McKnight in Shining Armor (6 page)

Kelsie glanced at Bronco, who was dragging Alec toward the backyard. He might have passed for a small pony, but not a sheep. “I’ll call you if anything comes up, Mr. Svenson. Maybe there
will be a better market for goats around Christmas.”

“You could be right about that,” the farmer said, climbing into his truck.

Kelsie took a deep breath as the pickup drove away and her son trudged back to the house.

“Well, that was certainly something I don’t do every day,” Alec said, brushing dirt off his clothes as he crossed the yard toward Kelsie.

Poor Alec, Kelsie thought. He couldn’t get within fifty feet of her without having something bizarre happen. “Thanks for helping, Alec.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, plucking a blade of grass off his tongue.

They both sat down on the front steps and sighed.

“So, what are you doing tonight?” Alec asked. If he was lucky, she would be feeling worn down enough by now to concede and simply answer “going out with you.”

“Dishes, laundry, and the bathroom tile,” she said. If she was lucky, that answer would turn him off enough to discourage him from pursuing her. Of course, most men would no doubt have given
in after the chimpanzee incident, or the stripper incident. Being confronted by a herd of dairy goats surely should have done it. Yet here he was, asking her out.

She had to hope he would give up soon—before she grew too used to looking at him. It was just so obvious to her that there was no room in her life for an affair with a man like Alec McKnight, or any other kind of man for that matter. How could it not be obvious to Alec as well? Hadn’t he seen enough?

Alec watched her worrying her soft lower lip with her teeth, obviously hoping he’d take the hint and back off. Not a chance, Kelsie, he thought, determination rising in him. “How about this afternoon?”

“Work, bills, raking, repairing goat damage to Mrs. Magruder’s yard, and laundry.”

“You said laundry twice.”

“I have a teenage daughter and a nine-year-old son; of course I said laundry twice.”

Did she really keep such a hellish schedule, he wondered. “When do you take a little time for Kelsie Connors?” he asked softly, his gaze searching
hers for an answer she seemed unwilling to give.

“Every year I take off three hours to watch the rerun of
The Sound of Music,”
she said, unreasonably annoyed at his probing. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone instead of adding another problem to her already complicated life? “Alec, I wasn’t putting you off when I said I don’t date. I don’t date. I don’t have the time or the energy for it. I have too many things to do to go out with you tonight or any other night.” She pushed herself to her feet.

Jeffrey stuck his head out the door. “Mom, when are we gonna eat? I’m
starving
!”

“I’ll be there in a minute. Go make yourself a piece of toast.”

Alec stood up, dusting off the seat of his sweat pants. “I’d better be going.”

Kelsie ran a hand through her tangled hair and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I took your head off, Alec. My temper’s running on a short fuse today.” Probably because she’d spent the whole night alternatingly dreaming erotic dreams about him and worrying about how not to have a
relationship with him without ruining her slim chance to do business with Glendenning. “Would you like to stay for breakfast? I owe you that much for helping with the goats.”

Alec shook his head, his mind busy working on the puzzle that was Kelsie Connors. “No, thanks,” he said absently. “I have some things to do this morning. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” she said, disgusted with herself for feeling so sad as she watched him walk away. He might call her again, but she doubted she’d see him. It seemed she had been successful in discouraging him. Why didn’t that make her happy?

   She had turned him down yet again. A sensible man would have thrown in the towel right then and there, Alec told himself as he walked the ten blocks to where he’d parked his car. Why waste time chasing a woman who wasn’t interested? Because she was interested. He’d seen it in her eyes, in the way she blushed when he smiled at her. Dammit, he’d tasted it in her kiss!

Was she playing some kind of game with him?
If he decided to reconsider using her client in the Van Bryant campaign, would she suddenly find the time to go out with him?

He wouldn’t do that. He would not compromise his professional integrity to get a date even if she did have the sexiest eyebrows in the upper Midwest.

Alec slid behind the wheel of his BMW, disgusted with his cynical train of thought. Not every woman wanted to use him as a rung on the professional ladder, he reminded himself. He should be ashamed for being so suspicious. Kelsie Connors was as far removed from Vena DiMarlo as Minnesota was from Mars.

