A Knight in Central Park

chapterFive

Where there is great love there are always miracles.

—Willa Cather

Yawning, Alexandra peeked sleepily through one eye and then the other, noting the streaks of sunlight coming through the window and hitting the wall just so. As she stretched her arm toward the ceiling, every bone in her body tensed. Something was amiss.

The walls were neither stone nor wattle and daub, but covered with colored parchment instead. She felt a movement upon her chest and stifled a gasp.

Slowly, afraid of what she might see, she peered downward. A hand lay upon her breast. A large masculine hand that rose and fell with each breath she took. Time held still as she turned her head until she was gazing into the sleeping face of Sir Joe.

She had done it again!

She had walked in her sleep. And right into Sir Joe’s bedchamber. She tried not to wake him as she pondered her predicament. Her nose itched and her leg began to cramp.

As if he sensed her dilemma, Sir Joe stirred, pulling her snug against him until her lips were pressed firmly to the hard cords of his neck.

She dared not breathe.

If he found her here in his bed, he would surely throw her out on the streets.

It was not Sir Joe’s fault she walked in her sleep and crawled into his bed.

His stubbled jaw rested on her forehead. He mumbled incoherently for a moment before falling silent again. She was sure he had drifted back to sleep until his fingers began to massage her chest. She never had her breast kneaded in such a way. She sucked in a slow deep breath and determined that Sir Joe smelled nice, like pine-scented soap and the fresh outdoors.

As his hands moved over her body, she stifled a groan at the sensations he awakened in her. Surely this was not how a man was supposed to make a woman feel. Although the men in her time paid her little attention, she was not an inexperienced lass...not completely. She had been kissed more than once, and she would never forget Sir Lionel’s fast and fumbling hands before she was forced to kick him on the shin.

With her face pressed against Sir Joe, she found it hard to take in too many details, but her awkward position did not stop her from seeing well-muscled shoulders. And he had lots of dark curly hairs sprinkled about his chest. She never would have guessed that such a wonderful specimen of a man was hidden beneath those strange garments he wore.

Sir Joe mumbled again, prompting her to attempt to ease her way off the bed. But before she could get away, he opened his eyes.

She froze.

They were nose to nose. She felt strongly compelled to say something. “Good day, Sir Joe. I trust you slept well?”

She followed his sluggish sleepy-eyed gaze to where his hand lay on her chest.

As if he were afire he tossed the covers aside and jumped from the bed. He pointed a reproving finger in her direction, his face a fiery red. “What are you doing in my bed?”

Towering over her with that menacing frown, he seemed to have overlooked the fact that he wore not a stitch of clothing. Or mayhap he enjoyed flaunting himself in such a manner. He had one of the finest chests she’d ever seen on a man. And she’d indeed seen her share considering her father hired no less than a dozen men whenever the crops warranted it. But not one of those men had ever taken off his breeches and stood naked before her as Sir Joe was doing now. His rigid manliness demanded her attention. She stared with wide, unblinking eyes, unable to bring herself to look away.

With an exasperated shake of his head, Sir Joe retrieved his clothing from across the room and stepped hastily into his breeches. “Alexandra,” he said as he turned back to her, “what kind of game are you playing?”

“’Tis no game, I swear. I have been cursed all of my life with a sleep-walking ailment.”

His face was pinched tight. “You are certifiably insane.”

“But you will help me nonetheless?”

With his face an annoyed shade of red and his teeth clenched together in such a menacing way, he looked angry enough to take on Sir Richard and his men.

The thought cheered her immeasurably.

“You may get your kicks out of pretending to be a maiden in distress and crawling into bed with strange men,” he said, “but I personally don’t find it amusing.”

Alexandra sat up, bristling at his words. “You, an unseasoned knight from a pampered world, are accusing me—” She pointed to her chest, “Alexandra Dunn of being a loose woman?”

Enough was enough. Pushing herself from the bed, she hobbled his way, wagging a finger at him as she went. “Although I have had fair enough chances to do so, I have never before crawled into a man’s bed. I am a virgin and I plan to keep my maidenhood intact until I marry.”

“Oh,” he said, “I get it. You’re looking for a husband.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You knotty-pated ox. It would be a stormy day in the forest before I would marry the likes of you...or any other man.”

He winced. “Where do you come up with these things? Knotty-pated ox?” He shook his head.

They both heard the loud click of the front entry door being opened and then clicking shut.

