Hard Day's Knight

  “He’s back, he’s back, we don’t have anything to worry about now!” Fenice sang, clapping her hands and doing a little dance as the announcer praised both men, giving the point total for Walker (which was almost perfect). “Life is good, life is wonderful, we have our Walker back! We can’t possibly lose now!”

  “No,” I said quietly, my gaze on Walker as he rode from the ring without acknowledging his victory, never once looking over to where he knew we were sitting. “We can’t possibly lose anything . . . except maybe our future together.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Walker, will you slow down and let me explain?”

  “There’s nothing for you to explain,” the infuriating love of my life snarled as he led Marley toward the stable.

  “Yes, there is, you obstinate man! I want to tell you why I agreed to join Veronica’s team. I owe that much to—”

  Walker whirled around so fast Marley did a startled little sideways dance. Silver eyes blasted me with cold that would be at home in the Arctic. “I’ve told you, there’s nothing you have to explain to me. You don’t owe me anything. Debt indicates an interest on the grantor’s part, and I assure you, I have no interest whatsoever in your actions.”

  Ouch. That hurt, and how. Walker’s face was tight and hard, almost as hard as his eyes. I swallowed back a lump of pain and reminded myself that until he understood my actions, they were open to misinterpretation.

  A man who loved you would give you the benefit of the doubt, Evil (formerly Wise) Inner Pepper whispered. I ignored that thought as I put my hand on his arm. “You may not have interest in me, but I have a great deal in you, and I want to explain why I’ve done what I’ve done.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he snarled, snatching his arm away and storming off toward the stable.

  “God, why does everything have to go wrong for me?” I entreated the afternoon sky, quickly picking up Moth and racing after Walker. “I really don’t want to have to bellow this across the fairgrounds so everyone hears, but if you insist on it, fine. I love you! I love you more than life itself, you annoying, irritating man! Now will you just stop and let me tell you what I’ve decided?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t even slow down, damn it all. I sighed and trotted after him, a bit breathless by the time Walker tied Marley up outside the stable in order to brush him. I had seen Butcher and Vandal doing the same as we approached, but they quickly took their horses in and effectively disappeared, leaving me and the man who was breaking my heart alone with one three-ton horse and a cat that was presently chewing on the sleeve of the tunic Walker had just stripped off and tossed onto a bench.

  I dragged my eyes from the wonderful land made of up the rippling muscles in his back to plead my case. “Please, Walker, just hear me out. I know you’re upset—”

  “Upset?” He shot me a hot look as he wrenched the heavy jousting saddle off Marley’s back and all but threw it onto a nearby box. “Why would I be upset? I have nothing to be upset about. The old Walker, he might be upset by his woman using him the way she did, but not me, not Walker the Wild. Haven’t you heard? I don’t care about anyone but myself.”

  Oh, god, what had I done? I stared at him in dismay as he ripped off the saddle blanket, tossing it in the dirt. He never treated equipment like that!

  “What’s wrong, love?” I flinched at the way he said that last word. There wasn’t an ounce of gentleness in it. “Don’t like the new me? Or rather the old me, the old Walker you so desperately wanted me to become? Congratulations, you’ve succeeded.”

  “I never wanted you like this,” I said cautiously.

  “No? Well, you sure fooled me. I thought you wanted a real man, a man who wasn’t afraid to face anything. You wanted me to be a champion, a ruthless warrior who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences, and here I am.”

  I bit my lip as he yanked a brush out of the bucket, pouring a cup of grain for Marley.

  “I never wanted you to become anything you weren’t. I know you have it in you to be anything you want to be—”

  “Face the facts, Pepper,” he interrupted, splashing water into another bucket and setting it next to Marley. “You know nothing about me. Nothing!”

  I raised my chin. “I know I love you.”

  He grunted and turned away to brush Marley.

  “I know you’re a good man who values honor and faithfulness.” He spun around, his eyes coming close to scorching me. I lifted my chin in answer to the look of fury he was firing at me. “And I know that you love me, only you’re too caught up in your own hell to admit it.”

