They found a seat while Michael tried to deal with a nasty case of déjà vu. He hadn’t realized the players might be the same on this field as at The Medieval Fair where Mark was hurt. He should have realized . . . after all, how many people could there be who were crazy enough to travel the circuit, fighting in heavy armor in ninety-degree heat?
The setting here was more intimate, Michael had to admit. The action closer, easier to see. The Marshal was putting his horse through a series of intricate dance steps usually associated with Lippanzaners. Airs Above the Ground, wasn’t that what some called it? Horse and rider were superb, moving as if to inner music, prancing as lightly as a fairy over the scuffed turf of coarse Florida grass. The audience was perfectly silent, seemingly afraid to risk breaking the beautiful rhythm. When both horse and rider came to rest, then bent their bodies in a low bow, the crowd broke into applause dotted with cheers and rebel yells. The tournament hadn’t even begun, and they’d already had their money’s worth.
When the knights circled the field, helms on their saddles, Michael recognized two of Mark’s buddies. The Yellow and Black Knight and the Blue and White Knight. But no sign of the Scarlet and White Knight who had downed Mark. Perhaps he’d dropped off the circuit. Certainly, the young man had been pale and visibly shaken when Michael interviewed him the day after the ill-fated tournament in Manatee Bay.
The knights donned their helms. The action began.
Michael pasted on his most expressionless face and remained stoically glued to his hard wooden seat while inwardly wincing as the two knights broke lances on each other’s armor. Every moment he anticipated disaster. The two combatants clashed swords on horseback, then with booted feet firmly planted on the ground. There was nothing but the clang of metal on metal, the shouts of the crowd, the low hum of the fair going about its business in the background. Nothing unusual happened, except Michael’s stomach churned so violently he thought he was going to have to jump off the bleachers into the bushes in order to keep from losing his lunch in full view of the entire tourney audience.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said as they made their way toward the exit at one end of the field. “That must have been tough on you.”
“I’m okay.” Michael increased his pace, focused on avoiding the strolling fairgoers in front of him. Admitting a weakness would come on the Day of Never. Not even his soft spot for the tall girl in denim cut-offs who had to lengthen her stride to catch up with him was going to crack a chink in his tough-guy armor.
So he was being a stupid ass.
Michael came to an abrupt halt. “Is that archery?” he asked.
Kate followed his bird-dog gaze. “A game, I think. Not a formal contest like LALOC.”
“Want to try it?”
“I’ll watch.” Concentrating on a bullseye might help exorcize Michael’s demons. At least Kate hoped so.
Fifteen minutes later Kate was in proud possession of a fluffy white polar bear with a pink bow. “You’ve been practicing,” she commended with a grin.
Michael shrugged. “Spent a little time in my parents’ backyard. I have to make a good showing at the next Event, after all. Can’t give out my phone number so I can be contacted about fighter practice with the jocks, so archery is my only hope to demonstrate I’m not a wimp.”
“I doubt you’ll ever have to worry about that.” Kate smiled at her bear, gave him a pat. How Brocc could have thought the man called Raven was anything but the most macho jock on the block had to indicate a mightily confused brain. Or that he possessed an ego so strong he refused to believe Raven had succeeded where he failed. Either quality would put him near the top of the Villain List. But motive . . . what could Brocc gain by causing so much trouble, by actually hurting people? It was more like the person they were looking for just plain crazy.
“Look up there!” Michael was pointing high above their heads to a knothole in a live oak that shaded the booth of one of the jewelry vendors.
Kate frowned. “What?”
“Look closely. Something sort of yellow.”
Kate took another look, clutched her bear in a stranglehold. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
“Yellow rat snake,” the female vendor spoke up. “Every year we set off bug bombs in our house here to get out the spiders and anything else that’s taken up residence. He came crawling out, shinnied up the tree, and has been in that hole ever since.”
Kate studied the knothole where a small thin head protruded from the bark. It really was a yellow snake. Small, yes, but still a snake. She didn’t like snakes. And Michael, who was grinning from ear to ear, knew it. Blast him!
