family. His Special Forces brother.
“Zane’s out with his unit,” Sage informed him.
Which meant no one knew where he was or when he would return.
“In the meantime, we need you to put this on.” Hope handed him a garment bag. Inside was a suit and tie, reminiscent of his prep school days.
Thanking heaven they hadn’t expected him to wear his army uniform for this sideshow, Garrett rezipped the bag.
“And please...” She took him aside, a delicate hand curving around his arm, and looked him in the eye. “This time, when we assemble before the press, stick to the plan. Say nothing. Just stand in the background, along with the rest of your siblings, and look extremely supportive of your mother.”
That, Garrett figured, he could do. At least for now.
When he emerged from the men’s room, still tying his tie, there was a team there, doing hair and makeup.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growled when they tried to put powder on him. His brothers were equally resistant.
Hope stood nearby, her baby in her arms, sizing him up.
He wondered if she was that observant when she made love. And why the notion that she might be was so sexy.
But there was no more time to think about it, because Hope was giving his mother one last pep talk, and then it was show time. After handing her baby off to Sharla, his mother’s executive assistant, Hope and the family took the elevator down to another floor and filed into the meeting room reserved for the occasion, where two dozen members of the press were already assembled.
His mother stepped up to the microphone. “Thank you all for coming. Like you, we have been shocked and alarmed to hear allegations that not all of the funds from the Lockhart Foundation have been sent as promised to the local organizations we assist. We haven’t yet been able to verify what has actually happened but we are looking into the matter.”
“You seem skeptical that any payments were missed,” a reporter looking for a more salacious story observed.
From the front row, where she was seated, Garrett could see Hope shaking her head, wordlessly warning his mother not to answer.
But Lucille could not remain silent when her integrity was in question. “I admit I don’t see how it could have happened, when I signed all those checks myself.”
At that, it was all Garrett could do not to groan. His mother had just announced she was personally liable for whatever had happened.
“And yet there are now—at last count,” the chief investigative reporter from the Dallas Sun News said, “sixteen charities claiming they’ve been shorted. It’s pretty suspicious that all those groups would be claiming the same thing, don’t you think?”
Sixteen, Garrett thought, stunned. Just a few hours ago, when Hope had shown him the talking points on her tablet, it had been three.
Hope got up gracefully to her feet and moved across the row to the aisle.
“Why isn’t the Lockhart Foundation’s chief financial officer, Paul Smythe, answering any of our questions?” another correspondent asked.
“He’s out of town on a personal matter,” Lucille said calmly. “When he returns, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“And if you don’t?” another journalist pressed, as Hope glided onto the stage. “Are you prepared to fire Mr. Smythe and/or anyone else involved in what increasingly looks like a severe misappropriation—if not downright embezzlement—of funds?”
His mom faltered.
Hope took the microphone. “Now, Tom, you know as well as I do that’s premature, given that nothing has been confirmed yet...”
With grudging admiration, Garrett watched Hope field a few more questions and then pleasantly end the conference with the promise of another update just as soon as they had information to share.
“So what’s next?” he asked when the family had reassembled in the foundation quarters.
Hope lifted Max into her arms, cuddling him close, then looked at Lucille. “We move on to Step 2 of our scandal-management plan.”
* * *
“DID YOU VOLUNTEER to drive us out to Laramie County? Or were you drafted?” Hope demanded two hours later, when Garrett Lockhart landed on the doorstep of her comfortable suburban Dallas home.
She already knew he wasn’t gung ho about the plan to have his mother stay at the Circle H, the family’s ranch in rural west Texas, to get her out of the limelight until they could figure out what was going on with the foundation.
Garrett shrugged. Clad in a blue shirt, jeans and boots, with the hint of an evening beard rimming his jaw, he looked sexy and totally at ease. “Does it matter?”
Yes, oddly enough, it did matter whether he was helping because he wanted to or because he had been forced to do so. “Just curious.”
He flashed a half smile. “Combination of the two.”
It was like pulling mud out of a pit. “Care to explain?” Hope directed him and his duffel bag to the driveway, where a ton of gear sat, ready to be loaded into the back of her sporty red SUV.
He fit his bag into the left side, where she pointed. “Given how we feel about each other, a three-plus hour journey locked in the same vehicle is bound to be a little awkward.”
No kidding. Hope set a pack-n-play on top of his bag. “Then why bother?”
He lifted her suitcase and set it next to his. “I don’t have a vehicle of my own to drive right now, and I won’t until I get to Laramie County and can borrow a pickup from one of my brothers. Going with you will save me the hassle of renting a car here.”
“You could have ridden with your mother and her chauffeur.”
Arms folded in front of him, he lounged to one side. “Not going to happen.”
She slid him a glance, wishing he didn’t look so big and strong and immovable. “Why not?”
His gaze roved her knee-length khaki shorts and red notch-collared blouse before returning to her face. “Because I don’t want to spend the entire journey dodging questions I don’t want to answer.”
His lazy quip brought heat to her cheeks. “Hint, hint?”
“If the shoe fits...”
Boy, he was maddening.
Worse, she didn’t know why she was letting him get under her skin. She dealt with difficult people all the time.
Maybe they weren’t six feet five inches tall and handsome as all get-out, and military-grade sexy, but...still...
Aware he was watching her, gauging her reactions as carefully as she was checking out his, she lifted her chin. “What were the other reasons?”
