One More Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

  Not wanting to disappoint her, he folded his arms across his chest and tsk-tsked in mild reproach. “How in the world did you manage to find one of those things here? This is a hospital.”

  She tipped back her head and blew smoke with an audible hiss, then quipped sardonically, “Ah have had to depend on the kindness of strangers.” And immediately she took another drag, her narrowed eyes a warning.

  So he just shook his head and moved up beside her, resisting a strong desire to put a comforting arm around her shoulders. He wanted to touch that silky skin so badly he knew he’d better not. Instead he asked casually, “Had any news?”

  She threw down what was left of the cigarette and stepped on it. “Still nothing.”

  He suddenly realized that she was trembling. He could feel it, even though they weren’t touching, could almost hear it, like the humming of high-voltage power lines. His jaws clenched. He let out a breath and said softly, “Waiting’s tough.” But the same vibration had begun deep down inside him, as if it were a contagion he’d caught from her.

  He wondered how much more of this he was going to be able to take. He was a patient man, but right now he wanted to grab her and shake her, slap her, scream at her, anything to bust loose whatever it was she was insisting on keeping bottled up inside. He’d never seen anybody wound so tight.

  He was trying his best to be reasonable. All right, so her father had just had a heart attack. So they obviously had some unresolved issues, which he could see might make it that much harder. So she had plenty of reasons to be upset, and maybe he was being selfish to expect her to share her personal problems with him, a stranger. But last night she hadn’t treated him like a stranger. And she’d had reasons enough then to be upset, surely-lady gets off a plane from L.A., drives to Alabama, loses her purse, crashes her car, gets arrested and thrown in jail-who wouldn’t be at the end of her rope? And she’d turned to him for comfort the only way she’d known how, instinct driving her to seek the nearest warm body. Even now, in the cold light of day, it was something he understood.

  But he’d had the feeling then that there was more to it than the obvious stuff, the accident and getting arrested and all. That there were things going on with her she wasn’t letting him in on. He felt that more than ever now. This wasn’t about her father having a heart attack. This was about whatever it was that had happened all those years ago to drive a young girl out of this town and away from her home and family, something she was ashamed of to this day. Something it still gave her nightmares and chills to think about.

  Dammit, why couldn’t she see that he was there to help? And he didn’t mean just driving her around and picking up her meal tab. He understood things like nightmares and cold sweats all too well. Why wouldn’t she trust him?

  And why did it bother him so much that she didn’t?

  “Hey,” he said, disappointment filling his throat like gravel, “how ‘bout gettin’ something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” she muttered, shaking her head, behaving, in his opinion, like an obstinate child.

  “You sure?” he asked, cajoling her like one. “It’s been a long time since breakfast.”

  She aimed a frown past him, edgy and restless. “No. You go ahead.”

  The need to touch her was a greater hunger than the one gnawing at his belly. To contain it, he tucked his hands against his ribs and clamped down hard on them with his biceps. “Hey,” he said, forcing a lightness he was a long way from feeling, “you need to eat. Trust me-I know.”

  Her eyes flicked at him, full of controlled fury. “What are you, my mother?”

  Patience, he thought. And he found that, in spite of all his efforts, his hand had found its way to her elbow. Her skin felt like cream on his fingers. “Come on, I’m buyin’.”

  “Damn right you are,” she snapped, “since in case you hadn’t noticed, I still haven’t got a purse.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m runnin’ a tab. Hospital’s got a cafeteria, I noticed. That okay with you?”

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “God, no. Look, if you’re going to make me eat, it’s going to have to be worth it. A burger and fries, or no deal.”

  He shook his head and muttered about her father lying in ICU with a coronary and her stuffing herself with french fries, but the truth was, the idea sounded damn good to him, too. “Okay,” he said, “it’s a deal. Do you need to tell anybody where you’re going? What was her name, your dad’s housekeeper-?”

  “Dobrina.” She gave her head a quick, hard shake that was almost like a shudder. “No. Let’s just go.”

