Joker's Wild (15 page)

“What makes you think that, Allison?”

Allison took a deep breath and made up her mind to answer him. “I can’t talk with you standing there glowering at me, Jamie. You make me feel … awkward, ashamed.”

Joker heard the uncertainty in her voice. No matter how disturbed he was at what he’d done, he couldn’t make her uncomfortable about their having made love. He lowered himself to the bed and stretched out beside her, settling her back against him. He took a deep breath and allowed the feel of her to work at erasing the tension her words had caused.

“There was a time,” she said hesitantly, “when I wanted a child, Jamie. I thought a child would make everything right between Mark and me. But sometimes women athletes have trouble conceiving. After they’ve exercised and worked at their sport for a long time their bodies stop functioning correctly as women. I’m a woman who couldn’t have a baby, and I’m a skater who can’t skate anymore. I’m a complete, all-round failure.”

“You want to have a child?”

“No, not any more.”

“You mean that you don’t want me to give you a baby?” Joker’s voice went soft, and his body began to die a slow death. “What do you want, Allison Josey?”

“What do I want? More than anything else I want to show the world, myself, that I can skate again.”

She’d said the world, but he knew that it was Mark she wanted to show. She still cared about the man who’d caused her injury and deserted her. He could understand that. They’d shared so much for so long.

Mark was the one hurt he hadn’t been able to erase. He could feel the tension in her body. She was holding him as if she were afraid that he’d disappear, and he didn’t think she was aware of her grip. He
nuzzled her cheek, pulling her face up so that his beard was a cushion for her chin.

“Skating. Is it that important to you?”

“Oh, Joker. He was supposed to come back. He promised, and he never even called me again. It’s taken me a while, but I understand him now. Oh, yes. I want more than anything to skate again.”

“I see.”

Suddenly she felt Joker’s stillness. What had she said? She hadn’t meant to let Mark’s meanness touch Joker. For so long she’d refused to think about Mark and what had happened. She’d kept the past bottled up inside her because it had hurt so much. But this night she’d torn down all the walls. Joker had given her the confidence to let herself face Mark’s treachery, and she’d voiced her humiliation over his rejection.

Had she spoken aloud? She seemed to remember angry words. Oh, Lord, she hadn’t even been talking to Joker. How could she explain what she was just now beginning to see?

Joker felt his heart rip into little pieces. After what they’d both shared the thing she wanted most was to skate again. To skate again so that she could run back to the man who’d hurt her so badly. The closeness, the joy, they’d just experienced meant nothing. Well, if that was what she wanted, that was what she’d get. He’d make certain that she skated again. Where he’d played at heading before, this time he’d prove it, to himself and to Allison.

Sadly she looked up at him, waiting for whatever he was going to say. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean …”

“That’s all right, Beauty. You want to skate again,
and I’ll help you. I’ll get your training room ready. Starting tomorrow morning, be prepared for a schedule that will make you think that training for the Olympics was child’s play.”

“You don’t understand,” she began. “Let me explain.” But the coldness in his eyes stopped her. “Please don’t do this, Jamie.”

“Jamie isn’t doing it. Jamie is a gentle, foolish man who loves you. He couldn’t help himself. You were right about him, but you were wrong about me. I told you, my name is Joker, and I’m about to show you, Allison Josey, that when it’s necessary, a Joker can be very wild.”

“Hello!”

Wham!

“Yoo-hoo! Allison.”

Wham! Fram!
The whole house shook from the pounding.

Allison groaned, stretched, and forced open her eyes. What in the world was attacking her front door? Even Joker’s mechanical ants made less noise.

“Get up, Allison. Were late. Open this door.”

Allison looked over at the clock beside her bed. Eight-thirty. Oh, no. She felt as if she’d just closed her eyes. For the three days since Joker had made love to her in the carriage house, she’d worked at her therapy during the day until she could barely move, soaked in the mineral springs every night, and slept badly if at all.