  “Love,” he snarled, his lip curled in derision. “You honestly think I love you?”

  My heart, which was clutching its little hands hopefully, praying Walker would at last admit to what I so desperately needed to be true, threatened to keel over in a faint. I swallowed again, harder this time, since the painful lump of unshed tears had grown. “Yes, I think you love me. I couldn’t love a man as much as I love you and not have the feeling reciprocated.”

  His eyes narrowed for a moment, and before I could blink, he was on me, pressing me back against the hard, rough wood of the stable, his body hot and hard and aggressive. “Do you think this is love then?” he growled, grinding his hips against me as his mouth descended upon mine. There was no tenderness in him, nothing but domination as his body ruthlessly used its knowledge about me to quickly set mine raging with desire.

  His hands were everywhere, not in the least bit gentle as they tormented me, demanding a response as his tongue swept into my mouth and carried away any objections I had to his rough handling. His body was rigid and unyielding, the muscles beneath my hands tight with tension, every inch of him expressing the pain and outrage he felt at what he perceived as my betrayal. I bit back the urge to struggle, deliberately softening myself against him, cushioning his hard tension with every ounce of love and understanding and gentleness that I could muster.

  “Yes,” I whispered against his mouth when he wrenched his lips from mine. My fingers trailed a serpentine path up the muscles of his bare back, my touch as light and tender as his was hard and angry. “This is what I call love. You’re everything to me, Walker. You fill my life. You make me happy in ways I never knew I could be happy.” The grim line of his mouth softened as my hands slid up his arms to his shoulders while I pressed little kisses along his tense jaw. “I want to be with you. I want to know what you’re thinking, what you feel. I want to bind myself to you so that we’ll never be apart.”

  His eyes were still glittering brightly at me, but the icy disdain was slowly turning to a shimmering silver flame. His body language changed, as well, going from dominance and aggression to an erotic wooing. I doubt he even noticed the change, but I did, and my heart rejoiced. I allowed my softness to cradle him as I tugged his head down so I could press gentle kisses to his adorable, manly lips. “I will never leave you, Walker. My heart will always belong to you, always. I’m yours, body and soul. I love you, and I will until the day I breathe my last.”

  “My sweet Pepper,” he murmured, his voice sinking into my skin and wrapping itself around my heart as his lips claimed mine in a much different kiss from the one that had just bruised my lips.

  “Tell me you don’t feel the same thing I do,” I said as I gave myself up to his passion, pressing myself closer to him.

  “Pepper, is that you being squashed to death against the wall?”

  Walker’s body, which was starting to curl enticingly around mine, froze at the voice that spoke behind him. I groaned to myself, my heart shattering into a gazillion infinitesimal pieces at the look of pure, unadulterated fury that flashed in Walker’s eyes.

  Not only did I have the rottenest luck imaginable; Farrell had the world’s worst timing.

  “I’ve been looking for you. I’m ready to help you with the quintain. Or is this a bad time? I’m afraid I’m a bit booked, but as I told you earlier when you asked me to tutor you, I’m hap
py to do what I can to give you the help you need and so obviously aren’t getting elsewhere.”

  “Walker—” I started to say, knowing it would do no good. I could explain until the moon was blue, but if he truly had no faith in me, it would be useless. It was bottom-line time, with our future at stake. Either he trusted me, or he didn’t. “I know what this looks like, but I truly do love you—”

  “Don’t.” It was just one word, but the anger and desolation and anguish that were packed into it would qualify it as a dictionary of misery. He pulled away from me, his hands clenched but his face impassive as Farrell held out a hand for me.

  “Well, it seems we’re right back were we started—Pepper preferring my company to yours,” Farrell told Walker.

  “History has a nasty way of repeating itself,” Walker said softly, his eyes flat and cold. “Fortunately, I don’t care anymore.”

