Page 45 of Prime Time

He took a few steps toward her until they were only inches apart. Taking one of her wrists in each of his hands, he pulled her around until her back was to the door. He pinned her hands on either side of her face at shoulder level.

“It looks like you’re well on your way to a big network job, Ms. Malone. It’s a shame you don’t have that earthshaking story you hoped for. I hate for you to have gone to all the trouble you did and go away empty-handed. Here’s something to take with you.”

She expected his mouth to be hard and abusive, but it was soft and persuasive. He was using the oldest tactic in the strategist’s manual: Placate the enemy, give him misplaced confidence, treat him kindly, and then go in for the kill. Even though she knew what he was up to, she was powerless to defend herself.

Her mouth opened against his like a flower, and he wasted not a motion in taking all of it. He sipped her slowly. His fingers around her wrists relaxed, and his open palms slid over hers. Fingers intertwined and locked.

His tongue delved between pliable, yielding lips. His hips ground against hers as he pressed her into the door. He found a satisfying position and drummed against her with his hips even as his tongue pumped into her mouth.

It was meant to be a debasing and insulting embrace, but somewhere in time it changed character. He was no longer moving against her with contempt, but angling against her with need. The stroking of his body along hers quit its quick, brutal quality and became sustained and sensual. He whispered her name, and it was as if the word had been ripped from his throat.

She whirled in a vortex of emotions, hating him for reducing her to the mindless creature she became at his touch, yet wanting him, craving him, loving him. He absorbed her. All she knew or cared about was Lyon. Lyon Lyon. Lyon.

Just as suddenly as he had seized her, he released her, throwing her from him as if she were something revolting. His breathing was like that of a man who had run a long way. “Now, go tell Les all the details of that. I’m sure he’s waiting for a full report.”

Mortification and agonizing pain boiled to the surface as consummate rage. “You—” She sucked in air. “You sanctimonious, stubborn fool. You think—”

“Lyon! Lyon!”

They heard the panic in Gracie’s voice and rushed out onto the landing to see her puffing up the stairs. “Lyon, Dr. Baker says to come quick. Your father …”

Chapter Nine

The wind tore at her hair and dried the tears as soon as they fell from her eyes. She was driving with the window down, praying that nature would find a way of anesthetizing her heartache.

With only a few snatches of clear memory Andy pieced together the confusion and despair of the last hour.

She and Lyon had raced down the stairs. He had gone into his father’s bedroom while she comforted a weeping Gracie. The doctor came out of the room, shaking his head sadly in response to their inquiring eyes. After what must have been a half-hour Lyon had come out of the room, dry-eyed but haggard. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t see anything as he conferred quietly with the doctor. Soon after that the ambulance arrived, and Andy watched with horror as the draped body of General Michael Ratliff was loaded into its sterile confines. Lyon followed it in his car down the winding drive.

She had left

Gracie still sad, but setting about to do all the hundreds of things that would have to be done. Lyon would have her support and love. That was good.

Arriving at the motel while the sky was turning a deep indigo, Andy assumed the crew and Les had gone to dinner. She checked into the room they had reserved for her. It was dismally similar to the first one she’d occupied.

She locked her door, took her telephone off the hook, and curled into the bed. For the next eight hours she pretended to sleep.

“General Ratliff, the last surviving five-star general of World War II, had lived in seclusion on his ranch near Kerrville, Texas, since his early retirement in 1946. The general died peacefully at home after a long illness. Private funeral services will be held at the ranch tomorrow.”

Andy watched the anchorman on the morning news show as he dispassionately read the story. She wondered when Lyon had officially notified the news services of his father’s death.

“The President, after hearing of General Ratliff’s death, had this to say.”

Andy listened to the President of the United States as he acclaimed the retired general, but the person he spoke about in terms of heroics and medals had no relevance to the old gentleman she knew. Only yesterday she had talked to him of his son and how she loved him. He had taken her hand and held it firmly, pressing it between his two frail ones, telling her with his eyes that he wholeheartedly endorsed her love for Lyon.

“Let me in.” Andy jumped when Les pounded on the door.

“Just a … minute.”

There was no sense in delaying what was to come. She found her robe at the foot of her bed and pulled it on, wishing it were a suit of armor. She went to the door and opened it.

“When did you find out about it?” he demanded without preamble.

“Last evening.” There was no redemption in lying. “He died just as I was leaving.”

“And you didn’t see fit to tell me?” Les roared.

“What good would it have done?”

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