Hard Day's Knight

  “I think he needs to change his strategy,” I told CJ, who had come to stand at the rail with me. “Maybe I should tell him that.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t and say you did,” CJ advised.

  “You’re the one who said I should be supportive,” I pointed out as Walker limped over to Marley. “You’re the one who said I should have faith. I’m doing both.”

  “I know, and I’m sure he appreciates it, but he has to focus right now. Come on; you can be supportive and full of faith with the rest of the group.” CJ tugged on my arm.

  I heaved a sad little sigh as I watched Walker remount Marley. If only the darling man knew how much he needed me!

  “No, you go. I’m going to stay here.”

  CJ went back to sit with the rest of the Three Dog Knights team, all of whom sat with grim faces.

  Their obvious concern added to my worry. “How many falls did you say a person could take before they were disqualified?”

  “Four,” Bliss answered.

  I straightened my shoulders as I turned back to the railing, taking my place with renewed determination.

  “Butcher!” I waved him over as he walked a few feet away, heading toward Walker with an unbroken lance.

  “What?” he asked, pausing.

  “I want you to tell Walker something for me. Tell him I know he can do this. Tell him he’s the best there is. Tell him that we all believe in him. And tell him that later tonight, I’ll let him shoe me again.”

  “Oooh, kinky,” CJ said from five rows up.

  Butcher grinned and waggled the lance at me. My fingers were white as I clutched the railing when Butcher put the lance in Walker’s waiting hand. “You can do it, Walker; I know you can.” The words turned into a mantra, whispered in time to the pounding of my heart. Walker couched the end of the lance onto the saddle rest, then nodded to the marshal. “You can do it, you can do it. Please, just hang on for four more runs.”

  “Lay on!”

  “You can do it, you can do it.” The words were louder now as Marley sprang forward straight into a full canter, charging down the list at a speed that had bits of dirt and sand flying from his huge hooves.

  “You can do it, you can do it!” I said over the roar of the crowd as everyone surged to their feet. Walker’s lance began its downward arc at the same moment Veronica got him in her sights.

  “You can do it, you can do it!” I screamed, jumping up and down as the two opponents charged with apparent deadly force at each other. Veronica’s tip slammed into the piece of armor that covered Walker’s throat, lifting him up and out of the saddle. His lance slid across her chest plate, nailing her on the right rather than the left side. I screamed meaningless words as Walker battled to stay in the saddle, and then with a huge crack of the lances, he was past her, still in the saddle, holding a lance that was broken in the middle.

  Veronica flew backward over the rump of her horse, landing heavily on her butt, just as I predicted. I yelled my happiness with the rest of the crowd, everyone cheering Walker on, no doubt because everyone there was aware of just how important that pass was.

  The two remaining passes were draws—both Veronica and Walker breaking lances, but neither of them taking a dive.

  “He did it, he did it,” I sang as I danced up the steps to where the rest of the team was sitting. Walker and Vandal and Butcher were leaving the ring, followed by Veronica and her team. I picked Moth up and kissed him right between the horns, ignoring the cat’s disgusted look as I plopped myself down beside Bos. “I’m so happy, I could burst into song! In fact, I think I will. Hey, guys, sing with me! ‘Happy days are here again . . .’ ”

  No one was singing. In fact, no one would even look at me. They were all watching the scoreboard like it was about to burst out into a pair of legs and go for a gallop around the arena.

  “Uh—guys? Why aren’t you singing? Why aren’t you happy? Walker won, right? He didn’t get DQ’d?”

  “He didn’t get disqualified,” Bliss eventually said, her mouth still tense. “But that doesn’t mean he has enough points to qualify.”

  “Those three falls hurt him.” Bos nodded.

  I stared at them, each one in turn, and felt my happiness shrivel up and turn to lead in my stomach. “But . . .not so much that he couldn’t qualify, surely?”

  “Only the top eighty percent make it to the competition,” Geoff said softly, his arm around Bos. “The bottom twenty percent, those with the lowest scores, don’t compete.”

