Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (83 page)

“Better be safe than sorry,” Grizzly says gently,
and guzzles the rest of his beer. “I’d take you there myself, but
I’m too poached to drive now. Syr Phillip’ll have to take you. That
is, he’ll take you when he’s finished with—”

“Shhhhhh!” Barlonda hisses at Grizzly, making
sweeping motions with her arms.
“Grizzly
will go find Syr
Phillip for you, Lisa. Won’t you, Grizz?”

Baron Grizzly holds up his hands in an “I don’t
know” gesture.

“Go on, Grizz. Bring Syr Phillip back out here, no
matter what he’s doing.”

Baron Grizzly gives Barlonda a serious look. “Are
you sure you want me to do that? Because—“

“
Go.”
Barlonda’s tone is severe.

Barlonda’s lips are pursing and she’s wringing her
hands. She sets her half-empty beer can down on a side table and
sighs. “Lisa, I hope that you and Syr Phillip don’t break up over
this little minor thing even before you’ve had a chance to get
started. You don’t know how much good a woman like you could do
him.”

I stare at Barlonda helplessly through my tears, not
understanding. “What do you mean?”

Barlonda takes both of my hands in hers. “Syr
Phillip sort of has a—a
history
with Lady Ramona, you see.
And Lady Ramona is a jealous type, and Syr Phillip is, well, let’s
just say he’s easily manipulated sometimes. Especially when a
beautiful young woman like Lady Ramona is drunk.”

I get the vague notion that Syr Phillip is probably
doing a lot more than just saying his goodbyes right now. My lower
lip starts to tremble and it’s all I can do to keep from bursting
into tears.

“Oh honey,” Barlonda says, embracing me. She reeks
of sweat, beer, and very non-medieval Aqua Net. “It’s all right.
I’m sure everything will be fine—“

“No it won’t! I want to go home. I
need
to go
home, but I can’t if I have
rabies
! And what am I supposed
to wear to the hospital? I can’t wear this—this
thing,”
I
wail, tugging at my shredded, rust-stained skirts.

Barlonda looks offended. “Why dear, what’s the
matter with your dress? I thought you liked that gown. It’s one of
the best pieces in my spring collection.”

“Are you blind, Barlonda? My dress is
ruined,”
I wail. Barlonda looks puzzled for a moment; she
squints, pulls a set of glasses out of her bosom, puts them on, and
finally understands.

“Oh my, well, it is a bit of a mess, dear. And Syr
Phillip hasn’t even
paid
for it yet—”

“
Now
you see what kind of luck I have. Syr
Phillip has probably been stringing me along this whole time.”

“There, there, dear. It’s all right.” Barlonda
inspects my shredded dress more closely. “Well, that’ll be a real
bear to fix,” she says. “But don’t you worry about a thing, hon.
I’ll have this gown fixed up for you in a jiffy. And about Syr
Phillip—don’t let his little tizzy with Lady Ramona out on the
driveway ruffle your feathers too much. She means nothing to him,
nothing at all. But
you
for sure do. I guarantee you
that.”

“I’m not sure I should believe you,” I manage just
as Syr Phillip and Baron Grizzly come rushing down the hall.

Syr Phillip, breathless, glances nervously at me,
then Barlonda, and then back at me and my now-shredded gown. “What
the hell is going on here?”

“Look Phil,” I snarl. “While you were busy saying
your goodbyes to all your
other
girlfriends, or whatever it
was you were just doing, Lady Ramona’s crazy dog attacked me and
chewed the bejeezus out of my leg. I probably have rabies now. I
need a ride to the hospital, and pretty much everybody here except
you and me is either drunk or stoned. So even though you are not
exactly on my A-list of hot, desirable boyfriends right now, I
would appreciate it if you’d get me to an emergency room for
whatever horrible torture-treatment they give for rabies nowadays
before I start frothing at the mouth. ‘Kay?”

Syr Phillip blinks twice. “Do you really think you
might have
rabies,
Lisa?”

“Unless your snotty little chain-smoking girlfriend
Lady Ramona can show me proof of vaccination, yes.”

Syr Phillip looks hurt. “Lady Ramona is
not
my girlfriend, Lisa. I thought we already established that.”

I roll my eyes. “I think the only thing we’ve
established so far today is that you’re a very eligible bachelor
that every woman in the SCA wants to suck-face with.”

