Florida Knight (36 page)

“S-sh.” Kate put her fingers to his lips. “Don’t say it, I guarantee you’ll regret it. You’re a noble man, Michael Turco. A saint. You could give classes in patience. Obviously, I was put here on earth to torment you.”

Michael glanced down at his sex, which was as limp as the dishrag hanging over the faucet, and heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he ground out, “but I don’t know how much longer I can take this, Kate.”

She entwined her arms around his neck, pressed her breasts into the dark hair dotting his chest. Smiling seductively into his skeptical black eyes, she performed a sinuous series of belly dance moves against his deflated penis. Kate watched, fascinated, as his eyes rang the
changes from long-suffering,
resignation, anger . . .
to
reawakening desire. Oh, yes, she might not have had any experience at seduction, but it was an instinct that was hard to put down. Somehow, when really needed, it just came naturally.

Lady Knight grabbed her captive by the hand, hauling her willing but still wary conquest back to the scene of a love that was just beginning.

Resistance was minimal.

Chapter 21

At ten after nine Kate slunk into her chair in the office. All the lights were on, Barbara Falk’s door closed. On this, of all mornings, her boss had an early appointment and Kate hadn’t been there to meet and greet. A glance at the appointment book revealed Barbara’s client was the lone female member of the city council. Kate jabbed the switch on the surge protector with unnecessary force, then sunk her head in her hands and mouthed a word she usually reserved for her attempts to be one of the boys while battling on the lyst field. As the various office machines hummed into life, she contemplated her sins.

But her scowl refused to stay in place. Guilt and anger were hard to sustain when her world had been reborn with hope and—perhaps—with love.
Love.
She savored the word. What she and Michael had experienced last night was close enough—a conflagration strong enough not to be doused by the reality of daylight. Embers glowed in the pit of her stomach, warmed her body and soul. Exorcized the ghosts. Next time . . . next time there would be no hesitation. The spark would flare at the slightest look, the softest touch. Kate’s lips tilted up in a dreamy smile.

Nine twenty, and she hadn’t done a lick of work. Michael’s ego would go nova if he found out. Ha! She’d probably been forgotten the minute he walked out the door this morning. Maybe even by the time he’d crawled out of bed.
Men!

Michael wasn’t most men.

With deliberate ruthlessness Kate compacted her headful of erotic visions, tucked them into that classic niche labeled, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
So much for you, Michael Turco. This girl has to earn a living.

And, besides, he’d always be there, waiting for her. If only as an erotic, sometimes poignant memory no one could ever take from her.

Yet . . . their night together had been a close-run thing. Kate supposed they both deserved high marks for courage.

Dammit! Barbara wasn’t paying her to sit at her desk, her mind floating on the scent of roses and patchouli. Musk. Ylang-ylang . . . Kate glared at her computer screen, clicked on the icon to load her word processing program. The phone began to ring.

It seemed as if half the population of
Golden
Beach
had suddenly decided to buy a house, have a crisis over a custody case, make a will, ask questions about probate. Kate plunged from one task to another so fast she didn’t even have time to be grateful she was being spared Barbara Falk’s Monday-morning barrage of questions.
So how was your weekend? Did you see Michael? Are you two getting along all right? I hope you realize what a treasure you’ve got there. Oh, by the way, how’s the investigation coming along?

Kate juggled a real estate contract on her screen, the ringing phone, and Barbara’s demands for instant copies. She faxed ten pages to city hall, looked back blankly at her screen, and scrambled to find the notes she
’d
made on this particular transaction, when she had an awful feeling the price on the screen was for the last real estate contract she had put together, not the present one.

At first, she didn’t even look up when the outer door opened. Whoever it was could wait five seconds while she found the legal pad she needed. A flat-out busy morning on top of almost no sleep had thinned her customary competence and good nature. Back to the door, Kate made a face at the haphazard stack of papers next to her computer. The morning-after wasn’t supposed to turn a woman into a short-tempered b
itch
. No way. Abandoning her search, she swung round, her best professional-greeter smile pasted on her face.

