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“I’ll show Ms. Evans out,” Harrison says, walking toward the landing, as if he expects me to follow. And after I nod my thanks again to Eddie and Monica, my mother’s papers firmly in hand, I walk right behind him, somehow used to him being my escort.
He opens the front door for me like a gentleman at least, slipping his sunglasses back. As we walk down the driveway, he’s not talking, and I don’t even do my nervous blabbering.
I’m about to say, “They seem really nice,” when suddenly the sound of a drill blasts through the air. We round the corner of the driveway, and down at the bottom, where all the flatbeds are parked, there are at least a dozen construction workers, all carrying two-by-fours and digging a fence line.
“What the hell?” I say. “That was fast! How did they know?”
“I texted them the moment you signed the papers,” Harrison says, nodding a greeting to one of the workers before we turn into my driveway. “The duke and duchess are used to efficiency.”
“I think you’re used to efficiency,” I tell him, walking in step beside him. “They actually seem pretty chill and normal.” I mumble under my breath, “Can’t say the same about you.”
When he doesn’t say anything to that, I stop, which in turn makes him stop.
“So is this the end of this?” I ask him. He frowns in response, so I go on. “Your around-the-clock surveillance of me?”
“We’ve been here less than twenty-four hours,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. His very wide, very manly chest. “I hardly call that around-the-clock.”
“I guess I’m concerned this will be a constant thing.”
“You signed the papers,” he says. “And once your mother signs hers, I’ll lay off.”
“Oh, so now you’re admitting that you’re being a bit much.”
“I’m not being a bit much. I’m doing my job.”
“You’re walking me home. You’re not doing that because you’re a gentleman.”
His frown deepens, and he raises his chin. I think that remark may have gotten to him. “As I said, it’s my job to protect them.”
“Seems like you do a lot more than just protect them. I saw your pal out there on the boat earlier. I know there are men up in the trees.”
I glance up to make a point, then gasp loudly when I notice a hand waving to me from high up in a Douglas fir. I can’t remember if that’s Isaac or Giles.
But it doesn’t matter which tree man it is. I continue. “Who knows how many other security officers are about. The point is, I think you’re more like their manager than anything else.”
He stares at me for a moment, giving me plenty of time to focus on my reflection in his sunglasses. My hair is a bit ratty, and I wish I could have been wearing something a little nicer to meet the royals for the first time.
Finally, he says, “I’m whatever the duke and duchess need me to be. Maybe in your world you’ve just got your teaching, with some Tic Tac–eating tendencies thrown in there, and that’s it, but in mine, it’s possible to wear multiple hats at once.”
Did he just try to insinuate that I have nothing going on in my life other than my job? “Hey, I wear many hats too,” I tell him, unable to keep the bite out of my voice. “Maybe to you I’m just some island hick schoolteacher, but I take care of my mother when no one else will. I provide for her, I keep this house going, I’ve sacrificed a hell of a lot in order to stay with her and make sure she’s okay. I’m a teacher, and I’m a caregiver. And I’m a daughter. And I have interests and hobbies and a rich inner world that you don’t know anything about. So don’t try to paint me into a box, because I don’t fit in one.”
My heart is pounding from all that, making me feel both alive and a little sick. I can’t believe I just let that all out there like that.
Harrison continues to stare at me, then swallows. “I won’t paint you into a box if you don’t paint me into a box,” he says, his voice low and gruff, the kind of voice that would send shivers up my spine under any other circumstances.
And he’s got a point. I can dish it out, but I can’t take it. Apparently that was a sore spot for me.
“Okay,” I tell him, my pulse still wild in my neck. “Do you trust me enough to let me go, or do you have to walk me to the door?”
He tilts his head for a moment and then nods. “I trust you. Good night, Ms. Evans.”
He then turns on his heel and marches away, disappearing around the bend.