  “Oh, god,” I moaned, my stomach doing an unpleasant somersault. I turned to watch the scoreboard as well, sucking my lower lip as I waited for the list of people who qualified to be displayed.

  Voices were subdued during the five minutes it took for the scores to be listed. People didn’t wander around chatting as they usually did, probably because by that time, all the jousters had run and were waiting to see if they would make the cut. I clutched Moth until he protested with a particularly penetrating yowl.

  “Sorry,” I apologized to him.

  He bit my knee.

  At long last the announcer said the judges had verified the scores, and the names of the jousters who had qualified for Southern Italian and Realgestech would be posted.

  The number one spot went to Farrell.

  “Yeah, well, he probably cheated,” I said softly.

  Number eight was Butcher.

  “Yay!” CJ crowed. I waited until she looked away to mouth, He’s bigger than everyone else, to Bos. He snickered.

  Tenth was Veronica. “She’s sneaky,” I said as her name scrolled by.

  Twelfth was Gary, Fenice’s guy. “He’d just better stay out of Walker’s way, that’s all I’m saying.”

  She grinned.

  Bliss’s name came up fourteenth. “Well . . . you’re okay, I guess,” I allowed.

  “Thank you so veddy much,” she said in a rich upper-class voice.

  Twenty-fifth was the Norwegian Tomas. “He smells like cheese.”

  Geoff spewed soda pop out his nose.

  Twenty-eight was Vandal. Fenice leaned back and cocked an eyebrow at me. “He’s nice,” I said, mindful that she was a very good shot with her bow. Satisfied, she turned around to look at the scoreboard again. I added, “In a flirty, can’t-keep-it-in-his-pants sort of way.”

  “Pepper!” CJ gasped.

  “Sorry. I meant that in the nicest sense, of course.”

  “It’s okay.” Fenice shrugged. “It is true.”

  Various other jousters appeared on the list, and with each name there were occasional cheers and scattered applause from the other jousters and their supporters. As name after name scrolled by the big screen, all names that weren’t Walker’s, the tension inside me tightened and tightened until I couldn’t breathe.

  “How many jousters will there be?” I asked Bliss quietly as everyone in our section of the arena went quiet.

  “Forty-six.”

  I looked at the board. Number forty-five scrolled up. It was one of Farrell’s team. My guts lurched, imploded on themselves, and dropped to my feet. He wasn’t going to do it, he wasn’t going to do it. . . .

  The occupants of the arena held their collective breath as the last name scrolled up from the bottom of the screen. I clutched Moth, sick to my stomach, sick with dread that I had forced Walker to do something he didn’t want to do, only to have him fail at the attempt. I knew just how frail an ego could be when it came to feeling worthless. . . .

  “Oh, thank God.” Bliss sighed.

  It was there. Number forty-six. The lowest-scoring man to qualify—Walker McPhail.

  As I slumped in relief, a tingle on the back of my neck heralded the fact that Walker was nearby. I looked to my left and saw him, his face utterly blank as he watched his name scroll off the board.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Now, we are going to have a very romantic dinner, so I don’t want you misbehaving. Don’t snap at your food, don’t talk with your mouth full, and don’t go pott
y while we’re eating! There’s nothing less conducive to romance than the smell of poop wafting everywhere.”

  Moth, sitting on the cooler next to my sleeping bag, gave me one of his indignant looks, as if the last thing he would do would be to use his litter box while we were dining.

  “And don’t give me that look,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “I know you too well, cat. Just behave yourself. This is my first real date with Walker, and I want everything to go well.”

  I looked around the tent to make sure everything was perfect. I had cajoled two chairs and a small table from neighbors, covering the table with a big red shawl CJ had packed. Camp lights were set low, dim enough to be romantic, but bright enough to see what we were doing. The pizza and salads I’d ordered from a delivery place had arrived, and I had a bought a bottle of wine off a couple who strolled through the tent city selling libations. It was a bit cramped even in CJ’s huge tent, but I felt privacy was more important than legroom. I was in the sexiest of all the garb CJ had brought me, something called a Guinevere gown, a dress that had a low scoop neck and easy-to-undo side lacings. “We’re as ready as we’re going to get. What do you think—do I look sexy?”

