A Thousand Miles

Part 11

JoLynn pulled another chair up to her small computer desk, sat down, and opened her web browser.

"So, this is your routine?" Shane sat down. "After the show you check your email to see what everyone thought?"

She nodded and opened her email program. It probably sounded silly to him, the award winning journalist, to care what her viewers thought, to crave their input. Maybe it was on some level. You couldn't please everybody. But knowing there were folks out there who enjoyed her program and stopped whatever else they were doing to watch it gave her a great sense of purpose.

"How many emails are we talking about?"

JoLynn shrugged. "Usually not more than five or six. On a good night, maybe a dozen. It won't take long. I just thought you might be interested. Look!" She pointed to the monitor. "Let's start with this one."

"Which one?"

"The one that says 'Who's the hottie!' in the subject line."

"What?" He sounded a bit astonished.

JoLynn stifled a skeptical snort at his tone and began reading. "'Great show, y'all. As usual. I loved the beginning—very dramatic. But I've just got to know... Who's Shane Quinlan? Come on, don't keep me in suspense. How long has he been in the works? Where did he come from? Is he single? Are he and JoLynn as into each other as they seemed to be?'"

JoLynn quit reading. Did they seem to be into each other? She resisted the urge to look at him, feeling distinctly like he was doing the same. Her head shook ever so slightly. No. All of the Alamo footage had been taken two days after she'd met Shane for the first time. There was no way they could have even seemed into each other at that point. No way. Maybe a little chemistry had developed between them since. She did glance at him then. But there couldn't have been any whatsoever on that day. Could there?

"I'm a hottie?"

The incredulous sounding remark pulled her from the speculation. The astonished and vaguely flattered expression he'd worn just moments ago morphed into some hybrid of great revelation mixed with total satisfaction.

"I'm hot." Shane nodded slowly, obviously in complete agreement with his newest fan's assessment. "And you're into me."

"What?" It was her turn to sound astonished.

"You read it." Shane said, leaning way into her space. "Straight from one of your most loyal viewers. And she would not lie about something like this. She's into me."

JoLynn pressed as far back into her chair as possible, but Shane countered by inching closer still, one eyebrow slightly arched, smile charged with amusement.

"And you're into me." He dropped the tone of his voice to an intimately low level that sent a thrill of chills down her spine. His gaze traversed her entire face before coming to rest on her mouth for a second longer than maybe it should have. Then he met her gaze again and grinned. He was teasing her.

JoLynn narrowed her eyes. "Hold your horses there, Romeo. Let's just scroll down and see who you're admirer is."

Shane's grin vanished and he did a double take from the monitor to her and back.

He pulled the chair back up to the keyboard and finished reading the message. It took two seconds for smug satisfaction to turn to shock and awe. "Love... Freddie?"

"Oh, yeah. And he's into you." Laughter erupted before she could stop it. Not that she would have tried at this point. "Here," she scooted closer to the keyboard; "let's send him a reply."

"No, no, no." Shane tried to shoo her hands away from the keyboard. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"I know!" She shooed his hands in return. "Let's send him your email address so he can contact you directly in the future. We need to be sure to let him know that you are single and that you're not into me at all."

"OK, OK." He took both her hands in his and removed them from the keys. "You've made your point."

JoLynn backed off and let her laughter subside. Shane gave a low chuckle and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. Tenderly. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. As if they hadn't been completely at odds with each other just a few weeks ago. As if they suddenly, with one giant stride, moved way beyond the initial boundary of tentative trust they'd established in working together since then.

She drew her hands away, her laughter completely silenced now. "Sorry."

"No." He leaned back in his chair. "No. I had it coming. I walked right into it."

The electronic chime on her computer signaled more email and JoLynn pulled herself back up to the screen. The breath caught in her chest. Fifty-three messages were being retrieved from the server, and the subject line of each one as it popped into her inbox contained exclamations of praise.

"Great show!!!"

"Way to go!"

"Who's the new guy?"

"WOW!!!"

Message after message affirmed the decision Truman made to change the format of the show by adding a co-host.

Your replacement.

The thought slithered into her consciousness before she could stop it. She stood up and shook her head, crossing to the kitchen for her tea.

No. She had no reason to distrust Shane, or Truman for that matter. These past weeks everything had been just as Truman said. Shane was her co-host. They worked together. That was it. But still, the niggling paranoia continued. It crept up and sprung when she least expected it. Like now.

"These are great, JoLynn. I thought you said there'd only be five or six."

"That's usually all there is." Although she didn't turn to look at him, she felt him glance at her. He probably noticed her sudden lack of enthusiasm. She forced a smile and took a sip from her glass. "But, wow. I guess people really liked what we did this week."

He continued to study her from across the room, as if trying to decipher her change in mood, and the way she'd tried to cover it. Maybe she should just come out and ask if there were any plans for him to oust her. He might not be honest about it, but surely she'd be able to tell by his reaction if he was hiding something.

"JoLynn, is something wrong?"

If she was going to ask, now was her chance. But, no. She shook her head. Not only did she not feel like having a confrontation about this right now, she was pretty sure she didn't want to know what he and Truman were up to. She'd rather live in her ignorant little bubble for awhile longer, soaking up the success that Shane brought with him from Tennessee.

"No, nothing's wrong. I was just wondering what we can possibly do with the Lampasas Spring Ho! Festival that could possibly top this."

He grinned wickedly. "I might have an idea or two."