A Knight in Central Park(67)

He frowned at hearing her declaration, but she cared not. She’d said what she felt in her heart, and she had no regrets.

“You don’t love me,” he told her.

“I do. And you, Sir Joe, shan’t stop me from feeling what I feel.”

Sir Joe laid his head back on the pillows and stared up at the ceiling, one knee bent as he plucked the gillyflower from the tray and tapped it against his forehead. “Maybe what you’re feeling is more of a crush.”

“How does a crush feel?” she asked.

“I am assuming you attend church.”

“Aye,” she said, more perplexed than ever.

“At church then, did you ever notice someone across the room, someone of the opposite sex who made your palms sweat and your heart beat a little faster?”

“Nay, never.”

“You’ve never met a young man who made you feel just the slightest bit nervous when you glanced his way?”

She refused to let him wave away her declaration of love as if it were naught but infatuation.

Sir Joe exhaled and then tried again. “He notices you; you notice him. You smile; he smiles. Sparks ignite, and so on, and so on?”

“I have never felt such things.” Not until I met you, she thought to herself. “I found boys to be brutish in manner and lacking in here,” she said, pointing to her skull.

Sir Joe laughed. “Never mind, then. I forget the point I was making anyhow.”

“I think what you were trying to do,” she said, leaning over him, her chest brushing against him as she gathered the tray and placed it on the nightstand, “was put words in my mouth and tell me what I am feeling.” She returned to her seat on the stool and waited for a response.

“Hmmm,” he said, smiling, “maybe you’re right.”

“Did you love Suzanne?” she asked.





Joe had never in his life talk to a woman about ex-girlfriends and such. Alexandra had caught him off guard. “No,” he said and tossed the flower to the side table.

“But she loved you?”

“No, I don’t think she loved me either.”

Alexandra lifted her chin. “Have you ever had these crushes you speak of?”

“Many times.”

“’Twould be a crush if you were to stand before this person and were to suddenly lose control of your tongue and trip over your feet like a newborn calf?”

“Sounds like you speak from experience after all.”

“Nay,” she said, “but I have seen how silly boys act around girls with comely faces.”

“I’m sure you’ve left a fair share of young men crippled and speechless.”

“Nay,” she said, nudging him with her elbow, “you jest. Boys were never interested in me.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re fishing for compliments?”

“What does that mean, fishing for compliments?”

“It means that you might be hinting for me to say something nice about you.” He leaned her way and inhaled. “Something about how sweet you smell or how nice you look.”

“Oh,” she said, her lips curving upward, “go on.”

He laughed. “You might hope I would mention your endless beauty or maybe talk on and on about your luscious red hair and how it shines about your face like a halo of crimson silk.” He lifted a strand of her hair and let it slide between his thumb and forefinger. “Or maybe you’d prefer I go on about your eyes and how they put the purest of green grasses to shame, sparkling like the rarest of emeralds.”

Joe watched a half-smile play on her lips; full and achingly kissable lips. Then it hit him like another toilet plunger to his head. She was doing it again, pulling him in, making him desire her in such a way that would make it impossible for him to ever leave her. He could not allow himself to fall in love with a woman from another time. Falling in love?

The thought had come out of right field. A prickling sensation ran up his spine. Hell, he didn’t believe in love. Every time a woman talked of love he felt the tightening of a straight jacket. Love meant being restrained. Love always had conditions attached to it...I’ll love you more if you stop working so much. I’ll love you forever as long as you behave accordingly. Love was not the antidote to an empty, meaningless life as some people seemed to think.

Calming himself, he thought, even if his feelings wavered in the direction of a strong attraction for Alexandra, he could not stay in this world. What about cars, big cities, dishwashers and hot showers? He already missed those things, dammit.