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  “I know who you are, Ms. Malone,” he said with a condescending sneer. “You’re from Nashville. Telex Cable Television Company.”

  “Then you read the return address even though you didn’t deign to open my letters before sending them back. Is that right?” she asked, in what she hoped was a haughty challenge.

  “That’s right.” He took another drink of coffee. His indifference was irritating. She had an intense desire to take the coffee mug from his hand—if that were physically possible—and hurl it across the room, just to get his attention. However, she predicted that such an impulse could result in bodily harm. He seemed to radiate a strength of body and will, and she didn’t want to trifle with either if at all possible. She was stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid. “Mr. Ratliff, you know—”

  “I know what you want. The answer is no. I believe I told you that after receiving your first letter several months ago. That one I did answer. Obviously you don’t remember the contents of that letter. It said, in essence, for you to save your breath, your strength, your time, your money, and”—he raked her with cynical eyes—“your new clothes. I’d never consent to letting you interview my father for that television program. My sentiments are the same today as they were then.” Rudely he turned his back on her again.

  She had thought her new jeans and western boots would blend into the local scenery. Was she that conspicuous? All right. She had made one blunder. Perhaps all her sneaking around the past few days had been unprofessional, but she wasn’t going to give up now. She squared her shoulders, unknowingly stretching the western-cut cotton shirt over her breasts. “You haven’t even listened to what I propose, Mr. Ratliff. I—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” His head swung around to her again and his eyes unintentionally encountered her breasts on a level that was disadvantageous to them both. She stood perfectly still, as though to move would admit to the untenability of the situation. After a considerable time he raised his eyes, and she caught her breath at the fierceness of his look.

  “No interviews with my father,” he said in a low, tense voice. “He’s an old man. He doesn’t feel well. Others, bigger and better than you, Ms. Malone, have come asking. The answer remains irrevocably no.”

  He pushed himself off the stool, and she realized when she found herself looking at his collarbone that he was very tall. She took a step back and watched with fascination as his hand dug into the pocket of his tight jeans to extract a five-dollar bill. The intrusion of his hand, pulling tighter the already taut denim, sent hot color rushing to her cheeks. He laid the bill down next to his plate. According to the grimy menu, it was more than twice what a cheeseburger basket cost.

  “Thanks, Gabe. See ya.”

  “See ya, Lyon.”

  Andy couldn’t believe she was being so blithely dismissed when he sidestepped her on his way to the front door. “Mr. Ratliff,” she said on a grating note, following him.

  He stopped and turned around with slow deliberation, much more menacing than if he’d whipped around quickly. She felt that she was being lacerated by tiny rapiers as his eyes sliced down her body from the top of her head to the toes of her shiny new boots.

  “I don’t like pushy broads, Ms. Malone. You impress me as such. I will not permit my father to be interviewed by anyone, especially by you. So why don’t you pack up your new clothes and get your cute little butt back to Nashville where it belongs?”

  She flung her purse on the bed and collapsed into the uncomfortable chair in the small, stuffy motel room. Eight fingers were pressed against her forehead while her thumbs rotated over her pounding temples. She didn’t know if it was the heat, or the arid climate, or the man, but something had given her a whale of a headache. The man. No doubt it had been the man.

  Standing up after a few minutes of rest, she pulled off her boots and kicked them aside. “Thanks for nothing.” She went into the bathroom to swallow two aspirins with lukewarm water out of the cold-water tap.

  “Why didn’t you slap his smug face?” she asked her image in the mirror. “Why did you just stand there like a big dummy and take that abuse?” She released her hair from its clasp and shook it loose, a motion which did her headache no good. “Because you want that interview, that’s why.”

  She dreaded calling Les. What would she tell him? He didn’t take disappointment well, and that was putting it mildly. Possibilities of what she would say were still bouncing around in her mind when she dialed the longdistance number. She called collect and person-to-person, and after being channeled through the switchboard operator at Telex to Les’s office, she heard his querulous growl. “Yeah?”