  Farrell looked startled for a moment, and was about to answer, but I couldn’t stand the hard, uncaring mask that Walker wore. My heart was bleeding; my soul was bleeding at his rejection. This was why it never paid to take risks—the pain of failure was worse than anything I could imagine.

  Giving up so easily? Inner Pepper mocked.

  I looked at Walker, really looked at him. He was just a man—a wonderful, warm, caring man—but still just a man. Was he really worth the heartache, the frustration, the risk of losing myself even more in order to win him back?

  Damn straight he was!

  Inner Pepper cheered as I looked Walker dead in the eye and willed him to understand. “A week ago you told me that only by learning to trust myself could I achieve what I wanted in life. You were absolutely right. I trust not only myself, but you, too. I just hope you can do the same.”

  He said nothing as I scooped up Moth and walked past Farrell, heading for the far exercise ring where I had first challenged Sir Quintain.

  “So if I change the angle of the lance a little, what will that do to the quintain? Will I hit it harder, or does a steeper angle deflect the blow?”

  “Has anyone told you that your hair is like a molten river of fire?”

  “Farrell, please, no hair similes. We’re here to practice, remember?”

  “Are we?” Farrell smiled, picking up my free hand and bestowing a kiss on my fingers. I fought the urge to clench those very same fingers and smash his nose. No matter how much my heart was breaking, no matter how miserable Walker was making me, I had a job to do, and the only way to salvage the shreds of our future was to do it. Successfully. Which meant Farrell didn’t get a knuckle sandwich. “I thought perhaps you were simply trying to be discreet in your pursuit of me.”

  I stopped walking, retrieving my hand to hoist Moth higher on my hip, glaring against the setting sun to pin Farrell back with what I hoped was a stern, unbending, meaningful look. I may have had to make nice with him, but it didn’t mean I had to let him slobber on me to find out what I needed to know.

  “Just so you know, I’m madly in love with Walker. I like you, Farrell,” I said, not even stumbling over the untruth, “despite the fact that you’re as nasty as you can be around Walker, but don’t expect anything from me other than friendship.”

  “Really?” Curiously, Farrell looked interested rather than put out by my statement. “So it’s the real thing then, not just a little Faire fling?”

  He turned toward the collection of Team Joust! trailers rather than the small practice ring. I followed without protest, figuring I could get more out of him in a casual situation than on the back of a horse.

  “No, it’s not a fling. Just out of curiosity, how long have you known Walker? I mean, how many years did you two compete together before Walker’s . . . hiatus?”

  “Two years. Claude! Where the devil are—Oh, there you are. Here, take Pepper’s cat for a stroll, will you?” Farrell plucked Moth from where he was snuggled up against my side, thrusting the big cat and his leash into Claude’s arms. “Pepper and I want to be alone for a bit.”

  “He really does like to go for walks,” I told the startled squire, ignoring the innuendo Farrell had tossed out. “Just don’t let him eat anything but grass. He’s had his dinner, and if he eats too much, he barfs. And try to keep him from chewing on his horns. He ripped the last pair up thinking it was some sort of odd-shaped toy.”

  Claude looked in horror at the cat overflowing in his arms. Moth gave him a long, considering look.

  “Come, let us have a little wine before we get to your tutoring,” Farrell said.

  I ground my teeth against the urge to let him have it, instead gritting out a smile as I climbed the stairs into the trailer.

  “Two years isn’t very long for you to be carrying so much animosity toward Walker,” I said, blatantly steering the conversation where I wanted it. “I thought you said he beat you only once, and that your other jousts together ended in draws?”

  “There were only two draws,” Farrell said easily, fetching a bottle of wine from a tiny refrigerator built into the wall of the RV. “The truth is, Walker is so consummately the whipped dog, he takes all the fun out of baiting him. You wouldn’t know it from his present demeanor, but we used to have a very lively relationship. We made quite the show out of our rivalry, building on it until the fans were screaming for us to have a match—but that was in the days before he crippled Klaus. After that, the heart seemed to go out of him, and he went from Walker the Wild to Walker the Whipped.”