“Quick,” Sir Joe said, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Where’s your robe?”

“Belowstairs,” she said, wondering why the sudden concern. “Is something wrong?”

Sir Joe grabbed her arm and ushered her quickly towards his chamber door. Escape was impossible, for Shelly and another woman already blocked the doorway. Shelly was dressed in a loose-fitting blouse and tight breeches, while the other woman was attired in a matching two-piece garment that revealed long legs; the woman also wore the strangest footwear Alexandra had ever seen, making her appear three inches taller.

“Joe,” the woman with Shelly choked out, “what is going on here?”

Sir Joe’s countenance paled.

Shelly turned about and quickly disappeared.

Obviously the woman with the scowl had some sort of claim on Sir Joe. Alexandra shrugged. As long as he kept his promise to help her, she cared not how many women he courted.

Sir Joe rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not what it looks like,” he told the woman. He gestured toward Alexandra and said, “She snuck into my room last night while I slept. I had nothing to do with it.”

Alexandra raised a brow. “You dare accuse me of being a wanton woman when you were the one who pulled me snug against your body and kneaded my breast?”

His jaw hardened. Her half-naked champion appeared to be at a loss for words.

“You touched this woman’s breast?” his lady friend asked.

Sir Joe shot Alexandra a piercing glance before he turned back to the woman and said, “I don’t know. I don’t recall.”

“You don’t recall?” The woman threw her hands in the air. “I come here to apologize for last night, find you in your bedroom with another woman, and you don’t remember whether or not you touched her breasts?”

“I never lie,” Alexandra chimed in.

Sir Joe’s face flushed with anger. “She never lies,” he said incredulously. “Tell Suzanne where you’re from. Tell her about King Henry and all of the king’s horsemen. Go ahead.”

Alexandra sighed. Sir Joe failed to believe her after all. All his talk...just a cartful of lies. Despite her damaged leg, she made her way past the tall, elegantly dressed, sweet-scented woman. Sir Joe’s true character mattered not she told herself. It mattered only that he believe in her plight...and the sooner the better.





Joe watched Alexandra hobble away before he turned back to face Suzanne. As always, Suzanne was perfection in her dark tailored suit and pearls. Her blonde hair was rolled tightly upon her head, her anger flaring from icy blue eyes. “I know this looks bad,” he said, “but you have to believe me. That woman is crazy...absolutely nuts. I did not invite her into my bed.”

“How can I believe you after what I just saw and heard?”

He pointed to his chest. “Because you know me.”

As if that were the lamest answer he could have ever come up with, Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Did you touch her breast, or not?” she asked once more.

His silence spoke volumes.

Suzanne marched from the room.

He nearly tripped over his feet trying to catch up to her. For the life of him, he couldn’t fathom how he always seemed to get himself into these messes. “Shelly let that woman in the house last night after I told her not to,” Joe finished just as Suzanne reached the front door. “When I woke up this morning, she was in my bed.”

Suzanne paused, her hand nestled around the knob as she waited for an answer to her question.

“Yes,” he finally said regretfully, “I touched her breast. I thought it was yours.”

Suzanne growled, threw the door open, smacking his toe in the process. She marched to the curbside, unlocked her Mercedes, and slid into the driver’s seat.

Joe glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you go anywhere,” he told Shelly. Then he shut the door and limped after Suzanne.

The car engine came alive.

Suzanne rolled the window down a crack and said, “You must really think I’m gullible.”

He rested his head against the cold metal frame of her car door, his bare feet already numb. “I was asleep, Suzanne, having fabulous dreams about you...and when I—”

“You were dreaming of me?”

“Only you.”

Her mouth tightened into a straight line. “Well, keep on dreaming because I never want to see you again.”

Joe jumped back and watched her drive off. Damn. He limped back inside.

He heard voices. Shelly and Alexandra were talking in the kitchen. Just as well, since he wasn’t ready to deal with them. As he made his way back up the stairs to his room, he shook his head. He entered his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Suddenly the whole crazy scene struck a chord inside of him. He found himself chuckling at the thought of how stupid he must have looked, standing before Suzanne, half naked and fully expecting her to believe him. Hell, he could hardly believe it himself.

Although he knew it shouldn’t strike him as funny, he felt a strange sense of relief wash over him, as if a huge weight had miraculously lifted from his shoulders the moment Suzanne told him she never wanted to see him again. Her parents carried a fair amount of social clout in New York, and for the past five months her parents had been pushing for him and Suzanne to marry. He didn’t like the pressure, the expectations, the idea of being tied to one woman for the rest of his life.

