One Summer’s Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Oh.” David’s eyes shifted as he tried hard to hide his disappointment. “How come?”

  “I keep it there because my secretary is mostly the one who uses it.”

  “Oh.” The boy’s shoulders sagged, then hitched upward in another of those brave little shrugs. “I used to have a computer when we lived in California. My dad used to play with me all the time.” He turned suddenly, his face alight with an enthusiasm overpowering enough to carry him right to the edge of Riley’s desk. “You can do really cool things on a computer, did you know that? There’s all kinds of stuff, especially if you have a CD-ROM drive. Like, I had this encyclopedia, you know? And-oh, yeah, there’s Puzzle Wizard-I really like that one, there’s all kind of neat puzzles you can solve. And there’s games, too. My dad gave me a whole bunch of games one Christmas-Battle Beast, Mech Warrios-only Mom wouldn’t let me play with most of ’em. She said they were violent and gross, and she made my dad take ’em back. She was pretty mad at him.”

  “Hmm,” said Riley, who was only half paying attention. He was watching, out of the corner of his eye, the evil-looking creature that had just slunk around the edge of the door-which David, naturally, had neglected to close. The boy’s monologue faded to a background hum; the focus of Riley’s attention had narrowed to the cat’s silent progress toward him across the Persian rug. The last thing he saw before it disappeared behind his desk was the moth-eaten tail held aloft like a plume waving over the head of a rather seedy potentate.

  Riley felt himself tensing up. Where in the hell was the beast now? More important, what was it doing? A moment later, he had his answer. There came a horrid scratching sound and what felt like about a dozen needles pricking him in the legs. Something heavy landed squarely in the middle of his lap. Riley gripped the arms of his chair and pressed himself backward as the cat, her expression disdainful, casually sniffed his chest and then turned herself around, managing to trod heavily on some sensitive parts of his anatomy in the process. A loud wheezing, grinding noise began to emanate from her as she slowly stretched herself out and placed her front paws on the desktop. After carefully sniffing out the area, she swiped Riley several times in the face with her tail, then hauled her hind half stiffly up and onto his newspaper. There she crouched, staring intently at the door.

  Riley had heard David’s mother calling but was holding his breath to avoid inhaling cat hair and couldn’t answer. While he sat frozen, not breathing, her advance guard, the dog Beatle, came dashing headlong through the narrow gap in the door, caught sight of the cat on top of the desk and skittered to a halt The cat lazily arched her back. The dog gave a yelp and scampered back the way she’d come, while the cat placidly arranged herself like a mildewed stole across Riley’s newspaper.

  An instant later, Summer stuck her head through the door. The smile on her lips vanished like the sunlight when a cloud gets in the way, and she closed her eyes and softly breathed, “Oh, Peggy Sue…” She pushed the door wide and started forward.

  Riley let his breath out and held up a hand like a traffic cop, stopping her there. He rose, one eye on the drift of cat hair that scuttled across his desk, blown by the breeze she’d made, and said briskly, “Never mind-I was done with it, anyway. David mentioned waffles?”

  She stepped quickly back, giving him a lot more room than he needed. Oh, yeah, she was avoiding him, all right-why was that beginning to annoy him?

  Her smile returned, though, as she gestured toward the kitchen. “I left some for you. But I was coming to ask you-where do you keep your lawn mower?”

  “Lawn mower?” He had to stop and think for a moment. “Lord, I don’t know. In the gardener’s shed, I imagine-that’s the door down at the far end of the garage-but I couldn’t tell you what kind of shape it’s in. My gardener generally uses his own, I believe. Why on earth do you want to know?”

  “Because,” she began in the same patient tone he’d heard her use with her children, “I noticed your lawn needs mowing. And since I figured your gardener was probably on paid vacation, too, I thought I’d mow it for you. If that’s okay.” And all the while she was saying that, a rosy flush was creeping across her cheekbones.

  Chapter 8

  Riley halted opposite her in his study doorway. Undiagnosed tensions crowded his chest. “You don’t need to do that.”

