with the big tree, appropriately named Under the Reading Tree.
“That’s my favorite,” she whispered. He glanced at her, expecting her to be pointing at the mural one. But instead, she was smiling in delight at the unexpected image of a dragon, no fire-breathing in sight, as he sat happily reading.
“Why?” he asked, a little surprised.
“Because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Flights of the imagination?”
He was totally disarmed by that smile. That this woman of all people, the daughter of a family who could buy this whole town, took such joy in a simple thing amazed him. He’d like to meet her parents someday, because obviously they hadn’t lost sight of what was important if they’d been able to raise a daughter who could still react like this.
Then he nearly laughed at himself. Yeah, that was likely, him hanging around with the likes of the Harts of Westport, Connecticut. That he was with one of them now didn’t count; this was business, and he’d better stick to it.
“You mentioned you wanted to do some research?”
“Yes. One of the staff told me before the meeting yesterday that they have thousands of historic photographs, a history archive, including newspapers from the 1870s forward, and historical local and state plat maps covering the county. I want to see those, track the changes to the McPherson Valley Wetlands, and how and when they happened.”
“Too bad they don’t show the real cost.” He thought he’d kept his voice fairly neutral, but she gave him a narrow glance, anyway.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There was a man who’d been farming around here for sixty years, on land his family had owned for well over a century, when someone decided half of it should be protected. That willing surrender of property to the state you...advocates talk about? Not so willing. He just couldn’t fight the government anymore and took his own life the day after they took it over.”
“That’s horrible. But hardly my fault.” She turned then, facing him head-on. She might be more than half a foot shorter than him, but there was a gleam in her eye that warned him he’d gone a step too far. “You make a lot of assumptions, Mr. Colton. Including, obviously, that I don’t care about people.”
“Maybe you do. Maybe it’s just the fallout after your mission is accomplished that you don’t care about.”
“Are you always so rude to clients?”
In fact, he wasn’t. Ever. And he wasn’t sure what it was about her that prodded him so. Other than her looks, of course. But he’d worked with beautiful women before and never had a problem keeping a leash on his words.
He’d never had one send him into overdrive just from a photograph, though. Because those beautiful women he’d worked with before had, for the most part, proved to him that there wasn’t all that much behind the beauty. But Ashley Hart, a woman he’d half expected to be the worst of that sort, had turned out to be a different kettle of fish entirely.
And he’d better keep himself in line or he was going to blow this job, a job that could catapult Elite Security to an entirely new level.
“My apologies, Ms. Hart. I was out of line.” He gave her a contrite nod. “Please, proceed with your research. I will stay out of your way unless there’s a need for me to interfere.”
She looked, oddly, almost disappointed—and as if she had some further retort on the tip of her tongue and he’d spiked her guns. But in the end, she said nothing, just turned and headed for the separate room where a sign indicated all the historic documents were stored in a controlled environment. A woman from the library staff greeted her, they chatted a moment—Ashley was quite cordial and warm, he noticed—then went into the room. Ty took a look to be sure they were the only ones inside, and that there was no other way in, then settled down to wait.
He took out his phone and texted their location to the office via the encrypted connection. They could find him easily enough with the tracker on the car, but this was protocol. Eric himself responded—a good reminder of how important this case was, and Ty gave himself another silent lecture on behaving himself.
He grabbed one of the desk chairs a couple of rows of bookshelves down and brought it back to sit just outside the door to the room. Anybody after her would have to go through him, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Except for a group of school ki
ds, apparently arriving for a story hour, the place was as quiet as a library traditionally was. He got up now and then to stretch and move around, although he was constantly scanning the area that had access to the door to the document vault.
He was starting to wonder just how long she planned on being in there when his phone signaled an incoming text. Thinking maybe he should have muted it—library, after all—he pulled it out. The incoming was from Mitch, so he opened the app. When he saw what it was about, he stared for a moment, sure he was gaping at the screen.
Then he was on his feet and moving fast. He burst into the archive room, startling the women who were standing by a table that held what looked like a very old map. But he was focused only on one, the woman who stood there with her phone in her hands.
“Are you crazy or just stupid?” he snapped, grabbing the phone out of her hands.
For an instant, she looked actually frightened, which made him wish he’d toned it down a little. He didn’t like scaring people—unless they were the bad guys—but especially women. Not that that made the question any less valid.
But she recovered quickly, and drew herself up with a haughtiness that he suspected Harts learned from the cradle. “Give me back my phone.”
“No,” he said bluntly. He slid the phone—a very high-end one, of course—into a pocket.
“No?” She looked stunned.
Nobody ever say no to you? He nearly laughed at the thought, because he guessed it was quite possibly true. And he could almost feel her anger growing. It practically vibrated the air around her. Ms. Ashley Hart of the Westport Harts was rapidly building toward an eruption.
He decided a change in tactics was called for. He shifted his focus to the still-startled librarian and said with an almost courtly politeness, “My apologies, Mrs. Washington. Ms. Hart may have failed to mention to you that her life has been threatened, and now she has broadcast to the world exactly where she is by posting the photograph she just took of your map.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and she paled slightly. She turned to stare at Ashley, who was gaping at him. “That’s absurd!” she almost yelped. “How dare you barge in here and—”
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