A Knight in Central Park

by Theresa Ragan

  Joe picked the old woman up, trowel and all, twirling her about in his arms. He set her down, still grinning, couldn’t stop smiling if he wanted to. “Your flowers are the most beautiful, wonderful flowers I’ve ever seen.”

  He looked to the sky, the last of the clouds drifting off before nightfall shadowed them completely. His eyes lit up. “Look at that, would you?”

  Shelly and Mrs. Peacock followed his upward gaze.

  “That cloud,” Joe said. “It’s a dog! A Labrador retriever. See? Its tongue is hanging out and it’s wagging its tail!”

  Mrs. Peacock gave Shelly a worried look. Shelly led the old woman into the kitchen. “I’ll get the checkbook,” Shelly said, disappearing into the main part of the house. By the time she returned, Joe had finished watching the clouds gather and had returned to the kitchen. He took the checkbook and the pen from Shelly and turned to Mrs. Peacock. “How about five hundred dollars? No, let’s make it an even thousand.” Happily, he wrote the check, tore it loose, and handed it to the woman. Mrs. Peacock looked suspicious, but she took the check and shoved it in her pocket.

  “I’m going to miss your sweet face,” he told Mrs. Peacock before heading for the living room.

  Shelly thanked Mrs. Peacock and sent her home.

  Shelly came up behind him. “I’m going to miss you, Professor. What should I tell the faculty and your students?”

  Joe turned to her. “Tell them all to open their eyes. Tell them not to let the wonders of life pass them by. Clouds, for example, tell them to never ever take the clouds for granted.” He shook a finger at her. “I mean it.”

  Shelly raised a skeptical brow. “Uh, yeah, great advice, Professor...clouds. I’ll tell them about the clouds.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Take away love and our earth is a tomb.

  —Robert Browning

  Traveling through time felt like waking up from a deep sleep. And yet when Joe looked at his watch he saw that exactly three minutes had passed.

  This time he landed on his feet and now stood on the outskirts of the fields of wheat surrounding Alexandra’s manor. With his duffel bag on his right and a suitcase on his left, Joe started the uphill climb. Although he couldn’t yet see the burnt pile of rubble that was once Alexandra’s house, he saw the tree where Garrett had shot him down with a rock, and the tall heads of wheat swaying in the breeze. He also swore he heard music.

  A stab of anxiety stopped him cold. What if Alexandra wasn’t happy to see him? Maybe he had assumed too much. If she thought he left her on purpose she would be furious, wouldn’t she? At the very least, hurt, angry. He hadn’t thought this through...he wasn’t prepared.

  He straightened, puffed out his chest as he decided that it didn’t matter how angry she was with him. He would make her see the truth. If he had to spend the rest of his life telling her, showing her, convincing her of his love for her, then that’s what he would do. He started off again.

  Alexandra’s home was no longer a pile of rubble. New construction had begun. Sir Richard, it appeared, had kept his word, sending more than a few men to help rebuild. Horses and wagons were tied to trees and wooden posts. Joe heard a spirited chorus of flutes and a string of laughter coming from the barn.

  He set his things down and headed that way.

  Precious whinnied upon seeing him approach. He gave the horse a pat on the neck before stopping just outside the open doors of the barn. His gaze fell on Alexandra.

  He stood paralyzed. Her hair, just as he remembered, long and luxurious, hung down her back; no braid constricted her hair today. Instead, the red mass hung loose and carefree, the way it had looked when he first found her in his home after she struck him down with a plunger. At the moment she looked like a fairy princess.

  “Dearly beloved,” the priest began, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony, which is an honorable estate, instituted...”

  Alexandra didn’t turn around. She hadn’t seen him yet. She was dressed all in white with delicate lace slippers covering her feet. And she was standing at the altar...with another man.

  He’d known all along she’d make a spectacular looking bride. His jaw twitched. His hands curled into fists at his side. A day late and a dollar short.

  “Therefore if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

  Joe cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I refuse to hold my peace.”

  That got their attention. Everybody in the barn turned their gaze on him. Joe straightened, ignoring the angry glares that fell upon him. He didn’t look Alexandra’s way again, afraid of what her reaction might be. He wasn’t ready to look into her eyes. Not yet.