Of course, he had reason to be suspicious, he thought as he started the car and headed north toward the suburb of Minnetonka. He could remember with painful clarity how completely Vena had fooled him. She’d seen him coming a mile away—a generous guy in a position to get her a big break in modeling, a guy with a decided weakness for lovely ladies in need.

McKnight in shining armor, he thought and scowled.

Vena had taken gross advantage of his weakness, using him to get her break. Personally he thought she’d missed her calling. She was the consummate actress. But modeling was less work. That was Vena; she took as much as she could get for the least amount of effort.

At least she hadn’t managed to totally corrupt his attitude toward women. He was wiser, warier, but he was no misogynist. He hadn’t been tempted into any long-term relationship since Vena, but that was because he was enjoying his second chance at bachelorhood. He was enjoying keeping his own schedule, keeping his town house the way he liked it—immaculate—he liked going out when he wanted and with whom he wanted.

Which brought him back to Kelsie Connors. His attraction to her had been instantaneous, and it has grown stronger despite her seeming reluctance—or, perhaps, because of it. Whichever it was, he certainly wasn’t going to let it stand in his way, he thought, grinning as he drove toward home.

There were three things Alec McKnight had never been able to resist: A mystery, a challenge,
and a pretty lady in distress. Kelsie Connors qualified on all counts. He’d find a way to get around her “no dating” rule, and he’d be doing her a favor. By the sound of things, she needed rescuing, and he was just the McKnight for the job.

   Back in Eden Prairie, Kelsie pulled another waffle out of the iron and scolded herself for thinking about Alec. If he’d ridden up the front steps on a white charger, she couldn’t have gone out with him. She was just too busy.

“Mom? Mom.
Mom!”
Elizabeth finally yanked on her mother’s sleeve. “You’re waffling a potholder!”

“What?” Kelsie snapped out of her trance.

Black smoke rolled out of the waffle iron. With a little gasp she pulled the thing open and peeled the smoldering potholder off the iron with a fork.

One more thing to add to her list of things to do. One more reason to add to her list of reasons she couldn’t go out with Alec McKnight. She had to clean the melted fabric shreds out of the waffle iron.

Heaving a sigh, she slid down on her chair and stared at her waffle. She had no appetite for it. The only thing she would have considered appetizing was a pound of Fanny Farmer chocolates. Or Godiva chocolates. Or a big stack of plain Hershey bars. A waffle held no magic for her this morning. The only thing that made her gag it down was the thought of how much it had cost to make it. Bisquick didn’t grow on trees. There was probably a penny’s worth of electricity spent, too, and a new potholder would set her back a buck and a half. It all added up.

She watched Jeff sop up half a quart of syrup with his waffle. He ate with great enthusiasm, savoring every spongy little square, pausing only to gulp down some milk every so often. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had picked her breakfast apart until it resembled a pile of crumbled foam rubber.

“Are you going to eat that or just torment it some more?” Kelsie asked.

Elizabeth took a guilty bite and said nothing.

“You’d better get a move on if you’re going to be ready to go by the time your dad gets here.”

“If
he gets here,” Elizabeth muttered, earning herself a furious glare from her mother.

Kelsie glanced at her son. Jeffrey was busy sneaking toast crusts to the cats under the table.

Neither of her children had any illusions about their father. They knew Jack was undependable, that he took little or no interest in their lives most of the time. But Jeffrey still had hope. He wanted very badly for his father to love him and want him and want to do all the father-son things other kids’ dads did. It would never happen, Kelsie knew, but she didn’t have the heart to burst Jeffrey’s bubble. It was like letting him believe in Santa Claus. Sooner or later he would find out for himself, and she’d be there to help ease the hurt. In the meantime, it was the unwritten rule that Elizabeth not make derogatory remarks about Jack in front of her brother.

“I’m not going,” Elizabeth said more loudly.

