Joker's Wild (2 page)

“Honestly now,” she protested weakly, “no more fun and games. I don’t know who you are or what
you’re doing here, but this is my home. Or it was my home until I moved to … that doesn’t matter. I’ve been driving for a long time. I’m totally wiped out, and I don’t think I can stay awake much longer. Please, let me go!”

“I’m not holding you, my Beauty. You’re free to go whenever you like. But I’m here. All you have to do is need me, and I’ll come to you.”

He really wasn’t touching her, Allison realized. His nearness was an illusion that lingered. She still felt him, felt the strength of his arms and the warmth of his touch. Then the feeling was gone, and she shivered as he lifted her hand, touching her palm to his lips before moving away.

Allison blinked once and then rubbed her eyes in disbelief. She had to be hallucinating. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she opened them again, she was alone. She wasn’t sure how much had been real and how much she’d imagined.

It must have been the aftereffects of the painful knee injury that had colored her mind and made her see what she’d needed to see. She’d read about women who wanted a child so badly that they gained weight, suffered morning sickness, and even produced milk when they weren’t even pregnant. Did she want a tender, caring lover so much that she’d conjured one up? No! She was in the gazebo in her grandmother’s garden. She’d come home to get away from the world and let herself heal. Only … she hadn’t taken any pain pills since she’d left the hospital. Whatever had happened hadn’t been induced by her medication.

In the distance she heard a lawn mower start up.
The limbs of the great oak trees hung still and graceful in the garden around the gazebo. A quick little breeze caught the leaves and moved them, stirring the quiet peacefulness with secretive whispers. Sounds of the garden sifted through her confusion, and she took a deep, sweet-scented breath.

This was Pretty Springs, Georgia. This was home. After fourteen years she was back where she’d started. She could wash her face, take off her shoes, and eat brownies and pancakes and fried chicken forever. She’d never be half of the team of Josey and Saville again. She’d never be married to Mark Saville. The couple whose faces had been plastered across the covers of every gossip magazine from the moment they’d won the Olympic gold medal five years ago was no more. Mark had found someone else.

For almost six months she’d been plain old Allison Janette Josey, who couldn’t manage on dry land any better than she could skate on ice. She swung around into the doorway, picked up her crutches, and hobbled down the steps toward the house.

“Damned knee! Damned doctors. I’ll show them all. I will skate again!”

In the distance the auburn-haired man watched the delicate woman move awkwardly and stop every few steps to rest and look around as if she were taking her bearings. She seemed to be breathing in the scents and feel of home. As if she were some music-box ballerina, she raised her head defiantly and slowly turned around, her body language indicating a change in her attitude from defeat to a tentative acceptance. A half smile washed across her face, and she opened her arms as if she were a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.

Joker nodded. He understood her feelings about this place. It had been while he’d been landscaping the Pretty Springs Golf and Tennis Retirement Community nearby that he’d found Elysium and fallen in love with it—and the gentle elderly lady who owned it. His brothers understood why he preferred renting the carriage house on the grounds of Elysium to living in one of the condos they were building. They’d learned about saving precious things. They’d saved the healing mineral springs at the golf and tennis housing community by incorporating the Sports Medicine Rehabilitation Center into the project.

The first day he’d driven by the wisteria-covered stone entranceway to the estate, he’d been intrigued. Without any hesitation he’d driven down the lane lined with deep red crape myrtle trees and had seen the lovely old house and gardens falling into disrepair. When Lenice Josey welcomed him inside, he’d known that he wanted to stay. She quickly became the grandmother he’d never had. And he’d become her fierce protector. She’d rented him the carriage house, and he’d moved in.

And then he’d seen the photos of Allison. From that moment he’d been captured by something more than the house, by a need he couldn’t identify, an obsession for the hauntingly beautiful Allison on the silver skates. He couldn’t have left, even if Lenice Josey hadn’t welcomed him like a grandson.

It wasn’t until he’d found Mrs. Josey crumpled on the kitchen floor and had taken her to the hospital that he’d discovered the perilous state of her finances. Only her concern for her granddaughter had kept
her from selling out and moving into a retirement home long ago. But it was clear that Allison had her own life, a life outside of Pretty Springs. And Mrs. Josey knew that Allison’s love for Elysium wasn’t for the place itself but for her. Then, Lenice had fallen ill, and she’d had no choice.

As long as she owned the estate she was unable to qualify for the extended medical assistance she needed. Mrs. Josey had to sell to pay off the hospital and supplement her own meager income. Whatever was left over would then go to Allison later. But she’d made everyone involved promise that Allison wouldn’t be told—until Mrs. Josey could tell her herself.

Joker couldn’t allow a stranger to tear down the estate or turn it into co-ops or condos. He’d offered to buy the place, and she’d agreed, knowing that the chances of Allison ever living there again were slim. At least if Joker bought it, it wouldn’t be swallowed up in new development.

At the time, Lenice Josey’s doctor had notified Allison of her grandmother’s fall, but Allison was scheduled to undergo the operation on her knee, and she couldn’t come. Joker became Mrs. Josey’s family. But he continued to live in the carriage house, even after the house became his. The house was meant for a family, and he’d been alone—until now.

The exterior needed to be painted, the roof leaked, and some of the windows had begun to rot away. But Joker couldn’t bring himself to change anything. Now he knew why. He’d kept it just the way it was for the woman in the pictures. He just hadn’t anticipated that she wouldn’t know that the home she’d come back to wasn’t hers any more.

The expression of defeat on Allison’s face as she made her way to the gazebo had been no surprise to him. He’d been down the same lonely road, trying to find the sense of home he’d lost. Now he knew that he’d been walking toward her with every step he’d made.

