A Knight in Central Park(45)

He shrugged. “Tell me about your family.”

Alexandra appeared to sort her thoughts before she told him about her mother who had died giving birth to Garrett.

Joe listened intently as she talked about her childhood, being raised on a farm, her daily chores...feeding the chickens, sowing the fields, and so on. With every word, he found himself more intrigued. Not only had she lost her mother, years later she’d lost her step-mother, too; the woman had been murdered by an armed man on her way to visit family. Rebecca, Alexandra’s half sister, was six-years old and had been traveling with her mother at the time. Rebecca witnessed the murder and stayed hidden until she was found by a hunter who recognized her as one of the four Dunn sisters living in Brookshire. Rebecca had not uttered a word since that day nearly two years ago.

Soon after, Alexandra’s father, who was minor nobility as he was a distant relation to the earl of Ormonde, set off to do the king’s bidding and never returned, leaving Alexandra with much responsibility. And yet she carried on with dignity and determination. Her crops and her hard work had helped to keep an entire village from starving.

Joe let his gaze roam over her. Apparently, she’d given away her new clothes, but even in her tattered dress-like tunic, she looked beautiful. Alexandra was a natural beauty. Some considered “natural“ to mean ordinary. But there was nothing ordinary about the sheer redness of her hair. And there was certainly nothing usual about her flawless skin or expressive green eyes; eyes the color of renewed hope and prosperity. Smiling came easy to Alexandra. Her face was almost always animated, her eyes sparkling. And whenever he spoke, she listened with her eyes as much as her ears.

Her laughter was contagious, lending him an unfamiliar lightheartedness. Joe felt a sudden bond between them, a bond of friendship. He’d never been one to collect friends. He supposed Shelly was a friend. He cleared his throat and said, “I’ve been meaning to apologize for not believing your story when you first enlightened me.”

“’Tis understandable,” she answered. “I did not believe ’twas possible myself until it happened.”

“And even then, it’s hard to believe,” Joe said. “There once lived a brilliant man named Albert Einstein who found the notion of time-travel upsetting.” Joe laughed at the irony. “Einstein showed gravity as a bending of space and time.”

Alexandra nodded, listening.

“I recall reading about time travel becoming a practical possibility,” he went on. “Light was a vital ingredient: sun or moon. I’ll have to do more research when I return.”

Divots and potholes increased in number as they moved along the well-used paths. The clip-clop of hooves filled the silence between them.

As the day wore on, Joe thought of last night when he’d marched off, intending to leave Alexandra, knowing full well she’d go after her sister with or without him. But by the time he’d trampled through an acre of high weeds, he’d calmed down enough to realize he could never abandon her in her time of need. As he’d looked at the moon last night, with the rock snug in his pocket, he knew he couldn’t live out his life knowing he might be responsible for Alexandra’s death. That’s when he headed back over the hill, intent on telling her that he would stay until she and her family were safe. But the snap of a branch had stopped him in his tracks. And when he’d looked upward...everything had gone black.

Joe had had every intention of telling Alexandra that he’d changed his mind about leaving. But that was before her brother struck him down, and before her grandfather told him it was his destiny that he be Alexandra’s husband. The Chosen One, or not, he wasn’t the marrying type. And even if he was, he could never stay in this world and live the life of a medieval man. He wasn’t cut out to be a farmer, let alone a warrior. He was a modern man who enjoyed the luxuries of modern day living: flushing toilets, hot showers, and comfortable clothes. It could never work.

“Tell me about you,” Alexandra said, breaking into his meandering thoughts. “I have told you much about me, and yet you have told me little about yourself.”

He pointed to his chest. “You want to know about me?”

“Aye.”

“I’m afraid I am not a very interesting subject.”

“You jest. You are a remarkable man, and a very brave one at that.”

He chuckled. “Had you asked Shelly to name twenty words to describe me, brave would not have been one of them.”