The Ultimate Texas Bachelor. Cathy Thacker Gillen

backed it up, and watched again as Yvonne sashayed toward Brad. Instead of simply clasping his hand or kissing his cheek in the same nervous, formal way all the other contestants had done, Yvonne went up on tiptoe and, covering her microphone with one hand, whispered something in his ear that the viewers couldn’t catch. Brad’s eyes lit up and he grinned, as if he hadn’t expected Yvonne to say whatever it was she had whispered to him. And just that simply and quickly, a connection of some sort was made.

      Question #1, Lainey wrote. What did Yvonne say when she and Brad first met?

      Question #2. Was Yvonne the only woman in the bunch Brad was physically attracted to?

      Because upon closer inspection Lainey realized that he hadn’t looked as if he was enjoying himself with the others.

      And if he were the selfish Casanova they had painted him as, Lainey thought as someone knocked on the guest house door, he should have been having fun with all the ladies.

      “Who is it?” Lainey called, hurriedly stuffing her paper and pen beneath the sofa cushions.

      “Brad McCabe.”

      Lainey swore as she switched off the DVD, hid the covers for the other two disks beneath that day’s Dallas Morning News, and moved back to the picture of Petey she used as a screen saver. “Just a minute!”

      Satisfied she’d left no clues as to her mission, she hurried to the door.

      Brad’s expression was impatient. He got straight to the point. “I need printer paper. I know it’s late—”

      “No kidding.” She was already in her pink-and-white-striped cotton pajamas.

      For once, he didn’t look at her breasts. Not that he would have seen much. They were covered in the demure fabric. “But I saw you were still up—and Lewis said he knows he has some good quality stuff. He thinks it might be over here in a box marked ‘Pencils and Scissors.’ I’ve already looked through the ranch house from top to bottom, and I have to have this thing I’m working on done by seven-thirty tomorrow morning, or believe me, I would not be bothering you.”

      He did look stressed. Lainey realized this might be a good time to get started on gathering her background information from him. “Come on in. You can help me look for the ‘Pencils and Scissors’ box,” she said casually, leading the way past the boxes that were stacked four-high along one wall of the living room, behind the conversation area formed by the green Naugahyde sofa and two easy chairs. A round oak table for four sat beneath the window in the square country kitchen. There were boxes there, too, again pushed against the wall. Lainey noticed Brad had showered sometime that evening. He still smelled of soap and cologne, and his gleaming dark brown hair had the soft, rumpled look that comes from running a towel through just-shampooed hair and letting it dry any which way. Clamping down on her awareness of him—it wouldn’t do her story any good to get distracted by his irresistible male presence—she asked, “What are you working on?”

      “A business plan for the Lazy M. I’ve got back-to-back meetings with all three of the town’s bankers tomorrow morning. I’m hoping one will be sufficiently impressed to want to lend me the money I need to get the cattle operation up and running. What are you doing?” He glanced at her personal computer sitting on the coffee table. Lainey tried not to feel guilty—and failed. She knew some reporters lied routinely about everything under the sun as they went undercover to ferret out stories that could not be dug out any other way. Lainey was not one of them.

      She planned to get Brad’s cooperation in the Personalities story. That would be a lot easier to do if they were friends and he understood from the get-go that she was there to help him clear up any misconceptions and restore his good name, not malign him as so many others had done. “I was catching up on my e-mail, and doing a few other things on my laptop.” That I can’t tell you about…just yet, Lainey added silently. But I will, I promise, just as soon as I think you trust me enough to understand. “Before that I was lining the kitchen shelves.”