“Yes. She called earlier and said that she contacted Elite Security and requested that you be placed on my security detail.” Ginny had no idea why she felt so nervous having this conversation. “I’m so sorry that she did that. She remembered me talking about you and—”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Dax spoke over Ginny’s explanation. “Wait. You talked about me? What did you say?”
His grin was back and so were her butterflies. She was beginning to wonder if the potency of his bad boy smile would ever wear off or if it would just increase in intensity. She could feel her cheeks heating. “I just said that we had a nice talk and you seemed like a good guy.”
“That’s it?” His brows rose.
“Yep, that’s it.” That was the gist of it anyway. She didn’t remember verbatim but she knew she’d kept all the details about his appearance or how he made her feel to herself. Her mom had a tendency to overreact to things so she kept a lot of things close to the vest. Including where she was staying. “Does Seth know that I’m staying here? With you?”
Dax nodded. “I told him that you were, but assured him that there was no conflict of interest.”
“Conflict of interest?” Ginny had no idea what the conflict could be.
“I told him that nothing personal was going on between us.”
Ginny’s heart sank. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, good.” And just like that her tight-rope walk ended. She fell face first into the net of embarrassment over the fact that she’d thought there was something personal going on between them. But at least finding out now saved her from that hard crash of humiliation.
“So should I let Seth know you are on board?”
The last thing she wanted was to impose on him at his house and his job. “No. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to have security while I’m here.”
“So there hasn’t been an excess of attention and paparazzi presence recently? People haven’t been following you. Hiding in bushes. Pretending to be patrons of establishments you are known to frequent?”
“Well, yeah. But that was in Nashville.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you told me that one of the reasons you loved Nashville is that no one cared who you were. That it was a town you felt safe in and never had to worry about being harassed.”
“You remember that?” They’d talked about so much the night they’d spent together that she couldn’t imagine he remembered all of it.
“Yeah, I remember that.” There was an almost pained quality to his voice.
“Usually Nashville is like that, but right now people are trying to get the inside story on my relationship with Derek so things are a little crazy.”
“Then there’s a better than not chance that they’ll follow you up here. To Harper’s Crossing? Right?”
She knew what he was getting at. “I guess. I mean I hope they don’t, but they could.”
“If that’s the case, don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry? And you said your mom worries. Won’t this put her mind at ease?”
He was saying the same thing that her mom had said and she knew they were both right. “Yes.”
“So you’ll cooperate?”
“Yes.”
A small flash of relief crossed his face before he picked up his phone and typed something. A responding chime sounded moments later. “Seth wants to know if you would like to come in for a strategy meeting.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s not mandatory. If you’d rather I can go through the rundown with you.”
“That sounds better.”
He smiled then lowered his head and typed back her response before setting his phone on the table. They sat and ate dinner while talking about their holidays and their lives for the last few months. It was odd to Ginny how fast they slid into the easy rhythm they shared. She wondered if it would continue and she also wondered how she was going to spend a month here and not fall even more in crush with Dax.