“They don’t hibernate?” she asked, watching the two small creatures in the distance.
“Not fully. There’s a stage in between they go into at night in the winter, to lower their metabolism.”
“Torpor,” she said. And then laughed as the animals called out to each other. “They really do bark!”
“Hence the name,” he said.
“What else have you seen out here?” she asked as they walked on.
“Year-round? The usual. Lots of squirrels, gophers and rabbits. Raccoons, we’ve got a ton of those. Foxes, as you saw. Badgers. Coyotes occasionally. And last summer I swear I saw those last two working together.”
“Working together?”
He jerked a thumb back toward the prairie dogs. “Hunting those guys.” She winced, just slightly. “Don’t like the laws of nature?” he asked.
“I try not to dwell on things I can’t change and focus on things that I can,” she said, “and I understand the food chain and its necessity in the natural world.”
“Harder when the prey is little and cute, though.” Her gaze sharpened. “At least, it is for me,” he added.
And again, quickly, she went from the edge of offense to laughter. “I thought you were jabbing at me again.”
He shook his head. “Hey, I’m as big a sucker for a cute, furry face as anyone.”
She looked back toward the prairie dogs, or rather where they had been. They’d vanished now—maybe those barks had been a warning. He made a mental note of that. There was nothing here that would be truly dangerous to humans, but a hungry coyote was always something to be aware of.
“How did they work together, the coyote and the badger?”
He kept it as bloodless as he could. “The prairie dog’s instinct is to burrow away from the fast coyote, who can’t really dig deep, and run from the slower badger, who can. The badger scared one into running, then the coyote pounced.”
She looked thoughtful. “That makes sense. Each using their particular skills.” Her brow furrowed. “But did the coyote share? That seems unlikely.”
“No. But I assume it works in reverse, that the coyote scares the prey into the burrow for the badger to dig out, often enough to make the partnership worthwhile for both.”
“So even though they’re competitors...”
“Yep. We could learn from them, I think.”
“I wish we would,” she said with a sigh. Maybe she wasn’t quite as innocently optimistic as her parents feared, because that hadn’t sounded at all confident.
They were some distance farther on when she stopped again. He turned back and saw her tilt her head as if listening intently. He smiled. “Meadowlark. Our state bird.”
“It’s a beautiful call. Your favorite bird?”
“Well, as a born and bred Kansan, I should say yes, but I’m more of a raptor guy.”
She smiled. He was really getting to like that smile. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Of course, I do have a soft spot for roadrunners, ever since I saw one once, down near Coffeyville.”
“Too many cartoons as a child, perhaps?” she asked innocently. Too innocently.
“Don’t tell me you watched cartoons?” He said it with as much feigned shock as he could manage. “A woman with your upbringing?”
He got the laugh again. “We’re just shattering assumptions all over the place, aren’t we?”
“Well, there’s the little fact they feed on spiders, too. Oh,” he added, giving her a raised brow, “and snakes.”
“My new favorite bird.” She was still laughing, and as they started to walk again, he had the craziest wish that she wasn’t a client, that they just...were. Together. Under other circumstances.
But they weren’t. She was a client. A job.
And even if she weren’t, she was way, way beyond his reach.
Chapter 19
This was not fair.
This was so not fair.
She’d spent her entire life from the time she was old enough to understand assumptions and clichés, fighting against becoming either. Besides teaching her to beware of those who would pursue her for her name, wealth and of late fame, her parents had taught her early on that people would assume things about her because of that wealth. That many would have a picture in their mind, a clichéd perception of who she must be without having ever met her.
That was why she had built some very sturdy walls around her heart and emotions, why she didn’t trust easily. Why she had worked so hard, studying, learning, so she could never be written off as one of those famous sorts who mouthed off and revealed a lack of knowledge about most things. The biggest cliché of the social media age, she often thought.
And now she was turning into a living, breathing cliché herself. The woman in danger who fell for her bodyguard.
She’d met a lot of people in her travels. Many kinds of people. A lot of them had been men.
But she’d never ever met a man like Ty Colton. And she wasn’t sure if that spoke more to the circles she’d been running in or the man himself. She had a feeling it was some of both. Simon, for instance, had always looked upon men who focused on fitness of body with a certain disdain. It did not matter, he’d often said, usually with a sniff through his elevated nose, if the body was fit when the brain was not. Because she’d been flattered by the brilliant man’s attentions, she had stopped herself from asking if that meant the reverse was also true. Funny, she’d never quite thought about Simon this way before. Never realized that in his own way, he had quite limited his own life.
She tried to picture the professor out here, striding so confidently yet carefully through thick underbrush and sometimes muddy terrain. The image that formed was laughable. She had never done that, laughed at Simon, even though his lack of stature and solidity had earned that from many of his students—behind his back, of course, which had only made her rise to his defense.
