McKnight in Shining Armor (10 page)

“Get that stupid camel out of my face!” Olie shouted. Someone tossed him a towel, which he rubbed furiously over the front of his safari suit. “Get that monkey over here!”

Kelsie handed the llama over to one of her helpers and looked frantically around for Gumby.

“N-n-nice G-G-Gumby,” Alec stuttered as the orangutan shook him by the shoulders like a rag doll.

“Alec,” she called. “Please stop playing with the orangutan and bring him over here!”

   She was becoming an obsession. Alec didn’t care. After a week of seeing what an ungodly schedule she maintained, he was more set than ever on rescuing her. Obviously she’d missed the chapter in the history book about Lincoln abolishing slavery. She’d probably been out working when the teacher had covered it.

It wasn’t just work. Alec reflected as he made his bed with military precision, then padded naked across the polished hardwood floor to his walk-in closet. He understood the hours she had
to spend working and the time she wanted to spend with her children, but it seemed there wasn’t a committee in Eden Prairie she wasn’t a member of. The PTA, the Cub Scouts, the figure-skating club, the youth hockey mothers, the Humane Society, the League of Businesswomen, the garden club, the Daughters of Scandia. The list seemed endless.

“And ridiculous,” he grumbled as he selected a pair of jeans from the section of the closet where all his slacks hung in neat groups—dress slacks, casual slacks, dress jeans, old jeans. He pulled a blue plaid flannel shirt from the casual shirt group, then picked up a gray sweatshirt from the cubicle where he stored them and his crew-neck sweaters. He snatched up a pair of sneakers from the neat row of shoes on the floor.

It was as if she had to be all things to all people. Supermom syndrome, that’s what it was, he decided. Well, being a supermom was all well and good, Alec thought, but what was going to become of the part of Kelsie that wasn’t a mom? What about her needs as a woman?

“That,” Alec said to his reflection in the mirror after he had dressed, “is where I come in, Kelsie.”

   Sunday. It was supposed to be a day of rest, wasn’t it? Kelsie asked herself as she laced on a pair of figure skates. She was dog tired from the long day she’d put in at Big Olie’s, but she’d promised the kids a day at the ice arena to brush up on their skills before their respective seasons of hockey and figure skating began. So she laced on her skates and daydreamed about spending the day soaking in a tub of bubbles, where the water never got cold and she never dropped her book in and the phone never rang and none of the cats came in to stare at her as she bathed.

A long hot bath. A long hot bath with Alec McKnight.

Blast, she thought as heat rose in her cheeks despite the less than toasty temperature in the skating rink, why could she not stop thinking about him?

“Come on, Mom!” Jeffrey called as he zoomed past, weaving through the other skaters making
their way around the rink at various speeds. Several, like Jeff, seemed bent on setting new speed-skating records and scaring the devil out of the less accomplished skaters. Others moved at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the piped-in waltz music and the rhythmic motion of skating in time to it. Elizabeth was at the center of the ice practicing spins. Then there were the beginners, who had obviously decided to try to master the basic skills before winter came and the rinks got crowded.

Kelsie carefully made her way onto the ice, then gasped. Across the rink a man who looked amazingly like Alec was struggling along through the crowd. It was Alec! “What are you doing here?” she asked when he’d caught up with her.

“Enjoying myself immensely,” he said. “We’d better move before we get run over.” He was teetering precariously. “I haven’t been on skates since I was twelve,” he said. “How about helping me get the hang of it again?”

Kelsie tugged at the collar of her turtleneck as Alec’s smile warmed her. The effect he had on her body’s responses was unlike anything she’d ever
encountered. That knowledge, along with the realization that she really did want to have a relationship with him, coupled to double the sense of panic welling up inside her. She swallowed hard, pushing the sensation back down to her stomach.

“If you haven’t been on skates in all that time, why are you here today?” she asked.

He let his gaze caress her before he answered. “Because you are.”

Her involuntary little gasp delighted him. Every response she gave him was encouragement. He took it and her arm with a grin and tried to scoot far enough away from the rink boards to get going. They made their way around the ice in fits and starts. Every time it seemed Alec was getting his balance and rhythm back, he would suddenly find himself struggling to remain on his feet. It didn’t help that he and Kelsie laughed hard enough to fall over every time it happened either.

