Page 65 of Her Chosen Protector

“Seeing Leland go all He-Man on Suzanne. Trust me, she’s been Ms. Control throughout these talks. She didn’t take crap from anyone. You know that she could easily have run this project, but she deferred to Heinrich. Then, seeing Leland do the Neanderthal thing and Suzanne allowing it, even appreciate it, that cracked me the hell up.”

Asher’s thumb rubbed against her palm, and he gave her an appraising look. “It only made you laugh?”

Eden opened her mouth to say yes, then closed it. Right now, in these circumstances, it wasn’t the time for surface conversation. She thought back to Leland’s behavior.

“At first it totally took me by surprise, you know?”

Asher nodded like he could understand. “And later?”

He was so close she could taste his strawberry breath.

“Later, I was relieved that he was taking care of her. Somebody needed to, and I was really, really, relieved that she had someone in her corner. A man.” She said the last word with a reluctant grin. “You can’t ever tell any of my family I said that it would ruin my rep.”

“I promise.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Hey, did you just sit up a little taller?”

Asher grinned broadly. “Well, I am a man, after all.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. What about you, do you ever have fun on these missions, or is it all scary adrenaline?”

Asher rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There was this one mission where for a week I was on thong patrol. That was both embarrassing and fun.”

“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that.”

“There was an amateur singing contest in Europe that we had to babysit. They were worried about a terrorist attack. In order to fit in, we helped out the producer of the show, A.J. There was this one act that had a tendency not to wear their panties. Anything to win votes, I guess. I’ll tell you, A.J. was pissed. But she had her hands full trying to herd those cats, so we helped.”

“Poor you,” Eden mocked.

“Yeah, it was a hard job, but somebody had to do it.” Ash grinned.

“Okay, that was your best day, what about your worst?”

“I’ve got a better idea; tell me about your best and worst date. But you can’t use this as your worst date, this is a gimme.”

“Oh no, having dinner with you is one of the best dates I’ve ever had. You speak French, you’re smart, you have a good sense of humor. The food sucks, and I’m not real thrilled with the ambiance, but the company? The company is outstanding.”

“In that case, I really want to hear what your worst date was.”

Eden pulled her hand from his grip and settled back in the chair. She crossed her legs and wiggled her back against the plush velvet backing to get really comfortable

“It was five years ago, when I was twenty-three. I really was a dumb bunny, just out of college—

sure I knew everything, but oh-so-dumb.”

“You went to college in Idaho, right? Were you still there, or had you moved back home?”

Of course, he knew about her. Probably had her resume memorized, along with everybody else’s in the finance contingent.

“I moved to Boise to intern at the State Capital. My double major was Political Science as well as Animal Sciences. The Animal Sciences degree was to help out at the family ranch, but I wasn’t eager to go home right after graduating, so I took the intern job.”

“I like it. So, you knew how to deal with political animals.”

“Sure, like I’ve never heard that joke before.”

Asher threw up his hands and grinned. Yep, she made out a dimple. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be redundant. But seriously, that’s quite a dichotomy, what made you get into it?”

“I saw how the mismanagement of our land resources hurt the regular ranchers and farmers. I figured that if I could understand how the government was thinking and maybe play a small role in state politics, I could change things.”