  He dug in his pocket for his keys, and they started down the hill, Troy automatically shortening his stride to accommodate those high-heeled shoes she was wearing. Though she seemed to get around in the infernal things pretty well, he had to admit. Which probably had to do with her being a big-city lawyer, he reminded himself, and on her feet in shoes like that all day. For some reason it was hard to think of her that way, even dressed for it like she was now. His mind kept wanting to put her back in his boxers, or better yet, in nothing but those spangly drops of water, fresh from the shower…

  Bubba was bouncing around at the end of his leash like a paddle ball, tickled to death to see them back so soon.

  “How come he’s not howling?” Charly asked, giving the dog a wide berth and a wary look.

  “I don’t know,” said Troy, “I think maybe he’s gettin’ used to it.”

  He had to leave poor old Bubba squirming and whining, though, scared he was going to get left again, while he went to start up the car and get the air-conditioning going. And the next thing he knew, there was Charly untying the dog’s leash herself, and bringing him around to the back of the Cherokee. And cussing up a storm while she was doing it, too, trying her best, in her elegant suit and high-heeled shoes, to keep from being trampled on by a great big clumsy and overly enthusiastic pup. It was a sight guaranteed to melt the heart of any red-blooded Southern man.

  The look on her face was a clear warning to him not to give voice to what he was feeling just then, so he hid his grin and limited himself to a brisk “Where to?” as he climbed in behind the wheel. “Your friend Kelly’s okay?”

  She gave another one of those funny little shudders. “God, no, anyplace but there.”

  He threw her a look of curiosity. “Why not? She doesn’t serve hamburgers?”

  “Oh, I’m sure she does.” She put her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, laughing softly. And the warm feeling inside him congealed. Once again he felt shut out, excluded, barred.

  After a moment she sat up and began pulling pins out of her hair, combing through it with her fingers. She gave it a final shake that seemed to magically put all the pieces back in their original places and dropped the pins into the console cup holder.

  “It’s just that I’d rather not run into anybody I know right now,” she said tightly, “if you don’t mind.” She let out a breath and looked away, out the window. “Hell, when this news gets out-about the judge’s heart attack-I imagine the people in this town are gonna be lookin’ to lynch me.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You think I’m kidding.” She gave him a brief, hard look, then turned away again. “They will blame me. Trust me, I know.”

  “Come on, how could they? You just got here.”

  She gave her patented snort of laughter. “Oh, please. Judge’s wayward, runaway daughter shows up in town, judge has a coronary-who are they gonna blame? Besides-” she snatched a breath and finished sardonically “-it wouldn’t be the first time I killed off one of this town’s leading citizens.”

  He waited a minute to be sure he’d heard her right. Then he whooshed out air in a startled laugh. “Whoa, I think you’re gonna have to explain that one.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “It’s a long story.”

  Like his brother Jimmy Joe, Troy had a long fuse, but even he had his limits. He clamped down hard on his temper, but he c
ould feel his heartbeat accelerating and the heat starting to pump through his veins. He drawled with deceptive softness, “Like I said before, I’m not goin’ anywhere. Why don’t you just try givin’ me the short version?”

  “The short version?” Her voice was brittle with her own suppressed anger, which Troy had enough sense to know he wasn’t the true cause of. “You want the short version. Okay, how’s this? Rebellious young girl living in small Southern town gets pregnant out of wedlock, refuses to do the decent thing and go off to an aunt’s house out of town for the duration to save the families embarrassment and shame, et cetera. Baby’s sensitive teenage father commits suicide, girl gives birth to a son, girl puts baby up for adoption, girl hops the next bus out of town. End of story.” She stopped it there on a choking sound.

  Troy didn’t say anything. He drove in narrow-eyed silence while his brain processed all that and his heart pounded like a demon against the wall of his chest. He kept thinking, Wow. And, Okay, you asked for it. And Wow again.

  Finally, though, he was hearing those words End of story. And then he realized, Not by a long shot.

