Right. Because he’d looked across the table at her and she’d stolen his breath by her beauty and had felt the need to let her know.
“Tell me about your brother,” she rushed forward, not wanting to let her mind go down the “Ellie” path. They’d been there once too often that evening already.
“Harry is great. The spitting image of my father and the golden boy of Swallow Creek. All his life, he’s excelled at everything he’s done, especially bowing to my father’s whims. On paper, he runs the ranch, but I’ve no doubt my father still pulls the strings.”
His words held no sarcasm, no malice. She could tell that he genuinely loved his brother, yet so easily his words could be taken as sibling rivalry. Or worse.
“He’s older?”
Ty nodded. “By three years.”
She considered her next words carefully. “Must’ve been tough growing up in the shadow of such a successful sibling.”
Ty shrugged. “I never was much for standing in the shadows.”
At the thought of a younger Ty daring twice as much to keep up with his gifted older brother, Eleanor smiled. “I thought that about you.”
The corner of Ty’s mouth lifted. “What about you? Must never have been boring growing up with Senator Cole Aston as a father.”
“No, I can’t say I was ever bored.” Just never quite part of the family. “He is constantly into something.”
“Like donating the money to open the new hospital wing?”
“That’s one of the few things he’s done that makes me very proud to be an Aston.”
“The few?”
She shrugged. “He’s a politician. He does what he needs to do to get votes. My whole life was planned around what would help Daddy most in the polls.”
Ty regarded her for long enough that Eleanor wanted to squirm, but didn’t.
He leaned back in his chair, eyed her curiously with a glimmer of bedevilment dancing in his eyes. “Tell me, Eleanor. Come election day, do you vote for dear old dad?”
Her jaw dropped. Never had anyone asked her that. They just assumed …
“I’d answer that,” she began, keeping her tone even, “but then I’d have to kill you. So I’m just going to plead the Fifth.”
Ty burst out laughing. “Like I said, you’re funny. I like you, Ellie.”
Yeah, she liked him, too.
Except for the nickname, which she could do without, although there was something about the way it rolled off his tongue that was starting to get to her.
She only hoped that later down the road liking Ty didn’t come back to haunt her.
CHAPTER FIVE
ELEANOR HAD SEEN Ty several times around the hospital, had even grabbed a few quick cups of coffee with him in the cafeteria and twice they’d shared lunch.
She’d heard the rumors that were flying around, had fiercely denied them, but everyone knew Ty’s reputation.
“Just be careful, Eleanor,” Linda Busby, a registered nurse in her early sixties who worked in the NICU, warned. “Dr. Donaldson is wonderful. I swear every woman he’s gone out with still sings his praises, so I know he’s a great guy. However, you don’t play the dating games most men and women do, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“We’re just friends.” They were. Not once had Ty attempted to kiss her or hold her hand other than the brief moment at the restaurant. Actually, on the night of the ribbon-cutting he’d touched her more than he had all the other times they’d seen each other since then combined.
“Watch him,” Linda warned, her hands on her hips. “He isn’t known for being just friends with pretty young girls.”
Seeing Ty behind the nurse and knowing her friend was unaware of their eavesdropper, who was nodding his head in agreement with everything Linda said, Eleanor bit back a smile.