A stranger stood there. Tall, hard-bodied, intimidating. A lean tower of gray, topped by a black campaign hat worn flat over equally black hair, the flash of the front-centered badge, the gold acorns peeking over the wide brim. A gold bar, black trim on his epaulets, black stripes down the sides of his pants. The ominous effect of gray and black unmitigated by the bright blue arm patches featuring a large and brilliantly colored
Florida
orange. Black holster, black gun, black cellphone. The all-too-familiar black zippered boots. Craggy, intimidating features softened by the slightest hint of a smile. Eyes questioning as he absorbed her shock.

Kate didn’t know this man. In her thoughts Michael, the trooper, had been a romantic vision. In the solidness of reality, he was Smokey, the boogie man with flashing blue lights, gimlet eyes, a ticket book, and big black gun.
May I see your license and registration, ma’am?

“I had to see the police chief, so I thought I’d stop by while I was downtown.” Michael leaned in to get a closer look at her face. “Kate . . . what’s wrong? You look like death warmed over.” Comprehension came slowly. His uniform was so much a part of his life, it hadn’t occurred to him that Kate had never seen it before. He had trouble finding the right words. After all, most women fell hard for the uniform.

“Uh, Kate . . . you know what I do. You know this is what I am.” When she continued to stare at him from a face almost as white as the papers on her desk, he added, with a dry
Florida
drawl, “Why, Ms. Knight, I didn’t realize you had a problem with authority figures.”

Control.
That’s what this man represented. Absolute control over everything and everyone. She’d made a mistake. A terrible mistake.

Again.

“Michael!” Barbara Falk burst through her office door, hands outstretched in greeting. He whipped off his campaign hat. “You look splendid, absolutely splendid. And
gold
acorns now. Most becoming. Doesn’t he look positively scrumptious, Kate? Kate?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use the word
scrumptious
before,” Kate responded faintly.

“It’s a perfectly good word and covers the situation nicely,” Attorney Falk declared. “Lieutenant, you must have knocked them dead out in the mall. Better check the hall, Kate. It’s probably scattered with female bodies of all ages.”

“Mrs. Falk,” Michael protested, “if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a sex symbol.”

“No,” Barbara agreed cheerfully. “That’s your brother. Your sheer presence is what blows people away. Women like powerful men.” After a sharp glance at her paralegal, she added shrewdly, “Most women, anyway.” Barbara shook her head, as if mystified by the odd ways of certain people. “Nice to see you, Michael,” she declared. “Drop in anytime.” As she hastily retreated to her office, she wondered what kind of storm was brewing in her outer office.

“
Scrumptious
is a pretty scary word,” Michael offered.

“It’s silly.”

“Look at me, Kate.”

“I can’t.”

“Kate, this is me. Michael. You’re not some latter-day flower-child who thinks all cops are the enemy. I know you’re not. So what’s wrong?”

“I’ll get used to it, just give me time.”

“What’s to get used to?” Michael demanded. “This is what I am. What I’ve always been. This is the only me there is.”

“You surprised me. My mind’s not functioning well enough to figure out why I feel this way, let alone find an explanation. So go away . . . please. Give me time to sort it all out.”

Silence hung between them like a wall. Michael glanced at Barbara Falk’s firmly closed door, leaned in until he was close to Kate’s face. “Last night . . . I thought we were good together. I thought we got things worked out. Is it the uniform or second thoughts?”

“I don’t know,” Kate whispered, still refusing to look at him. “Go away, Michael. Please.”

He straightened, clapped the wide-brimmed black hat with badge and acorns back on his head. Most riddles were a challenge he relished, but not this one. Executing a military-style turn, Michael stomped out of the office. Kate could hear his boots echoing hollowly all the way down the outside hall.

