Page 41 of Prime Time

Had she told him she loved him? During all those passionate hours of the night before had she spoken of love? Maybe if she had told him what was in her heart, he wouldn’t be looking at her with such hatred now.

He jerked his head in Les’s direction. “Get him to lay off Dad. Understand, Ms. Malone?” he sneered. Then he was backing away and Les was saying how much better the set looked with the uniform establishing the mood, and somehow she got through the interview.

As soon as it was done, she went up to her room to change back into the sundress. The linen suit she had worn for the interview had started to feel cloying and restricting. Yet after changing, she realized that the tightening pressure was on the inside, not out. She felt that all her organs were clamped between the jaws of a great beast and that the life was slowly being squeezed out of them.

She stood at the window and gazed out at the beautiful landscape. She didn’t feel any kinship with the woman who had come to this house a few days earlier and stood at this window for the first time. She no longer existed.

In her place was Andy Malone, a woman who had been born only a few hours ago. She didn’t want her old life back. A life of loneliness, empty motel rooms, solitary meals. Her dream of being in the limelight of network programming paled against the glowing warmth of Lyon’s love. Ambition seemed no longer an asset, but a burden she longed to cast aside.

“Penny for them.” Les came into the room unannounced, crossed to the window, took her hand, and led her to the bed. She sat down on the edge of it and listlessly let him massage her neck with his large hands. “Worth more than a penny?”

“Much more.”

“Must be good.”

“No, not so good.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“Maybe sometime. Not now.”

“It breaks my heart, you know.”

She turned her head and looked up at him, not able to picture Les with a broken heart over anything. “What breaks your heart?”

“That you don’t confide in me anymore. Hell, Andy, I thought we were a team. After all we’ve been through together. Robert’s death. Everything.” He was rubbing her neck hypnotically, and she dropped her chin against her chest and closed her eyes. “Is it Robert? Do you still miss him?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that, Les.” She asked something she’d never been able to bring herself to ask before. “Did you know he ran around on me?”

For a long minute the hands around her neck were still, then began their stroking again. “Yeah. I didn’t know you knew. That was the only thing Robert and I ever fought about. I raised hell with him when I found out about it.”

“You shouldn’t have blamed him. It wasn’t all his fault. It”—she swallowed—“it never was very good.”

“Maybe he was the wrong guy.” The hands were still once again.

She lifted her head and looked up at him. His blue eyes asked the pertinent question, and she shook her head.

“No, Les.”

He shrugged and continued tracking his thumbs down the vertebrae at the base of her neck. “It was worth a try. I’ve always had a lech for you, you know. But you may look ugly as sin in bed.”

She laughed. “Thanks, friend.”

“’Course you wouldn’t be disappointed. Not if we started with a Jell-O bath.”

She chuckled again, glad that things were on a more even footing. This was familiar, this bantering. She could handle this now and deal with the heartache and splendor.

Lyon later. “A Jell-O bath?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never had one!” His hands closed on her shoulders, and he leaned down to tickle her neck with his nose. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I thought you probably would,” she said drily.

“Everybody gets naked, see? Then you fill up the bathtub with gallons of squishy Jell-O.” She was laughing in earnest now, both at his words and his gnawing lips on her neck. “I like green personally, because with red hair it’s my best color, but some prefer—”

His words broke off abruptly, and his hands tensed. Andy’s laughter died away, and she opened her eyes to look up at him. She followed the direction of his stare toward the doorway, where Lyon towered like a menacing giant.

Every muscle of his body was tensed, and he was rocking back and forth slightly, like an animal tethered on a chain that might give way any moment. His hands, bracing him between the jamb, looked as though they were ready to tear the wood away from the walls.

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