  This morning he’d thought about circles and coming back to the beginning in order to find the end. And he still thought there was something in that notion. But if Charly was telling him a story, then the part he’d just heard was maybe the first few chapters. All that had happened a long time ago. That was in the past. It was pretty plain to him that there’d been some new chapters added since then. Yesterday that rebellious girl, now all grown up, had come back to that small Southern town to make peace with her past, and instead something had happened, something that had hit her like a Scud missile.

  And today? Today he figured she was walking wounded, just trying to figure out a way to live with the pain from one minute to the next.

  What troubled him was, he couldn’t for the life of him think of anything he could do to help her. He was a United States Navy SEAL, doggone it, and feeling helpless didn’t sit well with him.

  He cleared his throat, knowing he had to say something. “Is that the thing you’re so ashamed of?”

  She looked confused for a moment, then remembered and shrugged. “Some of it.” Her voice turned bright and harsh as neon. “Hey, I bet you’re sorry you ever answered that phone, huh?”

  Troy gave a little “Huh!” of surprise. Because the truth was, he didn’t know how he felt about that. There was no use denying there’d been a time or two in the past twenty hours or so when he’d had second thoughts about what he’d gotten himself mixed up in.

  He looked over at Charly, and for a change she was looking back at him. She had her head tilted at a cheeky angle and a wry smile on her lips, but her eyes were clinging to his, searching and unsure. Maybe he imagined it-it was just for a moment, before he had to pull his gaze and attention back to the business of driving-but he couldn’t shake the notion that he’d seen something in the deep-woods shadows of those eyes. Something looking out at him…like a little girl in her secret hiding place, hoping against hope he was about to find her but expecting him to turn away before he did.

  It gave him a strange and, for a strong man and former navy SEAL, a damn unsettling feeling. It made him feel like crying.

  “So, what do you do, now that you aren’t in the navy anymore?” Charly asked between bites of her Double-Whammy Super Deluxe Cheeseburger, chasing stray globs of special sauce with a fingertip. “When you’re not bailing delinquent bridesmaids out of jail, that is.”

  Since his own mouth was full, Troy couldn’t answer right away. He chewed and thought about it while his gaze rested idly on Bubba, who’d already polished off his three burgers and was sitting at attention with his jaws dripping and his eyes locked onto Troy’s dinner like heat-seeking missiles. He knew what Charly was doing, and he was inclined to let her get away with it. Hell, he’d known guys pinned down and taking heavy fire to pull their kids’ pictures out of their pockets and start exchanging stories about birthday parties.

  He swallowed, wiped his mouth with his napkin and cleared his throat. “Not too much, actually. Marybell’s had me doing-”

  “Marybell?”

  “Yeah, you know, Mirabella.” Charly was looking so stunned, he had to smile. “She didn’t tell you, huh? That’s what Jimmy Joe calls her. Guess it’s startin’ to rub off on the rest of the family.”

  She put a hand over her eyes and murmured, “Oh, my Lord.”

  “Anyway,” Troy went on, “I’ve been doing some things for her-handyman stuff, you know-gettin’ things ready for the wedding, remodelin’ the house to make a nursery for Amy. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds, let me tell you. Hell, I remember boot-camp instructors who weren’t as hard to please. You know how she is-got to have everything just so.”

  Charly smiled wryly. “Sounds like Bella.” She shook her head as if she’d just had her bell rung. “Jeez…Marybell.”

  After a moment she gave a sort of cough and aimed a frown in Bubba’s general direction. “So, how is she?”

  “Mirabella? She’s fine, I guess. Seems real happy.” Troy thought his smile must be a carbon copy of the lopsided one Charly had just been wearing; it was the way Mirabella affected people. “Sometimes it’s kind of hard to tell. She can be pretty intense.”

  Charly chuckled in agreement, and there was a moment’s silence that seemed almost companionable.