  Moth gave me a yellow-eyed stare before proceeding to do a little personal hygiene on areas prone to such care.

  “Gee, thanks. You’re so good for my ego. Whoops, that sounds like the man himself. Remember, you’re to behave or there will be no pepperoni and sausage for you!”

  I shoved aside the unzipped door of the tent and struck a provocative pose next to it. Walker had been stopped just outside the tent by one of jousters who was congratulating him on his reentry into competition.

  “Hi,” I said as the jouster drifted away, suddenly feeling shy. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  He eyed the Guinevere gown. “For you or food?” “Ideally both.” I held open the tent flap and gestured inside. “Look! I made room for a table in here. Dinner awaits, good sir knight.”

  He glanced longingly into the tent, but shook his head. “I should check on Marley’s leg—”

  “Already done. His leg is fine—no swelling, no signs of infection or tenderness, and it looks to be healing extremely well.”

  “Ah. That’s good.” He looked tired, his shoulders slumping a little as he hesitated. The fact that he was still outside rather than inside being smothered by my kisses—or eating the dinner I had provided—was explained in part by his fatigue, but not wholly.

  The thought occurred to me with a swift rush of horror that perhaps his sudden reticence to be alone with me had something to do with my reference earlier to my falling in love with him. That had been nothing but a joke, of course, something to take his mind off the fact that Veronica was kicking his butt. I may have told CJ that I wanted to experience love at first sight with my ideal man, but I never expected it to happen. So it was all a joke. Not seriously meant. I couldn’t fall in love with someone after just a few days, after all.

  How pathetic is it when you try to lie to yourself?

  I sighed and waggled the tent flap. “What’s it going to be, Walker? Are you dumping me after a one-night stand, or are you coming in and letting me feed and molest you?”

  His eyes glittered in the setting sun. “What sort of molestation is involved?”

  “I thought I would give you a full-body massage. I figured you’ve got to be a bit sore after falling off your horse so much.”

  His mouth tightened, but at least he entered the tent. “I didn’t fall off my horse. I was knocked off.”

  I shrugged and offered him a glass of wine. “Same difference. Oh, all right, stop glaring at me; it isn’t the same thing. After jousting with Bliss, I know just how hard it is to take a hit and stay in the saddle. Now will you stop being all prickly, and sit down and allow me to woo you into a romantic mood? This dinner didn’t come cheap, you know!”

  He frowned at the pizza box.

  “No, it isn’t haute cuisine, but I did get wine!”

  Walker slumped into the closest chair, raising his hands as if he wanted to protest something, then letting them fall. “I’m sorry, Pepper. I’m just not very good company tonight.”

  My heart, that volatile and sometimes fickle organ, shriveled up at his words and turned to something that resembled a runty lump of coal. “Oh. I see. Gotcha. You don’t want to . . . well, you don’t have to. But since I got a large pizza, you might as well eat that before you go back to your cold, lonely tent and your cold, lonely bed.”

  A little tiny smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “I doubt if anything is cold in this heat.”

  “Fine,” I said, turning my back to him so he wouldn’t see the tears filling my eyes. The poop. “Go back to your lonely hot bed. Whatever. Makes no difference to me.”

  “Sweetheart, don’t cry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.” His voice shivered down my back as his hands settled on my arms, warm and strong.

  “I’m not crying,” I lied, trying to shake off his hands. “I’m . . . I’m allergic to Moth! That’s why I couldn’t be a vet. Allergic to animal dander, I am. Oh, great, now I’m starting to talk like Yoda!”

  “Pepper,” he said, his breath warm on my neck, his voice rich with laughter. I allowed him to turn me around and sank bonelessly into his embrace. His lips nuzzled my neck as he said, “I’m just not very good company tonight. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “Disappoint me? You? I don’t think that’s physically possible,” I said, giving his Adam’s apple a little kiss just to let it know I liked it.

