To Trust Her Heart Read Free Page B

degree while he was still in, and advanced through the ranks in record time due to his exceptional reconnaissance abilities and deadly accuracy.
    When he’d decided he wanted out, the powers that be were extremely reluctant to let him go, but he’d served his hitch and nothing they could offer was enough to entice him back. He’d met Maddie by this point and although they weren’t involved, he’d had a feeling they were going to be. Eventually, they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse that didn’t involve being a military officer any longer. Instead, he became a Black Ops agent and was given an inordinate amount of autonomy in choosing both his assignments and the cohorts that would accompany him on the missions.
    He and Maddie had met through the closest thing to a friend a man like him had, another agent, Rafe Estevez; One of the few men he would trust with his life and an asset on any operation. Rafe’s wife was having a dinner party one of the rare times they were both in the same area at the same time when they weren’t under enemy fire, and although he knew that he was going to regret it the moment he agreed to go, Ty was feeling a little antsy and wanted to get out.
    He ended up doing what he usually did at social occasions – standing in a strategically advantageous point not too far from the door, by himself, and watching everyone else have fun. He wasn’t a chummy type of person; not an easy type to be around. He’d seen and done too much to be easy going. But Rafe’s wife Carolyn was trying her best at matchmaking for him. She thought he was too much of a loner and that he needed a woman.
    Ty might have laughed when he heard her disturbingly accurate assessment of his love life, but, of course, he didn’t. He would have loved to have a real relationship, but neither his personality nor his job lent well to being a family man. He’d gotten out of the military with a thought towards wanting to settle down, but honestly hadn’t considered that a woman might be a part of that scenario. Most of them spent so much time back-pedaling away from him that he never got the chance to really know them. Rafe had done it, and the couple was obviously very happy, but then he was a fairly jovial sort, damned good at his job, but not at all somber about it like Ty.
    His wary eyes had already settled on a woman who was the life of the party, one Madison Victoria Evers. She was surrounded by people and was always laughing about something, most often herself, it seemed, and she invited everyone else to laugh with her. He didn’t think he could remember seeing her without a smile on her face. Apparently, he was the only one in the room that didn’t know her, all of the other guests milled and talked around her much more so than their hostess.
    But what had impressed him the most about her was the fact that she didn’t appear to be afraid of him in the least. In fact, she’d touched him voluntarily, casually, not like she was on the make while trying to talk to him about what he did. No woman of casual acquaintance had ever done that. She was either being deliberately obtuse or she really didn’t feel any particular danger from him, which was unusual enough to intrigue him.
    His experience with the opposite sex was spotty at best because of the vibes he threw off. Some women were attracted to men who exuded danger but even they steered clear of Ty. He’d never seen that predictable wariness in Maddie’s eyes. He’d never seen her starting to inch away from him slowly, like a rabbit caught in the sights of a half-starved wolf, except this morning in the bathroom, and that didn’t count. She wasn’t afraid of him. Rather, she was just trying to circumvent him.
    He didn’t want to be intrigued by Maddie Evers. She was the keeper type, the two point five kids, three dogs and a cat type. Exactly what he didn’t want or need. Well, need anyway, he’d thought, wishing he could reach down and adjust his