A Knight in Central Park (3 page)

How wondrously strange all of these items of the future.

Grandfather had said there would be unimaginable objects in this other world, and certainly he was right. Carriages without horses, flashing lights above the streets...and without use of a flame! If only Grandfather could be here with her to see it all with his own eyes.

Alexandra scratched at her bandaged leg, then promptly fell back onto the soft pillow behind her. She twiddled her thumbs and peered at the ceiling until her eyes crossed. Not one to dawdle, she found it difficult to sit still. With naught else to keep her busy, she found herself recalling the determined, unwavering glint in her hero’s dark blue eyes. That look had told her everything she needed to know. The man who called himself Joe was to be her knight.

“Sir Joe,” she said aloud, unimpressed with the sound of his name on her lips.

As a child she had thought her champion would possess a name like Drake or George. Even Thomas had a certain ring to it, conjuring images of strong warriors from the past.
But Joe?
Her shoulders dipped. His name mattered not. The only thing that mattered was that he was determined, strong, and brave enough to conquer Sir Richard and his men upon their return to her time.
Her time.
How strange the thought seemed. And yet somehow it had truly happened. Reaching under the cover, she felt for the stones within the hem of her garment. The strange lady in white had wanted her to undress, but she had refused. Relief swept over her as she grasped the small stones.

The woman named Shelly had assured her Sir Joe would come to check on her before long. Alexandra needed only to convince Sir Joe to return home with her. Until the next full moon, she could not let him out of her sight.

She tapped a finger to her chin, endeavoring to come up with a plan when the door suddenly swung open.

The very man who filled her thoughts appeared, looking tall and broad-shouldered as he entered the room. She cocked her head for a better look at the strange headgear he wore over his eyes. He had not been wearing the odd apparatus earlier. “What is that contraption strapped across your face?”

He took them off. “My glasses?”

“Aye,” she said, reaching for them and then placing the apparatus over her eyes. “What do they—Oh, my, they are ghastly.” She took them off and blinked to regain a clearer vision.

He plucked them from her clutches and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “You’ve never seen a pair of eyeglasses before?”

She shook her head. “Nay. I thought you said your eyesight was that of an owl.”

Sir Joe seemed skeptical, uneasy, and thus she figured now was not the time to tell him of his destiny, his quest.

“They’re for reading,” he told her. “Listen, I talked to the doctor. He said you have some bruising, but no broken bones. You’ll be up and about in a few days.”

“My leg itches terribly. Can you not remove the bandages for a moment?”

He shook his head. “Here,” he said, gathering a stack of bound papers from a nearby table. “Maybe this will help keep your mind off the itch.”

She took the thick parchment he offered, feeling the smooth texture with her fingertips. She turned the thick pile of parchment over and gasped at the sight of a woman in full color, dressed in strange undergarments, her bosom heaved against colorful fabric. “Do women dress like this in your time?”

Joe glanced at the picture. “I wish,” he said with a smile.

“What do you wish?”

“Nothing. It was a joke. I was kidding.”

Alexandra looked at the colored drawing again. No one she had seen so far had been dressed like this Jezebel, but Sir Joe wished for all women to wear this sort of garb. She smiled inwardly. Sir Joe, it seemed, was quite the rogue.

“Do you have a relative I could call?” he asked, his tone stern and much too serious. “Someone to come get you?”

“Nay, everyone I know is far, far away.” A thought struck her, and she lifted a questioning brow. “Surely you’ll not leave me to fend for myself after striking me down?”

“It was an accident,” he said. “If you give me the name of a friend, anyone at all, I’ll contact them and make sure they know you’re here.”

Joe glanced at his watch. If he left this minute he might get to Suzanne’s place in time for dinner with her parents. Although missing dinner altogether had its appeal, he had canceled last week and they would never forgive him if he was to be so rude again. “Where do you live? I’ll have Shelly drop you there after you’re released. How about that?”

“I have no place to go, Sir Joe.”

