A Knight in Central Park (5 page)

She fidgeted with the belt on the robe she’d put on. “I wish to apologize.”

He dried his face with a towel, then headed for the closet. “Don’t worry about it.” He grabbed his running shoes, sat on the edge of the bed, and put them on.

“I did not mean to be an annoyance,” she said. “Are you angry?”

He’d never felt better, but he’d be damned if he’d tell her that. “No, I’m not angry, but that doesn’t change things. You can’t stay here.”

“I beg of you not to send me away. Time is running out. We need to plan our attack.”

He tugged at his shoelaces. “Our attack?”

“Aye. My grandfather warned me that when we return to my time everything will be as it was when I left. Although normal time will have passed in your world, nothing will have changed in mine. Upon our return, Sir Richard’s men will need to be dealt with swiftly and bluntly.”

“Listen,” Joe said, his voice strained. “When I said I’d help you, I meant that I’d help you find a place to stay; a place with lots of caring people to help you get back on track.”

“You truly give no credence to my plight?”

“Even if I believed your story...I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

“Why not?”

Joe felt foolish talking about something so absurdly irrational, but nothing in the past few days seemed remotely ordinary, so he said, “Because violence isn’t something I condone. Guns and weapons are used too often without much thought to consequence.”

Alexandra’s fingers rolled into fists at her sides. “What about the innocent people who are attacked without warning? The people who have no choice but to fight back?”

“They should walk away—”

“And take a dagger in the back?” She jabbed at his side when he tried to pass. “What if someone did that? Or this.” She went for his left side, but his hand darted out and took a firm hold of her wrist. She winced.

“This is crazy,” he said, dropping her arm. When he got to the door he turned back to her. “I’m going for a run. When I return, we’re going to find you another place to stay.”

Joe exited the room, furious with himself for letting her get to him at all. He took the stairs two at a time, didn’t see Shelly standing nearby until he reached the landing. She gave him a sorrowful look filled with pity.

He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t say it.”

She shot him a look of innocence. “What?”

“That I should chase after Suzanne and beg her forgiveness.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I did-I do.” He raked a hand through his hair, wondering why he bothered to explain at all. “Listen, I don’t have time to run after her. Besides, we were already on shaky ground. It never would have worked out.”

Shelly shook her head, irritating him all the more when she said, “Every single time you date a woman for more than a few weeks you say the same thing.”

“Not true.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why wouldn’t it have worked out?”

Joe shifted from one foot to the other; the weight of two days of madness crashing upon his shoulders like giant boulders.

“You were beginning to feel claustrophobic again, weren’t you?” Shelly asked. “Feeling those walls closing in around you, the thought of getting close to someone, made you panic. That’s why you broke it off with Sheila and then Caroline, isn’t it?”

That did it. Joe headed for the door. He didn’t need this.

“You’re always giving up too easy,” Shelly prodded. “One of these days, Professor, you’re going to regret not committing to another human being.” She followed him to the door. “Commitment to a woman might mean opening up yourself to pain, isn’t that right?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, she just rambled on until he fully regretted hiring her as his assistant at all. “It’s easier for men like you to keep an emotional distance from others. It’s too bad, Professor, because one of these days you’re going to meet someone worth every bit of pain they may cause you, but you won’t even know it because you won’t give anybody a chance to get that close.”

“Ahhh,” he said as he turned about. “I think I see where this is going—”

Shelly raised a perplexed brow.

“I didn’t even see it coming,” he said smugly.

“What?”

“You have feelings for me. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

The sound that came from Shelly’s mouth resembled something between a gasp and a cough. “You’ve got to be kidding? You think I’m falling for you?” She snorted. “I have a boyfriend, Professor. And no offense, but I prefer to date men a little closer to my own age.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Forget I mentioned it. But then why the sudden interest in my personal life?”

“My major is in Psychology, remember?”

“It’s all coming back to me now.”

