Joker's Wild Read online

  “Love is the fairy tale, Joker. And I’ve quit believing in it.”

  “I know. I’m going to have to teach you to believe again. Good night, Beauty. Sleep well.”

  The door closed and she was alone in the moonlight—and she didn’t want to be.

  By ten o’clock the next morning Joker had gotten Allison’s doctor to phone in her prescriptions to the Pretty Springs Pharmacy, and her exercise schedule was being forwarded to Sandi Arnold, the physical therapist at the nursing home.

  Now that the Sports Medicine Rehabilitation Center was fully operational, Joker was beginning to hear the resident athletes’ own testimonials about the results of taking the mineral baths. None of the Vandergriffs had believed in the healing power of Pretty Springs when they’d started building the Golf and Tennis Club Retirement Community. The Cherokees had known of the natural mineral springs. According to the information Joker had read in newspapers in the Josey study, people all over the world had believed in the medicinal properties of the springs back in the late 1800’s. Doctors in London and New York had prescribed the lithium waters for assorted illnesses with great faith in their success. And the nursing home people swore by them.

  He’d get Allison in those waters one way or another. Sandi had said that Allison’s therapy schedule was pretty tough. He’d have to get Allison into the proper mood, if he could decide what the proper mood was.

  “Be gentle. Calm her psyche,” Sandi suggested.

  “Appeal to her sporting blood,” Kaylyn, whose approach tended to be more aggressive, had argued.

  “Just try the old Joker sex appeal,” his brother King advised dryly. “It’s never failed you yet. But, old buddy, you should decide what you want out of this relationship. Because it sounds as if you might be in over your head.”

  They were all wrong, Joker mused as he drove. He had to win her complete trust. It was too late to tell him not to fall in love with her. He’d loved her from the time he’d seen her pictures, long before she’d come. He just hadn’t known it until he’d lifted her in his arms for the first time. He knew that his feelings were one-sided. She was still getting over the man who’d hurt her so badly. Maybe she was right. Maybe loving was too painful.

  He’d loved his mother. He’d loved Ellen. And he loved Mrs. Josey. But that kind of love was different. King’s remark stayed with him as he drove his van back to the condo he had been provided with while working on the project, where he stored his belongings. Allison wasn’t the kind of woman he usually picked. He liked them strong and successful, sure of themselves. He could be close, love them for a while, and move on before the relationship developed. The women he liked accepted what he had to give and offered themselves in return. The arrangement was always temporary, and they knew it—even Ellen had.

  Everyone thought that he’d used the older woman who’d taken him in like a son. Warm and loving, she’d given him direction, and he’d accepted what she’d had to give. In return he’d become her prize student and had given her the son’s affection that she’d wanted. She’d expected him to leave her after he graduated, but it had been Ellen who’d gone.

  They’d quarreled over his gambling. She didn’t believe him when he said that he could put his hands on the horses and feel the energy of the winner, the same way that he could touch a flower and bring it back to life.

  She hadn’t believed him, and he’d yelled at her. She wasn’t his mother, he’d screamed. His mother was dead. He didn’t need her to tell him what to do. Then she’d left to teach a seminar at the college. He would have apologized when she returned.

  The accident hadn’t been her fault. The tractor trailer’s load shifted in the curve, killing her instantly when it crushed the roof of her car. But Joker had felt responsible. He’d hurt her and lost her. That’s why he’d bought the estate. For once he’d had the right to do something for someone he cared about. And in some way he’d felt that in helping Mrs. Josey, he was helping Ellen, and maybe the mother he’d never known.

  Friendship was safer. He’d be Allison’s friend for now. They’d learn about friendship together. Then all the rest would follow.

  Joker exchanged his van for the red motorcycle he’d left at the center and drove back to Elysium. The house was dark and silent. Allison was already in bed. Joker didn’t know why that bothered him, but it did.

