All In The Game. Barbara Boswell

bar exam. The names of graduates passing the various state professional examinations always were proudly published in the university newspaper.

      Since when did a lawyer work as a cameramen on a network game show? Tynan Hale, attorney at law, made more sense than Tynan Hale, working-stiff cameraman, didn’t it?

      She wanted to know; she wondered every time she looked at him behind that camera. Which was nearly sixteen hours a day. The omnipresence of the camera crew was annoying enough, but having Ty always there had reawakened feelings she thought—she’d hoped!—had died.

      Not so. Never had she been so aware of anyone in her life—except during their last go-round nine long years ago.

      So why didn’t you ask him all those pertinent questions last night, Shannen? she silently chided herself. Instead, she’d ended up in his arms within minutes, after making that pathetically lame excuse of why she had risked meeting him.

      Why had she risked meeting him in the first place?

      No use pretending she didn’t know the answer to that one. Seeing him every day, all day… Having him so near yet so totally out of reach…

      The tension built and burned inside her. Unaccustomed to passivity, she couldn’t stop herself from taking action.

      Oh, who was she kidding? Shannen exhaled an impatient sigh, unable to talk herself into the convenient self-deception. Taking action and losing control were too very different responses, and she knew which one had prevailed last night.

      Memories of last night whirled through her head, making her wince. Tynan had accused her of strategizing by using silence. Thankfully, he hadn’t known she’d been struck dumb by the sight of him, by the tantalizing prospect of being alone with him. On a tropical island late at night, both of them legal, consenting adults.

      Her imagination raced to places that made her blush.

      It was definitely to her advantage that he believed she was cool enough to plot and plan and play a game. Now all she had to do was keep up the pretense.

      It wouldn’t be very hard to do, Shannen pep-talked herself, as she slowed her pace. She wasn’t a giddy schoolgirl anymore, she was a mature woman known for her competence and self-control.