After three grueling trips around the rink, Alec begged for a breather. He followed Kelsie off the ice and collapsed onto a bench beside her. His legs felt like sprung springs. It was an unpleasant surprise to discover that the muscles he toned and
hardened every morning running along Lake Minnetonka were apparently not the same muscles he needed to ice-skate.

“Mom, can I get a Coke?” Elizabeth asked, stepping through the gate from the ice to the locker area. She was out of breath, her cheeks flushed from the exertion of practicing spins and jumps. Her long blond braid hung down over one shoulder, blocking out part of the pattern of her soft blue ski sweater. She wore heavy blue tights and a bouncy fuchsia skating skirt.

“Sure, sweetheart. My purse is in the locker. Let me get the key out of my pocket,” Kelsie said, lifting her hips off the bench so she could get her hand into the pocket of her faded jeans.

“I’ve got change,” Alec said, digging into his own pocket more to distract himself from Kelsie’s squirming hips than anything else.

Elizabeth gave him a curious look, then glanced at her mother.

“Elizabeth, this is Alec McKnight, a friend of mine,” Kelsie said, curious to see her daughter’s reaction. Elizabeth’s eyes widened into two huge blue pools.

“We’ve spoken on the phone,” Alec said, handing the girl change for the pop machine. He gave her his most charming smile as well. “I’d stand up, but I’m not too steady on these things. It’s nice to meet you, Elizabeth.”

“Oh…” was all she managed to say. “A—um—it’s nice to meet you too. Thanks for the change,” she stammered, and retreated to the Coke machine.

“Pretty girl,” Alec commented softly, his eyes on Kelsie’s face. “Takes after her mother, I’d say.”

“Thank you.” She smiled shyly, looking down at her skates. “I think she was impressed with you too.”

“You think so?” With cool, gentle fingers he tipped her chin up and turned her face toward his. “Have I managed to impress her mother in the least?” he asked quietly, letting his fingertips roam over her face, tracing the shape of her dark, sexy eyebrows, the contours of her rosy cheeks, the outline of her daintily sculptured upper lip and its full, soft counterpart.

Kelsie’s heart raced and her breath became shallow, as if Alec’s tantalizing touch were somehow
robbing the oxygen from her. All she managed was to whisper his name before he leaned down and captured her lips with his.

A shower of ice sprayed over them from the other side of the gate. Kelsie jerked back as her son clomped off the ice looking every inch the rough and ready hockey player. His hair was disheveled, his jaw set at a pugnacious angle. The dark eyebrows he’d inherited from his mother slashed down over his brown eyes as he scowled at her and Alec as he walked past them, driving a hand into one of the many pockets of his camouflage pants to dig out two quarters for the soda machine.

“I’m sorry, Alec,” Kelsie said, trying to keep her own temper in check. “Jeffrey’s manners are nowhere near that bad most of the time. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Really?”

“You think you do?”

He glanced at Kelsie. “I think he’s not too crazy about having me interested in his mother. Is he close to his dad?”

Kelsie sighed as she watched her son drink his soda and crush the can. “He would like to be.”

“What’s that mean?” Alec asked gently.

“It means Jeff’s father isn’t terribly interested in his son at present. I’m sure that will change when Jeff is old enough to be on the varsity hockey team. Then he’ll be valuable to Jack as something to brag about.”

Feeling suddenly very tired, she leaned her head on Alec’s shoulder without even thinking about it, and sighed. It felt good to have that solid square of muscle and bone to lean against, to have a strong arm cross her back and a firm hand cup her shoulder. When had she become so comfortable in Alec’s presence? She didn’t know, but when he asked her what had gone wrong with her marriage, she didn’t hesitate to tell him.

“Nothing that hasn’t happened to millions of marriages,” she said. “We got married too young and grew apart. Ten years later we wanted different things. I wanted a station wagon and a house in the country. Jack wanted a Corvette and a receptionist named Dawn. What happened to yours?”

“I wasn’t useful anymore,” he said, stroking her shoulder in a soothing rhythm. It felt good to have Kelsie lean against him, to have her let her guard down for once. It was almost as good as an admission of need, and he very much wanted Kelsie to need him. “Vena’s modeling career had taken off. She wanted someone more important.”