Syr Phillip doesn’t comment on my last remark. He
just inspects my ankle and sucks in his breath. “This doesn’t look
good at all. I’ve got some pharmaceutical-grade Bacitracin in my
car—lucky for you I’ve still got some samples left from my last
sales trip. I’ll spread that on here until I can get you to the
hospital.”

With that, Syr Phillip scoops me up in a threshold
carry before I can protest.

“Look out! Make way, make way, good gentles! An
injured lady comes forthwith!” Syr Phillip calls out to everyone
within hearing. "Grizz, see if you can find Ramona. And then call
the police. Tell them there’s been a dog attack here. Have them
arrange to take the poodle away for testing and then tell them to
meet us at the hospital. We’ll be at the Greenfield County ER.”

Baron Grizzly looks scared. “Phil, I really can’t be
the one who calls the police. You know Ramona’s got a stash here,
and she’s been such a good source for me all these years, and—“

Syr Phillip sets his jaw. “Do it, Grizz.”

Grizzly looks panicked. “But Phil—“

“If you’re worried about getting hit for possession
again, then just make the call anonymously and leave. But as
Kingdom Champion, a Knight of the Midrealm, and a fellow Peer, I
hereby order you to contact the authorities about that dog attack.
Ramona keeps a phone on the desk in the upstairs den. It’s an old
Princess trimline phone, hot pink. You can’t miss it.”

“All right, all right!” Grizzly runs a sweaty hand
through his scraggly gray hair and sighs.

“You sure know a lot about this house for someone
who couldn’t remember whose house it even was when we first got
here,” I snarl.

Syr Phillip doesn’t answer. He just carries me out
to his trusty red dragon.

Chapter
12

We pull up outside Greenfield County Hospital about
five minutes later. Syr Phillip doesn’t bother to park; he just
leaves his dragon in the ambulance driveway in front of the ER and
carries me, young-bride style, through the hospital’s automatic
doors. My ankle is now a piece of red-hot nuclear fallout, and my
head is starting to spin a little, too. I don’t know if the
head-spinning is from fast-incubating rabies or from the fact that
a very strong, sexy man in a medieval knight’s tunic is carrying me
around in public.

Syr Phillip carries me past the triage desk straight
into one of the examination cubicles. The duty nurse, a heavyset
young woman with pink highlights accenting her dark hair, tries to
stop us.

“Hey! You can’t go back there!” Syr Phillip ignores
her. I hitch up my shredded gown to rub my scorching ankle. I see
the nurse do a double-take when she takes the time to notice our
outfits.

“Hey! Hey, you! What’s with the weird clothes? Are
you two in some kind of Satanic cult or something?” the nurse
hisses at us, blocking our entrance into the curtained-off exam
cube.

“Just tell Dr. Kavanaugh that Phil Dawson is here to
see him with a possible rabies case,” Syr Phillip says, cool as
bubble tea. “He’s the attending emergency physician on call
tonight, right?”

The nurse gives us a single nod, her mouth still
hanging open. She finally shuts it with a
click
and says,
“How did you know that?”

Syr Phillip sets me down on a paper-swathed
examining table. “Dr. Kavanaugh’s one of my best customers. Do you
know that I sell this hospital your entire annual supply of Zoloft
and Lipitor? Not to mention all the antibiotic IV drips.” Syr
Phillip takes a business card out of his tunic pocket and hands it
to the nurse. “Tell Dr. Kavanaugh I’m here, please. And send
someone in to clean the lady’s wound. I’ve got some Bacitracin on
it, but it’s a dog bite so it’ll need to be irrigated.”

The nurse’s mouth drops open again. “Right,” she
says, and disappears.

I lie back on the examining table. “Do you always
boss people around like that?” I ask.

“Only when they need it. The weekend nursing staff
isn’t always the greatest at these country hospitals. Relax, Lisa.
I’m good friends with the ER chief here, and I’ve been the
exclusive Pfizer rep to this hospital for five years now. They’ll
take good care of you here, don’t worry.”

I close my eyes and take several deep breaths,
trying to take my mind off the fact that I am now probably in the
early stages of rabies—or in true medieval style, perhaps even the
bubonic plague. Specks of light flicker underneath my eyelids as I
feel my ankle start to go numb. Vaguely I sense Syr Phillip take my
left hand in his, and he begins stroking the inside of my palm with
the tips of his fingers. The light touch of his skin on mine is
like a thousand tiny dandelions kissing the whole length of my arm.
Even in my dazed state I experience the deep sensual connection
between the two of us. I’m still not sure how I feel about Syr
Phillip as a person, but it’s obvious that we have an intense
physical attraction, one that I feel more and more urgency to
explore as soon as possible—maybe even here in the ER, rabies or no
rabies.