“Wave bye-bye to the snake, Kate,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear. “I want to check out the Mud Pit.”
Reacting as if his warm breath against her cheek were jet propulsion, Kate shot forward a foot, coming to rest that much closer to the snake. She refused, absolutely refused to reveal that snakes turned her knees to water. Almost as badly as Michael himself. Shoulders square, her face a perfect blank, she executed an abrupt about-face and marched off, not caring if she was going toward the Mud Pit or not. Truthfully, it wasn’t the snake. She was fleeing the man. A menace to her sanity. To her carefully constructed way of life.
“This way, Rambo.” Strong hands turned her to the left as if she were a featherweight. Kate bit her lip, hugged her bear, and let Michael steer her toward the Mud Pit. The arm around her shoulder was a lead weight she couldn’t shake off. She didn’t want to see the stupid mud wrestling or whatever it was, but she was moving in that direction as if she had no will of her own. A few more weeks in this man’s company and she’d be the one who was called a wimp.
Correction. She, a LALOC knight, was already a wimp. Michael Turco was ruling her actions, haunting her thoughts, maybe even tugging at her heart. He looked at her, and she felt small and petite and . . . almost fragile. Like a real woman instead of a warrior.
But she couldn’t give in, couldn’t stop fighting . . . She’d spent too many years accepting what life dished out, allowing adversity to overwhelm her. She’d woken one morning in a white-walled room and known she was free at last. The worm had turned. No man would ever control her life again. No way, no how.
Shouts, roars of laughter, screams of delight. Kate dragged herself back to the reality of the Mud Show. Obviously, a great many people were delighted by the sight of two young men doing pratfalls into a giant tank of dark, oozing, gooey mud. Both actors were already unrecognizable, covered in gray-brown mud from head to toe, only the whites of their eyes and an occasional flash of teeth breaking through their monochrome hi-jinks.
Kate and Michael were seated on one of several rows of wooden benches set up in front of a giant aboveground swimming pool. Behind the yawning pit of mud was a stage where the two young men traded jokes and antics that inevitably ended with one or the other falling, or getting pushed, into the pool. Mud splashed indiscriminately in every direction as the actors’ lithe young bodies tumbled into it. Kate was suddenly extremely glad she was not wearing one of her Medieval costumes.
She glanced at Michael, shook her head. He was actually enjoying this. Kate didn’t like farce, couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly take a series of mud baths for four shows a day. Idly, she wondered how many Renaissance outfits they went through in a weekend. The very thought of the wear and tear on their costumes—no matter how modest they were—made her ill. Men! She’d never be able to understand them.
The shouts died away. A sudden hush. A growing uneasiness as the audience fixed its eyes on the young man standing on stage, staring down into the Mud Pit. Even with his features obscured by mud, he suddenly appeared uncertain. As if waiting for a cue that didn’t come. Was it part of the act? Kate couldn’t tell. Beside her, Michael stirred, poised to rise.
More seconds passed. Nobody moved. There was a mud-drenched actor on stage. No sign of the one who had crumpled into the Pit a full minute earlier. Crumpled. That was it, Kate realiz
ed. He hadn’t done a prat fall or been pushed. He’d simply crumpled up and tumbled into the mud. And now, as the ripples in the tank quieted into a perfectly flat dark sea, everyone sensed something was wrong.
The actor on stage plunged, feet first, into the pit. Michael was right behind him.
Chapter 14
The search was short. They’d all seen the performer fall straight down from the stage. Kate was at the forefront of the mass of willing hands surrounding the tank as Michael and the other actor hoisted the young man’s inert body up out of the sucking goop. The two men, supporting the third, looked like some nightmare creature out of a horror film, a brown amorphous mass lumbering through waist-high mud without visible means of locomotion.
“Hose. Behind the stage,” the actor gasped as they reached the side of the tank. Several young men in the audience took off at a run.