“Go away! Whoever you are, I don’t want any!” Allison sank back to the bed and covered her head with her pillow.

Wham! Wham!

Whoever it was didn’t intend to go away. Allison Bat up. It didn’t make any sense. Why didn’t Joker open the door? He’d paraded the world through the estate since her crash therapy had begun. Where was the stern red giant now that she needed a houseboy? Allison swung her feet to the floor and reached for her robe. Her crutches were resting at the foot of her bed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and got up.

“Just a minute! I’m coming,” she called out, leaving one of her crutches behind as she made her way to the foyer. It was probably another trainer or someone from an equipment company delivering more steel for the torture chamber that Joker had erected in the sun room. If it was another muscle-bound hulk, there to give her a lesson in stretching techniques, she’d have him string Joker up to one of those shiny chrome exercise bars by his toes.

Allison paused. Other than the banging on the door, the house was quiet, the vacant, empty kind of quiet that she could identify with. She’d heard enough silence in the last six months. She was alone. Maybe Joker had taken her seriously. Maybe he’d given up.

“Allison, Joker will have my hide if we don’t get to work. Please! Open the door.”

It was Sandi, the therapist from the nursing home, she realized. Allison pulled her robe on, unlocked the door, and opened it a crack.

“I’m sorry, Sandi. I must have overslept. Come in. Are you alone?” Allison looked around. She didn’t know whether she was glad or sorry that Sandi was alone. Every time she looked up, Joker was standing
in the background, frowning, pushing, urging her on. He drove her crazy when he was there and even crazier when he wasn’t.

“Joker said to let you sleep in for a while this morning. But Minnie sent fresh blueberries and pancake batter for your breakfast, so today I’m the cook.”

“Thanks, Sandi, but I’m really not hungry.”

“Doesn’t matter. Minnie said to cook, and I’m going to cook. Joker will be along soon. I saw him down by the road, climbing that old dead tree. I told him he was going to break his neck, but when has Joker ever listened to anybody? I guess you know that better than anybody, don’t you?”

Though Sandi was probably the same age as Allison, she looked like a teenager. Her blond hair had been caught up in a jaunty ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of white shorts with a yellow T-shirt. Sandi was the perennial cheerleader—enthusiastic but tough. Allison suspected her nonstop conversation was designed to both reassure and distract patients.

Dropping her bag on the counter, Sandi turned back, closed the door, and practically propelled Allison into the kitchen. “Sit down, Allison, and I’ll pour you a cup of this hot coffee. Pancakes will be ready in a jiffy.”

“But Sandi, I imagine that Joker has already had breakfast,” Allison protested. “And I really don’t feel like a heavy meal.”

“I can believe that. Anybody could look at you and tell you haven’t been eating enough to keep a crow alive. But that will change now. With Joker’s health food menu, you’ll do fine. I have to admit that I’m glad it’s you who has to eat it and not me.”

Allison opened her mouth and closed it again. Talking to Sandi was like talking to a whirlwind. She just swooped round and round until she overpowered you, and you eventually gave up and followed directions. Between Sandi and Joker, Allison didn’t stand a chance.

“What was Joker doing climbing a tree?” Allison asked, trying not to let her interest show.

“That’s what I asked him. He said something about working out his frustrations by chopping wood. But I never saw anybody cut wood while the tree was still standing.”

“He does have his own way of doing things, doesn’t he? Did you know him, before my grandmother fell, I mean?”

“Not really. Joker’s a bit of a lone wolf. Of course, I knew who he was. I work with Kaylyn. She’s Joker’s sister-in-law, King’s wife. Now there’s a couple who’re crazy about each other. Of course Joker and your grandmother are pretty close too. After Mrs. Josey moved into the nursing home, Joker was there every day. Why didn’t you let somebody know you were coming?”

“I didn’t know it myself.” Allison forced herself to take a sip of the coffee Sandi had poured. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, questions she hadn’t been able to ask before because there’d always been somebody else around. “How long has Joker been here?”

