by Sandra Brown
“You don’t, huh?” He stalked to the window and looked out, surveying the hills that shone in the morning sunlight. “Okay, I’ll play along. Tell me why you came out here yesterday.”
“I wanted to see you.” That was the truth. Les had provided her with an excuse to return to the ranch, but had it not been for the release, she would have contrived another reason to see him one more time.
“You wanted to see me,” he repeated ironically, turning around to bear down on her again. “Touching. No doubt you wanted to comfort me in my bereavement.”
“Yes,” she wailed, hating the scornful tone in his voice.
“No other reason?” he asked silkily.
“Well, yes. I needed to … there was a … this …”
“Tell me, damn you!” he roared.
She flew off the bed, facing him courageously. “I needed to get your signature on a release form so the interviews with your father could be telecast. There! Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“And you found me soppy drunk and distraught and depressed, and I appealed to your maternal instincts and out of the goodness of your heart you decided to stay and nurse me back to being a whole man again.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “One had nothing to do with the other. I forgot about the release. I only wanted to help you.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure you did. And while you were at it, while you were giving me every comfort of your body, with not even the pretense of being demure I might add, you found out what you wanted to know in the first place.”
Her cheeks flushed hotly with his scathing insult and her nails cut into her palms. She dare not lose what control was left her. One of them had to remain sane, for surely Lyon had gone mad. “And what was that, Lyon? What was it that I’d sell my body to get? Tell me.”
“Your goddamn big story,” he said, though his lips barely moved. “I just saw the morning newscast from New York. The announcer is titillating his audience with what’s to come on this evening’s news. A breakthrough in the story of General Michael Ratliff. Interviews never seen before, taped as recently as the day he died. And who’s bringing the world this scintillating account? None other than my bed warmer, and God knows who else’s, Andy Malone.”
Livid with anger, he strode toward her. “And now you’ll really have something to tell them. Dig through the history books today and bone up on the Battle of the Aisne, because you’ll want to know all the facts before you tell what really happened.”
Like a balloon losing air, she slowly sank back onto the bed. She stared into the face looming above her, trying to identify it as the one that had shared her pillow. Was this mouth that spat such ugly accusations the same one that had whispered poetic words as they languished in the aftermath of love?
“I came here to get you to sign the release,” she said without inflection. “Les was negotiating the sale of the tapes with the network. I wanted the country to see those interviews, Lyon. I wanted the people to know your father, whom I loved, the way he was before he died. But that’s all. I never intended to tell anyone what you told me in confidence.”
“Didn’t you? Gracie said that last evening you instructed her to call Les at the motel and leave the message that he would get what he wanted in the morning.”
Words so innocently spoken were now hurled back with the impetus of poison darts. “I was referring to the release. The sale couldn’t be made until I had obtained that. Les was furious when I realized I didn’t have it. He was pressuring me to come out here, but I wouldn’t until after the funeral.”
“Decent of you.”
“You don’t believe me,” she said in an awesomely low voice. Then growing angry that he could suspect her so readily after last night, she began to speak louder. “Can you reasonably think I planned for you to give me the story about your father last night?”
“Considering my mood, I think you saw me as gullible and talkative. You may not have known what I’d say, but you were sure willing to give it one more try. Well, congratulations. You got more than you bargained for. Your interviews will be worth twice as much now. Be a real boost to your career. So get out of my house and run to Les with your story.”
“You bet I’ll get out of your house, but not for the reason you think. I don’t want to spend a moment longer with a man who has no idea of what being a man is about. Your father could have told you. He had compassion, understanding, forgiveness. You once accused me of being a shell of a woman lacking in human emotions. Look at yourself, Lyon.”
He opened his mouth to dispute this, but she rushed on. “You say you resented your father’s self-imposed banishment, couldn’t understand it. But these walls that kept him shut off from the rest of the world are nothing compared to the walls you’ve erected around your heart. Your prison is far more confining than his.
“Here,” she opened her suitcase and took out the canvas carrying bag. “Here are the bloody tapes. Burn them, toss them in your precious river, or shove them someplace most appropriate. I don’t care. I never want to see them again.” She flung the case at his feet. “I hope you find happiness with them.”