  He stood in the gazebo in the moonlight listening to the sounds in the gardens. They’d always seemed to accept him and wrap a kind of peaceful insulation around him, but not this night. Allison was inside, and he wanted to be there with her.

  He whistled merrily as he walked to the carriage house. But she made no answering call out to him. Only silence echoed through the dark courtyard, and it wasn’t a welcoming silence. A long time later he finally slept.

  Five

  The shrill buzz of a saw cut through Allison’s sleep like the screech of a fingernail on a blackboard. She came to her feet, groaned, and fell back on her bed.

  “What on earth?”

  The noise began again.

  Termites. Large, metal, mechanical termites were obviously chewing into the foundation of the house. She caught the brass rail on the foot of her bed and managed to make it to the window. She carefully leaned out and was blasted by the noise again.

  “Hey, down there. What’s going on?”

  There was no answer, only the clatter of falling wood. Allison threw on her robe, reached for her crutches, and began her slow, painful journey downstairs. Somehow she wasn’t surprised to find Joker wearing cutoff jeans, laced leather work boots, and a bandanna on his head, wielding a chain saw that was smoothly chewing a hole in the side of the hallway outside the kitchen.

  Her heart took a little leap when she saw how the jeans fit his muscular thighs. The seams at the sides were raveling out, exposing a wide expanse of tanned skin feathered with red-brown hair. From the bottom of the stairs she surveyed the earthy man for a long moment as he worked.

  “Joker! Jookkeerr …!”

  It took a couple of screams before she got his attention and he switched off the saw.

  “Oh, morning. Guess I woke you up. Sorry, but I need to get this done. They’re predicting rain tonight, and I want to get the roof on before then.”

  “Would it be too much to expect you to explain what you’re planning to put a roof on?” She could see behind him into the rose garden through the large square he’d cut out of the wall.

  “Not at all. Your new bedroom.”

  “My new bedroom? I know it’s your house, but why are you cutting a hole in the side? Are you planning to move me into the gazebo?”

  “Where I’d like to move you is into the carriage house with me. But,” he added hastily, “what I’m doing is moving your room to the first floor so that you won’t have to go up and down stairs.”

  “If you’d told me last night, I would have only made one trip down this morning, instead of using the stairs as a revolving door.” Allison began to sway. After four days of being back on crutches, she still couldn’t keep her balance. How in the world could she control the great hulk if she couldn’t even stay on her feet?

  “Sorry, it didn’t occur to me until this morning. Of course, I’d already planned to build a sun room. I’m just going to expand it. Later, we’ll fill the room with plants and wicker furniture. You’ll love it. Now you just sit down over here and have some freshly squeezed juice.”

  “Just for the sake of argument, assuming I approve of your crazy idea, how do you expect to build a room and put a roof on it before it rains? You aren’t Superman.”

  “Of course I don’t intend to do it alone. I have help coming.”

  Allison blanched. “You have workers corning here?”

  “Ah, darling, don’t worry about it. They won’t bother you. I promise.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s just that you … you can’t afford to have a room built on the house right now.”

  “Don’t worry. I have a friend in the building busine
ss,” Joker assured her, turning her to the breakfast table and seating her in the nearest chair. “You didn’t want the world to see you, so I’m building a therapy room here, and we’ll use the whirlpool and the baths over at the mineral springs at night. Before you know it, you’ll be running up and down these steps the way you used to.”

  “All right, Joker. If you insist on doing this, I want to help. I’d determined to pay rent. I’m not completely destitute.”

  Joker recognized the finality in her tone. “All right, Beauty. We’ll work out something. You can buy the food. How’s that?”

  “That’s fair. And, Joker, I’m sorry about not believing you. I spent all yesterday doing some hard thinking. I found grandmother’s bank statement, and she has exactly one hundred and twelve dollars and thirty-six cents in her account.”

  “So? That’s probably a hundred dollars more than I have in mine. What does she need money for anyway? Never fear, darling, we have enough money to transform the sun porch into a therapy room.”