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  “Well, well, I was beginning to think you’d been taken hostage by cattle rustlers or something. It was nice of you to take the time to call.”

  Sarcasm. Today’s mood was sarcasm. Andy accepted it with resignation, as she accepted all Les’s moods. “I’m sorry, Les, but I didn’t have anything to report, so I didn’t call. Remember your memo last month about unnecessary long-distance calls?”

  “But that doesn’t apply to you, Andy baby,” he said more cordially. “How’s it going down there in cow country?”

  She rubbed her forehead as she answered. “Not too well. I got nowhere for the first few days. All I found out for certain was that there was some landscaping being done at the ranch house. That’s it. That, and where Lyon Ratliff, the son, sometimes eats lunch when he comes into town. Today I had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman.”

  She stared at her nylon-covered toes, remembering not the hateful way he had spoken to her before he stalked out the door, but the way he’d looked at her the first time their eyes had met. She hadn’t felt that way in the presence of a man since … she’d never felt that way in the presence of a man.

  “And?” Les prodded impatiently.

  “Oh … and … uh … it’s going to be tough, Les. He’s as hardheaded as a mule. Impossible to talk to. Stubborn, rude, insulting.”

  “Sounds like a real nice guy.” Les laughed.

  “He was bloody awful.” She toyed with a string on the Spanish-red and black bedspread. “I don’t feel right about this anymore, Les. Maybe we shouldn’t be forcing the issue. What if the old general really is too ill to be interviewed? The reports on his health may be inaccurate. It’s possible he’s incapable of withstanding the strain of a series of interviews. He may not even be able to talk. What would you say to my giving up this one and coming home?”

  “Andy baby, what’s happening to you out there? That Texas sun baking your brain?”

  She could just see Les now. He’d lower his Hush Puppy-shod feet from the desk and bring his chair forward to prop his elbows on the littered desk in his “earnest” pose. The horn-rimmed glasses would either be shoved to the top of his head to perch on his red hair or would be taken off altogether and set down amidst the overflowing ashtrays and empty candy wrappers and week-old scripts. If she were there rather than a thousand miles away, she would become the victim of startling cold blue eyes. Even through the telephone wire she could feel those eyes boring into her.

  “You aren’t going to let a bad-tempered bully stand in your way, are you? Baby, you’ve come up against worse. Much worse. Remember those union goons in that picket line? They threatened our photographer with billy clubs, yet you had them eating out of your hand in ten minutes. Course, they were all hot for your body. But then so is any man with—”

  “Les,” she said tiredly. “Please.”

  “Please what? I’d like to hear you say, ‘Please, Les.’ Anytime.”

  She and Les Trapper and Robert Malone had begun their careers together at a small television station. Les had produced news shows. Robert had been a reporter. Andy had co-anchored the evening news broadcasts with a myopic dolt who had been with the television station since its inception and whom the management didn’t have the heart to fire.

  Even after she and Robert had gotten married, the friendship among the
three of them remained inviolate. When Robert was hired as a correspondent for the network, he was away from home much of the time. Les had helped relieve the lonely hours, but always as a friend only.

  She remembered vividly the night Les came to her house and told her that Robert had been killed in Guatemala, where he had been covering an earthquake. Les had cushioned her for weeks, taking over responsibilities that were too grim for her to handle. For months after Robert’s death she had used him as a shield between her and the rest of the world. He relished the role of protector.

  Since then they had continued to be friends and worked together now for Telex. She knew better than to take his ribald suggestions seriously. Les was never, nor ever had been, without a woman, or women.

  His only real love was his work and always had been and always would be. He was ambitious to a fault. He wasn’t above doing anything to get a story. He was shrewd and, more often than Andy wanted to admit, lacking in sensitivity. His language was foul, his moods unpredictable.

  But he was still her friend. And her supervisor. And she’d better come up with something fast.