He sat her up and winked at her. “How about a few more turns around the ice? Think you can keep up with me?”

“Ha! I think my grandma could keep up with you! Come on, let’s see how many feet you can go before you land on your keister.”

As she helped Alec struggle around the rink, Kelsie gave a lot of thought to the feelings he evoked in her. She hadn’t had this kind of fun in so long—hell, she thought to herself, she’d never had this kind of fun. She genuinely liked being with Alec, and every time she saw him, her heart did a flip that could have gotten it a spot on the U.S. gymnastics team.

“Time! Time out!” Alec tripped his way to the boards. “I’ve got a cramp in my foot!”

“Giving up, McKnight?” Kelsie asked, turning and skating back to him.

He wagged a finger at her. “Next time we do something I’m good at. How are you on the ski slopes, Dorothy Hamill?”

Kelsie laughed. “Have you ever seen ‘the agony of defeat’ at the beginning of
Wide World of Sports?”

Alec laughed, then a look of wonder came into his eyes. Hoping he wouldn’t lose his balance and dump them both, he pulled Kelsie into his arms and brushed her hair back from her face. “Hey,” he said, “you didn’t try to tell me there wouldn’t be a next time. Was that an oversight on your part, or are you coming around to my way of thinking?”

“I don’t know,” she said, taking a deep, ragged breath, her gaze locking on his as if to draw strength from the intense power there. “I still don’t know if it can work, Alec. You’ve seen the kind of life I live.”

“It’s just a matter of making time for what’s important, Kelsie,” he said softly, his heart pounding above hers as he held her to him. “I have a busy
life, too, but it’s important to me to be able to see you.” More important than he’d realized, he thought as he waited for her answer to his question. “Is it important to you to be able to see me?”

To see Alec was fast becoming as important to her as eating. Lately she found herself craving the sight of him more than she craved chocolate. Another wave of fear broke over her, but she shook it off.

“Yes,” she said softly, but with the conviction of a shout.

His kiss was exuberant, jubilant, and ended with both of them crashing to the ice.

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“N
O
, M
ILLARD
,” K
ELSIE
said, holding the phone between her shoulder and one ear as she tried to put an earring in her other earlobe. “I really don’t think you should count on getting another crack at the Van Bryant deal.”

“Has the decision been made, then?”

“No. They have to wait until Mr. Van Bryant gets back from Europe. I’m not holding out much hope though.”

As Millard Krispin whined about how unfair Alec McKnight was being to Darwin, Jeffrey
burst into the house, his face literally glowing with excitement. He’d been talking of nothing but the outing with his father to the college basketball game for a week. Now that the event was at hand, he seemed ready to explode with impatience.

Knowing Millard had another five minutes of droning left, Kelsie put a hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver. “Supper’s ready; it’s in the oven.”

“I can’t have supper, Mom; I won’t have any room left for all the great junk at the ball game!”

“Silly me,” she murmured as he charged off to his room. “Why should you have something nutritious when you can have chili dogs and caramel corn?”

“… And Darwin was upset for several days after that meeting,” Millard finished.

Kelsie mouthed along with that part of his speech. He’d given it to her half a dozen times since the disaster in Alec’s office. Alec. He had stopped by the shoot today and asked her to go to a hockey game with him tonight… and, lo and behold, she could since Jeffrey would be with
his father and Elizabeth was going to a slumber party.

When she got off the phone she stuck the uneaten casserole into the refrigerator, pulled Randolph, the new kitty, out as she shut the door, then headed for the bathroom to finish her makeup. She had twenty minutes to get gorgeous before Alec arrived.

As she passed through the living room, the phone rang again. She snatched it up with a friendly hello that died on her lips when she heard Jack Connors’s voice. With every word he spoke, she felt sicker and sicker. He was backing out on his promise to Jeffrey, and he wasn’t even man enough to tell their son himself.

Jeffrey was sprawled on his bed, poring over a sports magazine, when Kelsie stepped into his room. The tan walls were papered with posters of his favorite sports stars and pictures of animals.

“This guy is so awesome!” Jeff raved, pointing to a picture of one of the Gopher basketball stars. “I’ll bet he’s gonna score about fifty points tonight.”