  She raked a hand back through her hair, which, since most of it was caught up in her haphazard ponytail, left the short parts around her face wildly-and rather endearingly-askew. She was wearing a new pair of shorts, he noticed. But with it she wore one of his cast-off shirts with the sleeves rolled above her elbows and the tails knotted around her waist and the top buttons open to show a deep slash of cream-colored throat. For some reason, she seemed to prefer his old clothes to the new ones he’d bought for her.

  “Yes, I do,” she said in a low voice, while her eyes begged him to understand.

  Well, he did understand. Maybe he understood pride too well. Because he had his pride, too, dammit. He wondered if she knew what it cost him to swallow it now and grudgingly say, “Well, I guess we can see what kind of shape it’s in.”

  He stalked past her, down the hall and through the kitchen, through the mudroom and out the back door, mired so deeply in the mystery of his wounded thoughts that he was halfway across the yard before it occurred to him to wonder if he was going to need a key to get into the gardener’s room; it had been that long since he’d had occasion to go there himself. Riley was not in any way, shape or form a do-it-yourselfer, he was accustomed to having his castle run like a well-oiled machine, and he paid people generously to see that it did, and to insure that he personally would never have to concern himself with the details. Somewhere in the back of his mind he supposed he must have realized that eliminating the services of his housekeeper, gardener and pool man was probably going to have some effect on the workings of the machine, not to mention his own participation in its maintenance. Of course he had. He just hadn’t prepared himself for the possibility that a woman-any woman, much less a client and a guest in his house-would be mowing his lawn for him. It didn’t make him proud to discover that he felt that way, either-Lord, he was all for equal opportunity, or sure had thought he was.

  To Summer’s relief, the gardener’s room wasn’t locked. She was right behind Riley as he pushed the door open, waved aside a few spiderwebs and stepped over the threshold. She spotted the mower, a green one that looked almost new, pushed over in the far corner but accessible enough. And she was encouraged to see that it was encrusted with a spattering of dried grass, as though it might have seen fairly recent use after all.

  “Looks okay,” she said as she dropped to one knee beside the mower. She unscrewed a cap, stuck a finger into the opening, sniffed it and nodded. “Seems to have plenty of gas.” She straightened and took hold of the handle.

  But when Riley said gruffly, “Here, I’ll do that,” she let go of the handle and moved aside as quickly as she could.

  It had been another near miss. Once again they’d come close to touching…his masculine scent filled her nostrils; his body heat wafted like a breath across her skin. Heart pounding against the arms she’d folded humbly across her waist, she stood and watched him wrestle the mower through the doorway. Her own breath seemed to stick in her throat Oh, dear, she thought, but beyond that her mind simply refused to go.

  How was it, she mused, that the man could look so elegant even in tan Dockers and a white polo shirt? And she realized, as she found herself staring at them, that it was the first time she’d ever seen his bare arms. How was it that a lawyer, who presumably spent all his time in offices and courtrooms, could have arms so well-muscled and deeply tanned? Did he play tennis or golf? Enjoy a daily workout at a gym? The idea of Riley Grogan sweating and grunting under a set of barbells was simply mind-boggling.

  At the moment, though, he was squatting beside the mower looking like any other perplexed suburban weekend gardener-though surely about a hundred times more handsome than most A
nd it suddenly occurred to Summer to wonder if he’d ever in his life used a lawnmower before. Did he even know how to start it? What should she do if he didn’t? She could hardly shove the man aside and take over, not when it was his lawn and his mower. Not without risking grave damage to his masculine ego-which, she was beginning to realize, to her utter bemusement, was every bit as fragile, for all his strength and confidence, as that of any other man’s.

  And yet, how long could she stand here and let him suffer?

  As Summer pondered her dilemma, a delicious, quivery feeling came over her. It had been such a long time since she’d felt it, it took her a while to recognize it for what it was: amusement. She suddenly felt an almost overpowering urge to laugh. At Riley Grogan! The only thing keeping her from it, in fact, was the hand she’d had the foresight to clamp tightly over her mouth.