  “What if I got Lyon Ratliff to consent to an interview? He would be—”

  “Dull as hell. Wouldn’t tell us a damn thing. And who the hell cares about him? We need the old man, Andy. And we need him now before he kicks off. You still want to go to network, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. More than anything.”

  “Okay, so stop this pussyfooting around.” His tone softened appreciably. “Andy baby, you could knock the big boys and girls at network right on their fat cushy cans. You’ve got the talent. You’re the best interviewer in the country. You made a mass murderer cry. I saw it, and I wasn’t even wearing my glasses. You’re younger, smarter, sexy as hell with those damn gold eyes and that luscious body of yours. Put them to work. Seduce this cowboy and—”

  “Les!”

  “Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot. I’m speaking to the most frigid female ever created to curse man. Look, Andy, who’re you saving it for? I sure as hell know it isn’t for me, and it’s not for lack of trying. Ever since Robert got killed you’ve lived the life of a vestal virgin. For three years for God’s sakes. Loosen up a bit, baby. Bat those long lashes at that cowpoke, and he’ll be putty in your hands.”

  She almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of Lyon Ratliff’s ever being putty in anyone’s hands. Instead she sighed wearily. To a degree Les was right. She had no life outside her work. Perhaps it was because Robert had been killed while on assignment. Perhaps it was because her father had been a noted journalist. Andy Malone felt compelled to succeed in broadcast journalism.

  Working at Telex wasn’t her idea of the top of the ladder, though she had nationwide visibility. She wanted to work for a network. To land a job like that, she needed to pull off a coup. An interview with General Michael Ratliff would be guaranteed to get the attention of a network executive.

  “All right, Les. I don’t agree with your means, but I do want the same ends. I’ll give it another shot.”

  “That’s my girl. How about the landscaping angle? Think you could pass yourself off as a pituitary?”

  “That’s a gland, you idiot, not a shrub. I think you mean pyracantha or pittosporum.”

  “Hell. I never could keep my glands straight. I only knew what to do with them.”

  “Good-bye, Les.”

  “Good-bye. I love ya.”

  “Love you, too. Good-bye.”

  She spent the rest of the afternoon lying on a chaise beside the motel pool, feeling as though she had earned a half-day off. Her brain and insides felt battered, though no visible signs of injury showed on her body in the skimpy bikini that elicited whistles from three teenage boys driving by in a pickup truck. Their flirting was harmless.

  Lyon Ratliff’s was not.

  It had been hours since she had come under the careful perusal of his eyes, but her body responded to the recollection so strongly that it could be happening again. Her breasts tingled with sensations she had thought long dead; her nipples were prominent beneath the cloth of her bikini bra. A heaviness like a giant heart had settled in the lower part of her body. At regular intervals it pulsed, suffusing her with life and reminding her that she hadn’t died in that earthquake with Robert.

  She drove her rented compact car to a carry-out barbecue restaurant and brought a juicy sandwich back to her room. Later she tried to watch television, but became bored with the inane sitcoms and variety shows. She tried to read the latest sizzling novel. Though the hero had been described as blond and green-eyed, she could only envision dark unruly hair and gray eyes. A sensual, insolent mouth that could harden in anger but which promised unforgettable kisses. A tall, lean body that made one resent clothes. A ruggedly handsome, suntanned face that defined virility. The hero of the book paled by comparison.

  “He’s the rudest man I’ve ever met,” she said as she tossed the novel aside and went to check the chain lock on the door. Before she snapped off the bedside lamp, she cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at the image reflected in the dresser mirror. She was wearing a T-shirt and sheer bikini panties. “But he’s not all wrong,” she said confidently and snapped off the light. It was cute.

  She couldn’t believe it had been so easy! All she remembered overhearing in the beauty salon was that Lyon Ratliff had ordered some plants from a nursery for supplementary landscaping. The nursery owner’s wife had proudly announced to everyone that her husband was to deliver and plant them on Thursday morning.

