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“Then you might want to watch out for him, too. I hear he’s into the whole cougar thing.”
Linda spun at Ty’s teasing comment, her face turning beet-red. She playfully smacked his arm. “You, young man, are bad.”
His grin killed any argument anyone tried to make to the contrary. “Wanna be bad with me, darlin’?”
Linda shook her head, turned to Eleanor. “Like I said, watch this one. He uses that good-ole-boy Southern charm to boil our Northern-girl blood. You’d be wise to steer clear.”
“You know you love me,” Ty teased her.
Linda and Eleanor both rolled their eyes, making Ty laugh out loud.
“I’ve got work to do.” She gave Ty a well-meaning glare and pointed her finger at him. “You behave.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her his lopsided grin.
Linda walked away smiling, shaking her head and mumbling something about God having blessed Texas.
“You here to check on the new twenty-four-week preemie?” Eleanor asked him, wondering why her heart was beating so fast in her chest just from Ty being near.
His expression sobered. “I am. The family given him a name y
et?”
She’d taken a peek at the newborn herself just a few minutes prior to Linda giving her advice about spending so much time with Ty.
“No.” Eleanor shook her head, walking with him to the little boy’s incubator. “He’s just Male Griffin at the moment. Linda told me they say they aren’t going to. They think that will only make them get more attached.”
Glancing toward her, Ty winced. “They’ve not been to see him?”
“The father has, but he refuses to let his wife come. Her nurse says she asks continually but that she won’t go against her husband’s wishes.”
His eyes assessing the tiny baby he’d watched be born and had immediately taken charge of, Ty sighed. “He’s trying to protect her, but how is she not supposed to already be attached to a baby she carried inside her body for twenty-four weeks and built a lifetime of dreams around?”
“He knows her better than we do, but if she wants to see her baby, he shouldn’t keep her from doing so. If he dies and she hasn’t seen him even though she really wanted to, she may never forgive herself.”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Ty agreed.
Eleanor couldn’t imagine the fear the baby’s parents must be going through, the worries, the doubts. Her heart went out both to the parents and to the little boy who very well might not live.
Ty examined the baby, discussed his immediate care with Eleanor, asking her opinion on a few points and then they stood next to the incubator, watching the baby struggle for each second of life, alive only by the technology that kept him that way.
Even though she dealt with similar cases routinely, just looking at the tiny baby was enough to make Eleanor’s heart clench.
As if maybe he’d had a few heart clenches of his own, Ty inhaled sharply, then turned toward her. “Pick you up at six for the fund-raiser tonight, right?”
Her pulse jumping for no good reason at all except for the way his gaze held hers, Eleanor shook her head. “My father insists on sending his limo for you.”
Ty’s dark brows drew together. “Will you already be in that limo?”
Eleanor shrugged. “I have no idea what order my father has planned. I thought perhaps you two had discussed the arrangements.” She’d barely spoken to her father since the morning he’d summoned Ty to the Aston penthouse. “I just know that when he called me this morning he insisted on providing our transportation. For us both to be ready so we wouldn’t be late arrivals. He wants us to make a big media splash.”
Apparently her father planned to milk her having a date for all it was worth. Just the thought of being in the crowded ballroom, of all the backslapping and paparazzi that would be there was enough to make her heart do that funny little flipping sensation that always preceded a full-blown panic attack. She hated crowds, hated that as the senator’s daughter she’d be photographed. At least tonight she’d have Ty at her side. Perhaps for that she should thank her father because she couldn’t have made it through the ribbon-cutting without him.
Ty’s lips twisted with displeasure. “For future reference, I need to let your father know that I prefer to pick up my own dates.”
Future dates? As in dates her father arranged between them? Or real dates? As in dates that he asked her to go on with him because he wanted to be with her? Better yet, why did she desperately wish tonight was a real date?
Ty supposed there were advantages to arriving to pick Eleanor up from her apartment in the Aston limo. For instance, he didn’t have to find parking while he ran inside to collect her.