  I clutched the stem of the wineglass he handed me, slowly, finger by finger, loosening my hold so I wouldn’t snap the delicate glass. “He’s not whipped, Farrell—”

  “Oh, not in the sense you think I mean, no. The light was gone out of that marriage long before the accident. Of course, there were those who found it more than a little suspicious that it was the man Veronica had left him for whom he crippled, but I knew Walker hadn’t destroyed him for that reason. He was simply going after a target, nothing more. The fact that it was Klaus really was nothing but coincidence.”

  I stared at him in openmouthed surprise. “The guy whose neck was broken was Veronica’s . . .”

  “Lover?” Farrell nodded and settled himself back against the plush burgundy couch, his blue eyes amused as he sipped his wine. “One of many, I’m afraid.” He must have seen my eyes widen as I digested this information, because he gave a little laugh. “Oh, yes, the lovely Veronica has never been one to keep her favors for just one knight. She even tried to share them with me.”

  Absently I sipped at the cold white wine, embracing its mellow burn down my throat as I tried to readjust my mental image of Veronica and Walker of five years ago.

  Farrell rubbed his chin, his face thoughtful as he leaned forward. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what Walker meant with that comment about history repeating itself.”

  There were so many pieces to the puzzle, I was having a hard time seeing the big picture. “Oh,” I said absently, shuffling and moving around the facts until they fit together. Sort of.

  “For some reason, Walker took it into his head that Veronica ran to me rather than Klaus. I assume that all these years he’s thought I was her partner in infidelity, but the truth is, I wasn’t. Still, it’s an amusing thought that he imagined himself cuckolded by me when I never laid a finger on the lady.”

  His words penetrated the cloud of abstraction that held me in its confusing grip. I gave up fact shuffling to focus on the here and now. “What? Why not?”

  “Why not?” he asked, setting his glass down in order to sprawl back against the velvet cushions. “I prefer my women warm and willing. Veronica’s taste ran heavily to revenge, and that, my sweet, is a bitter dish, indeed.”

  “Fine words from a man who’s made it his raison d’être to revenge himself against Walker.” My chest was tight, as if iron bands had been tightened around my lungs.

  “Me? Oh, no, I’m not the one who wants revenge—I just want another chance at jousting against Walker. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
br />   I stared down at the glass of golden wine, the puzzle pieces of information I’d been trying to force together suddenly looking all wrong. “But . . . but . . . you’re always saying mean things to Walker—”

  “It’s called goading, darling, and if that man of yours had a shred of dignity, he’d throw down the gauntlet and accept my challenge, but since that day five years ago, he’s ignored every attempt I’ve made to get him into the list with me.”

  “You just want to joust with him,” I repeated, now staring deeply into his blue eyes. He held my gaze easily, not even the faintest whiff of deception present. “My God, if it’s not you who’s after Walker’s blood, then it must be—”

  “If anyone is trying to seriously harm him, it would probably be ex-Mrs. McPhail. You look shocked, Pepper. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about the streak of revenge in the lovely Veronica? Lord knows it’s a mile wide. How can you be working for her and not know of it?”

  “I . . . I . . .” I shook my head, too overwhelmed to know what I was thinking. “I didn’t know! Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things? Life would be so much easier if I didn’t have to pry every single fact out of everyone.”

  “How could you not know? Everyone knows!”

  “I didn’t! No one said a word about her. I’ve got to tell Walker. . . .” I started to stand up, setting the glass of wine down on the tiny table.

  Farrell pulled me back onto the curved couch, shaking his head sadly, as if I had disappointed him. “Walker knows all about her.”

  “Don’t be silly, he can’t know. If he knew, he’d be doing . . . something . . . about . . . oh.” The penny dropped. At last. “That’s why he said he knew he was the real target of the attacks. Damn him, he knew it was her, and he didn’t tell me!”