Got A Hold On You (Ringside Romance) (4 page)

She shrieked and swiped at him with a gloved paw. He
couldn’t figure this one out. One minute she was too nervous to do her job; the
next she acted the consummate tigress, poised and ready to rip out his heart.

“Let’s go, Hudson!” Neurosis called.

As Jack circled the ring, Neurosis stalked him from
the ropes threatening to take unfair advantage when Jack returned to action.

The referee finally corralled Neurosis into the corner
and Jack climbed through the ropes. The crowd cheered, eager for the fight to
begin. When Neurosis charged, Jack clotheslined him across the chest. The kid
went down, and Jack applied a sleeper hold.

“They’re wild tonight,” the kid said through clenched
teeth.

“You’re not kidding.” He pretended to tighten the
hold, and Neurosis pounded on the mat with his fist in mock frustration.

Neurosis outmaneuvered Jack and delivered a few
punches to his ribs. He ground his teeth. Great. The damned ribs again. It
seemed like it took forever for those things to heal.

“Sorry, I forgot,” the kid said, and whipped Jack into
the turnbuckle. He hit chest first and fell backward onto the mat. This was
going to be a long match. Neurosis pinned him and the crowd cheered with
delight. What the hell? Jack was the baby face, the champion. They shouldn’t be
cheering his abuse.

Neurosis threw five punches to Jack’s forehead. Usually
the fans would shout the number of blows a wrestler unleashed on his opponent.
Not this crowd. It was as if they were completely disinterested in the match.

The crowd screamed, quieted, and screamed again. He
glanced at the sea of faces. They weren’t even focused on the ring. Neurosis
froze in mid-swing, and both men glanced at the main attraction.

The women were going at it by the announcer’s table.

“They’re stealing our heat,” the kid said. “That’s not
fair. I had some really cool stuff planned for this match.”

Edible Eve tackled Tatianna, and they both went down.

“Dammit,” Jack shoved the kid off of him.

“What the hell?”

“We’d better break it up.”

He marched to the ropes faster than he’d intended.
Something knotted his gut. The thought of Tiger Lady going one-on-one with
Edible Eve didn’t sit right.

As he approached the corner, Neurosis drop-kicked him
from behind and Jack went flying into the turnbuckle. Was anything going to go
right tonight? At least he had the presence of mind to cushion the blow with
his arm.

He spun on his opponent and readied for the attack.
The kid charged, and Jack shouldered him out of the ring as planned. Only this
was supposed to happen fifteen minutes into the match. The kid took out Prince
Priceless, landing in his lap. At least Jack got the satisfaction of seeing the
Prince dethroned.

“Jack! Jack, help!” Tiger Lady cried.

Edible Eve clutched a fistful of Tiger Lady’s hair in
either hand and was banging her head against the perimeter mat. He slipped
through the ropes but before he could get there, Eve started clawing at Tiger
Lady’s mask. Something must have snapped because Tiger Lady started kicking and
punching, for real. Eve shrieked, a shocked and horrified expression creasing
her heavily made-up face.

Must have been a pride thing, but Eve wouldn’t let go
of her opponent’s hair. This was getting dangerous. He bolted from the ring,
glancing over his shoulder at Neurosis, who was still sprawled across Prince’s
lap. The kid had promised Eve a wild night, and she was getting one. More than
she’d bargained for, no doubt.

Jack grabbed Eve from behind and placed her gently
aside.

“She punched me! Did you see that? She really punched
me,” Eve cried.

“Calm down. Go help your boy over there.”

Eve rubbed her jaw with manicured fingers and snarled
at Tiger Lady before storming off.
 

He turned to Tiger Lady, who was visibly trembling.
Long, gloved fingers held her mask firmly in place. When she saw him approach
she started to scoot back under the ring skirt. He knelt down.

“Are you okay?” he asked above the howls of
enthusiastic fans.

“She tried to kill me.” Her lower lip quivered.

He reached out and cupped her chin between his
forefinger and thumb. This was it. He was going to lose a couple of fingers.

“Look at me. You’re okay,” he said, suddenly wanting
to see more of her face than blue eyes and blood-red lips.

What was happening to him? He was in the middle of a
match for Pete’s sake.

