aware of that.”
She looked stiff, as if he’d insulted her. It wasn’t like her red hair was a state secret! A body could see that hair from a mile away.
He had to struggle to keep from grinning. “So whatdya say? You wanna go sit in the shade with me? There’s a nice big piss elm hanging over the water there and it’s cooler than standing here on the dock in the sun, but not much.”
She blinked owlishly at him. “A what elm?”
“Piss elm. Just sorta means a scraggly one. Come on.” She looked ready to expire on him, from flustered embarrassment, heat and exasperation. Without waiting for her agreement, he grabbed his cooler, took her arm in a firm grip and led her off the dock, over the rough rock retaining wall and through the grass. One large root of the elm stuck out smoothly from the ground and made a nice seat. Gabe practically shoved her onto it. He was afraid she might faint on him any minute. “Rest there a second while I get you a soda.”
She scrambled to smooth her skirt over her legs, covering as much skin as possible, while trying to balance her notepad and adjust her heavy purse. “No, thank you. Really, I just—”
He’d already opened a can. “Here, drink up.” He shoved the drink into her hand and then waited until she dutifully sipped. “Feel better?”
“Uh, yes, thank you.”
She acted so wary, he couldn’t help but be curious about her. She wasn’t his type—too pushy, too prim, too…red. But that didn’t mean he’d let her roast herself in the sun. His mother would hide him if she thought he’d been rude to a lady, any lady. Besides, she was kinda cute with her prissiness. In a red sort of way.
Gabe grabbed another cola for himself, then sat on the cooler. He looked at her while he drank. “So, tell me about these heroes.”
She carefully licked her lips then set the can in the grass before facing him. “I’m working on a thesis for college. I’ve interviewed about a half dozen different men who were recently commended for performing heroic acts. So far, they’ve all had similar personality types. But you—”
“No fooling? What type of personality do heroes have?”
“Well, before I tell you that, I’d like to ask you a few questions. I don’t want your answers to be biased by what the others have said.”
Gabe frowned, propping his elbows on his knees and glaring at her. “You think I’d lie?”
She rushed to reassure him. “No! Not consciously. But just to keep my study pure, I’d rather conduct all the interviews the same way.”
“But I’ve already told you, I don’t want to be interviewed.” He watched her closely, saw her frustration and accurately guessed that wasn’t typical behavior of a hero. What nonsense.
After a long minute, she said, “Okay, can I ask you something totally different?”
“Depends. Ask, then I’ll see if I want to answer.”
“Why’d you throw the fish back?”
Gabe looked over his shoulder to where he’d caught the carp, then back. “That fish I just caught?”
“Yes. Why fish if you’re not going to keep what you catch.”
He chuckled. “You don’t get out by the lake much, do you?”
“I’m actually not from around here. I’m just visiting the area—”
“To interview me?” The very idea floored him, and made him feel guilty for giving her such a hard time.
“Yes, actually.” She took another drink of the soda, then added, “I rented a place and I’m staying for the month until school starts back up. I wanted to have all my research together before then. I’d thought I was done, and I was due a short vacation, but then I read the papers about you and decided to add one more interview.”
“So you’re working during your vacation?” He snorted. That was plain nuts. Vacations were for relaxing, and the idea of wasting one to pester him didn’t make sense.
“Yes, well, let’s just say that, hopefully, I’m combining my vacation with an interview. I couldn’t resist. Your situation was unique in that every time you were quoted, you talked about someone else.”
“I remember.” The people he’d talked about were more interesting than anything he had to say about himself.
“You went on and on about how brave the two little kids were…”
“They were real sweet kids, and—”
“…and you lectured something fierce about drinking and water sports.”
“This is a dry lake, which means no alcohol. That damn fool who fell out of his boat could have killed someone.”
She gave him a coy look, surprising the hell out of him with the natural sensuality of it. She was so starchy, he hadn’t been at all prepared. “But you keep saying the situation wasn’t dangerous.”
“It wasn’t. Not to me.” She looked smug, and she wrote something on her paper, making him frown. He decided to explain before she got the wrong idea. “Hell, I’ve been swimming like a fish since I was still in diapers. I was in this lake before I could walk. My brothers taught me to water-ski when I was barely five years old, and I know boats inside and out. There was no risk to me at all, so there’s no way anyone in their right mind can label me a hero.”
“So you say. But everyone else seems to disagree.”
“Sweetheart, you just don’t know Buckhorn. This town is so settled and quiet, any disturbance at all is fodder for front-page news. Why, we had a cow break out of the pasture and wander into the churchyard sometime back. Stopped traffic for miles around so everyone could gawk. The fire department showed up, along with my brother, who’s the sheriff, and the Buckhorn Press sent all their star reporters to cover the story.”
“All their star reporters?”
He grinned. “Yeah. All two of them. That’s the way things are run around here. The town council meets to vote on whether or not to change the bulbs in the street lamps and last year when Mrs. Rommen’s kitty went missing, a search party was formed and we hunted for three days before finding the old rascal.”
She wrote furiously, which annoyed the hell out of Gabe, and then she looked up. “We?”
He tilted his head at her teasing smile, a really nice smile now that he was seeing it. Her lips were full and rosy and… He frowned. “Now, Ms. Parks, you wouldn’t expect me to avoid my civic duty, would you? Especially not when the old dear loves that ugly tomcat something fierce.”
She grinned at him again, putting dimples in those abundant freckles, making her wide mouth even more appealing, before going back to her writing. Gabe leaned forward to see exactly what she was putting on paper, and she snatched the paper to her chest.
“What are you doing?” She sounded breathless and downright horrified.