He pressed a finger to his temple. “Don’t you think ‘sir Joe’ is overdoing it a bit?” He studied her face for a moment as he wondered what kind of game she was playing.

Before she could reply, the door swung open and Shelly entered the room. She headed straight for the bed. “Does it hurt?” Shelly asked Alexandra.

Joe shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glanced at his watch again.

“Nay, ’Tis not so bad.”

Her ridiculous dialect was driving him nuts. Every ’tis and ’twas made his teeth clench tighter. He wrapped his hand around Shelly’s arm, excused them both, and pulled her from the room and into the hallway.

The door shut softly behind them.

He kept his voice low. “She claims to have no place to stay. If you ask me, the woman is nuts. I really think she believes she’s from another century.”

Shelly’s eyes lit up as an idea came to her. “Let her stay at your place for a few days. At least until she can get around.”

“Absolutely not. This isn’t like bringing home a stray puppy or a kitten. She’s human. At least I think she is.”

“Oh, come on. She looks perfectly innocent to me. She’s extremely sweet natured. What harm could she do? You’ve got plenty of room in your apartment and the publicity might do you some good. You want to impress the Academy, don’t you? The headlines will read:
Joe McFarland Helps the Homeless.
What could be better than that?”

“Forget it, she’s a lunatic. She could be a thief for all I know.”

Shelly plunked a hand on her hip. “And exactly how much of your property is she going to carry off with a bum leg?”

“She could be on drugs. The last thing I need are needles scattered about my coffee table.”

The doctor swept past, prompting them both to fix their gazes on him as he entered Alexandra’s room.

“Did you see that gorgeous man?” Shelly asked. “Was that Alexandra’s doctor?”

Joe’s temples throbbed. “Yes, and I didn’t see a ring on his finger. I need to go. Here,” he said, stuffing his keys into Shelly’s hand. “You take my car and I’ll catch a cab. I filled out the required forms and told the hospital staff to bill me. See if they can keep Alexandra overnight. If it will make you feel better, I’ll come back tomorrow and find her a place to stay. One of those shelters for women...or something like that.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Shelly said, “but don’t think I won’t remember this. You owe me one.”

Joe shot her a quick smile before he took off down the hall toward the open elevator.

T
he fullness of the moon lit up the street as Joe handed the cab driver a twenty. Joe took his change and headed toward his condo. Shuffling his hands in his pockets, he remembered at that moment that he’d given Shelly his car keys, which meant she also had the keys to his house.

Damn. Nothing had gone right all day. He’d missed an important meeting this morning, he’d run over a homeless woman, his girlfriend, Suzanne, was no longer speaking to him, and now he’d have to break into his own home.

The bedroom window on the east side had a flimsy latch. He’d try that first. His feet crunched on the icy snow as he made his way around the side of the building.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

He jiggled the window frame, congratulating himself when the lock came loose. Hoping not to wake his neighbor, Mrs. Peacock, he took his time raising the wood frame an inch at a time. Once the window was wide enough to fit his body, he got a good solid grip on the windowsill and pulled himself headfirst through the opening, slithering to the ground like a snake.

Sprawled out on the floor on his belly, he immediately sensed someone lurking in the shadows. He heard a movement to his right and saw a flash of glinting metal just before something hard connected with his head. A shocking bolt of pain pierced through his skull, and he quickly faded into oblivion.

Joe put a hand to his head and felt a knot the size of a walnut.
What the hell happened?
His head jerked up at the idea that the intruder was still in the room. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dark. Though his vision was blurred, there was no mistaking the woman hovering over him. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The woman he’d left in the hospital hours ago had somehow tracked him down and snuck into his house. “What the hell did you do that for?” he asked. “And what are you doing in my home?”

“No need to curse,” Alexandra scolded. “Your assistant brought me here.”

He glared at her.

“How was I to know it was you?”

His blood surged as he sat up. “I live here.”

“Shelly assured me you would enter through the front entry if you were to come home.”

“I would have come through the front entry,” he said through clenched teeth, “if I had had my keys.”

“Perhaps next time you will remember them.”

