Hard Day's Knight (37 page)

I slid my cousin a glance. She looked smug.

“Pepper? Why are you wearing it?” Fenice asked in a whisper as she sat down next to me. She frowned, giving me a look as if she’d never really seen me before.

My heart sank. How on earth was I going to get someone as temperamental and touchy as Walker to understand my plan when happy-go-lucky Fenice obviously viewed me as a borderline traitor, not to mention CJ predicting doom and gloom?

With no hope for it, I started to explain my plan to infiltrate Veronica’s team, but the announcer cut me off as he explained to the audience the goals of each of the five games. I told Fenice I’d fill her in later and sat back to watch, trying to push down the worry about Walker, but every time I glanced at him, it surfaced.

Walker kept Marley at a muscle-warming trot at the opposite end of the ring, but he never once looked my way, a fact that had my stomach wadded into a minuscule ball.

“Just look at Walker the Wild go!” the announcer crowed a few minutes later as everyone in the arena surged to their feet, yelling and screaming as Walker sent Marley into a full gallop, racing down a staggered line of melons atop six-foot-tall poles. Half the melons wore painted happy faces, indicating friendly foot soldiers; the other half bore frowny faces and snarling mouths—those were the Saracens, the foe to be struck down. Points were given for each foe whose head was demolished by the sword-wielding knight, and taken away for each friend who was accidentally “slaugh-tered.” The one with the most amount of points in the least amount of time won the event.

I was on my feet with the rest of the audience, watching in amazement as Walker and Marley raced through the field of melons, Walker’s sword flashing in the overhead lights.

CJ turned to me with a grin as the crowd erupted into cheers.

“God, it’s good to see him back,” Fenice cheered, jumping in excitment. “Yes! The wild man is back!”

“Lovely,” I said, sinking to the bench, so confused I didn’t know what to think. I stayed that way for the next few minutes while Walker challenged the quintains, getting a respectable ten revolutions on the quintain, and blasting the shock quintain onto its back. He gored the boar (stabbed the hay in its painted heart), was the fastest running the gauntlet, and by the time he and Butcher had gone to the opposite ends of the arena for the running-the-rings race, I was more or less numb with shock. The man on Marley’s back wasn’t Walker, not
my
Walker, not the careful man who was haunted by the demons of his past—the man out there was a manic crazy-man facsimile of Walker.

“It’s a wonder he lasted eight years before he came to grief,” I said in a quiet voice to CJ. She nodded, her attention on the men, her voice hoarse from cheering nonstop. She was now yelling for Butcher as he and Walker were poised to race around the arena starting at opposite ends, each with the goal of snatching as many rings as possible from the brave squires who stood along the perimeter holding out four-inch straw rings.

“
Allez
!” the judge in the center of the floor yelled, and once again the entire audience of the arena leaped to its collective feet to scream for their favorites, me right along with them.

Walker flattened himself to Marley’s neck, his long fifty-inch sword a silver streak as it danced in front of the squires, each one successfully coming away with a straw ring. Three of the squires were evidently more than a little intimidated by the sight of Marley and Walker thundering down on them, for they all fell backward as soon as Walker snatched the ring at sword tip. On the other side of the arena Butcher was doing the same, but his horse wasn’t flying as Marley was. By the time the fifty seconds allowed for the race were up, Walker had lapped Butcher.

“He’s back, he’s back, we don’t have anything to worry about now!” Fenice sang, clapping her hands and doing a little dance as the announcer praised both men, giving the point total for Walker (which was almost perfect). “Life is good, life is wonderful, we have our Walker back! We can’t possibly lose now!”

“No,” I said quietly, my gaze on Walker as he rode from the ring without acknowledging his victory, never once looking over to where he knew we were sitting. “We can’t possibly lose anything . . . except maybe our future together.”

“Walker, will you slow down and let me explain?”

“There’s nothing for you to explain,” the infuriating love of my life snarled as he led Marley toward the stable.

