“Uh, sweetpea,” Clint said, stepping up behind his daughter and taking her by the shoulders. “Maybe you can go over there and sit on the sofa and play with your iPad for a minute while Daddy talks to Ms. Crumb?”
“Her name’s Tara, Dad,” Ashley said, rolling her eyes like he was the silliest person ever. “And my battery’s low. I need a plug.”
“Um, right.” Clint tugged his daughter over to the small loveseat against the far wall of her office, right next to an outlet, then pulled a power cord out of his pocket and got Ashley plugged in and situated before coming back to stand in front of Tara. “I’m sorry about all this. I just really wanted to talk to you about what happened at the rally. If you have a minute, that is.”
“Oh. Sure. Okay.” She gestured toward the empty chair
in front of her desk that Judy had occupied earlier. Tara slid into her own seat, glad for the desk between her and him. Not that she thought he was dangerous—well, not in a likely-to-attack-her sort of way. But damn, he was way too good-looking for his own good. Hers too, and keeping some distance from him was probably a good thing, considering her core had gone all tingly at the first sight of him. “How did you find me here?”
“Well, actually, I tracked you down through the company roster.” He gave a self-deprecating grin and her stupid heart flip-flopped. Tara crossed her arms atop the desk as an added barrier against his mega-watt charms. “Not in a stalker kind of way, just because I’m trying to work out for myself exactly what happened the day of the shooting and wanted to get your perspective on all of it.”
“Daddy,” Ashley said from the loveseat. “I’m bored.”
“Play with your iPad, honey,” Clint called back over his shoulder. “Like Daddy told you.”
“But it’s boring—I’ve already played all the games on here.”
Tara bit her lip at Clint’s uncomfortable expression. He was clearly having a hard time with his kid and she took pity on him. “How about if I ask my assistant to give you a tour around the place, Ashley? Would you like that?”
“Yes!” The little girl bounced off the loveseat, leaving her iPad behind, and raced over to Tara. “Would you really do that? Do you have cool stuff here, like solar panels and water generators and wind turbines too?”
“We do, and my assistant would love to show them to you.” She grinned at the little girl’s enthusiasm. It reminded Tara of herself at that age. True activists were born, not made, she’d always thought. “We’ll need to get your daddy’s okay first, though.”
Clint looked more than eager and relieved to take her up on her offer. “Yes. Absolutely she can go, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all.” Tara made a quick call out to Judy, and soon the woman and Ashley were off to tour the facilities. There would doubtless be some gossip for the rest of the day over the little girl who came to visit Tara’s office—but she could deal with that later. Once they were alone, Tara sat back in her chair again and smiled across her desk at Clint. “Sorry. I just thought our conversation might be better had out of the listening range of smaller ears.”
“No. That’s great. I totally agree.” He crossed one ankle over his knee and rested his beefy forearms atop his muscular thighs. Man, the guy was built like a superhero and seemed just about as perfect too, saving damsels in distress and all. Not that Tara was some fairy tale princess, nor did she need saving. Not usually, anyway. They locked eyes for a second longer than necessary before she looked away and crossed her arms and her legs. She needed all the barriers she could get. He cleared his throat and frowned down at his lap, picking at some non-existent lint on his jeans. “Right. So, can you give me your account of the day of the rally, including the shooting, please?”
“Sure.” She rattled off the details she could remember, keeping as cool as possible, worried he’d hear the fear in her voice when she recounted the events of the shooting.
“And you don’t remember noticing anything out of the ordinary before that first bullet was fired?” Clint asked. “Any strange faces or noises or anything?”
“No.” Tara scowled and shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry, that probably doesn’t help you at all, does it? But honestly, my focus that day was mainly on getting support for the climate change legislation we’re trying to have passed, so I wasn’t paying attention to any signs of danger—I was more interested in seeing how many people were there, whether they seemed to be agreeing with the speakers, whether everyone was having a good time.”
“Fair enough.” He shifted in his seat, uncrossing his legs, then re-crossing them on the other side. “And understandable. Everything I hear in the news makes it seem like the legislation is going to pass. You must be proud of the work you’ve done. I like to see a job through to the end myself. Or at least, I did.”
Tara noticed the slight downturn of the corners of his lips and the general dip in his mood. She wasn’t a nosy person by nature, but now her interest was piqued. “Oh. You’re not working today?”
Dumb question, Tara. So dumb.
Of course he wasn’t working. If he was working, he’d be off protecting someone. But maybe he had the day off or something. Still, that didn’t explain his wince or the flicker of hurt that passed quickly over his handsome face, so fast she would have missed it, if she hadn’t been watching him so closely.
He sighed, then shook his head. “I’ve been put on a leave of absence until all this mess with the shooting at the rally is cleaned up.”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to tell her that.
Clint scrubbed a hand over his face and stared around the office, anywhere but at her. The weight of Tara’s gaze was burning a hole through him as it was, and he felt this weird connection to her he didn’t understand at all. It had probably been a mistake to come here today, but he’d needed to get out of the house and out of his head and Ashley had been so excited to come with him, so…
Speaking of his daughter, she was still out on that damned tour or else Clint would have left right then and there. As it was, he sighed and slapped his hands on the arms of his chair, for lack of anything better to do. “Anyway, I’ve got time on my hands, so I’ve been looking into things myself.”
Duh, idiot. She already knows that.
Embarrassed heat climbed his cheeks from beneath the collar of his navy-blue T-shirt and he tapped the toe of his work boot on the plain beige carpeting. This was going about as well as he’d expected. Hell, he wasn’t good at small talk, especially with women. It was why he usually stuck with flings—easy pickups at a bar or a club where he didn’t need a pickup line beyond “Can I buy you a drink?”
Tara leaned forward, giving him a glance right down the front of that froufrou shirt of hers straight to that lacy pink bra she was wearing, and damn. Now his interest had taken a whole different turn. He swallowed hard and frowned down at his clenched hands in his lap.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her sweet voice stirring up all sorts of naughty thoughts in his head before he tamped them down hard. He was not here to date her. He was here to listen to her account of events around the shooting. That was all.