He caught his reflection in the mirror, and realized he hadn’t seen himself smile in a very long time. He liked Suzanne, but he wasn’t interested in setting up house with her...or anybody else. He was used to being alone. In fact, he preferred it that way. His research kept him busy enough. Besides, above all else, he liked peace and quiet.

Leaning over the sink, he splashed cool water onto his face. When he looked back into the mirror, he saw Alexandra standing there, staring back at him.

His shoulders tensed. “What now?”

She fidgeted with the belt on the robe she’d put on. “I wish to apologize.”

He dried his face with a towel, then headed for the closet. “Don’t worry about it.” He grabbed his running shoes, sat on the edge of the bed, and put them on.

“I did not mean to be an annoyance,” she said. “Are you angry?”

He’d never felt better, but he’d be damned if he’d tell her that. “No, I’m not angry, but that doesn’t change things. You can’t stay here.”

“I beg of you not to send me away. Time is running out. We need to plan our attack.”

He tugged at his shoelaces. “Our attack?”

“Aye. My grandfather warned me that when we return to my time everything will be as it was when I left. Although normal time will have passed in your world, nothing will have changed in mine. Upon our return, Sir Richard’s men will need to be dealt with swiftly and bluntly.”

“Listen,” Joe said, his voice strained. “When I said I’d help you, I meant that I’d help you find a place to stay; a place with lots of caring people to help you get back on track.”

“You truly give no credence to my plight?”

“Even if I believed your story...I wouldn’t be able to help you.”

“Why not?”

Joe felt foolish talking about something so absurdly irrational, but nothing in the past few days seemed remotely ordinary, so he said, “Because violence isn’t something I condone. Guns and weapons are used too often without much thought to consequence.”

Alexandra’s fingers rolled into fists at her sides. “What about the innocent people who are attacked without warning? The people who have no choice but to fight back?”

“They should walk away—”

“And take a dagger in the back?” She jabbed at his side when he tried to pass. “What if someone did that? Or this.” She went for his left side, but his hand darted out and took a firm hold of her wrist. She winced.

“This is crazy,” he said, dropping her arm. When he got to the door he turned back to her. “I’m going for a run. When I return, we’re going to find you another place to stay.”

Joe exited the room, furious with himself for letting her get to him at all. He took the stairs two at a time, didn’t see Shelly standing nearby until he reached the landing. She gave him a sorrowful look filled with pity.

He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t say it.”

She shot him a look of innocence. “What?”

“That I should chase after Suzanne and beg her forgiveness.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I did-I do.” He raked a hand through his hair, wondering why he bothered to explain at all. “Listen, I don’t have time to run after her. Besides, we were already on shaky ground. It never would have worked out.”

Shelly shook her head, irritating him all the more when she said, “Every single time you date a woman for more than a few weeks you say the same thing.”

“Not true.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why wouldn’t it have worked out?”

Joe shifted from one foot to the other; the weight of two days of madness crashing upon his shoulders like giant boulders.

“You were beginning to feel claustrophobic again, weren’t you?” Shelly asked. “Feeling those walls closing in around you, the thought of getting close to someone, made you panic. That’s why you broke it off with Sheila and then Caroline, isn’t it?”

That did it. Joe headed for the door. He didn’t need this.

“You’re always giving up too easy,” Shelly prodded. “One of these days, Professor, you’re going to regret not committing to another human being.” She followed him to the door. “Commitment to a woman might mean opening up yourself to pain, isn’t that right?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, she just rambled on until he fully regretted hiring her as his assistant at all. “It’s easier for men like you to keep an emotional distance from others. It’s too bad, Professor, because one of these days you’re going to meet someone worth every bit of pain they may cause you, but you won’t even know it because you won’t give anybody a chance to get that close.”

“Ahhh,” he said as he turned about. “I think I see where this is going—”

Shelly raised a perplexed brow.

“I didn’t even see it coming,” he said smugly.

“What?”

“You have feelings for me. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

The sound that came from Shelly’s mouth resembled something between a gasp and a cough. “You’ve got to be kidding? You think I’m falling for you?” She snorted. “I have a boyfriend, Professor. And no offense, but I prefer to date men a little closer to my own age.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Forget I mentioned it. But then why the sudden interest in my personal life?”

