Joker's Wild (6 page)

“No, and he’s not going to,” Allison said wearily, bringing herself to an upright position. “I’ve come through other injuries and skated again. And I’ll skate after this one, too, no matter what those doctors think. They aren’t going to operate on me again. I don’t need them, or anyone else.”

Throwing her leg over the side of the bed, she gritted her teeth and attempted to stand. The minute
her leg supported her weight, stars exploded behind her eyes, and she cried out in pain as she collapsed on the floor.

Joker was beside her instantly, lifting her back to the bed. He folded a pillow and slid it under her bad knee, forcing her skirt up, exposing her leg. “Damn! The surgeons really did a job on you, didn’t they?” He stared in disbelief at the scars on her swollen knee. “You look like a racehorse I once knew. They gave up on him too. But after a little of my special attention, he raced again and won. Let me see what I can do for you.”

She didn’t answer. By that time the pain was too great. She closed her eyes and choked off the low moan rising from the back of her throat. And then she felt his hands, warm and gentle against her knee. She flinched and tried to move away. He didn’t hold her. He simply rested his hands over her, letting the strange heat of his touch permeate the skin. Moistening first one palm then the other with a thick soothing cream, he rubbed.

The pain didn’t stop, but soon she began to sense a kind of shield between her and the hurt. She began to relax and let herself respond to his tender touch. Nerve endings absorbed the heat, seemed to lose their tension, and settled into a glow. She parted her lips in a sigh, feeling a kind of spiritual aura settle over her.

On and on his hands worked, first gently, then more surely. As the bunched-up muscles relaxed, he moved to the other leg. Beginning with the toes, he worked his big hands up the slender, muscular leg, kneading out little knots of tension until she fell asleep.

Joker leaned back and waited. He’d always known he had good hands. He’d gently put many a plant in the ground and had watched each one settle in and begin to grow. He’d never thought much about his special power until he’d tried his touch on the horse’s knee and seen it heal. This was the first time he’d applied it to a person. And like the bruised plants he’d brought back to life, Allison’s leg had responded. Good. She was sleeping. She needed to sleep. She needed to heal. She needed his touch.

Hers was no simple injury, and he didn’t think it was the only thing that was causing her pain. She’d been hurt so badly that she’d withdrawn from the world and come home to hide like a wounded animal. She was so strong, yet fragile and beautiful. He could probably span her waist with both hands and have enough space left to reach up and touch the small round breasts outlined by the knit fabric of the dress.

He felt himself harden as he looked at her. He wanted her, a woman half out of her mind with pain, more than he’d ever wanted a woman before. He wanted to take her pain and suffer it for her. He wanted to put his arms around her and tell her that everything would be all right. Instead, he only allowed himself to touch his lips to hers, holding them there for a very long minute.

“What do you mean, Diamond will have to take over the Chattahoochee Complex landscaping job? Jack designs our projects, I build them, Diamond plans the interior, and you handle sales and landscaping.
This is a family project, or have you forgotten?”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Joker answered as he followed his brother King into the newly finished permanent offices of Vandergriff Development, Inc. in the Pretty Springs Golf and Tennis Retirement Community.

“Then why?” King’s expression spoke his incredulity as he sat down behind the desk and propped his dusty boots on its marble top.

“I’ve met someone. She’s alone, and she needs me. I want to be there for her.”

“Her? You’re asking one of us to do your job so that you can be there for a woman?”

Joker moistened his lips and nodded. “This woman is very special, King. I care a great deal for her.”

King ran his fingers through his thick golden hair and said in an affectionate tone, “I don’t think that there’s been a span of more than a month in your entire life during which you didn’t think you were in love with somebody, beginning with your first babysitter. You must have been the only four-year-old in history who proposed.”

Joker walked to the window and looked out over the neat tree-shaded houses that surrounded the golf course. He couldn’t see the lizard-shaped rock that was as much a part of the sports complex as the mineral springs that bubbled to the surface and collected in the natural basin, but he was proud that they’d saved it. He knew that telling King he cared about a woman was opening himself up to the brotherly teasing that was an easy part of their successful relationship, both in business and as a family.

