Page 21 of Prime Time

“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding,” he said steadily. How could he be so calm when her entire body was trembling? “I want to make love to you. Slow and leisurely and fast and wildly, in every way conceivable and in some ways inconceivable.”

No man had ever had the temerity to talk to her this audaciously, except maybe for Les. But he was always teasing, and Lyon was deadly serious. Embarrassment fired her to respond. “How do you see me? As a trophy for your mantel? A challenge for you to conquer? Guess again, Lyon. I’m not nor ever will be that easily had.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that it would be a conquest. I wouldn’t want you if you were easily had. I only thought it fair to tell you exactly how I feel. When we do make love, it will be because we both want to, and it will be a mutually satisfying experience.”

All the previous encounters of her adult life hadn’t prepared her to handle this. She didn’t know what to make of this man, her feelings for him, and the things he was saying to her now. Was he only trying to put her off her guard so he could undermine her project? Was that what all this passion was about?

No, he couldn’t have pretended that kiss. If he had, he had missed his calling as the world’s greatest actor. If he were planning on using sex to stop her from doing the interviews, she’d better set him straight now.

“I’ll do my job, Lyon, whatever happens between us. You … this has no bearing on why I’m here. I’ll never let anything or anyone interfere with my objectivity. I certainly didn’t anticipate getting involved with you on any level.”

“I didn’t exactly foresee my attraction to you either. And I’m still dead set against these interviews.”

“You have nothing to fear from me.”

“You’ll have everything to fear from me if I find out your motives are less than sterling.”

On that portentous note he glanced over his shoulder to see that the rain had subsided to a fine drizzle. “We’d better get back. Dad and Gracie will be worried.”

Rather than being worried, the two were delighted to see Andy and Lyon stamp through the kitchen door wet to the skin and laughing over the way her feet were slip-sliding in her sandals.

“Since neither of you showed up for lunch, the general ate his here in the kitchen.” Gracie mentioned this to explain why Michael Ratliff’s wheelchair was occupying one end of the butcher-block table.

“This soup is delicious,” he said. “Why don’t you two go dry out and then come eat some.”

That’s what they did, meeting each other at the top of the stairs after they had changed. Andy noted which room was Lyon’s and was seized by a feminine curiosity to know what lay behind the door.

“You look like a teenybopper,” he said, playfully pulling her wet ponytail. “Well parts of you, anyway.” His eyes spoke for him as they dropped to her breasts. “Just for the record, I liked the other top better.” She had put on a crisp cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves and epaulets on the shoulders.

“Lecherous, sexist chauvinists like you would.”

His grin was satanic and far too appealing. “Precisely.”

His good mood prevailed through the meal they ate in the kitchen, with Gracie and the general for company. When he was finished, Lyon went out, saying that rain didn’t stop the work to be done around the ranch. He shrugged on a plastic poncho that was hanging on a hook by the back door and crammed another straw cowboy hat onto his head.

“I’ll see everyone at dinner,” he said to no one in particular, but he was looking at Andy. Then he winked at her and went out. She made a big production of daintily blotting her mout

h with her napkin, but knew that both the general and Gracie had seen Lyon’s gesture.

“I’m going to take a short nap, Andy. Then if you want to cover some preliminaries, I’ll be at your disposal until dinner.”

“That will be fine, general.”

“Very good soup, Gracie,” he repeated, wheeling out of the room.

“Poor old dear can hardly eat anything. Sometimes the things I have to cook for him make me sick.”

Without offering to beforehand and without admonitions that she shouldn’t, Andy began helping Gracie clear the table. “He’s very ill, isn’t he?” she asked quietly, referring to the general.

“Yes, he is,” Gracie said bluntly. “I’m trying to prepare myself, but I know I’ll grieve the day he finally departs this earth. He’s a great man, Andy.”

“I can see that having just met him. You’ve worked for him for years.”

“Almost forty. I was just a girl barely clear of twenty when he and Mrs. Ratliff hired me on. She was a real lady. Delicate as a flower and devoted to him and Lyon. The general never took an interest in women after Rosemary died, though I thought Lyon needed a mother. I think the general subconsciously turned that responsibility over to me.”

“Lyon told me that you had taken care of him in place of his mother.”

Gracie momentarily stopped sponging off the counter top. “He said that? Then I guess I was successful in mothering him. I worry about that boy. He’s got a bitterness eating at him that frightens me.”

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