A blow across his shoulders reminded him exactly where
he was. Another crash sent him tumbling into the metal steps. Could this night
get any stranger? He rolled onto his back and looked up at Eve who stood over
him wielding the damn bell. Then she started for Tatianna. He got to his feet
and ripped the bell out of her hands.

“I said, stay away from her!” he shouted for the
audience’s benefit.

She skulked away to help Neurosis recover, or at least
to extract him from the Prince’s lap.

The pressure of two hands snaked around his waist from
behind. He looked down to see Tatianna’s gloved fingers interlaced firmly at
his midsection. Now what?

He turned to face her, or rather look over her. Even
wearing those stilts, she barely came up to his neck. Head tipped back, she
stared up at him with glassy eyes. She looked loopy or something. He couldn’t
put his finger on it.

“Thanks,” she whispered. She took off a glove and
touched his cheek.

His face burned red hot. The crowd roared. He could
have sworn this was real, real gratitude, real attraction.
Whoa. Back up
. This was all part of the angle. It had to be.

“You’re welcome.” He gently closed his fingers around
her wrist and removed her hand. If there was one thing Jack never got confused
about it was the real and unreal facets of his life. The wild story lines and
comic characters were make believe, even if the wrestling itself and subsequent
injuries were painfully real.

Suddenly, his breath was cut off by a TV cable snaked
around his neck. Neurosis must be back in the saddle.

“Be good,” Jack croaked to Tatianna as the punk
dragged him five feet, whipping him into a metal guardrail.

Okay, now Jack was back in familiar territory. A head
crash into the stairs, a few kicks to the face, flinging a metal chair for good
measure, and this match would be back on track. Unfortunately his focus was
still a little off.

“In the ring! In the ring!” the referee ordered from
the top rope.

Jack out-maneuvered Neurosis and sent him flying into
a group of spectators.

“Black Jack Attack! Black Jack Attack!” the crowd
chanted.

They were getting worked up, all right. He threw the
kid over his shoulder and set-up for an atomic drop, but Neurosis pushed
himself off and shoved Jack, shoulder first, into the ring post. He bounced off
the metal and ended up falling face down in Tatianna’s lap.

At this point nothing would surprise her, Frankie
thought, staring down at Black Jack’s mane of black waves. He scrambled off
her, color flushing his cheeks.

“Sorry.” A half smile curled the left side of his
mouth. Was that a dimple?

The roar of the crowd made her head spin and her heart
race.

“Black Jack Attack! Black Jack Attack!”

He got to his feet, but kept looking at her as if he
couldn’t quite break the spell. His eyes weren’t nearly as dark as before. Or
were they?

The orange-haired wrestler hit him from behind, and he
went down in front of her. The crazy wrestler sat on Jack’s back, interlaced
his fingers under Jack’s chin and yanked back on his neck. She closed her eyes.
Uncle Joe said it was a skill to wrestle without getting seriously hurt. Her
neck ached just looking at the men go at it.

The crowd roared and she opened her eyes. The bad guy
had ripped a TV monitor from the announcer’s table. He was going to crush
Jack’s skull. No, she couldn’t let that happen. Jack wasn’t such a bad guy,
even if he had dragged her out here over his shoulder, kissed her against her
will, and tied her to the ring post. He
did
save her from that raving lunatic who nearly ripped her hair out and exposed
her true identity.

She searched for a weapon, fumbling under the ring
skirt for something, anything. They usually shoved miscellaneous supplies under
the ring after setup. She remembered that from the one time her mother let
Uncle Joe bring her to work when she was a kid.

She glanced over her shoulder. The crazy wrestler was
closing in on Jack, TV monitor in hand. She dug deeper...

“Ah!” She pulled a heavy wrench from beneath the ring
and raced up behind the orange-haired freak. Maybe she wasn’t strong, but she
was accurate.

The crowd roared as Black Jack’s opponent raised the
monitor above his head. Any second now it would come crashing down on a
helpless Black Jack. Under normal circumstances she hated violence. She
couldn’t even kill a mosquito if it was biting her arm.

Tonight was anything but normal.

She wound up, closed her eyes, and swung. Her fingers
sprung open at the feel of metal hitting muscle. At least she thought she’d hit
the crazy wrestler’s back muscles.

