A Thousand Miles

Part 3

JoLynn glanced at her watch and tapped a pen on her desk. The decent thing to do would be to wait until nine to leave. She checked her watch again. She'd told him to be here by nine, so technically, he still had fifteen minutes. But Curtis and Mel were already here, so there was really no reason to hang around any longer. Except that they never left any earlier. And no matter how much she wished she could, she couldn't bring herself to leave ahead of schedule out of spite. But at nine they were leaving, and if he wasn't here by then, he could just find his own way to the Alamo and meet them there.

She glanced down at her notes. Good thing she'd written most of her copy on the Alamo a few days ago. Since her meeting with Truman and Shane yesterday, she lacked any amount of focus or concentration. But reading it again this morning, it sounded amateurish, unpolished, and totally unacceptable. No wonder Truman wanted to replace her.

JoLynn blew out a breath and picked up her small stack of printer generated research topped off by her prepared copy. It didn't sparkle, that was for sure. But it would have to do. No doubt Shane would have plenty of suggestions regarding how to improve it, idea man that he was. He'd had lots of ideas to discuss with her yesterday. Ideas for whole new segments. Stupid segments. She expelled a breath as her shoulders sagged. No, not stupid. Like it or not, a naturalized Texans segment was a good idea. He probably lacked follow-through, though. Yep. All charisma, good looks, and ideas. No follow-through.

The sound of voices in the hall outside her office interrupted her musings. Time to go. She tapped the stack of papers on the desk to straighten them, stuffed them into her well-traveled canvas backpack just in front of her comprehensive Texas travel atlas.

A heartfelt sounding laugh from Mel pulled JoLynn up from her desk to see what exactly was going on. But she should have known.

With a mutinous grin, Shane stood in the middle of the room, one arm wrapped around Mel's shoulders as she surveyed the contents of the doughnut box he held in his other hand.

"I couldn't resist," he drawled. "I saw the shiny new store just right down the street. Still had its grand opening banner flying out in front, and the fresh, hot doughnuts light was all lit up. I thought we needed a box for the road. Would you like one?"

Mel had never, in all the time JoLynn had known her, let a perfect stranger do more than shake her hand. And here she was now all cozied up to Shane like they'd just announced their engagement.

"Thank you." Determined that today would go better than yesterday, JoLynn stepped forward and picked a plain glazed one. But there was something about his unrelenting gaze and teasing expression that weakened her resolve not to repeat yesterday's childishness.

"I take it you've met Mel and Curtis."

Shane gave Mel's shoulders a squeeze before letting go of her to shake Curtis' hand. "I have now, and I thank you for such a gracious introduction."

JoLynn felt her eyes narrow. She bit her tongue before the unnecessarily hostile comment on the tip of it slipped out. "Well, since we're all here, and all acquainted now, we can go."

She turned her back on Shane and headed for the door.

"Thought you said we'd leave at nine. That leaves us five minutes still to enjoy our breakfast."

She'd taken a couple of steps, but somehow knew—could feel—that no one was following her.

"Come on, JoLynn." His voice cajoled smoothly, sending chills down her spine even from ten feet away. She gritted her teeth. "The Alamo has been there for nearly three hundred years. It's survived a major military conflict and hellish Texas weather year after year on top of that. It's not gonna crumble in the next five minutes."