Forever Buckhorn: Gabe

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.

Gabe lifted a brow. “Just peeking at what you consider so noteworthy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She lowered the paper, but the damage had been done. Dark smears of pencil lead were etched across the front of her damp white blouse.

Gabe nodded appreciatively at her bosom while sipping his cola. “Looks like you’ll need to be cleaned up.” He said it, then stood. “You should probably head on home to do that.”

She quickly stood, too. “But I haven’t asked you my questions yet.”

“And you won’t. I don’t want to be interviewed. But just for the hell of it, I turned the fish loose ’cause it’s a carp, not that good for eating and a real pain to clean being as they have a mud vein. Bass is more to my tastes. Which doesn’t matter any when you’re fishing just for the fun of fishing, which is usually how I do it. You should try it sometime.” He looked her over slowly. “Cuttin’ loose, I mean. It’s real relaxing.”

He turned to walk away and she trotted to keep up with him. “Gabriel…Mr. Kasper…”

“Gabe will do, unless you’re thinking to ask more questions.” He said it without looking at her, determined to get away before he noticed anything about her besides her lips, which now that he’d noticed he couldn’t stop noticing, or how nicely that starched shirt was beginning to stick to her breasts in the humidity. He still couldn’t tell for sure, but he suspected a slight possibility that she was built rather nice beneath all the prim, stiff clothing. And that was the kind of suspicion that could distract a man something awful.

Only she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to be distracted by. She had an obvious agenda, while he avoided plans and merely enjoyed each day.

“Gabe, really, this isn’t a lengthy interview. There’s no reason for you to be coy.”

He had to laugh at that. Shaking his head, he stepped on the dock and looked at her. He could have sworn he saw another long red tress snap into a curl right before his eyes. Her whole head was beginning to look like corkscrews. Long, lazy, red corkscrews. It was kinda cute in a way… Hell, no. No, it was not cute.

“I’ve never been called coy in my life. I’m just plain not interested in that foolishness.” He skimmed off his sunglasses and hat, and placed them on his chair, then tossed a fat inflated black inner tube into the lake. “Now, I’m going to go cool off with a dip. You can either skim out of those clothes and join me before you expire from the heat, or you can go find some other fool to interview. But no more questions.” He started to turn away, but belatedly added, “Nice meeting you.” Then he dove in.

He was sure his splash got her, but he didn’t look to see. At least not at first.

She stood there for the longest time. He was strangely aware of her presence while he hoisted himself into the center of the inner tube and got comfortable. Peeking through one eye, he watched her stew in silence, then glare at him before marching off.

Finally. Let her leave.

Calling him a hero—what nonsense. His brothers were real heroes; even those kids that had kept their cool and not whined could be considered heroic little devils. But not Gabe Kasper. No, sir.

He started to relax, tipping his head into the cool water to drench his hair and lazily drifting his arms. But his neck snapped to attention when he saw Little Red stop beside Rosemary. She pointed at Gabe, then pulled out her damn notepad when Rosemary began chattering. And damn if Ceily and Darlene didn’t wander closer, taking part.

Well, hell. She was gossiping about him!

When he’d told her to interview someone else, he meant someone else who wouldn’t talk about him. Someone not on the lake. Hell, someone not even in Buckhorn—not even in Kentucky!