Jeffrey’s head popped up above the table again. “Come on, Lizbeth, it’ll be neat. Dad said we’re gonna help him look for deer tracks in the woods so he’ll know where to go hunting.” He stared at his sister with his big brown eyes filled with a
certain kind of vulnerability, as if he were afraid his sister’s defection would somehow jinx the rare afternoon with their father.

Elizabeth wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Julie asked me to go to the mall with her. You go with Dad and have a good time.”

“We will,” he replied in a tone of voice that was meant to convince himself as much as the others.

Jack was late, as usual. Every time it happened, Kelsie told herself that the next time she wouldn’t waste the energy it took to be furious with him, but she never held herself to it. Every time she ended up replaying their dismal failure of a marriage over in her memory while she waited for him to show up.

He’d been cocky and self-assured when she’d married him. They had both been too young. She had believed he would channel that cockiness into something positive, that it would grow into pride and invite respect as he worked his way up in his father’s contracting business. Instead, it had grown into overbearing arrogance.

In her more philosophical moments, Kelsie thought it was sad that such a bright young man had turned out to be so detestable. He was going to end up lonely, with an empty life. Today was not one of those philsophical days, however. She mentally called him every name she could think of as she sat on the couch going through her files and watching her son pretend to play with Transformers on the living room floor as he waited with one hopeful eye trained on the picture window.

Finally a maroon Corvette pulled up at the curb. Jeffrey was out the door and down the sidewalk in a flash.

She deserved a chocolate fix after this morning, Kelsie decided, leaning back against the storm door as her ex-husband drove away with their son. It had been a long time since she’d given in to her compulsion. She’d been proud of her self-control, but a person could take only so much. Her limit had been reached. Now she could almost taste the chocolate. She sighed in resignation and ran a hand through her already mussed hair as a black BMW pulled up to the curb.

A boy of about fifteen with spiky brown hair
climbed out of the backseat. From the front passenger seat emerged a small, dark-haired older woman wearing a white sweatshirt with the words
CLEAN AND MEAN
stamped in black across the front. Probably relatives of one of the neighbors, Kelsie thought, straightening to open her door. Then the car’s driver emerged.

With wind-riffled dark hair.

And to-die-for blue eyes.

And a grin that could have helped him sell snow mobiles to desert nomads.

Alec McKnight rounded the hood of his car, his gaze locked on Kelsie’s. She felt all her energy drain right down from the top of her head to her feet, as if someone had just poured a bucket of warm water over her. Sweet heaven, he’d stopped grinning, and she was still losing control. He was thinking about smiling, though, she could tell, and that was almost as bad. The idea played and tugged at his lips, teasing her mercilessly.

He seemed to be getting more handsome every time she saw him, she thought, feeling dazed and amazed. Old jeans hugged him in all the most interesting places. He wore battered sneakers and a
sapphire-blue sweatshirt. Boundless, restless energy carried him across her lawn with the long, unconsciously elegant stride of a dancer.

Oddly it was the first time Kelsie had taken much notice of his build. He was six feet tall, no more; lean but athletic-looking with square shoulders that stopped short of being wide. Then his smile flashed, bright and brilliant, and Kelsie was incapable of noticing anything else.

“Hi,” he said, stopping at the bottom of the steps.

One syllable. Those eyes, that smile, and just one syllable combined in a way that suggested intimacy. With one word he could make a woman feel as if she’d shared the night with him.

Kelsie groaned under her breath. She had to break eye contact or run the risk of promising him anything. She hadn’t expected to see him again, but he was here, and she felt such a soaring joy inside that it terrified her.

“Hi,” she said, glancing away, her gaze falling on the two people rummaging through the trunk of Alec’s car. “What are you doing here, Alec?”

“I’m here to rescue you.” Grinning, he swung an arm in the direction of the car. “I’ve brought reinforcements. Alice is taking the house, Miles is taking the lawn, and I am taking you out tonight.”

“A
LEC
!” K
ELSIE SAID
with a gasp, pressing her body back against the storm door. “You can’t bring a cleaning lady in here; my house is a mess!”

Alec’s straight dark brows knitted together in confusion. “Kelsie, that’s what cleaning ladies do. There wouldn’t be much point in bringing a cleaning lady over if your house was already clean.”