  The hospital with its cool corridors and beeping monitors and high drama seemed a long way off. They were the only occupants of the fast-food restaurant’s outside tables, since it hadn’t seemed fair to leave poor Bubba tethered to the Cherokee in the heat while they dined in air-conditioned comfort. The breeze Troy had had such hopes for earlier hadn’t lived up to its promise, and the day had the lazy feel of a long late afternoon not quite ready to turn itself over to evening. The insect hum and heat shimmer combined with a stomach full of cholesterol and too little sleep the night before was making Troy feel drowsy and relaxed. He wondered if they were affecting Charly the same way.

  He was thinking about asking her if she wanted to go back to the motel and change her clothes, and thinking about the various possibilities of where that might lead, when she suddenly coughed and said, “Well, I hope she is.”

  He said, “Pardon?” having completely lost the thread of the conversation.

  She had picked up a french fry and was studying it minutely. “Bella. I hope she’s happy. She sure deserves to be.” She sounded gruff, almost angry.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Troy said cautiously.

  She hitched a shoulder and popped the french fry into her mouth. “So they say.”

  “I sure can’t think why she wouldn’t be happy,” he said after a moment, leaning forward on his elbows to steal one of her fries. “Seems to me she’s got it all-beautiful little baby girl, a good man who happens to think she’s the most wonderful woman ever born…”

  “Oh, please.” She made a sound that was more cynicism than laughter and looked away. “Like all it takes to make a woman happy is to keep her barefoot and pregnant? That is just so…Southern.”

  “Well, now,” Troy drawled, “last time I looked, women had the vote down here, too. We got women doctors, lawyers…hell, we even got women politicians.”

  “Oh, Lord, don’t get insulted.” She laughed and shook back her hair, and he could see it was the physical part of an effort she was making to banish the darkness of her thoughts. “I’m just havin’ trouble picturing Bella living in the South, is all.”

  “Lots of people do,” said Troy, with a little shrug to show he wasn’t arguing with her, or trying to convince her of anything. Which he wasn’t. “More an’ more all the time.”

  “Well, anyway,” she said lightly, “she sure does think your brother walks on water. You ask me, the man sounds almost too good to be true.”

  Troy had to look down to dilute his smile. “Well, I’m afraid he’s the genuine article. Yeah, she got herself a good man there-definitely the pick of the litter.”


  “The pick of the litter?” Charly laughed, one of the first sounds of real amusement he’d heard her make, then angled a look at him from under her lashes he could have sworn was flirting. “What about you? You and your brother anything alike?”

  “What? Aw, hell no.” He squirmed in the hot plastic seat, all of a sudden feeling something he’d never felt before: self-consciousness, the back of his mind clicking away like an adding machine, totaling up the pluses and minuses of his character and looking for the first time in his life as if it might come up with a deficit. Nothing like a woman, he thought ruefully, to test a man’s confidence.

  “Naw,” he said, brazening it out, “Jimmy Joe’s a whole lot smarter’n I am. Sweeter, too.” He grinned at her, showing all his teeth. “But I’m cuter.”

  She laughed again, but this time he couldn’t hold her eyes. She looked away, reaching abruptly for her drink.

  He watched her lips close around the straw, watched her throat move with her swallow, thinking of all the things he could have said then, all the things he wanted to say…wondering what was in her mind, and if it was anything like what was in his. Because he was thinking again of making love with her, not the way he already had, but the ways he’d like to.

  And it occurred to him that in a way, having sex with somebody made it even harder to get to know them. Kind of like two different radio signals trying to come in on the same frequency. Sometimes it was tough to make sense out of either one.

  “So,” said Charly, taking a breath, “you don’t know what you want to do? Now that you’re out of the navy, I mean. I thought the service was supposed to train you for something.”

  “Oh,” Troy said dryly, struggling to get his thoughts back under control, “they trained me for a lot of things. Most of which aren’t much use in civilian life. It’s not like I was a mechanic, or a chef, or a computer engineer or a pilot or something. SEALs…” He let it trail off.