A deep, cigarette-roughened man’s voice stirs me
from my reverie. “Phil! What the hell you doin’ here this time of
night?” I open my eyes to see a sixtysomething, buff-haired
gentleman. His tubby body is pear-shaped and his face looks like a
hundred miles of bad road, but his voice is kind.

“Dr. Kavanaugh, I’ve brought you an urgent case.”
Syr Phillip’s voice is rough and edgy with concern.

“I see you’re in one of your kingdom outfits or
whatdoyocallim, Phil,” Dr. Kavanaugh replies, not even glancing in
my direction. “Don’t tell me you got hit in the crotch with one of
them bad swords again. I can only fix so many hernias, you know.
You
medievalers
or whatever the hell you call yourselves—I
get more weird injuries from you types than anybody else. You guys
even outdo those Civil War reinactors. Which takes talent, since
those guys use real bullets.”

Syr Phillip goes a deep red. “Actually, the lady is
the one with the injury tonight. Dog bite. And I’ll have you know
that it didn’t happen at the SCA event itself. This was at a
party.”

“Close enough,” Dr. Kavanaugh snorts. “I like ya
Phil, but I really don’t see why you feel the need to spend your
weekends running around in a dress and chasin’ guys with
sticks.”

“It’s a
tunic,
not a dress,” Syr Phillip
snaps. “Please, buddy, stop razzing me and take a look at the lady
here.”

Dr. Kavanaugh turns to me and inspects my ankle.
“Nice little bite you’ve got there, miss. Poodle, was it?”

“Yes,” I say, breathless. It’s starting to get a
little hard to talk. I can’t tell if it’s from the rabies or the
fact that Syr Phillip’s finger caresses have set me ablaze.

“I can always tell a poodle bite,” Dr. Kavanaugh
says, his voice less rough now. “Those dogs got a certain kind of
pointy shape to their teeth. Poodles always bite pretty young
ladies like you. It’s because they’re vain and can’t stand the
competition.”

I blush. “I always thought pets were a reflection of
their masters,” I say, slanting my eyes in Syr Phillip’s direction.
“And
that
poodle’s definitely got the same personality as
its owner.” Syr Phillip flinches, but says nothing.

“Well, looks like you got yourself a pretty bad
infection started here,” Dr. Kavanaugh says, probing my ankle with
a sterile instrument. I wince in pain. “You were right to put that
Bacitracin on there, Phil. But that dog must have had some pretty
rotten teeth to have something set in this fast and this deep. I’ll
get one of my residents in here to irrigate it and get the lady
started on an antibiotic IV drip before that infection has a chance
to go systemic. By the way Phil, we really like those Zithromax
drips you’ve been bringing us lately. They knock out all the bugs,
and then some.”

“Thanks,” Syr Phillip says, sheepish. “That’s one of
my top sellers.”

“Probably because I’ve been buying out all your
stock.” Dr. Kavanaugh removes my blue velvet slipper and rubs my
foot, ankle, and lower leg up and down. My skin screams in fury at
his grip. “Your leg here is hot to the touch,” he says. “And
swollen, too. Sure sign of a spreading infection. We’ll have to
keep you here overnight, Lisa, and get you started on those
antibiotics right away. And rabies is always a possibility with a
dog bite.”

“Yes, I know,” I say, biting my lip.

“You got the dog, Phil? The dog will have to be
tested for rabies. Although from what I’ve seen so far, I think it
isn’t likely, but there’s always that chance.”

“The dog should be here soon,” Syr Phillip replies.
“At least I hope it will.”

As if on cue, two hulking Wapakoneta police officers
enter the examination cubicle. One is tall and lean as a hockey
stick; the other, a fat redheaded man in his thirties, resembles a
dodgeball.

Officer Dodgeball taps a golf pencil against his
traffic-ticket pad. “You the ones from that big marijuana orgy out
on Route 43? I swear, I’ve never seen so many freaks in one place
in my life.”

“Ummm, yeah, that’s us,” Syr Phillip replies, not
even trying to contradict the portly cop.

“Damn straight,” snarls Officer Hockey Stick,
placing his left hand on his gun. “I’d say you two look like you
came from the same place. What’s with those outfits? You guys into
some kind of Goth scene? ‘Cause if you are, I’ll tell the doc here
to test you both for crystal meth.”