  “I see. And we have money to hire the Sports Medicine Center for my private use only at night?”

  “Well, no,” Joker admitted. “I’m afraid that I have another confession. We’re using the springs free. I’m sort of a friend of the owners. Now drink your juice, and take two of the vitamins in the big bottle. We’ll mix a spoonful of wheat germ in with your juice.”

  “Joker! Don’t put me off. Where did ‘we’ get the money to build a room on this house?”

  “These are just vitamins, Beauty. Don’t worry, I’d never do anything to hurt you. We’re going to build this room on with lots of help from my family and friends.” He put his hands on the table on either side of her, and leaned down. “Just relax, Beauty, everything is going to be fine. Joker’s going to protect you from the world. Remember?”

  “But you’re a gardener,” she protested, “not a builder, or a social worker, or a … whatever it is you think you are.”

  “I’m whatever you need me to be,” he said softly.

  It was there again, that same wonderful feeling that came to her every time she was close to him. It didn’t invade her senses; rather it quietly swept over them like an invisible heated fog. She felt muscles and nerve endings take on a warm glow. He made her feel as if her body knew a secret, as if it were content to wait until her mind understood the truth.

  “But I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”

  “Just consider it part of your therapy, less painful than the treadmill and more satisfying than the whirlpool.”

  She could see the emotion playing in his face. She pushed his arms away from her and stood. “Listen, you. I agreed to cooperate, but I didn’t agree to … to … who appointed you my doctor anyway?”

  She was doing just what she’d sworn not to do, let a man run her life again. Allison fought against the spell he was weaving. She had to get away. She’d go to the nursing home and tell her grandmother that she was leaving. Gran would understand. She always had. Forgetting for a moment that she didn’t have her crutches, Allison took a step, felt the explosion of pain in her leg, and crumpled to the floor.

  “Ah, Beauty.” Joker caught her and crushed her to him, holding her as if he expected her to evaporate into smoke and float off into the air.

  She didn’t have the strength to fight him. “Joker,” she said as she leaned her head against his massive chest and allowed herself to rest. “Joker, I can’t fight you. You’re too good to me. But I can’t let you get more in debt for me. Promise me that you won’t do this again.”

  “I promise that I won’t go into debt, Beauty.” He wanted to tell her that the supplies and the workers came from his family business, but he held back, fearing that knowing a Vandergriff had bought Elysium might make Allison even more leery of his motives.

  “And please call me Allison,” she insisted, lifting her head so that she could make certain he wasn’t putting her on.

  “I’ll try, but I may forget. I’ve called you Beauty for so long that it’s become automatic.”

  The good feeling of being in his arms blurred her thinking, and she knew that she was giving in to him again. Drawing on all her sense of dignity, she tried to pull away—tried and failed.

  “Joker, please. You haven’t known me for very long. You might not even like me.”

  “Oh, yes I have,” he whispered. His large hands splayed across her lower back, and she felt them tremble. “I’ve known you forever. Miss Lenice told me everything about you. I even know about the little mole right here.”

  Joker’s hand slid forward, finding the dark spot beneath her right breast as though she weren’t wearing clothes. His thumb circled the mole, and she felt the silence of the morning closing out all sense of time and place.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” He lowered his head. “Good morning, Allison, darling. I like the way you look when you wake up, all mussed and expectant. I think I have to kiss you,” he said in a raspy voice, “now.”

  She swayed against him, as a flower turns toward the sun. And his lips came down on hers. He tasted of coffee, and his beard smelled faintly of sawdust.

  He’d cast a spell over the house and gardens. And Allison was caught up in it. Try as she might she couldn’t seem to put the breathless feeling of enchantment aside. In all her years of creating a fantasy on ice, that was the magic element that had been missing, and she’d never understood until Joker touched her. She felt as if she were spinning, floating, moving through a beautiful musical interlude, and her feet hadn’t left the ground.