Ty didn’t need any defense. He had muscles her ex could only dream of, shoulders broad enough to be a cliché in themselves. And the sight of his butt in those jeans explained completely why Simon had never worn them.
Ty was so hyper-alert and aware. He seemed utterly focused on their surroundings yet at the same time he was aware every time she stopped to look at something, or slipped slightly, or even turned her head. Simon would be oblivious, except perhaps to complain about the lack of a paved trail, which was about where his adventures into anything outside city skyscrapers ended.
To be fair, because she always endeavored to be, she tried to picture Ty among those city skyscrapers. She had the feeling he would be just as confident there, although perhaps not quite as comfortable in a stylish suit. For some reason, the image of him in formal wear, a tux even, formed in her mind, and for a moment it was so vivid she forgot how to breathe.
His head snapped around, and she realized she’d gasped aloud. “You okay?”
He stopped, and she nearly ran into him. Spent a moment wishing she had kept going. Wondered how it would feel to go into his arms willingly.
“Fine,” she said, embarrassed now.
“Need to rest?”
“No, I’m good. Really. I was just...thinking.”
His mouth—speaking of things that made her forget how to breathe—quirked upward at one corner. “Are you ever not?”
“Rarely,” she admitted.
He gave her that look that told her she wasn’t the only one thinking. But she doubted very much he was wrestling with the same kinds of thoughts she was. The same kind of revelations. How had just being with him, pried by force from her phone and other connections, so rattled her mindset? She had the oddest feeling, something almost bedrock—or that she’d thought was bedrock—was shifting, changing. And it was because of him.
Which made her edgy, because to him she was just a client, and likely one he found pro
blematic, given his reaction to a simple social media post. Although in retrospect, if she worked off the assumption the threat was real, she could see his point.
And she hadn’t liked how twitchy she’d gotten since access had been removed. Hadn’t liked the thought that perhaps she really was addicted. She vowed then and there to cut back. To enforce personal restrictions, to have times when she put the phone away.
He was indulging her with this hike, however. Although he didn’t seem to be minding it much. Even though he’d made the same trek once already today. To make sure I’d be safe. The man is a professional. And part of that job is probably making clients feel comfortable, at ease. Remember that.
He led her up a mild but rather rocky slope, and they came out on an outcropping of the orangish rock that she’d seen in the area. And below them was the spread of the area where the river met the lake, water running to the lake here, marshy flats there. An ideal place for the plant growth so crucial to migrating wildlife.
They sat on that outcropping, and she had to admit she was ready for the break. He seemed unaffected, and she wondered if he did this regularly, or if his fitness came from gym workouts.
They’d been sitting quietly, looking out over the view for a few minutes when he spoke again. “Do you ever change your mind about something?”
Her brow furrowed. “Of course. If the circumstances or the information I have changes, or is proved wrong.”
“What if it’s something you’ve...taken a stand on? Publicly.”
“Then I have to admit I was wrong, or misinformed, as publicly as I took that stand, and explain why I changed my mind.”
“You have to?”
“Well, yes. To be fair.”
“And that’s important to you. Being fair.”
She almost snapped out a rather peevish “Of course,” but something about the way he was looking at her made her pause. The answer she finally gave him was much more than she usually said.
“Life itself is so often unfair—especially to the smaller among us, like those prairie dogs—so I feel it’s up to us humans to at least try to even it out.”
He nodded back the way they had come. “Those prairie dogs build entire cities underground, a network of burrows with rooms at different depths for different purposes. They’ve got fine-tuned hearing so they can hear a predator’s approach even while underground. They’ve got those warning barks. Nature equipped them pretty well for survival.”
She knew she was staring at him. She hadn’t expected him to reel off all that...knowledge. “If you care enough to learn all that, how can you think it’s wrong to protect their habitat?”
“I don’t. But I also think that while we humans may be at the top of the food chain—unless we do something stupid—we’re just as much a part of the system as any other animal. And I don’t appreciate those who believe we should be completely removed from it, as if we have less right to be here than those below us on that chain.”
“I’ve never believed that. But I do believe that with that status at the top comes responsibility.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that.” He shrugged again, that very male gesture she was coming to envy. “I guess I’m just more of a conservationist. For all of the planet’s inhabitants.”
“And I wouldn’t disagree with that,” she said quietly. That got a smile that did crazy things to her insides.
After a moment, he pointed across the river to a clear area on the other side. “If this was spring, you’d be looking at a field of sunflowers.”
“So they really do grow wild here?”
“And cultivated.”
“Before I started researching,” she said, as she took out her water bottle for a sip, “I would have been among those who assumed Kansas was completely flat.”
He gave her that sideways look. “Sure you want to admit that to a native Kansas boy?”
“I’m not embarrassed to admit my ignorance, as long as I’m working to alleviate it.”