Sandi placed the flat iron grill on the large burner of the stove and turned it on to heat before stirring her batter. “About a year, I’d guess. He came along shortly after Kaylyn mobilized the town in protest over the destruction of Pretty Springs. Of course,
nobody expected Kaylyn and King to fall in love and get married, but they did. And they figured out how to save our mineral springs too.”

“Somebody else said something about that. Kaylyn really chained her husband to a rock?”

“Yep. He was going to plug up the springs and tear up Lizard Rock. Kaylyn wouldn’t stand for that, so we protested. Oh, it was glorious, all those folks picketing to save the springs and Lizard Rock.”

“Well, the lizard is still there. I saw it when I drove into town. How did they solve the problem?” The springs were as much a part of Allison’s past as the town. But she’d never known they were good for healing. It seemed that Joker knew more about her town than she did.

“They built the sports medicine center in with the golf and tennis community thinking that it would draw big-name athletes in to undergo rehabilitation along with the people who wanted to play golf and tennis. So far, though, the pickings have been pretty slim. The folks over at the nursing home could tell those ball players a thing or two if they’d listen.”

Allison cringed. She guessed she was one of those people who had refused to listen.

Sandi added the blueberries to the batter and stirred them gently. “Goodness, I forgot the sugar.” She sprinkled a spoonful into the mixture and nodded her approval.

“But what about Joker?” Allison prompted.

“It was Joker who figured out the solution.”

“He is pretty special, isn’t he, Sandi?”

“He has a way about him, Joker does,” Sandi said. “Never saw anything like his flowers. Personally, I think he pirates some of that spring water to douse ’em in.”

“The man definitely has a way about him,” Allison admitted, remembering the night she’d spent in his bed. She averted her face quickly as she felt a flush sweep over it.

After Joker had stormed out of the carriage house and deposited her back in her bedroom that night, he’d barely touched her unless there was someone else in the room. She didn’t know what had happened. After their wonderful lovemaking, she’d said things about Mark that she hadn’t known were going to come out of her mouth. And she hadn’t known how to take them back.

“Pretty Springs couldn’t have gotten along without Joker,” Sandi rattled on. “So far as I can tell, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He—”

“He smelled those blueberries all the way down the road.” Joker limped into the room.

Allison screamed.

Sandi dropped her mixing spoon and gasped. “Gracious, Joker, what happened to you?”

Joker sniffed, wiped his nose on the shoulder of his shirt, and blanched at the smear of bright red blood. As soon as he’d seen Sandi drive past in the nursing home van, he’d started down the tree he’d been preparing to cut down. Hurrying, he’d put too much weight on one section and the branch had cracked, hurling him through the lower limbs to the ground.

“Your face is cut, and your nose is bleeding,” Allison said, her own face going white with concern. “Who hit you?”

“Who? Ah, nobody. I fell. Don’t worry, Beauty. I’m not hurt.”

But Allison didn’t hear his explanation. All she
could see was the purple bruise already appearing on Joker’s cheekbone and the dried blood on his forehead. “We need to get an ice pack on that face,” she said briskly, forcing herself to her feet. “You come over here and sit down.”

“I’ll get ice,” Sandi offered, turning off the stove and reaching for a fresh dish towel.

Joker looked at the expression of concern on Allison’s face and followed her directions. Could she really be worried about him? He’d work it out if he could just get over the peculiar, shifting sensation. He had to reassure Allison. She didn’t need to worry about him. Then everything began to fade away.

“Ah, no! Hell’s doorknobs.” He couldn’t pass out, he couldn’t pass out, he told himself. He was going to pass out.

“Sandi, Joker’s fainted.”

“Must have fallen out of that tree,” Sandi observed matter of factly. “Well, I’m not surprised. Can’t tell him anything.” She pulled an ice tray from the refrigerator and emptied it into the towel.