Ashley looked up at him. “I just listened, that’s all. And I ordered soup and sandwiches, too. You’ve got a foot-long steak-and-swiss waiting upstairs for you. Soup, too. I didn’t get myself anything because I didn’t want to impose. Would you mind sharing?”
Such an innocent question for a woman who, only this morning, couldn’t stand to touch him.
He licked his bottom lip and changed the subject. “Where’d you go to college, Ashley? Were you ever…?” He never got the rest of the question out. The moment he said the words, he knew he’d ruined the rest of the evening.
Ashley’s eyes widened with something that looked a lot like fear. Not surprise. Her pupils dilated, squeezing the sparkle out of the sapphire blue. Her breath hitched. She took a step back from him. One hand clutched the top buttons of her shirt, as if she needed to hold it together. As if it might suddenly be torn away. Or off. But the worst physical reaction? She dropped her lashes and seemed to shrink into the woman he’d met Friday night.
Damn it, he’d done it again. Common sense sometimes took a full minute to engage. Tripp was, after all, one of those hard men who’d stood in the dark of the darkest nights and done what most other men would not. He’d seen and done too much, though sometimes, he felt as if he hadn’t done enough. Like now.
A flaming spark of ‘Shit, damn, maybe I shouldn’t have asked anything,’ slapped him upside his hard, Army head. The convo ground to a sudden stop. He swallowed hard, huffing through a throat that refused to comply, trying not to see Ashley’s lovely face superimposed on the victims in those gruesome crime scene photos in Mark’s office.
She retreated to the opposite corner of the elevator and went as still as a church mouse, not looking at him. Ashley planned to bolt the second those doors opened.
Shit. Tripp sucked in a belly full of regret, managed to finally swallow, and reached a hand to her. “Come with me, Ashley. Please,” he said evenly, needing her to give him a way out of the mess he’d created. “We need to talk. In private.” His throat was so damned dry, he sounded like a toad croaking.
The car doors slid open, and there stood that son of a bitch Jameson, his head cocked as if he’d known precisely where Ashley would be. “Ashley?” he asked a helluva lot more calmly than Tripp had. “May I speak with you in private for a minute before you go?” And he’d given her a way out. Said she could go. Tripp had to admit, Jameson was a smart guy.
She stared up at him, trembling like a sweet, innocent doe caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s scope. Her nostrils flared, and the pulse spot in her throat quivered.
Tripp looked to Jameson for more help. Could he sense how badly Tripp had messed up? Had he anticipated Ashley running out of the elevator for the stairs? Sure seemed like it. God, what didn’t that guy know?
Jameson held out his right hand and fluttered his fingers, as if he knew where she stood. “Come on, kiddo. Just for a minute. Tripp, would you like to join us?”
Yes, gawddamnit, his inner Ranger roared. But he replied more evenly, “Sure. Maybe you can help us with a case we’re working, Ashley.”
“Me?” she squeaked, her pretty blues wide and glistening. Finally, she looked at him.
Tripp wanted to kick his own ass. Once again, he’d frightened her by charging full-speed ahead without thinking. His rough-and-ready style might work in combat and on the streets at night, but it sucked boulders in relationships. Not that he had a relationship with Ashley, but—
“Yes. You do,” Jameson whispered, so damned quietly that Tripp wasn’t sure he’d heard the guy right. Had he just answered Tripp’s unspoken question. Was he clairvoyant?
“Yes, Jameson and I would like to talk with you, Ashley,” Tripp admitted more easily once his lungs filled with air and his head with cool, calm enlightenment. Since the moment he’d seen her, he’d known Ashley was different, that she was tiny and timid and special. It was time to admit that much, at least to himself. He punctuated that calm affirmation with the exclamation point of his most sincere smile.
Her eyes lit up when he did that, which soothed him more than she could possibly know.
Mark, Director Chase, Beau, and several agents were now gathered around the customer service desk, watching Jameson usher Ashley away from them, toward the opposite hallway.
“I’ll make sure Tripp keeps it short, Mark,” Jameson said. “We’ll be right back.”
Tripp held his hand out to Ashley when she rounded the corner, but Jameson intercepted him with the ease of a jungle cat and pulled her into his side with a firm, “You’ll be fine, girlfriend. I’ve got you.”
Girlfriend? Like hell! You’ve got her? Shit, damn, and son of a bitch! It was a struggle keeping his inner Neanderthal on its leash, with Jameson taking control of his girl—err, ahh, neighbor—as smoothly as he had. Who the hell did Jameson think he was?
Walking behind the visually impaired agent, who seemed to know a helluva lot more about women than most sighted guys, was one hell of an endurance test. Tripp rolled his neck, not sure why Jameson was getting on his last nerve. The guy was engaged. He’d seen him with Maddie. They adored each other. But he was… So. Damned. Smooth!
Chapter Seventeen
Tripp’s friend Jameson was as calm as he was expressive. They were mismatched bookends, both seated kitty-corner from her at one end of the conference table, both in TEAM black, and both handsome. But where Tripp was deeply tanned and sandy-blond with a definite windblown, rough-and-ready look, Jameson was dark-haired and as neat as a pin. He’d even interlocked his fingers on the table in front of him, when he’d taken his seat. They were both