“Yes, there is, you obstinate man! I want to tell you why I agreed to join Veronica’s team. I owe that much to—”

Walker whirled around so fast Marley did a startled little sideways dance. Silver eyes blasted me with cold that would be at home in the Arctic. “I’ve told you, there’s
nothing
you have to explain to me. You don’t owe me
anything
. Debt indicates an interest on the grantor’s part, and I assure you, I have no interest whatsoever in your actions.”

Ouch.
That hurt, and how. Walker’s face was tight and hard, almost as hard as his eyes. I swallowed back a lump of pain and reminded myself that until he understood my actions, they were open to misinterpretation.

A man who loved you would give you the benefit of the doubt,
Evil (formerly Wise) Inner Pepper whispered. I ignored that thought as I put my hand on his arm. “You may not have interest in me, but I have a great deal in you, and I want to explain why I’ve done what I’ve done.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he snarled, snatching his arm away and storming off toward the stable.

“God, why does everything have to go wrong for me?” I entreated the afternoon sky, quickly picking up Moth and racing after Walker. “I really don’t want to have to bellow this across the fairgrounds so everyone hears, but if you insist on it, fine. I love you! I love you more than life itself, you annoying, irritating man! Now will you just stop and let me tell you what I’ve decided?”

“No.”

He didn’t even slow down, damn it all. I sighed and trotted after him, a bit breathless by the time Walker tied Marley up outside the stable in order to brush him. I had seen Butcher and Vandal doing the same as we approached, but they quickly took their horses in and effectively disappeared, leaving me and the man who was breaking my heart alone with one three-ton horse and a cat that was presently chewing on the sleeve of the tunic Walker had just stripped off and tossed onto a bench.

I dragged my eyes from the wonderful land made of up the rippling muscles in his back to plead my case. “Please, Walker, just hear me out. I know you’re upset—”

“Upset?” He shot me a hot look as he wrenched the heavy jousting saddle off Marley’s back and all but threw it onto a nearby box. “Why would I be upset? I have nothing to be upset about. The old Walker,
he
might be upset by his woman using him the way she did, but not me, not Walker the Wild. Haven’t you heard? I don’t care about anyone but myself.”

Oh, god, what had I done? I stared at him in dismay as he ripped off the saddle blanket, tossing it in the dirt. He never treated equipment like that!

“What’s wrong,
love
?” I flinched at the way he said that last word. There wasn’t an ounce of gentleness in it. “Don’t like the new me? Or rather the old me, the old Walker you so desperately wanted me to become? Congratulations, you’ve succeeded.”

“I never wanted you like this,” I said cautiously.

“No? Well, you sure fooled me. I thought you wanted a real man, a man who wasn’t afraid to face anything. You wanted me to be a champion, a ruthless warrior who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences, and here I am.”

I bit my lip as he yanked a brush out of the bucket, pouring a cup of grain for Marley.

“I never wanted you to become anything you weren’t. I know you have it in you to be anything you want to be—”

“Face the facts, Pepper,” he interrupted, splashing water into another bucket and setting it next to Marley. “You know nothing about me. Nothing!”

I raised my chin. “I know I love you.”

He grunted and turned away to brush Marley.

“I know you’re a good man who values honor and faithfulness.” He spun around, his eyes coming close to scorching me. I lifted my chin in answer to the look of fury he was firing at me. “And I know that you love me, only you’re too caught up in your own hell to admit it.”

“Love,” he snarled, his lip curled in derision. “You honestly think I love you?”

My heart, which was clutching its little hands hopefully, praying Walker would at last admit to what I so desperately needed to be true, threatened to keel over in a faint. I swallowed again, harder this time, since the painful lump of unshed tears had grown. “Yes, I think you love me. I couldn’t love a man as much as I love you and not have the feeling reciprocated.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment, and before I could blink, he was on me, pressing me back against the hard, rough wood of the stable, his body hot and hard and aggressive. “Do you think this is love then?” he growled, grinding his hips against me as his mouth descended upon mine. There was no tenderness in him, nothing but domination as his body ruthlessly used its knowledge about me to quickly set mine raging with desire.

