Page 25 of Prime Time

“Well?” Lyon said, impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other and hefting the gun in his hand. “You pulled in.”

The culprit swallowed visibly. “We … uh, got to drinking beer and uh … sort of overturned the raft when we were coming through those rapids a few yards upstream. We just pulled in here to wring everything out and regroup. So to speak.”

Another muffled giggle from the raft caused him to glance furtively over his shoulder. He faced Lyon again with trepidation. “We’re awfully sorry, sir. We didn’t mean to do anything. Swear to God we didn’t.”

Lyon, seemingly with some reluctance, put the gun back in his waistband and the young man’s shoulders slumped in relief, as did those of his friends. Placing an arm around her shoulders, Lyon pulled Andy around him to his side.

“You nearly frightened my wife to death. We had just been making love when she went to the window and saw your flashlights down here. She thought it was her exhusband coming for his revenge. He’s in an institution for the criminally insane and prone to acts of violence.”

Andy stared at him with mute dismay, but she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. For the reference to their making love, which had caused six eighteen-year-old eyes to turn to her with lascivious interest, she ground her heel over Lyon’s big toe. Other than a tensing of the muscles in his jaw, he showed no reaction.

“We’re sure sorry we disturbed you while … I mean, we didn’t mean to interrupt your … we’re sorry we bothered you,” the spokesman for the dripping group finally managed to get out.

“Andy, go check to see if those silly girls hiding in the raft are unharmed and not being held there against their will.”

“No, sir, they’re not. They’re just scared.”

Sparing her bare feet from the bruising rocks and twigs, Andy tiptoed over to the raft and peered inside. Three girls were huddled together. Their hair and clothes were soaked. They looked at her with chagrin as they began to unfold and step out of the rubber raft. After a cursory glance it looked to Andy as though the only provisions brought along for the trip were six-packs of beer. “Are you all right?” she asked the disheveled trio.

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison, and Andy marveled at the sudden show of manners. They probably hadn’t said “ma’am” since the first Gracie.

“Is there any more beer in there, Andy?” Lyon asked.

“Yes.”

He came over and picked up two of the six-packs and handed one to her. She held it with one hand while trying to hold her nightgown closer to her body with the other. In the moonlight she knew her figure was clearly outlined through the sheer fabric.

“It’ll be dawn in about an hour,” Lyon was saying. “If I see you after that, I’ll come back. If I see one scrap of paper, one cigarette butt, any litter you might have left behind, I’ll call the sheriff and have you arrested on sight for trespassing. Is that understood?”

Andy would have answered in the affirmative to any order given in that tone of voice. He had inherited his ability to inspire obedience from his father.

“Yes, sir.” Lyon waited until all six had responded.

“All right, then. And from now on, to save yourself possible injury, I’d suggest you wait until you put in for the night before you break out the beer. This river can be dangerous and it’s totally irresponsible to drink while you’re trying to navigate it.”

“Yes, sir.” Another meek chorus.

“Come on, Andy, we can go back to bed now.”

She shot him a murderous look before she preceded him up the path to the house. The voices behind them were subdued as the group began gathering the things they had dragged out of the raft. If the dousing in the river hadn’t them up, Lyon certainly had.

“I’m going to kill you,” she said ove

r her shoulder as she huffed up the gentle incline.

“Why?” he asked innocently.

“Wife? With an insane ex-husband no less. Where did you come up with that?”

“Would you rather I’d said, ‘This is my houseguest, Ms. Malone’? What conclusions do you think they’d have drawn if I’d introduced you like that? Especially with you traipsing around with me in the great outdoors half-naked in the middle of the night?”

“I was traipsing around in the middle of the night because I thought all of us might be in danger. And I’m not half-naked.”

“Virtually naked.”

“That’s better.” They laughed softly. “But you didn’t have to tell them that we’d been … uh …”

“Making love?”

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