Page 58 of Prime Time

“On your left you see the amphitheater where—”

“Hi,” Lyon said softly. Only the people sitting close to him were distracted from the tour guide’s monologue. “Hi,” he repeated, when Andy kept her head resolutely turned away from him.

Finally she looked around. He was sitting across the narrow aisle, wedged between three ladies from the senior citizens group and a pair of airmen from the Air Force base. “Hello,” she said frostily and turned back around.

“The trees are said to be older than the Alamo—”

“Excuse me, but are you with anyone?” Her mouth was hanging slack with incredulity as she looked back at him. He turned to the blue-haired ladies, who were eyeing him warily. He dismissed that possibility. “Do you know this lady?” he asked of the little girl. She shook her head, and her mother put her arm protectively around her shoulders. Looking at the two airmen, who were staring at him with admiration, he asked, “Is she with either of you?”

“No, sir,” they chorused.

“Good,” he said, grinning at them. “I wouldn’t want to horn in on anybody else’s territory.”

Andy looked around her in dismay to see that several more people had turned their attention from the scenic panorama along the river to watch the entertaining show Lyon was putting on. She glared at him. He

seemed undaunted.

“She’s a great looking chick, isn’t she?” he asked of the airmen.

They looked at Andy, then back to Lyon, nodding their heads.

“You are insane,” she said under her breath. The three blue-haired ladies were staring first at Lyon and then at her, censure and righteous indignation thinning their lips into pursed disapproval.

“What’s a woman with a figure like that doing all alone?” Lyon asked the airmen. “Don’t you think she has a terrific figure?”

The airmen assessed her with lustful eyes. Self-consciously she crossed her arms. “I noticed it right off,” one of them said to Lyon. His raven-black brow crooked in what could be the beginning of a scowl, but he caught it just in time.

He turned back to Andy. “So did I.” Now he was speaking only to her, a new confidentiality in his voice. His gray eyes toured her face. “I think she’s beautiful, but I don’t think she knows how I feel about her.”

“Boo-ful lady,” the little girl chirped and patted Andy’s knee with a sticky hand.

“Will you spend the night with me, beautiful lady?” Lyon asked softly, looking straight into her wide, golden, mystified eyes.

“Harry …?” the mother said worriedly.

“Ignore him,” the father said.

“Right on,” the first airman said.

“Way to go, buddy,” said the second.

The three elderly ladies were rendered speechless.

The tour guide had given up trying to interest his passengers in the sites of San Antonio while there was such drama aboard. All heads were turned to the front of the barge.

Andy stood up in the narrow aisle in a futile attempt to escape. Lyon stood up with her. Mere inches separated them. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded in a loud whisper.

“I want you in my life, Andy. If it means buying a television station or setting one up on the ranch, or whatever it takes to get you to stay with me, I’ll do it.”

“Why? Why, now, do you want me to stay?”

“Because I love you.”

“You said that last night, but this morning you were ready to murder me when you thought I’d tell someone about your father.”

“Harry …?” the mother said again with rising panic.

“Look at the duckies,” the father said to his daughter, who was intrigued by this scene, which was better than anything she’d seen on television.

---