  “Not just sexually.” I pulled back to look at him. There was something in his voice, a note of despair that I didn’t like. His eyes were dark and haunted, and as soon as I looked into them, he turned away, his hands dropping from where they had been caressing.

  “What do you mean, you’re not good company?” Hope flared to life within me. “Are you bummed out because you’re last on the qualifying list?” He flinched and returned to the chair, his body language shouting defeat. I knelt in front of him, sliding a hand up each thigh until I was caught between his knees. “Are you depressed because you’ve made the right decision, but don’t want to admit that to yourself? Is that what’s making you so glum?”

  A very disgruntled look—one almost identical to the expression Moth had adopted the first time I strapped his horns on—flitted over Walker’s handsome face. “You don’t have to look so bloody hopeful about it.”

  I leaned forward and nuzzled his chest. “I’m sorry; I can’t help it. I thought you were being skittish because of that bit about me falling in love with you. I’m sorry you’re stressed and unhappy because of the jousting, but I’m am relieved that it’s not a relationship thing between us. A sore ego is no fun, but it’s nothing compared to the horror of trying to fix a broken relationship. Hey, what are you wearing beneath this tunic? Do you have a codpiece? Can I see it?”

  I lifted up the hem of his tunic to peek, but he hauled me up until I was leaning against his chest, my hands braced on his heavily muscled thighs. “It was a joke? When you said you were . . . er . . . you know?”

  “Was falling in love with you? What is it with men that they can’t say the word love? It’s just four little letters, Walker. It won’t hurt you to say them. I promise.”

  He shook me—gently, but still, he shook me. “Was it a joke, or were you serious?”

  His eyes, truly one of his best features, were warm pools of liquid silver. Did I want to admit to him that I wasn’t joking as much as I would like to think I was, or would he run screaming into the night at that thought? Walker didn’t seem to be the kind of man to do that, but I hadn’t really known him for all that long. “Serious? Me? Ha. So can I see your codpiece?”

  He tipped my chin up so my face was open to his, vulnerable to his all-too-clearly seeing eyes. “You weren’t serious about what you said?”

  I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I was in earnest when I said I had faith in you, that I
knew you could qualify. You can do anything you want to do, Walker.”

  Was that a flicker of pain I saw in his eyes?

  “I see,” he said, and I felt him withdraw from me. Not his body—that was still there warm and hard and reassuringly solid under my hands—but a barrier suddenly appeared between us, and I knew that it was there because of what I’d said.

  But what was I supposed to say? my Inner Pepper wailed. Misery twisted in my belly as I watched him, wanting to tell him what was in my heart, but aware that my feelings for him were so new, I didn’t even know for certain what I felt. Other than that I liked him. A lot. And I wanted to be with him. Also a lot.

  I stood up with a little sigh for the tangled mess my life had become, and popped open the lid to the salad. “Look, I don’t know what I think anymore, other than I’m hungry and I assume you are too, so why don’t we eat? If you still want to talk about this later, we can. Or you can take off all your clothes and allow me to rub a fabulous frankincense-and-myrrh massage oil that I found at one of the vendors into every available square inch of your body. The choice is yours.”

  His eyes did the cutest little bugging-out thing I’d ever seen. “Do we have to eat first?”

  “Yes,” I said, a whole lot more firmly than I felt. “You’ve had a hard day, physically, what with squiring everyone, then jousting twelve times in a row, not to mention getting tossed on your butt innumerable times.”

  “Five,” he said, frowning as I served him a plate of salad. “Five isn’t innumerable. Five is very numerable.”

  I took the seat opposite him and poured the wine. “All right, then it’s ‘not to mention getting tossed on your butt five times.’ So we’ll have dinner; then I’ll massage those poor, aching muscles of yours while we discuss just exactly what this relationship is all about, and then after that I’ll take off all my clothes and lick off that massage oil, and we’ll have wild, unbridled sex. Sound doable?”

  He choked on the sip of wine he’d just taken.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Here. Have some food. You’re going to need the energy later, if you know what I mean.”