Kate and two other spectators relieved Michael and the actor of their slippery burden, hoisting the inert performer over the edge, carefully lowering him to the ground. Fortunately, the hose was equipped with a spray nozzle. Kate set to work clearing the young man’s nose and mouth. Handkerchiefs appeared, passed hand to hand from people in the crowd. From the unconscious actor, however, there was no sign of life. Forty seconds, maybe sixty, since he’d cleared the tank. How long in the mud before that?
A hand, dripping mud, thrust past her, checking for a pulse. Michael’s decisive voice rang in her ear. “He’s not breathing, Kate. “You know how to pump his chest? Good. I’ll do the mouth-to-mouth.”
“Your face!” Kate handed him the hose and the last clean handkerchief.
As Michael dashed water over his head, he suffered his second attack of déjà vu for the day. “Did anyone call 911?” he shouted as he shook water out of his hair, scrubbed the handkerchief across his face.
“I did,” “Yes!” chorused several voices from the crowd.
Michael nodded his satisfaction, squirted water into his mouth, spat a dirty stream onto the ground, repeated the process. “Okay, let’s do it,” he said to Kate.
While the unconscious actor’s partner hovered like a black wraith over the proceedings, Michael and Kate performed CPR. A few minutes later, as the EMS crew made its way through the burgeoning crowd, they were rewarded by a gasp, a faint stirring of life. “Okay,” Michael breathed on a gusty sigh. For a moment before the professionals took over, he and Kate stared at each other above the performer’s mud-covered body.
“Damned golf cart,” Michael grumbled twenty minutes later as he and Kate took turns hosing each other off.
“Huh?”
“They brought one for Mark. At the fair in Manatee Bay. I wouldn’t let them touch him. But there’s no way to get an ambulance in here. I have to admit the idea of a stretcher on a golf cart isn’t such a bad idea.”
Kate couldn’t think of an adequate response. Although the young man on the way to the ER was the victim, Michael had not exactly had a good day either. No matter how tough a façade he put on, Kate knew the tournament had hurt. Watching his brother’s friends perform the same acts that had caused Mark’s injury must have been torture. And now . . . finding himself responsible for yet another life. Kate supposed Michael was used to it; it was part of his job, but . . . enough was enough. Time for some comic relief.
They were nearly clean now. Hair, black and blond, hung heavy, wayward strands edging across eyebrows, stretching toward their mouths. Clothes stained beyond the power of the hose, socks drooping over sneakers that squished with every step. Kate’s lips twitched. What was a little more water?
She aimed the gun-shaped hose nozzle straight at Michael’s chest, pulled the trigger back all the way. She chortled as Michael roared his shock when the powerful torrent caught him full force. If only she had a camera to capture the look on his face!
He lunged toward her, reaching for the hose. Kate turned and ran, stumbled, dropped the hose. Scooting behind the broad trunk of an ancient live oak, she hid, her back to the rough bark, hands splayed at her sides.
Alas, the hose was longer than she’d thought. A stream of water caught her hard between the breasts, cascading over shorts, down her long legs, turning her already soaked sneakers into water-filled boats. Michael, using the hose like a machine gun, sprayed her up, down, and across. “Uncle!” Kate shouted above the whoosh of the water. “Uncle!”
As the water abruptly cut off, she could hear Michael’s chuckle. “You think it’s funny!” Kate cried before belatedly remembering her own laughter.
“You started it.”
She pushed her sopping hair back behind her ears; her eyes met Michael’s. “So I did,” Kate said. And grinned. Wetly.
“Hey, guys?” An EMS worker was standing a few feet away, looking doubtfully from one dripping form to the other. “I thought you might like these. We–uh–don’t like to forget our heroes, you know.” He held out a blanket in each hand.
Caught acting like infants. Kate thought Michael looked as chagrined as she felt. He mumbled his thanks as he grabbed both towels, somehow managing to hand her one without looking at her. The EMS worker tossed them a wink and a wave of his hand before heading back to the First Aid station outside the main entrance.
“We’ve lost our art work,” Michael said. With a corner of the blanket, he wiped the last smudges of henna from Kate’s face. “Sorry,” he added with a wry grin. “I’d like to have seen Barbara Falk’s face when you walked in all dolled up like some houri from a Garden of Delight.”