His hands were everywhere, not in the least bit gentle as they tormented me, demanding a response as his tongue swept into my mouth and carried away any objections I had to his rough handling. His body was rigid and unyielding, the muscles beneath my hands tight with tension, every inch of him expressing the pain and outrage he felt at what he perceived as my betrayal. I bit back the urge to struggle, deliberately softening myself against him, cushioning his hard tension with every ounce of love and understanding and gentleness that I could muster.

“Yes,” I whispered against his mouth when he wrenched his lips from mine. My fingers trailed a serpentine path up the muscles of his bare back, my touch as light and tender as his was hard and angry. “This is what I call love. You’re everything to me, Walker. You fill my life. You make me happy in ways I never knew I could be happy.” The grim line of his mouth softened as my hands slid up his arms to his shoulders while I pressed little kisses along his tense jaw. “I want to be with you. I want to know what you’re thinking, what you feel. I want to bind myself to you so that we’ll never be apart.”

His eyes were still glittering brightly at me, but the icy disdain was slowly turning to a shimmering silver flame. His body language changed, as well, going from dominance and aggression to an erotic wooing. I doubt he even noticed the change, but I did, and my heart rejoiced. I allowed my softness to cradle him as I tugged his head down so I could press gentle kisses to his adorable, manly lips. “I will never leave you, Walker. My heart will always belong to you, always. I’m yours, body and soul. I love you, and I will until the day I breathe my last.”

“My sweet Pepper,” he murmured, his voice sinking into my skin and wrapping itself around my heart as his lips claimed mine in a much different kiss from the one that had just bruised my lips.

“Tell me you don’t feel the same thing I do,” I said as I gave myself up to his passion, pressing myself closer to him.

“Pepper, is that you being squashed to death against the wall?”

Walker’s body, which was starting to curl enticingly around mine, froze at the voice that spoke behind him. I groaned to myself, my heart shattering into a gazillion infinitesimal pieces at the look of pure, unadulterated fury that flashed in Walker’s eyes.

Not only did I have the rottenest luck imaginable; Farrell had the world’s worst timing.

“I’ve been looking for you. I’m ready to help you with the quintain. Or is this a bad time? I’m afraid I’m a bit booked, but as I told you earlier when you asked me to tutor you, I’m happy to do what I can to give you the help you need and so obviously aren’t getting elsewhere.”

“Walker—” I started to say, knowing it would do no good. I could explain until the moon was blue, but if he truly had no faith in me, it would be useless. It was bottom-line time, with our future at stake. Either he trusted me, or he didn’t. “I know what this looks like, but I truly do love you—”

“Don’t.” It was just one word, but the anger and desolation and anguish that were packed into it would qualify it as a dictionary of misery. He pulled away from me, his hands clenched but his face impassive as Farrell held out a hand for me.

“Well, it seems we’re right back were we started—Pepper preferring my company to yours,” Farrell told Walker.

“History has a nasty way of repeating itself,” Walker said softly, his eyes flat and cold. “Fortunately, I don’t care anymore.”

Farrell looked startled for a moment, and was about to answer, but I couldn’t stand the hard, uncaring mask that Walker wore. My heart was bleeding; my
soul
was bleeding at his rejection.
This
was why it never paid to take risks—the pain of failure was worse than anything I could imagine.

Giving up so easily?
Inner Pepper mocked.

I looked at Walker, really looked at him. He was just a man—a wonderful, warm, caring man—but still just a man. Was he really worth the heartache, the frustration, the risk of losing myself even more in order to win him back?

Damn straight he was!

Inner Pepper cheered as I looked Walker dead in the eye and willed him to understand. “A week ago you told me that only by learning to trust myself could I achieve what I wanted in life. You were absolutely right. I trust not only myself, but you, too. I just hope you can do the same.”

He said nothing as I scooped up Moth and walked past Farrell, heading for the far exercise ring where I had first challenged Sir Quintain.

 

“So if I change the angle of the lance a little, what will that do to the quintain? Will I hit it harder, or does a steeper angle deflect the blow?”

“Has anyone told you that your hair is like a molten river of fire?”