  Andy had awakened that morning with the plan already formed in her mind. Silently she thanked Les for the inspiration. She had dressed professionally in a summer-weight suit of raw silk with a sleeveless coral silk blouse underneath. She twisted her hair into a bun on the back of her neck in a style that radiated competence. She drove her car to within a mile of the Ratliff ranch and pulled it off the highway, hoping she wasn’t too late.

  She had sat on the side of the highway for twenty minutes before she saw the nursery truck lumbering down the highway with its load of plants. She had jumped out of her car, raised the hood, and stood looking helpless and distressed by the side of the road. As she had expected, the nursery truck ground to a halt on the shoulder just after passing her. She ran around its slated sides to the driver, who was climbing out of the cab.

  “Thanks so much for stopping,” she said breathlessly.

  “Morning. What happened to your car, little lady?”

  She gritted her teeth behind her false smile. “I don’t know,” she wailed piteously. “I was on my way to the Ratliff ranch. I was already late for an appointment with Gracie and now this! She’s going to wonder what happened to me. Could you please give me a lift to the nearest telephone?”

  She had no idea who Gracie was. She had only heard Lyon mention her in Gabe’s restaurant. She could either be a relative, a cook, housekeeper … wife? Had she ever read that he was married? Why did it upset her to think he might be? In any event her ruse about the appointment with Gracie had worked. The nurseryman grinned broadly.

  “I can do you one better than that. I’m going to the Ratliffs’. How’d you like a ride to the front door?”

  Her hand had flown to her chest as though to still a rapidly beating heart. “You’re not serious! Oh, you’d be a lifesaver. I can conduct my business and call about my car at the same time. Are you sure you don’t mind?” she had asked, treating him to the full brilliance of her smile.

  “Not atall, not atall.”

  “Just let me get my purse and lock the car.” She had spun around on her bone pumps and trotted back to her car, thanking her stars that the man had been so easily duped. He hadn’t even asked what her business was.

  Modesty had to be sacrificed for her to climb into the truck, but Mr. Houghton, as he had introduced himself, was a perfect gentleman and turned his head.

  The cab of the truck was noisy, dusty, and smelled of earth and fertilizer, but now Andy was chatting to Mr
. Houghton inconsequentially as they pulled up to the electric security gate surrounding the Ratliff ranch.

  The brakes wheezed as Mr. Houghton stepped on the pedal, but apparently Lyon had notified the guard of the arrival of the nursery truck. The gates swung wide on the blacktopped road, and they were waved through by a toothless guard wearing a cowboy hat. If he saw Andy or noted that she didn’t look like a gardener, he didn’t do anything about it. She breathed a huge sigh of relief as the truck rolled through the gate and she saw through the mirror mounted outside her window that it was closing behind them.

  “I’ll just let you out at the front. I’m supposed to meet Mr. Ratliff around on the west side.”

  “That will be wonderful,” she said, smiling. More wonderful than she had anticipated. Lyon would be busy for a while. Lyon? Had she thought simply “Lyon”?

  The house was awesome and looked like it belonged in Southern California instead of on the Texas plains. Nestled in a grove of pecan, oak, and cottonwood, its sprawling proportions were redeemed by a certain grandeur. It was a two-story house, but this didn’t prevent her from getting the impression that its various wings seemingly stretched for acres.

  The house itself and all the outbuildings were of white adobe and roofed with burnt-red tile. Four arches across the front of the house supported the wide, deep front porch where hanging baskets boasted ferns, petunias, begonia, and impatiens. The colors were vibrant. The shade was deep, and the white of the house was pristine and glaring by contrast.

  “Thank you again, Mr. Houghton,” she said as he pulled to a grinding stop and then maneuvered the gearshift back into first.

  “You’re quite welcome, little lady. I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with your car.”

  “I do too.” She jumped down from the cab, jarring both her teeth and the chignon on the back of her neck. She shut the door softly, so as not to attract attention, and was gratified when it closed with only a minimum of racket. Taking slow, careful steps, she stopped ostensibly to admire a basket of flowers. When the truck had rounded the side of the house, she stepped into the shadows of the front porch.