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.
“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 yet?”
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,