She responded to his sarcasm with a disappointed sigh. “They were right about you all along.”

He rubbed at the pain stabbing at the back of his neck. “Who? What now?”

“Your students.” Shelly returned to the stairs and took a seat on the bottom step. “The truth is, Professor, I agreed to be your assistant for two reasons. First, I needed the money, and second, rumor had it that you’d make a great case sample for the topic of my thesis.”

“And that would be?” Inwardly, he wanted to strangle himself for asking.

“Why Some Men are Afraid to Commit.”

He should have guessed.

“I took a student poll,” Shelly said, her voice growing cheerful. “Ninety percent of your students believe that you, Professor McFarland, are afraid of commitment. Never mind the faculty poll which...”

“You polled the faculty on my relationship problems?”

“Well, it’s a relief to hear that you’re willing to admit you have a problem. Nothing worse than an AOC in denial.”

“An AOC?”

“Afraid of Commitment,” she said in exasperation, as if AOC were stamped in big black letters across his forehead.

“Your theory is absurd,” he told her. “I’m not the least bit afraid of commitment. I just don’t have the time for any sort of lasting relationship. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more.”

“There’s much more, Professor, but I won’t bore you with all the details. Bottom line is that detachment has a protective value for people like you; people who like things peaceful, quiet, and orderly. Making commitments upsets your passive, somewhat boring existence. It’s easier for AOC’s to do without someone rather than to allow themselves to feel. To have one’s privacy exposed is scary and uncomfortable...makes men like you sweat.”

Joe was quiet for a moment. Not because he had been enlightened in any way, but because his head was spinning. He opened the door and headed outside.

Shelly made a tsk tsk sound, then added in a frank tone, “No matter how much you enjoy your own company, Professor, some day you’ll tire of being alone. I guarantee it. But if you ever want to talk about what might be holding you back,” she said loud enough for him to hear when he quickened his pace, “I’ll be here for you, Professor.”

Exactly what he was afraid of.

Joe ran along Broadway, the brisk morning air spanking his face. When his head finally stopped buzzing, he found himself chuckling at all of the mumbo jumbo psycho analogy Shelly had thrown at him. Another minute and she would have had him analyzing every failed relationship he’d ever had. The way he saw it, they weren’t failed relationships at all. He just happened to date smart, independent women who were too busy to think about settling down. That’s all there was to it. In the end, Shelly would probably blame his parents for his lack of commitment. Psychiatrists were so quick to blame the parents.

His parents, although far from saints, had done their best. His mother had a few problems, drank too much at times...but that was a long time ago. She’d loved him the only way she knew how. His father was another story, but he too, had his reasons for not being there for him when Joe was growing up. And besides, he thought as he ran a little harder, a little faster, none of that mattered.

It was all in the past.

And he only wanted to think about the future, which meant he needed to get his life back on track, back to normal, which brought him right back to Alexandra Dunn.

Who was she anyhow? What was she up to? And what the hell was it about her that made him wonder if there could be some truth to her ridiculous stories?

He was a professor, a man of reason. He dealt with real data, principle and methods—not with phenomena outside the range of normal. But her pronunciation and use of English was consistent with Middle English spoken throughout Europe during the fifteenth century, the time she claimed to have come from. Where would she have learned to speak in a language no longer in use? And her clothes. The dress-like tunic she’d been wearing when he’d first met her was hand-made. He’d seen particles of dirt and straw within the coarse wool, the sort of cloth worn by the lower class in the fifteenth century.

A dog barked, its sharp teeth held at bay by a chain-linked fence.

He stepped up his pace. He didn’t have time to deal with Alexandra Dunn. His meeting next week could well determine the course of his future. And yet he still had much to do: notes to go over and documents to read. His life’s work would be summed up in a few hours and a decision would be made as to whether or not accept him into the Academy.

His heart skipped a beat.

His father would be there.

He inhaled the chill air, refusing to go there, switching his thoughts back to Alexandra. What if she really had come through time...swept through a black hole...