He hadn’t thought this far ahead, but now he realized that he expected King to understand. After all, from the moment the Pretty Springs Golf and Tennis Retirement Community had started and King had met Kaylyn Smith, he’d been a changed man. Joker had watched in amusement as King fell in love and began to view the world through Kaylyn’s sympathetic eyes. Whether the Vandergriffs believed in the healing properties of Kaylyn’s mineral waters or not, King’s falling in love had forced all of them to come up with a plan that would allow the local citizens to continue to use the springs.

“I’m serious this time, King, as serious as you were when Kaylyn chained you to Lizard Rock to keep us from destroying the springs. I helped you come up with a solution then. Now I need your help.”

King put his feet under the desk and sat up straight, a serious expression replacing his amusement. “You mean it, don’t you? Who is she?”

“Her name is Allison Josey.”

“Josey? As in the Josey estate, that run-down old house and gardens that you’re buying from the old lady in the nursing home?”

“Allison is her granddaughter, yes. She’s an ice skater, was an ice skater. She won an Olympic gold medal in pairs skating. She’s come home, and she’s … well, she’s been hurt.”

“Hurt?” King groaned. “Not another one. I think you should have studied medicine, brother, instead of horticulture.”

“I might have,” Joker agreed wistfully, “if the dean of admissions in the school of medicine had taken
an interest in me and put my feet to the fire the way Ellen did.”

“Leave it to you to find a woman who would offer you free room and board for four years. As it turned out, horticulture was the perfect choice for you. And I suppose Ellen was good for you too, although I’ll never understand your relationship with her.”

“I resent that, King Vandergriff. I cared for Ellen, more than you’ll ever know. She made me realize that I could be somebody. You may not believe it, but our arrangement was a fair exchange. If she hadn’t died, I might have … Forget it.” Joker’s voice didn’t hide the hurt he still felt about Ellen.

“Sorry, I didn’t intend to open a can of worms, Joker. I wouldn’t dream of insulting anyone. I’m glad that Ellen was Dean of the Department of Horticulture. Once she took you in, you settled down and graduated, and I thank her for that. But,” King allowed a hint of amusement to color his voice, “one of these days I’m going to get to the bottom of those field trips to Vegas and every racetrack in the west.”

“I’d never do anything illegal, King. Let’s just say I have a kind of understanding about certain things, and I’ve always believed in sharing. Sharing, brother, as in one family member stepping in and helping another when he asks.”

“All right. We’ll manage. After all, you already have everything planned out and ordered. I’ll get Diamond to oversee the project. I trust you’ll be by now and again, for consultation purposes?”

“Sure. I’ll check in with you every day. But, King, don’t come to the estate—not yet.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of ruining your little interlude.”

“Allison Josey is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

King was frowning. “Allison Josey.… That name sounds familiar. I can’t remember the details, but it seems to me that there was some kind of publicity about her a few months ago. I remember seeing a picture on the cover of a magazine.” His forehead was furrowed by a mass of lines as he struggled to remember.

“You could have,” Joker agreed. “She was very special. The whole world loved her. After the Olympics, she performed with an ice show, until she was injured again. Now she’s come back home. Because of her health, she wasn’t told about her grandmother’s stroke, and she doesn’t know about my buying the house. I don’t want her to know just yet.”

King stood up, looked at his watch, and walked toward the door. “Well, bring her over to the springs and let her take the mineral baths with the nursing home patients. You sure won’t run into any traffic jams getting inside.”

“Interest not picking up?”

“Interest? What interest? If it weren’t for the home owners who love the golf and tennis facilities, the sports medicine center would be a total loss so far.”

“Give it time, bro. Word will get around. Just wait until after the grand opening.”

“Too bad we can’t get somebody like your girlfriend to pass the word, assuming the springs helped her.”

“That was Harold’s idea too. I don’t want to use Allison, King. The kind of injury Allison has is different. We can’t be sure that the springs can help restore the use of her leg.” Joker followed his brother
outside. “Besides, she’s still very self-conscious. I’m going to bring her down at night so that she won’t be seen.”