Examining the knot on his head with his fingertips, he tried to think of a clever reply. No such luck. As his vision became less hazy, he realized she looked different. She wore a floor length cotton nightgown and her hair, a mass of fiery red curls, fell over her shoulders like a silk shawl.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you gawking at?”

Tired, frustrated, and in pain, Joe attempted to shake his head in annoyance, but it hurt too much. Instead, he lifted himself to his feet, grabbed the robe slung over the end of the bed, and tossed it to her. “Nothing,” he growled. He then stepped closer to her, leaned his body into hers, ignoring her gasps, perhaps even enjoying them as he reached around her, quite slowly and quite purposefully as he quite innocently switched on the lamp.

“There,” he said, stepping back. “Is something wrong?”

She pushed her arms into the robe and pulled the sash tight. “Are you asking me if something is amiss?”

“No. I’m asking you if something is wrong.”

“Must you always speak like a jackanapes, Sir Joe?”

A twitch set in his jaw. “Just call me Joe.”

She just stood there, stiff and unbending.

He shook his head, wincing at the pain such a small movement caused. “Unbelievable.”

She cocked her head. “What is that?”

“The fact that I’m having any sort of conversation at all with a woman who has limped her way into my house without permission only to knock me over the head with a—” He glanced around the room. “What did you hit me with?”

Tentatively, she retrieved a toilet plunger from underneath the pillows. Not just any plunger either. This one had been a housewarming gift and it had a solid handle of brushed steel. No wonder his head felt as if it had been bashed in with a baseball bat.

He took the weapon from her and set it out of her reach. “I hit you with my car and now you’ve hit me with a plunger. I’d say we’re even.”

She frowned. “Is it bleeding?”

“No,” he said as he took a seat in the heavily upholstered chair facing the bed. “Go ahead, get back into bed.”

For the first time since he’d met her, she looked wary of him, maybe even intimidated. He figured she deserved it. If she wanted to sleep in the home of a man she didn’t even know, then she’d have to face the consequences.

He tapped a finger to his knee and waited for her to climb into bed, finding himself ridiculously mesmerized by her wriggling bottom as she struggled to do so.

“Now explain what you’re doing here,” he said after she adjusted the blankets.

“As I said before, your lady friend brought me.”

Somehow he managed to remain calm. “I want to know why you’re really here. Is this something you do on a regular basis, you know, step in front of cars, hoping to find shelter for a few days, a few weeks, maybe months?”

“If I speak the truth, will you promise to hear me out?”

“Promise,” he said, leaning back into the chair. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Thirty minutes later, Joe realized, they were getting absolutely nowhere. As she rambled on, he found himself wishing he’d never asked the question. He should’ve left well enough alone and gone up to bed the moment he’d seen that it was her. Instead, he listened as she babbled on about coming from a time when knights roamed England and castles were common; the late fifteenth century to be exact, when King Henry VII held the throne, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York.

He guessed that Alexandra had majored in medieval history before going off the deep end. “So,” he said, when she paused for a breath, “you’re from another time?”

“Aye.”

“And you have until the next full moon to get help?”

She nodded and added in a serious tone, “King Henry is very sly. He has taxed the common people heavily, which has made circumstances surrounding our village unsafe. Noblemen like Sir Richard are doing as they please, taking from the poor until there is naught left but bitterness and fear. ’Twould seem Sir Richard has his mind set on marrying my sister, but I will not allow it. He is a cruel and evil man, which is why I am here.”

He cocked his head. “And why is that?”

“To get help, of course.”

“Of course.” First thing in the morning he was going to hunt Shelly down and let her have a piece of his mind for leaving this woman in his house.

Alexandra settled back into the mounds of pillows, making little noises of contentment. “It is a relief to have it all off my chest. I was afraid you would not believe a word I uttered, for even I failed to believe my grandfather’s tales. But you, Sir Joe, are a suitable listener, indeed. Shelly said you were a kind, generous man, and I should have known after our meeting this morn that you would not turn me away.”