Even after securing her suitcase and grabbing her purse, she was out the door within seconds.
Chapter Eleven
Les Trapper was known for a temper that matched his flame-colored hair. Never, if it could be avoided, did anyone cross him. His blue eyes had the power to freeze and his tongue the power to scorch. Only a fool or a martyr would deliberately provoke him.
Andy felt like neither. She felt nothing, only a desolate detachment as she calmly said, “I left the tapes at the ranch with Lyon. If you want, you can make arrangements with him to get them back, but I’m out of it. He may have destroyed them. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Are you telling me,” Les ground out between his teeth, “that you left all those hours of valuable tape with that cowboy?”
“Yes, I left them with Lyon.” She had dreaded this encounter, but now that it was upon her, she was rather enjoying it. She had driven straight from the ranch to the Haven in the Hills, where she knew Les would be impatiently awaiting her return with the tapes and the signed release.
“Have you gone stark staring crazy?” he shouted. “You’re throwing away what’s just beyond our grasp, Andy. We’ve waited for this opportunity for years. Worked for it. What in the hell has gotten into you?” He laughed harshly. “Or do I know what’s gotten into you? Lyon Ratliff.”
“Save your crude one liners for someone who will appreciate them.”
“I haven’t even begun to get crude. I want those tapes, dammit. You may want to throw away your chance, but I won’t let you throw away mine.”
“Then you can get them from Lyon.”
“You run out on me like this and I’ll fire you so fast your head will swim.”
“I wasn’t intending to come back to work.” The stunned expression on his face was gratifying. So, Les was mostly hot air after all. She had called his bluff, and it had worked. “At least not back to Telex.”
“What are you talking about? You’ll the without that television camera.”
“Will I? I don’t think so.”
“I know so. It’s in your blood, Andy. You’re good. The best. And you love it. It’s your life.”
“No, Les,” she said loudly. “It’s your life. I want more out of mine.” She wanted to go to this man who had been her friend. To take hold of his shoulders. To shake him. To make him understand. But she knew that was impossible. He’d never understand. “Thank you for the compliment. I know I have the talent, but I don’t have the drive.” She clutched her fist in front of her stomach. “I don’t want to reach the top of the heap by sacrificing everything else.
“My father decided, Robert decided, you decided that this is what I wanted for myself. No one consulted me. I’ve loved what I’ve done, but it’s all I’ve got. I have nothing more. I’m thirty now. In ten years I’ll be forty, and I may be no further along in my career
or I may be the sweetheart of the network, but that’s still all I’ll have. And eventually someone younger, and prettier, and more talented will come along to replace me, and then where will I be? Left with what? Forgive me, Les, for letting you down, but I want out. A rest. My own life.”
“That all sounds real pretty, but it’s crap and you know it. You’ve just fallen hard for a guy and you’re wanting to protect him. What happened out there this morning? Did he kick you out?”
“Yes, because he saw the announcement about the interviews being shown on the network news tonight.”
“So? Why was he so bent out of shape? He knew the interviews were being sold to the network. In any case, they would have been televised sometime. Why—” He cocked his head to one side and the lid of one eye lowered as he studied her nervous fidgeting. “Wait a minute. You found out something. Didn’t you?” When she didn’t answer, he encircled her arm with bruising fingers and brought his face to within an inch of hers. “Didn’t you?”
She stared up at him fearlessly. He didn’t have the power to intimidate or humiliate or hurt her now. All her feelings were lying at Lyon’s feet, just as the tapes were. She couldn’t be hurt any more. Nor did she see any point in gloating over a secret that would go with her to her grave. Les couldn’t be any angrier. He had been her friend for a long time. Looking at it from his point of view, she could see how he would consider this a betrayal.
“No,” she said calmly, and looked pointedly at the hand that was squeezing the life from her arm. Slowly it relaxed and then fell away. She looked back up at him. “No, Les. There never was any big secret. Maybe that’s why I got so turned off by this project. You go for the jugular. I don’t. You see people as potential stories to further your own career. I was coming to think in those terms too, and didn’t like myself for it. Now, I see people as human beings, with human frailties and the right to keep those frailties private.”