“Why does that sound like something you’d say in one of your speeches?”
She couldn’t stop her laugh. “Because it is?” It got her another smile. And she wished she could stop feeling like she’d won some kind of prize every time that happened.
“We’re used to it, even though we’re only the twenty-third flattest state. But most people’s idea of Kansas comes from The Wizard of Oz, or Little House on the Prairie. Personally, I prefer being Superman’s home state.”
She found herself laughing yet again. “I don’t blame you.”
They sat quietly for a while, just looking. Which he seemed content to do. She was vaguely aware that the warmth built by the hike was seeping away and the ground was cold beneath her, but it wasn’t yet uncomfortable.
“Well, well,” Ty murmured, “hello there.”
He was looking upriver, and she shifted her gaze that direction. She didn’t say anything, but once more he was obviously aware of her movement, because without looking at her, he added, “Find the tallest tree on the left bank, then look straight right to the one jutting out over the river.”
It took her a moment, but then she spotted the large bird perched on a branch. Had it not been barren of leaves she never would have seen the distinctive white head and tail.
“A bald eagle?”
He nodded. “We have a nesting pair in the area. They’re usually at the seep stream about now. They figured out trout season long ago.”
She laughed. He smiled. And for a split second, she wondered if he felt the same way when she laughed as she did when he did. That sounded silly even unspoken. Searching for something to say that wouldn’t betray that silliness, she asked, “Do you usually go fishing when you’re here?”
He kept his gaze on the regal bird. “Not my first thought this time of year. But I keep the license updated. And I heard a rumor there are a lot of white bass right out in front of the point just now.”
“Do you want to go?”
He looked at her then. “This isn’t a vacation trip.”
She sighed. “I know that. But I like fishing.”
He blinked. “You do?”
“Must you always sound so surprised?”
“That was nothing personal. Well, except that you’re female. I don’t know that many who like fishing.”
“Maybe you need to meet more females,” she said rather sourly as she lifted her bottle for another drink of water.
“Now you sound like my mother.”
That caught her off guard, and the laugh that burst from her, then caused a spew of water. He gave her a look she could only describe as that of a rather mischievous little boy.
And another of her inner walls melted away.
Chapter 20
“Do I need a fishing license?” Ashley asked. She shifted the pole she was carrying as they walked toward the lake, a much shorter distance than yesterday’s trek.
Ty raised a brow at her. She still wasn’t taking this threat seriously enough for his taste. And he was a little edgy—again—after a second restless night. Not because of her being restless, because this time she’d gone to bed and stayed there, but because... Hell, he didn’t know why he hadn’t been able to settle. He’d learned to gauge his limits, and figured he had another night like that in him. But after that he was going to need some serious sleep or he was going to be tired enough to possibly miss something.
Unless something happened, of course. Then adrenaline would kick in and carry the day. At least, it always had.
But she was looking at him in honest inquiry, as if she’d never thought of the ramifications. Which was another surprise. He would have thought, her parents being who they were, she would have had security precautions hammered into her practically from birth.
“And how long do you suppose it would take for word to get out that Ashley Hart of the We
stport Harts bought a fishing license in tiny Yankee Run? You might as well post our coordinates to the world.”
She grimaced. “Just trying to obey the law, Mr. Colton.”
“I told you, I’ve got one,” he said. “And this is a unique situation.” Not to mention I can’t see even the state government seriously going after the sole Hart offspring. “But we’ll take the heat and pay the fine if you get caught. Or catch anything,” he added, in an exaggeratedly teasing tone.
“If? Humph,” she retorted, her nose so far in the air he knew it had to be intentional. She had a sense of humor, did Ms. Ashley Hart of the Westport Harts. And wasn’t afraid to poke at her own image. He liked that.
He liked a lot about her.
And he hoped he didn’t regret this. But while going out on the water in the small runabout in the boathouse would have been akin to stepping out onto a sunlit stage with a target on them, they were fairly sheltered here on the point. Visible from certain angles on the lake but masked to a great extent from others, and almost completely hidden from anyone who might be trespassing on Colton land. They’d have to get really close before they could see them, and if they managed that without Ty hearing them coming, he deserved what he got.
But she didn’t.
He’d never failed on a protection job, even in a couple of near-miss circumstances, once when he’d spotted the threat in time and gotten the protectee to safety, and once when he’d taken out the armed suspect. He’d earned Eric’s pleased approval, something he treasured because of his respect for the man. But somehow this time was different.
The thought of failing to protect Ashley made him feel crazy tense. If he did fail, and if because of that she was hurt or worse, he somehow knew that would be a shift of the ground under his feet so large he wasn’t sure he could withstand it. He’d never felt this before, and it made him nervous, edgy, and complicated things even further.
And he’d known her exactly twenty-four hours. How the hell had this happened in twenty-four hours?
How the hell had it happened at all?
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