“Well, it’s your decision. But it’s your pocketbook if we go bust.” King looked at his watch again. Joker could appreciate King’s impatience. He knew it was time for Kaylyn and the nursing home entourage to arrive for their free visits. King always tried to be there when the group arrived. If it were up to him, he’d spend every minute with the woman who was carrying his child.

King was the first of the brothers to marry, and his joy had made Joker take a long look at his Casanova approach to life. After he’d discovered the Josey estate and the study wall plastered with pictures of a hauntingly beautiful dark-eyed woman, Joker had been content to stay in one place for the first time in his life. He’d made arrangements to buy the estate without realizing that the woman would be a part of the dream, the woman who was waiting for him to teach her how to heal.

They left the office together. King turned toward the springs, and Joker jogged out the door and over to his motorcycle. He fastened the red helmet beneath his chin and began to grin. Red. The sales clerk hadn’t smiled when he selected the smaller one, but when Joker took the large one and put it on his own head, the clerk had grunted in disbelief. Eric the Red, Allison had called him. Hell, why not? The helmet had made Allison smile and that smile had been worth it all.

“Hey, Joker!” Kaylyn called out as she drove by in the nursing home van filled with patients. “Love
your helmet. Come to dinner Saturday night. I’m inviting a friend over for Jack. I’ll ask someone for you, too, if you like.”

A friend for Jack? Kaylyn never gave up. His lone-wolf brother probably wouldn’t even show up, and if he did, it was doubtful that he’d unbend enough to learn the woman’s name.

“Maybe,” Joker answered. “I’ll have to let you know. It depends on … well, it depends on the crocs in the moat.”

Kaylyn looked startled, but didn’t comment. Joker knew that she took his joking in stride just as she did everything else in life. She’d like Allison, and Allison would like Kaylyn if they ever had a chance to get to know each other. Jack? Well, he’d just have to find his own damsel in distress.

Joker revved the engine and the motorcycle roared out of the parking area. He waved to one of the country’s most famous football players, who was leaving his house and walking toward the golf course. The housing community was almost filled with celebrities and ordinary people living side by side playing tennis and golf. The Sports Medicine Center would eventually bring in world-class athletes of every sport. They hadn’t had a skater at the center yet. But they would have—soon. Allison Josey just didn’t know it yet, and the world would never know. Joker would see to it that Allison’s privacy was protected. He wouldn’t let her be used. There had to be another answer for calling attention to the healing power of the springs. He’d find it—somehow.

His bags were sitting by the front door.

Allison was lounging on the sun porch, eyes closed, arms folded tightly across her chest as though she were some pharaoh’s daughter laid out in her tomb. Joker shuddered. He did not have a good feeling about this.

“Going someplace?” Joker slid down into a wicker chair, as close to Allison as he dared, yet far enough away not to be a threat.

She didn’t open her eyes. “Not me, you.”

“Why?”

“I called the nursing home. The business office explained exactly how much Gran’s nursing care is costing. They also explained that her income barely covers her care. There isn’t anything left over to keep up the estate. You’ll have to go.”

“Why?”

“I appreciate what you’ve done here in the house, Joker, but we’re probably going to have to find some alternative. I simply can’t afford … I mean I’ll have to delay any repairs to the house until I’m able to skate again. Letting you pay for your board by gardening is one thing, but incurring any expense in refurbishing the estate is out of the question.”

Joker considered his arguments. She needed him, but she was proud. She’d never accept his help without a good reason. He knew that the last thing she expected to hear was that legally he already owned the estate. Yet there didn’t seem to be any other answer. If he didn’t tell her the truth, she’d find out some other way. And what was worse, if he couldn’t figure out a way to be close to her, he couldn’t help her walk again.

“I really need to go on living in the carriage house,” he began carefully. “And you don’t have to worry.
You don’t have to pay me. Bringing Elysium back to life is a labor of love.”

“Why, Joker? Why have you been so good to Gran?”

“I could tell you about a small boy who dreamed about having a real home and a grandmother who told him stories and made chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t suppose that would make much sense to you. Let’s just say that Mrs. Josey was lonely, and I was lonely. We filled each other’s needs.”