Page 26 of Prime Time

“Yes,” she said, glad that her back was to him. Every once in a while she’d feel the heat of his body as he walked close behind her. “You could have said that we were sleeping.”

“Yes, but something so mundane wouldn’t have gotten their attention nearly as well. They were stupefied at the sight of you anyway.”

“Their stupefaction was due to your light and the gun.”

“Actually it’s a pistol,” he corrected. “Maybe at first they were concentrating only on that, but I saw their roving eyes. If I hadn’t said you were my wife and if I hadn’t intimated that we were very happily married, they might have been tempted to overpower me and take you.”

“Don’t forget the girls they had with them.”

“Who looked like three drowned rats. No, I think they would have preferred you.” They were at the back door now, and he was depositing the confiscated beer on one of the patio tables. “You look good, you know, tousled from bed and virtually naked.”

She slipped past him through the door as he stepped aside. “Thank you,” she mumbled. Thank you? What was she doing saying thank you when she should have slapped his face?

“For an instant,” he said on a whisper, “after you woke me up, I thought that maybe you had come to my room for another reason.”

She stumbled on the first few stairs and her gracelessness had nothing to do with the floor-length hem of her nightgown. Not deigning to recognize the suggestiveness of what he’d said, she asked, “How long had you been asleep? What time did you get home?”

“About eleven thirty. Some of us went out for a drink after the meeting.”

Some? Who? Women? He must surely never be long without a woman. “I read for a while, boning up for tomorrow. Then about eleven I went to sleep. I didn’t hear you when you came in.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “How did you hear our night prowlers?”

They were at her door now. She leaned against the jamb. “I don’t know. I just woke up suddenly, knowing instinctively that something wasn’t right.”

“You weren’t really frightened, were you?”

“Not until you started packing heat! I wasn’t frightened until you got that gun.”

“Pistol.”

“Pistol. And did they think we wouldn’t hear those girls giggling?”

Lyon’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “We scared the hell out of them.”

“Does that happen often? People rafting on the river, I mean.”

He took the pistol out of his waistband and set it with the flashlight on a credenza in the hall. He propped one shoulder against the wall.

“Frequently during the spring and summer. There are rapids all along the Guadalupe. People rent rafts, usually for the day. Most of the trips only take several hours. But some require spending the night on the river. Of course, the rafters have to camp on public grounds and not private property. We get waved at occasionally as they drift by. That’s all. The Guadalupe only makes one loop through a corner of our property.”

She loved listening to the lulling sound of his voice. It occurred to her that for an hour they had forgotten their antipathy. They had laughed, shared a memorable experience, and the hostility between them had given way to companionship. She grieved for what could have been had they met under different circumstances. He wouldn’t have been suspicious of her motives. She wouldn’t have looked upon him as an obstacle, an enemy, but only as a man.

The sky was turning gray with the encroaching dawn, and the darkness of the hallway had been gradually dispelled enough for her to see his features clearly. Relaxed now, his mouth lacked the hardness that often drew it taut. The laugh lines around his eyes were more evident when he smiled. White against the dark tan of his face, they etched a fine network she’d love to track with her finger. The muscles in his arms bulged as he crossed them over his chest, the broad chest that was so alluringly furred with dark hair.

“Will you go back to sleep?” he asked softly.

Was he looking at her mouth? “No. Probably not. I’d only get a headache if I dozed off and then had to wake up shortly. You?”

He dragged his unwilling eyes upward until they met hers. “Uh, no. I usually get up around dawn anyway.”

She nodded, looked down the length of the hallway, at the floor, at her bare feet positioned so close to his. She had been with him for over an hour wearing nothing more than a wisp of a nightgown and a scanty pair of underwear. Only now, in the quiet of the predawn house, was she self-conscious about her flimsy attire. “Well, thanks for the adventure,” she said lightly, though her throat felt heavy. Her whole body felt heavy, laden with need.

“My pleasure. I’ll see you later.”

“Yes.”

There was nothing else to say except maybe “Why don’t you come in?” or “We could continue this discussion in my room,” or “I ache for you. Please kiss me.” But she could say none of those things. Rather than say anything else that would be superfluous, she went through the oak door and softly closed it behind her.

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