He stopped in his tracks, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. Then, for the second time in less than an hour, he laughed out loud at the wayward path his thoughts were headed. He’d definitely been working too hard.

Turning about, he headed toward home, hoping Alexandra would be gone when he returned. And yet his arms pumped faster, quickening his pace, as if a small part of him hoped to see her one last time.

A
lexandra poked at another button on the little black box, making the picture on the big box change. She laughed. Amazing! Little people in a thick, solid box...walking and talking. The people moving and talking in the picture sounded impossibly real. As she stared at the images, she took another bite from the chicken bone she’d found in Sir Joe’s cold box, another amazing contraption to tell Grandfather about when she returned home. Tossing the remains on the floor, she wiped her face with her sleeve, then pushed the button on the people box, nearly choking at the sight of a man and a woman in bed together. The woman slithered her naked body over his, her lips making a path across the man’s powerfully built stomach. Unable to look away, Alexandra squirmed within her seat. The woman’s breasts were pressed hard against his thighs. The man raked his fingers through her hair, arching his hips impossibly closer.

Alexandra’s eyes widened. She had never imagined a woman doing such things to a man...and with such vigor. The woman’s tongue slid over his hard chest. Alexandra could hardly breathe. The woman moaned and groaned as if the man tasted of almond cakes or better.

With her gaze fixed on the couple, Alexandra reached blindly for her cup just as the kitchen door swung open. The cup flew from her hand, sending raindrops of milk about the room.

“Whoa!” Shelly said, finding safety behind a chair.

Milk dripped from the whitewashed cupboards and onto the floor. Alexandra put a hand to her chest. “Oh, it is you. You set me affright,” she said before turning back to the couple in bed, more interested in the unfolding scene than a few droplets of spilt milk. “This people box is highly extraordinary, is it not?”

“You mean the television?” Shelly headed her way, carefully stepping over crumbs and chicken bones scattered across the floor. “This is some mess you’ve got here.”

Alexandra glanced about. The place looked unsoiled to her, nothing to fret over. “I was hungry.”

“We better get this cleaned up. The Professor will probably be back any moment.”

“Nay, I believe he went hunting.”

Chuckling, Shelly grabbed a cloth and bent down on her knees to collect crumbs from the floor. “I don’t think so. He’s not big on killing animals. In fact, he’s not fond of messes either. I guess he’s not as perfect as I might have made him sound yesterday.”

That remark grabbed Alexandra’s attention. She stared at Shelly, waiting for her to continue.

“Overall, he’s a great guy,” Shelly told her, “but he has one little flaw that drives some people nuts.”

Alexandra did not like the idea of Sir Joe having too many flaws. He was to be her champion after all. She was already aware of his short temper. “What is his ailment?”

Shelly moved on to wiping milk from the cupboards. “He’s a neat freak,” she acknowledged sadly.

“A neat freak?”

“That’s right. He can’t stand anything out of order. Look at this.” Shelly opened a cupboard and then another. Every item was neatly stacked in perfect rows like Alexandra’s newly planted crops back home.

“He takes great care in squeezing his toothpaste from the bottom of the tube,” Shelly whispered as if Sir Joe was even now in the room. “He takes two showers a day, and he arranges his socks by color.”

Shelly looked appalled.

Alexandra feigned a small gasp, then turned back to the people box. A new man and woman had appeared on the scene and they were kissing one another with a lusty passion she had not witnessed before. Their lips melded together, and they both made little mewing noises. She leaned closer for a better look until the sound of running water caught her interest. With a mere flick of her wrist, Shelly had turned the water on and then off.

Alexandra hobbled to Shelly’s side. She had wondered how Shelly had so swiftly filled the porcelain tub yester eve, but Shelly had left before she had a chance to question her on it. Alexandra took hold of the metal apparatus and jerked it upward. The water sprayed into the basin, splashing her face. Alexandra hopped backwards with a laugh.