  Oh, Lord-she couldn’t go on like this-she really couldn’t. In another second she was going to explode with laughter. Male ego be damned-she had just made up her mind that she was going to have to speak up before she giggled and made things worse, and had peeled her fingers away from her face and cleared her throat in preparation for doing so, when salvation arrived from an unexpected source.

  David, whose presence Summer had all but forgotten, pointed and said, “You have to pull on this thing right here.”

  Tossing her a look that could only be described as smug, Riley rose to his feet, so abruptly that Summer, who was already leaning forward to point out the necessary steps to achieve ignition, had to spring back to avoid a collision. Meanwhile, Riley took his place at the helm, grasped the ring David had shown him and gave it a mighty tug.

  The mower gave a derisive snort and then was silent. Riley pulled the cord again. Same thing. And again. And… yet… again. Finally, with sweat pouring down his face and fire in his eyes, he turned to Summer.

  Who once more peeled her fingers away from the bottom part of her face, cleared her throat and stepped forward. “Maybe,” she said carefully, “it would help if you primed it.”

  She then reached down, pumped the primer bulb a few times, straightened, adjusted the choke, set the throttle, grasped the ring and pulled. The mower snorted…snarled…and died. Unperturbed, she made a minor adjustment to the choke and tried again. This time the snorts and snarls settled nicely into a roar, which, by easing up on the throttle, Summer soon tuned to a businesslike growl. Without further ado, without even daring a backward glance, she steered the mower onto the lush and overgrown lawn.

  And, oh, didn’t it feel good!

  She was flushed with success, the June sun was hot on her back, sweat was pouring into her eyes, and she could feel the vibrations of the powerful machine running up her arms and into her chest and belly. She could even feel them in the fillings in her teeth. The muscles in her calves and thighs, arms and back protested…and then rejoiced in the exercise. The grass smelled so sweet she could almost taste it. The air was heavy with humidity, but she felt light. She felt confident and capable. Exhilarated and strong.

  And not once today had she thought of herself as poor Cinderella. Or, thank heaven, of Riley Grogan as the Prince.

  Back on the path, Riley and David stood side by side in identical poses, hands on hips, watching Summer cut a widening swath through the grass. Presently Riley looked down at David, who returned his gaze with mute sympathy, then after a moment just sort of wandered off, as if he found the whole episode vaguely embarrassing.

  Riley knew how he felt. But while his masculine pride had definitely taken a body blow, he was discovering that there was something intensely erotic about the sight of that particular woman pushing a powerful machine around his backyard. She’d only been at it a few minutes, but she was already drenched with sweat, her face flushed and shiny with it, loose strands of her hair lying on her neck and cheeks in wet corkscrew curls, the soft material of his old shirt sticking to her body in dark patches. Her body moved with the unstudied grace of the naturally strong and healthy, the muscles in her legs bunching and relaxing as she pushed and pulled and maneuvered the heavy machine through tight spots, the sunlight turning the fine hair on her thighs to golden down…

  Riley’s stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t gotten around to eating the breakfast Summer had left for him. But it wasn’t blueberry waffles he was hungry for, not then.

  Scowling, he turned and stalked back into the gardener’s shed. There was no point in trying to go back to his study, not with the cat having usurped his newspaper, and with Summer putt-putting around out here he’d never be able to stay inside and concentrate, anyway. And, if he remembered right, he’d seen-yes, there they were-a pair of hedge clippers. Old-fashioned hand clippers, nothing power-driven, thank you-his ego had taken about all the beating it could stand for one day. He took them down from their hook and gave them a few practice snips to make sure they were in working order, then carried them outside.

  Way off down in the back beyond the wooded slope, he seemed to recall having seen some bushes that had looked as if they could use a trim. Hell, he thought, might as well have a go at them, since the morning was otherwise shot. Lord knew he could use the exercise-not to mention a way to work off some of this unanticipated sexual tension-and there was the additional perk that, since there were so many trees down in that part of the property, he’d be working in the shade.

  The bushes-he had no idea what kind they were, but they did have some rather nice flowers in the spring-were as rampant as he remembered. Obviously the gardeners hadn’t been in this part of the grounds in a while, which made him feel the more valiant and enterprising, precisely what his bruised male ego needed. Riley surveyed the clump and mapped out his plan of attack. He’d start at the sunny end, he decided, then work his way toward the trees and into the shade. Whistling tunelessly, he set to work.