A collective gasp hushed through the stadium.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes. Her stomach
clenched at the sight of Jack, sprawled face down on the announcer’s table. No,
it couldn’t be. She had perfect aim, precision wind up.

His psycho opponent shot her a puzzled look, then
yanked Jack off the table, dropped him on the floor and covered him.

“One, two, three!” the crowd shouted along with the
referee’s count.

Neurosis jumped to his feet and caught his female as
she leapt into his arms.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner and new WHAK
champion. Neurosis!”

Sirens and bells burst her eardrums. She stared down
at Jack’s motionless body. Oh, God. She killed him. All Uncle Joe wanted her to
do was step in for the missing Amazon woman, dress the part and satisfy the
fans. Instead, she killed WHAK’s biggest star.

The crowd’s roars turned into violent jeers directed
at Frankie. Suddenly they went quiet as a paramedic team rolled a stretcher up
the aisle.

A part of her wanted to go to him while another part
wanted to escape to the safety of her real life.

“What have I done?” she said under her breath.

The paramedics shifted Jack’s limp body onto a
backboard, and placed him on the stretcher. As they wheeled him past the crowd,
fans called out encouragement for the star’s quick recovery.

Her ears rang with panic. Black Jack had to be okay,
Uncle Joe couldn’t lose his company, and she couldn’t go to jail for manslaughter.
It would be awfully hard to share a quiet dinner with her future fiancé from a
cell in Joliet.

“No!” She chased after the stretcher, sprinting about
ten feet then abruptly snapping back and landing on her fanny. The damn TV
cable was still knotted at her waist. She shifted it around front, ripped off
her gloves and dug her nails into Black Jack’s expertly-crafted knot. Panic
took hold as the medical crew wheeled Jack through the narrow Monkey Tunnel out
of sight.

“No! No!” She pulled, tugged, chewed. No dice.
“Someone cut this thing off me!”

The crowd stared at her in amazement. Security guards
restrained fans that no doubt wanted to string her up for murdering their hero.
No, he couldn’t die. She’d be locked up for twenty to life and her uncle would
end up selling shoelaces on street corners. Besides, Black Jack was kinda cute.

“I’m having a breakdown!” she cried, ripping off her
shoe and digging a spiked heel into the knot. “You can do anything if you set
your mind to it, you can do anything if you set your mind to it,” she mumbled.
Where was Maxine when she needed her? The knot finally came free.

Frankie hobble-raced toward the stretcher, kicked off
her other shoe and caught it in mid-sprint. She bolted through the Monkey
Tunnel to the back of the arena and glanced right, then left. The paramedics
were wheeling the stretcher through Gate Six. The door slammed behind them.

“Wait!” A shoe gripped in either hand, she sprinted
through the stadium and got to the exit as an EMT closed the ambulance door.

“I’m going with you.”

“Frankie! Frankie!” Uncle Joe called after her. “It
was wonderful! Spectacular! Sensational!”

The paramedic blocked the ambulance door. “We’ve got
it under control, ma’am.”

“No, but you don’t understand. I… I…” What? She was
the one who’d crushed the patient’s skull? “I have to go with him and make sure
he’s okay.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

Uncle Joe patted her shoulder. “Frankie—”

“Uncle Joe, I need to ride in the ambulance.”

“You’re a good girl Frankie, but your job’s done now.
Let the professionals take over.”

“I have to get in there.”

Uncle Joe’s face lit up. She didn’t care what angle
was brewing behind his twinkling gray-blue eyes. She had to make things right,
had to make sure Black Jack would live to fight another day.

“Of course you need to ride in the ambulance.” Uncle
Joe motioned to a cameraman.

A light above the camera flashed on and Frankie
squinted against its blinding shine.

“Go on, let her in,” Uncle Joe directed the ambulance
driver.

The paramedic hesitated.

“Out of my way. I’m ... I’m his woman,” she blurted
out.

The camera’s round lens widened as the paramedic
opened the door and helped her into the ambulance. She shifted onto the padded
bench next to Jack’s lifeless body, afraid to touch him, horrified at what
she’d done. The door slammed shut and she glanced up, catching sight of the
camera’s black lens peering through the window.

She looked at Black Jack. Really looked. A goose egg
the size of a baseball swelled above his left eye and his forehead was beading
with sweat.