  Her knees weakened, and she allowed him to support all her weight. His hands lifted her so that he could deepen the kiss, and she felt his maleness boldly throbbing against her lower body. Her stomach fluttered wildly, and without realizing what she was doing, she slid her arms up and locked them behind his neck.

  His lips left her mouth and moved over her face, leaving a trail of heat across her eyelids, her cheeks, before he found her mouth once more. Allison clung to him, feeling the involuntary undulation of her body as his hands matched her rhythm.

  She gave in to the delicious feelings of warmth and excitement that racked her body. She felt him move, lifting her until she was sitting on the kitchen countertop, her legs spread to allow him to move between them. His hands found her breasts and covered them.

  “Ah, Beauty,” he murmured, “it was meant to be like this. Open your eyes and tell me that you want me to love you.”

  “Love?” Allison forced her gaze away from the gray eyes that were mesmerizing her with gentle persuasion. “No, I can’t. You have to stop.”

  “Stop what?” He moved his lips back again, slower, giving her a quick, thorough kiss.

  “Kissing me. I don’t come with the house, you know.” Allison rolled her head back and looked into a face filled with passion. “You can’t want me,” she whispered thickly.

  “But I do. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I won’t hurt you. I promise. We’re a team now.”

  “Yes, you will.” She stiffened and pulled herself away from an embrace so perfect, she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. “I can’t, Joker. I don’t want to go through that again.”

  Allison felt Joker’s hands tighten on her body. She couldn’t tell him that for years she and Mark had worked to become a team. From children they’d become fumbling, frustrated teens, learning about their bodies and about desire heightened by forbidden touching and secret kisses. She’d been sixteen the first time Mark had made love to her. The experience had been awkward and painful. She’d accepted Mark’s statement that it was her fault. But the experience had bound her to Mark in a way that commitment never had. She’d fallen in love. And because of that feeling of belonging, she’d accepted the lovemaking, though Allison sensed that everything wasn’t just what it could be.

  Leon, their coach, had tried to separate them, until he saw a way to use their relationship to tune their bodies into a sensual visual expression
of their desire. He’d taken Allison for birth control pills and had turned a blind eye to what was happening. They’d been potential Olympic champions, and he’d done whatever was necessary to get them to the top.

  Allison couldn’t force herself to tell Joker that, but she did want him to understand about Mark. Maybe once and for all he’d accept the truth and put aside his romanticized picture of her.

  “I didn’t tell you everything before, Joker, about how I hurt my knee. It was at the Olympics that I first realized Mark was unfaithful. His dark, mysterious good looks attracted the other women skaters and fans. And for the first time he was aware of his star power. He wanted to win, and I couldn’t refuse Mark anything. The twist, as Leon christened it, was a new move that we thought would set the judges on their ears. If we won, I thought Mark would come back to me.”

  “But you told me the move was risky?” He knew what her answer would be before she said it.

  “Yes, for me. When I fell in rehearsal, we couldn’t let the officials know how bad my knee was, or we’d have been cut from the program. Mark slipped out and found a local doctor to give me a steroid shot in my knee.”

  “That’s legal?”

  “Cortisone to reduce inflammation is legal, up to a point. Mark said it would be all right. Then Leon arranged for the official doctor to give me another injection. He didn’t know about the first one. Both shots deadened the pain, and by the time our event came up, I could skate without feeling anything. We won the gold medal, and Mark did come back to me—for a while. But nothing was ever the same again.”

  “I see.”

  Joker’s words were guarded. Allison knew that he was waiting for her to continue, but he didn’t press her.

  “And when we joined the ice show,” Allison finally continued, skipping over the four years during which she’d learned to turn a blind eye to Mark’s little trysts, “we became officially engaged.”

  “But you didn’t get married.”

  “No, Mark kept putting it off.”

  There was such pain in her voice that Joker was sorry he’d asked. Yet he knew that purging herself of such negative memories was part of the healing process, and Allison needed to talk about her expartner.