She raised on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I love you. You’ve been a good friend. I hope you continue to be. But I don’t want to see you for a while. Good-bye.”
She went out of the room and to her rental car. She had already started the engine when he came to the door. “Andy,” he called, “where are you going?” There was a defeated aspect about him that she’d never seen before. It tugged at her heart, but she’d made her decision and she was going to stick by it.
When she answered, it was in an unstable, gravelly voice. “I don’t know.”
She went first to San Antonio and checked into the Palacio del Rio located on the city’s famous Riverwalk. At the check-in desk she picked up several travel brochures. A week spent in anonymity sounded wonderful. She’d go somewhere and lie on the beach, eat rich food, and be extremely lazy until she felt like coming home and picking up the pieces of her life and rebuilding them. Mexico? The Caribbean?
What did it matter?
In the long run she would still be alone. Not only had she lost Lyon, she had lost her friend and her job. Never in her life had she been at such loose ends. Somewhere she had read that one’s character didn’t grow in times of stability, but in times of adversity. If that were so, she should have a character a mile high.
Shaking off the desire to lie in solitary confinement in her hotel room, she forced herself to dress in a cool cotton dress and repair her makeup. She left the hotel on the river side and strolled down the Riverwalk, finally choosing a sidewalk café in which to eat a lonely dinner.
She was admired by many who passed her table, especially men, but she averted her eyes in a way that said a silent, but irrevocable “no” to anything they might have had in mind. Some who walked by her stared, trying to place her. She was accustomed to that. People sometimes recognized her immediately. Others would look at her with perplexity, trying to decide where they knew her from. She often wondered when realization struck them. Maybe not until they saw her again on television. Then they would smack their forehead and exclaim, “Of course, Andy Malone! That’s who that was.”
She toyed with her salad, but only ate the slices of cantaloupe. The cheeseburger she’d ordered was thick and juicy, but it reminded her of the cheeseburger basket Lyon had ordered at Gabe’s, and she could barely swallow the first large bite she took. Besides it wasn’t cooked enough to suit her. Or at least that’s what she gave herself as an excuse for leaving it virtually untouched on her plate.
Having taken up the time necessary to eat dinner, though she really hadn’t eaten it, she wandered down the Riverwalk, which was thronged with conventioneers and tourists. How would she fill up the long hours of the evening?
She paused to listen to the mariachi band. She bought an ice-cream cone and immediately threw it into the nearest trash can. She paused in the doorway of a gallery, but lacked the interest or energy to go in and examine the artwork on display.
One of the barges that carried forty or so tourists on a half-hour excursion down the river was boarding at the dock. She purchased a ticket and was helped aboard by a youth dressed in bleached muslin with a bright Mexican belt wrapped around his waist.
“Go all the way to the front, please,” he said in a bored monotone.
She sat on the hard wooden bench and stared out over the water of the San Antonio River. Colored lights, discreetly positioned in the lush foliage bordering the Riverwalk, reflected wavering ribbons on the surface. She paid no attention to the other boarding passengers other than to the little girl, about two years old with blond pigtails, who sat next to her.
Andy smiled at the child’s young mother and father. She was fresh and pretty. He had a camera hanging around his neck. A young, attractive family out for an excursion. The poignancy of it was painful.
She turned slightly when she heard the revving of the barge’s motor, then did a double take when she saw the last passenger who stepped aboard.
Her heart slammed against her ribs and she whipped her head around to stare unseeingly at the water. She heard the muttered objections as he stepped over other people to get to the front of the launch.
“Sir, sir, there’s no more room up front,” the young man said. “Would you please take a seat back here?”
“I’m not a very good sailor. I’d hate to throw up on anybody,” the low-timbred, hoarse voice said. Andy heard the rustling of clothes and the scurrying of feet as everyone made room for the rude passenger who insisted on sitting at the front of the barge.
The young pilot sounded aggravated as he began his spiel in a monosyllabic drone. The barge pulled away from the dock. A cool breeze taunted Andy’s hot cheeks as the boat chugged through the water. The river was shrouded overhead with the mammoth branches of oak and pecan.
“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?”