A Knight in Central Park(7)

He took them off. “My glasses?”

“Aye,” she said, reaching for them and then placing the apparatus over her eyes. “What do they—Oh, my, they are ghastly.” She took them off and blinked to regain a clearer vision.

He plucked them from her clutches and tucked them into his shirt pocket. “You’ve never seen a pair of eyeglasses before?”

She shook her head. “Nay. I thought you said your eyesight was that of an owl.”

Sir Joe seemed skeptical, uneasy, and thus she figured now was not the time to tell him of his destiny, his quest.

“They’re for reading,” he told her. “Listen, I talked to the doctor. He said you have some bruising, but no broken bones. You’ll be up and about in a few days.”

“My leg itches terribly. Can you not remove the bandages for a moment?”

He shook his head. “Here,” he said, gathering a stack of bound papers from a nearby table. “Maybe this will help keep your mind off the itch.”

She took the thick parchment he offered, feeling the smooth texture with her fingertips. She turned the thick pile of parchment over and gasped at the sight of a woman in full color, dressed in strange undergarments, her bosom heaved against colorful fabric. “Do women dress like this in your time?”

Joe glanced at the picture. “I wish,” he said with a smile.

“What do you wish?”

“Nothing. It was a joke. I was kidding.”

Alexandra looked at the colored drawing again. No one she had seen so far had been dressed like this Jezebel, but Sir Joe wished for all women to wear this sort of garb. She smiled inwardly. Sir Joe, it seemed, was quite the rogue.

“Do you have a relative I could call?” he asked, his tone stern and much too serious. “Someone to come get you?”

“Nay, everyone I know is far, far away.” A thought struck her, and she lifted a questioning brow. “Surely you’ll not leave me to fend for myself after striking me down?”

“It was an accident,” he said. “If you give me the name of a friend, anyone at all, I’ll contact them and make sure they know you’re here.”





Joe glanced at his watch. If he left this minute he might get to Suzanne’s place in time for dinner with her parents. Although missing dinner altogether had its appeal, he had canceled last week and they would never forgive him if he was to be so rude again. “Where do you live? I’ll have Shelly drop you there after you’re released. How about that?”

“I have no place to go, Sir Joe.”

He pressed a finger to his temple. “Don’t you think ‘sir Joe’ is overdoing it a bit?” He studied her face for a moment as he wondered what kind of game she was playing.

Before she could reply, the door swung open and Shelly entered the room. She headed straight for the bed. “Does it hurt?” Shelly asked Alexandra.

Joe shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glanced at his watch again.

“Nay, ’Tis not so bad.”

Her ridiculous dialect was driving him nuts. Every ’tis and ’twas made his teeth clench tighter. He wrapped his hand around Shelly’s arm, excused them both, and pulled her from the room and into the hallway.

The door shut softly behind them.

He kept his voice low. “She claims to have no place to stay. If you ask me, the woman is nuts. I really think she believes she’s from another century.”

Shelly’s eyes lit up as an idea came to her. “Let her stay at your place for a few days. At least until she can get around.”

“Absolutely not. This isn’t like bringing home a stray puppy or a kitten. She’s human. At least I think she is.”

“Oh, come on. She looks perfectly innocent to me. She’s extremely sweet natured. What harm could she do? You’ve got plenty of room in your apartment and the publicity might do you some good. You want to impress the Academy, don’t you? The headlines will read: Joe McFarland Helps the Homeless. What could be better than that?”

“Forget it, she’s a lunatic. She could be a thief for all I know.”

Shelly plunked a hand on her hip. “And exactly how much of your property is she going to carry off with a bum leg?”

“She could be on drugs. The last thing I need are needles scattered about my coffee table.”

The doctor swept past, prompting them both to fix their gazes on him as he entered Alexandra’s room.