Page 9 of Prime Time

“Yes,” she said coldly, not wanting him to know that her heart was still beating so rapidly that her chest hurt.

“Then I’ll load all this while you take care of that. I’ll meet you at the office.”

That was too convenient to argue with. “All right.” She left the room and wended her way along the outdoor corridor until she reached the office. It took an interminable amount of time for the gum-popping clerk to sort out the paperwork, which, was aggravatingly complex for three nights’ stay in a motel. As the clerk was running Andy’s credit card through the machine she happened to see the El Dorado idling just beyond the door.

She eyed Andy speculatively. “That’s Lyon Ratliff.”

“Yes, it is,” Andy said, staring at her in a way that dared her to ask any questions or make any comments.

“Hmmm” was all she said.

Andy left the office and slid into the passenger seat of the car. She liked the smell of the leather upholstery. She liked the way Lyon smelled, too. Even when he had come into the house from planting shrubbery, he had smelled of clean, musky male.

He had closed the window and turned on the air conditioner. Its hum was the only sound in the car until they reached the highway. Then he turned to her and asked, “What does Mr. Malone do while you’re chasing all over the country invading other people’s privacy?”

Stung by his insulting tone, she lashed out at him. “My husband is dead.”

His face registered no emotion, but his eyes jerked back to the road. She looked away, too, wishing his profile weren’t quite so appealing.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, quietly. “How did he die?”

His apology amazed her. His rapid changes of mood confused her. “He was killed while on assignment in Guatemala. The earthquake.”

“How long ago?”

“Three years.”

“He was a reporter?”

“Yes.”

“Newspaper?”

“Television.”

“He traveled a lot?”

“All the time. He was a stringer for one of the networks.”

“Were you happy?”

Why the personal question? she wondered. The others he had asked had been those of a polite stranger trying to get acquainted. Her instinct was to tell him that her marital history was none of his business, but caution warned her not to. She would be asking his father questions. If she cooperated with Lyon’s interrogation, maybe he would stop trying to sabotage the interviews with the general.

In addition to that she was weary of this game of one-upmanship, especially since she felt that in the long run he would win it. Could they call a truce?

“Yes, we were happy,” she heard herself say.

He looked at her for a long time until she was tempted to take the wheel. He was still driving exceedingly fast. Finally he dragged his eyes back to the windshield.

Andy shifted in the glove-soft seat. There was a tension between them, an awareness, that made her throat ache. A compulsion to touch him overwhelmed her. She longed to know the texture of his thick, dark hair. The cloth of his shirt strained invitingly over the muscles defined beneath it. She wanted to squeeze the muscle of his thigh just to see if it were as hard as it looked under the denim of his jeans.

“How long have you done this type of work?”

His question pulled her back into a safer realm of thought. The air conditioner was doing little to cool the blood that raced through her veins. She cleared her throat. “Since I graduated from college. I started out writing copy for commercials at a local television station, graduated to the news department, then eventually became an anchor-person.”

“But now you’re more into the investigative side of things.”

“Yes,” she said hesitantly, justifiably wary of where this conversation might lead.

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