Page 13 of Prime Time

“He was a journalist. He was quite popular in the area. His column was syndicated in several newspapers.”

“So your interest in journalism began at an early age.”

Was that his first attempt to get a rise out of her? “Yes, I guess so,” she answered smoothly.

The gentle roar of the river caught her attention, and she realized that they had arrived at the grassy banks that sloped downward. She peered into the swirling clear waters that churned over limestone boulders in the riverbed. “Oh, Lyon, it’s lovely,” she cried excitedly.

“You like it?”

“It’s wonderful! The water looks so clear.”

“In the daytime you can see that it is. It washes over and filters through miles

of limestone. This is some of the purest water in the state.”

“And the trees. They’re beautiful,” she said, tilting her head back to look through the delicate branches of the cypress at a starry sky. “You love it, don’t you? This land.”

“Yes. I suppose some would have thought that I’d go in for a military career like my father. But he had retired from the Army before I was old enough to realize he was ever anything but a rancher. We’ve lived here all my life. I did my stint in Nam, but went into the Army hoping no one would connect me with my famous father. Soldiering wasn’t for me.”

“You ranch.”

“I ranch. I also own some commercial real estate. But this is what I love,” he said, sweeping his arms wide to encompass the landscape.

“It’s a shame there’s only the two of you to share it.” She made the comment without thinking and regretted it the moment she said it. It was too much to ask that he would overlook it.

“If you wanted to ask why I’ve never married, why didn’t you just come right out with it, Ms. Malone? I’d never expect you to mince words.”

“I didn’t—”

“For your information,” he said tightly, “I was married. The debacle lasted four miserable years. When she got bored with the ranch, the house, my father, and me, she left, bag and baggage. I never saw her again. She got a divorce through Uncle Sam’s postal service and Alexander Graham Bell’s marvelous invention.”

“And now you take out your hatred for her on the rest of the female population.” She had been leaning against the trunk of the cypress. Now she pushed herself angrily erect.

“No. You have to have some feelings for someone before you can hate him. Whatever feelings I had for her died the moment she left. Let’s just say that I distrust the female of the species.”

“Then you’ll go down as a confirmed old bachelor?”

“Most definitely.”

“Surely the ladies in Kerrville aren’t going to stand for that,” she said provocatively, remembering the motel clerk’s interest when Lyon had picked her up. “Don’t they hound you to find yourself a suitable mate?”

“Yes. Every mother with a deb has thrown her daughter at me. I’ve been hopefully introduced to every divorcee in town. It was even conveniently arranged that I share a table at a dinner party with a young widow whose husband had been dead less than a month.”

“So you spurn all women.”

He came up from his slouching position against a boulder and took a few steps forward until only a hairsbreadth separated them. “No, I don’t spurn women. I just said that I don’t marry them. I’m plagued—or maybe blessed is a better word—with the same carnal drives as any man over the age of fifteen.”

His words had now taken on a different tone: Gone were the clipped, laconic phrases of a man who had endured the whims of a frivolous woman. In their place were the low-timbred vibrations of a man aroused.

Andy wet her dry, trembling lips and pivoted away from him to look down into the river. “I … I think this will be a good location to shoot the outdoor scenes. Of course, the noise of the water has to be dealt with, but—” Her chattering broke off abruptly when she felt his hands on her shoulders. Large hands. Hard. Strong. Tender. Hot. He turned her around.

“You’ve been dying of curiosity, haven’t you?” His breath was a warm vapor coasting over her face.

“Curiosity?” she squeaked and hated herself for the immature sound. “About what?”

“About me.”

“What about you?”

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