Allison didn’t need to be told yet about his arrangements with her grandmother. She hadn’t been informed about their friendship or that his large monthly house payments were supplementing Miss Lenice’s small income. He’d explain everything to Allison when the time was right. He wasn’t sure why Allison had come home or what she needed, but he felt her pain as though it were his own. Learning that Elysium belonged to him now could set her recovery back even more.

Joker looked around the gazebo and felt the lingering aura of Allison’s presence. He let out a cry of joy and gave an imaginary high five to the bright sunshine and whispering summer breeze.

Allison climbed the back steps and entered the kitchen as though she’d been thrown back in time. She was a schoolgirl again, hurrying home to share her day with Gran, calling out as soon as she entered the kitchen. The woman behind the sink would smile, hold out her cheek for a kiss, and go on whipping potatoes with a large metal fork.

Allison would fling herself down in the chair at the table by the bay window overlooking the garden and enjoy whatever treat Gran had prepared, while she told her grandmother about her day. She hadn’t known what it was like to have a best friend to play
with after school. She’d had Gran, and Gran had been enough.

Allison glanced around the kitchen. It was exactly the same—the faded marble countertops, the glass-fronted cabinets filled with the gold-colored Depression glass plates and glasses that Gran had received as wedding presents. She’d eaten on those dishes every day for thirteen years, until she’d left to train for the Olympics.

The ice-skating rink had been built on a vacant lot near her house when she was eight years old. The rink had quickly taken the place of the friends she’d never had. Skating had been a wonderful escape for her. It had allowed her to express herself and had hidden the uncertainty she’d felt as an adolescent. The only success she’d ever experienced in her life had been while on the ice.

Allison ran her fingers over the marble countertop, feeling the smooth, cool finish. The house was quiet, and she shivered as the memories came crashing over her.

When she was thirteen Allison had been selected to go to the Olympics training school in Colorado. She’d been too young to understand the sacrifices Gran had made to pay her fees. She’d missed Gran, but for the first time in her life she’d had a chance to be special. And she’d never really come home again, except for brief visits.

Then she’d met Mark, and he’d become the most important person in her life. Now Mark was gone, Lenice Josey was in a nursing home, and the house was still and empty.

Allison looked around.

Tired … so tired of having to put on a stoic face before the world. She groaned out loud. She’d been so sure that she could do this alone. Before she’d always been dependent on somebody. First there had been Gran, then her coaches and trainers, then Mark, and finally her doctors. She’d been to the mountaintop and had come crashing down. Now it was up to her. No more dependency. No more living on her pride or hiding her feelings or her past.

Allison Josey had checked herself out of the hospital and had come home. She’d learned to skate while living in this house. Now, one way or another, she’d learn to walk again. She gritted her teeth and climbed the stairs, grimacing with every step.

She pushed open the door to her bedroom, flexing her arms and shoulders, which were strained from using the crutches. She glanced around and felt a great lump tighten her throat. Gran had kept the room just as Allison had left it. The cabbage-rose print spread and the pink sheets were on the bed. Her stuffed animals still lined the bookshelves on the wall, and the picture of her receiving her first skating trophy leaned against the mirror on her dressing table. She dropped her crutches and lay back across the bed, absorbing the feeling of home.

The presence of the man in the gazebo should have disturbed her, but it didn’t. There’d never been a man in their house before, but he seemed to belong there. She’d have to talk to Gran about him as soon as she’d rested for a while. She closed her eyes, remembering his gentle kiss. The memory was a soothing balm to her frazzled nerves.

So weary … Allison was asleep seconds before the screen door of the porch below swung open. She
didn’t hear the steps of the big bearded man as he deposited her suitcases inside the bedroom and stood over her, watching the faint up-and-down movement of her chest as she slept.

“So fragile,” he whispered, and forced away the overpowering urge he felt to cradle her in his arms. His heart ached for her. She was a wildflower, a rare wildflower hiding in a dark place away from the sun. He’d protect her—somehow.

Fried chicken. Gran was frying chicken.

Allison opened her eyes. The late afternoon sun made fingers of wavy lavender light across the pale pink carpet in her bedroom. No, she wasn’t dreaming. She was in her room, and she definitely smelled chicken frying.

Allison had craved fried chicken for days before she’d left the hospital. She’d been tired of struggling, tired of hurting. When the doctors admitted that her surgery had been only partially successful and that their plans for a second operation promised no guarantees for further improvement, she gave in to her longing and headed south. She’d decided it was time to go home and start over again.

With a groan Allison forced herself up. Reaching for her crutches she dislodged one from the foot of her bed, and it clattered to the floor. The noise had hardly died down when she heard the unmistakable thud of footsteps on the stairs.

“Who’s there?”

“Just me, Beauty. Are you ready for dinner?”

It was the red giant, the earthy apparition who had kissed her in the gazebo. He was standing in her doorway wearing a pink gingham apron around his waist and a frosting of flour on his beard.

“Are you the cook too?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m it—butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. And I do a mean Texas two-step on the side.”

“Just as long as you understand that this little house is in Georgia, not Texas,” she responded with a smile, “and there isn’t a chicken on the place.”

“Ah, shucks! Well, the rest of my talents may not have an outlet, but at least the lady has a sense of humor and the cook has a captive audience.” With an elaborate bow, he scooped her into his arms and did a two-step routine out into the hallway to the stairs.

“Joker,” she protested, “Wait a minute. I appreciate your kindness, but what are you doing here?”

“If you mean what am I doing in the house, I have kitchen privileges. If you mean what am I doing in the kitchen, I’m frying chicken.”