Kate swung into the parking lot in front of the sales center for Golden Beach Groves, leaped down from the van, charged into the air-conditioned combination of retail store and packing shed. She skidded to a halt between a shelf of old-fashioned penny candy and a counter displaying locally made citrus jellies. Hell bent on talking to Mona, she’d just realized her tongue was tied by Michael being undercover. How could she spill her anguish over his uniform when she couldn’t even admit he ever wore a uniform?

Kate stood there, trying to look as if her immobility were due to her interest in examining what the small store had to offer. To her left, a multi-level conveyer belt whirred as workers sorted produce. Wood-slatted crates were stacked on the floor, white cardboard shipping boxes on counters above them. Classic tourist items—drinking glasses, mugs, night lights, books, cards and T-shirts, all with a
Florida
theme—occupied the rest of the small space. The rack of refrigerator magnets featured pelicans, flamingos, palm trees, dolphin, shark, and a variety of tropical fish. A furry gray manatee hung from the ceiling, along with a more menacing-looking black shark that looked remarkably like the kite she had flown with Michael.

Michael, the cop. The man with a gun.

Nowhere could Kate see Mona. Slowly, she turned and looked behind her. Still, no Mona. Just a check-out counter and a low table stacked with heavy-duty red net bags of oranges and grapefruit, each proudly labeled, “Golden Beach Groves,
Golden Beach
,
Florida
.” Kate breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t talk to Mona until she found some way to pour out her heart without giving Michael’s secret away.

If she complained about Michael, Mona was going to think she was crazy.

She probably was.

Stalling for time, Kate left the air-conditioned building and wandered out onto the porch. To her right, the line for ice cream at an outside window was only three people deep. Obviously, the Winter Season was winding down. Kate had frequently seen the line extending half-way down the length of the fifty-foot porch. Ice cream. Maybe that’s what she needed. Golden Beach Groves was famous for its soft ice creams in orange and lime. The orange was usually served in a cone, swirled with vanilla; the lime swirled with chocolate. Both were unforgettable.

She ordered a cone for Mona as well, then realized, as the warm air immediately began to work on the towering stripes of orange and vanilla, she couldn’t put off her visit to Mona a minute longer or she’d be standing in a puddle of ice cream. Gingerly, Kate juggled the cones so she could open the door into the store. This time, ignoring everything except not dunking ice cream on the customers, Kate headed straight for Mona’s tiny office in the rear. While rapping on the door with her elbow, she licked the dripping rims of both cones in order to stave off disaster. By the time she’d handed over Mona’s cone, dropped into the old straight wooden chair at the side of her desk, and taken a healthy lick off the top of her own ice cream, a little light had begun to flicker at the edges of her gloomy world. Mona’s cheerful round face, the shrewd brown eyes that matched her hair, were just the haven Kate needed at the moment.

Mona shoved the papers she’d been working on to one side while doing an emergency circumnavigation of her cone. “So,” she demanded, “what’s happened? Come on, girl, tell it to momma.”

Kate hung her head, used her melting ice cream as a delaying tactic. She savored, swallowed. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

Mona glanced at the old-fashioned round clock high on the wall. “It’s one-fifteen,” she declared. “That means you got out of work, jumped in the van, and came straight here. No lunch, no errands, no nothing. So tell me what’s going on.”

“I–I . . .” Kate stammered, shook her head. Then she blushed, fiery red suffusing her pale coloring.

Mona’s eyes widened. “You didn’t?” she gasped. After a second look into the depths of Kate’s, eyes, she exclaimed, “My God, you did! When? This weekend?” Mona’s eyes lit with uncomplicated joy. “Oh, wow, that’s great! Wait’ll I tell Bubba.”

“
No!
” Kate choked. Her ice cream wobbled.

“What’s the matter?” Genuinely puzzled, Mona stared at her friend. “What’s wrong about joining the rest of the world? Come off it, Kate, this is Mona you’re talking to. I know you’re crazy about the guy. Who wouldn’t be? He’s superhero quali
ty, girl. Don’t mess this up.”