“My major is in Psychology, remember?”

“It’s all coming back to me now.”

She responded to his sarcasm with a disappointed sigh. “They were right about you all along.”

He rubbed at the pain stabbing at the back of his neck. “Who? What now?”

“Your students.” Shelly returned to the stairs and took a seat on the bottom step. “The truth is, Professor, I agreed to be your assistant for two reasons. First, I needed the money, and second, rumor had it that you’d make a great case sample for the topic of my thesis.”

“And that would be?” Inwardly, he wanted to strangle himself for asking.

“Why Some Men are Afraid to Commit.”

He should have guessed.

“I took a student poll,” Shelly said, her voice growing cheerful. “Ninety percent of your students believe that you, Professor McFarland, are afraid of commitment. Never mind the faculty poll which...”

“You polled the faculty on my relationship problems?”

“Well, it’s a relief to hear that you’re willing to admit you have a problem. Nothing worse than an AOC in denial.”

“An AOC?”

“Afraid of Commitment,” she said in exasperation, as if AOC were stamped in big black letters across his forehead.

“Your theory is absurd,” he told her. “I’m not the least bit afraid of commitment. I just don’t have the time for any sort of lasting relationship. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more.”

“There’s much more, Professor, but I won’t bore you with all the details. Bottom line is that detachment has a protective value for people like you; people who like things peaceful, quiet, and orderly. Making commitments upsets your passive, somewhat boring existence. It’s easier for AOC’s to do without someone rather than to allow themselves to feel. To have one’s privacy exposed is scary and uncomfortable...makes men like you sweat.”

Joe was quiet for a moment. Not because he had been enlightened in any way, but because his head was spinning. He opened the door and headed outside.

Shelly made a tsk tsk sound, then added in a frank tone, “No matter how much you enjoy your own company, Professor, some day you’ll tire of being alone. I guarantee it. But if you ever want to talk about what might be holding you back,” she said loud enough for him to hear when he quickened his pace, “I’ll be here for you, Professor.”

Exactly what he was afraid of.





Joe ran along Broadway, the brisk morning air spanking his face. When his head finally stopped buzzing, he found himself chuckling at all of the mumbo jumbo psycho analogy Shelly had thrown at him. Another minute and she would have had him analyzing every failed relationship he’d ever had. The way he saw it, they weren’t failed relationships at all. He just happened to date smart, independent women who were too busy to think about settling down. That’s all there was to it. In the end, Shelly would probably blame his parents for his lack of commitment. Psychiatrists were so quick to blame the parents.

His parents, although far from saints, had done their best. His mother had a few problems, drank too much at times...but that was a long time ago. She’d loved him the only way she knew how. His father was another story, but he too, had his reasons for not being there for him when Joe was growing up. And besides, he thought as he ran a little harder, a little faster, none of that mattered.

It was all in the past.

And he only wanted to think about the future, which meant he needed to get his life back on track, back to normal, which brought him right back to Alexandra Dunn.

Who was she anyhow? What was she up to? And what the hell was it about her that made him wonder if there could be some truth to her ridiculous stories?

He was a professor, a man of reason. He dealt with real data, principle and methods—not with phenomena outside the range of normal. But her pronunciation and use of English was consistent with Middle English spoken throughout Europe during the fifteenth century, the time she claimed to have come from. Where would she have learned to speak in a language no longer in use? And her clothes. The dress-like tunic she’d been wearing when he’d first met her was hand-made. He’d seen particles of dirt and straw within the coarse wool, the sort of cloth worn by the lower class in the fifteenth century.

A dog barked, its sharp teeth held at bay by a chain-linked fence.

He stepped up his pace. He didn’t have time to deal with Alexandra Dunn. His meeting next week could well determine the course of his future. And yet he still had much to do: notes to go over and documents to read. His life’s work would be summed up in a few hours and a decision would be made as to whether or not accept him into the Academy.

His heart skipped a beat.

His father would be there.

He inhaled the chill air, refusing to go there, switching his thoughts back to Alexandra. What if she really had come through time...swept through a black hole...

He stopped in his tracks, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. Then, for the second time in less than an hour, he laughed out loud at the wayward path his thoughts were headed. He’d definitely been working too hard.

Turning about, he headed toward home, hoping Alexandra would be gone when he returned. And yet his arms pumped faster, quickening his pace, as if a small part of him hoped to see her one last time.