  He’d been at it maybe fifteen minutes or so, long enough to work up a good sweat, and was maneuvering underneath a good-size magnolia, whacking away and feeling good about the progress he was making, when all of a sudden the bush he was chopping on emitted an earsplitting shriek. That startled him so he let go of the clippers, which landed, points down, on his instep at the precise moment a voice a few inches from his ear yelled, “Hey, you’re cutting down my fort!”

  Pain stabbed through his foot. He straightened violently, unfortunately right underneath a sizable branch of the magnolia tree. Riley’s head met the branch with a considerable amount of force, and then for a short while his world became mostly bright lights and dark blotches.

  When his senses returned to normal function, he found that he was lying on his back in some prickly leaves, gazing up at the face of a small, blond angel, who kept poking his cheek with her finger and saying solemnly, “Are you dead? Huh? Are you dead?”

  Before Riley could put together an intelligent response to that, the face abruptly vanished. He heard the crunch of footsteps and the crashing of underbrush, and a voice of diminishing volume yelling, “Mom! Mom! Mr. Riley’s bleeding!”

  Was he? Riley sat up slowly, swearing as he fought off a wave of nausea. Yes, dammit, he was; he could feel the trickles working their way through his hair in several directions-toward his forehead, his ears, even down the back of his neck. Damn. In another minute he was going to look like an ambulance case. There were already spots of blood on his shirt. He groaned, as much in mortification as in pain, as he pulled the shirt off, wadded it up and pressed it against his head.

  As if that weren’t enough, his foot hurt like bloody hell. He was wearing an old pair of canvas boat shoes with no socks, which was what he always put on for his Saturday of reading and relaxation. He knew he should have changed into heavier work shoes before tackling those bushes. But he hadn’t And as a result, it appeared he’d stabbed himself in the foot with the damned hedge clippers. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the result.

  Summer was plowing methodically up and down the lawn when she caught the flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She
cut off power to the mower, wiped sweat from her eyes with her shirtsleeve and said sternly, “Hey-what’s the rule about lawn mowers, kiddo? We wait-” Then she lowered her arm and got her first good look at her daughter’s flushed and sweaty face. Alarm narrowed her focus instantly. Bending closer, she said, “Honey, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  Helen was shaking her head and gasping like a netted fish. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to, Mommy. You have to come quick, Mr. Riley’s hurt because I yelled and he got scared and poked himself with the scissors and then he hit his head and now he’s just lying there on the ground bleeding and I don’t know if he’s dead, but ’cept his eyes are open-”

  “Wait,” said Summer. “Slow down. Take a breath. What are you talking about? You said Riley’s bleeding? Where?”

  Helen turned and pointed. “Down there.”

  “No, I mean-oh, gosh, never mind-”

  David arrived on the scene just in time to inquire in a superior tone, “Oh, boy, what’d she do now?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Helen wailed, scarlet-faced. “He was gonna cut down my fort! So I just screamed, and then he said a bad word and dropped the scissors on his foot and then he jumped, and bumped his head on the tree real hard! But I didn’t mean to hurt him, Mommy, I didn’t, I didn’t!” With that she turned and ran for the house as fast as she could go.

  “Hey-” David yelped. “What’d you do to Mr. Riley? You better not’ve hurt him-darn you-hey!” And he took off after his sister.

  For a second or two as her eyes followed her offspring, Summer hesitated. Her mother’s radar definitely sensed trouble. But obviously, “lying on the ground bleeding” had precedence over a possible sibling tiff. “Down there,” Helen had said. Summer sighed and started across the grass. After the first few steps, she broke into a run.

  Riley was sitting up when she found him, to her extreme relief; okay, Helen did have a tendency to exaggerate, but still… He had his back propped against the trunk of a magnolia tree, one leg drawn up, the other straight, and Lord help her, he’d taken off his shirt. He’d wadded it up and was holding it pressed to the top of his head. And yes, she could definitely see bloodstains on it.