Michael grinned, ducked away from Kate’s outrage, raising the blanket across his face in a mock shield between them. When he straightened up, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he’d become a different man. His voice, as he suggested they find a sunny spot to dry off, had all the warmth and personal feeling of an officer moving gawkers away from the scene of an accident. Kate supposed it wasn’t every day an FHP lieutenant was lured into playing water games. The great man was actually embarrassed.
Kate wrapped herself in the blanket, closed her eyes, and sighed over the sheer pleasure of the warmth. Ignoring the stares of shorts-clad fairgoers as they caught sight of the dripping wet couple wrapped in blankets, they finally found a bench that wasn’t shaded by trees. Kate took off her sneakers, dumped a gusher of water from each, then watched while Michael did the same. As he straightened up, their eyes met. Her Michael was back. Tough, sophisticated, slightly cynical, with a warmth only a chosen few were allowed to see. This was the Michael who could be fourteen one minute and pushing forty the next. Kate found she rather liked them both. Even the crusty embarrassed Michael who had proved he was only human.
“So,” Kate challenged, “was this another incident?”
“He was drugged.”
“What?”
“I watched the EMS crew check his vitals. When they rolled back his lids, his pupils were pinpoints. I’d guess he was unconscious when he fell. Someone slipped him a mickey.”
“But how—”
“Who knows? I just know someone did. The only alternative is that he’s a druggie, but somehow I doubt it. I’ll interview them both when things settle down, but I’m pretty certain this was the work of our mysterious evil genius.”
Kate bent down, rubbed off a lingering blob of mud on one of her sneakers. “I really thought we’d just have fun today. I never expected trouble. Not so soon after Garth.”
“He’s stepping up the pace.” Michael looked as grim as he sounded.
“I guess,” Kate murmured. “Michael? . . . What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad day. When I suggested coming here, I never thought about how you’d feel. The tournament, I mean. And now this. I’m sorry, really sorry.”
A moment’s pause, then his arms went wide. Kate found herself cheek to chest in what should have been a cold and clammy place. Instead, his wet shirt seemed to steam under a rush of heat far hotter than the warmth of the double layer of blankets now firmly clutched by Michael’s hands behind her back.
Kate dug in, her blanket-wrapped arms knuckling his chest. For these few moments—this infinitesimal space in time—she had no desire to be anywhere but here. If she let go, the world would fly off its axis, crash into the sun, burn to a crisp.
Michael’s lips breathed warmth into her ear. It felt completely right. “Hey, I’m the big tough cop, remember? I have to take it all day, every day.”
“But this is your day off!” Kate wailed.
“Right now I don’t have any days off.”
Of course he didn’t. What a fool she was! Michael Turco was on the job, as always. Giving comfort to his partner. His amateur, junior partner. It was his profession, his life; she just a cog in one more investigation. If he had a heart, any kind of soft spot inside his FHP armor, it was reserved for his family. Kate Knight was just a passing stranger.
She squeezed her eyes tight, held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t feel the shudder that ripped through her. Kate flattened her hands against Michael’s chest, pushed herself upright. Turning her face toward the warmth of the late afternoon sun—the only warmth left in the day—she summoned Barbara Falk’s cool and professional paralegal. “I was going to suggest we eat out on the way home,” Kate said. “Guess that’s out. Can you see the look on the maitre d’s face?” Flip, light-hearted. Remote. Yes, that was the tone she wanted.
Michael scowled. One minute she was snuggled into him like he was manna from heaven. Now this. “Kate? What did I do?”
“Nothing.”
“A damn strong nothing.”
“It’s okay, Lieutenant. Just consider me weird.”
Jesus! Michael suddenly got the message. Women! Couldn’t she tell she was more than a job? That his pulse raced every time he got near her. That he was hard put to control what had seldom given him trouble since those embarrassing days of early puberty? Couldn’t the fool girl see that he cared, that he had to keep himself from calling her every day, that he had to think up excuses why he shouldn’t drop by her house?
Florida Knight Page 17