  “Go on,” the priest said, letting Joe have his say.

  Joe saw Garrett up front and center. The kid crossed his arms and waited with the rest of the crowd, except Garrett had a smirk on his face. The boy hadn’t changed a bit. Just wait until Garrett found out he was staying for good. The thought put a smile on Joe’s face.

  “We are waiting,” the priest said with less patience.

  Joe cleared his throat. “I have a big problem with this wedding taking place.”

  “So we see,” the priest agreed.

  Joe shoved his hands deep inside his pockets, jangled his change. “And I’m pretty sure I have ample just cause.”

  Susan pushed her way to the front of the crowd and now stood next to Garrett. Clearly she was not happy with him. Her frowning could very well scare a herd of wild boars.

  Rebecca, always and forever at her sister’s side, made a slicing motion at her throat as if to tell him to quit while he was behind. They loved their sister, and he appreciated their concern, but he hadn’t come back to watch Alexandra marry another man. Nobody was marrying Alexandra but him.

  The entire village could come at him with pitchforks but it wouldn’t stop him.

  The priest slammed his book shut, giving Joe a start. “And your just cause is?”

  “Alexandra Dunn isn’t exactly a virgin bride,” Joe blurted, now deathly afraid to glance Alexandra’s way. “She told me she loved me.”

  “And do you love her?”

  “More than anything in this world. More than hot showers, television, and taxicabs. You name it, anything in the world, and I can tell you I love Alexandra more.”

  The priest scratched his head. “Do you mean to tell me you have stopped this wedding to confess your undying love for the bridesmaid?”

  The crowd’s murmurs and whispers sounded like the drones of myriad honeybees. Joe shifted his weight. “What do you mean exactly when you say bridesmaid?”

  Garrett snorted. “Mary is the one marrying, not Alexandra, you fool-born base-court—”

  “Beef-witted moron,” Joe finished to Garrett’s satisfaction after the boy’s words sank in. Joe looked to the altar. Two redheads: one bride, one bridesmaid. Mary being the one in white, next to...Sir Richard. Mary was the one marrying Sir Richard. Alexandra had been upset that she had missed the marriage ceremony; she probably insisted they marry again before family.

  Alexandra, he noticed, had been standing next to her sister all along. Only she wasn’t standing there anymore. She was halfway down the makeshift aisle now, her hair appearing on fire about her shoulders as she focused her expressive green, unwavering eyes on his.

  Joe didn’t have to be told what to do. He needed no coaxing this time. He just dropped down on bended knee, then fumbled around for the ring. Shelly had said he needed a ring, and she had provided him with one. He looked up at Alexandra. For the first time in his life he felt utterly vulnerable. His throat felt parched. “I’ve been a fool from the start. I love you. I realized it before I left you a month ago. I didn’t want to leave you. I’m an idiot.”

  His gaze lowered to her stomach where he saw a small bump that was not there the last time he saw her. His eyes watere
d as he reached a trembling hand to touch her there. “Are you...”

  “Aye,” she said. “I tried to tell you.”

  “Can you ever forgive me for leaving?”

  “I forgave you before you ever left,” she said.

  “You are an incredible woman. One of a kind.”

  “Did you not just mistake me for my sister?” she teased.

  He grimaced. “I knew it was her all along.”

  They exchanged knowing smiles before he placed the ring on her finger. She looked at the ring.

  “It’s a moonstone,” he said.

  She smiled down at him.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked.

  “The ring is but already on my finger. Do I have any choice in the matter?”

  “No.”

  “Then aye. I will marry you. No regrets?”

  “None. Never. Not one. I love you. I love your siblings, too.”

  “’Tis nice to hear.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, “so?”

  She cocked her head.

  “Don’t you have something you want to say to me?”

  She gestured toward the makeshift altar. “I do believe my sister would like to carry on if we are finished.”

  He came to his feet, standing tall. Then he leaned forward and kissed her because there was no way he could wait another moment to do so. He didn’t have the patience of a saint. Something he’d have to work on. Holding her felt better than he remembered. She was everything he’d ever wanted, ever dreamed of. They parted at the sound of the priest clearing his throat.

  Garrett rolled his eyes at Joe before he and the boy exchanged smiles, both understanding one another, both knowing it wasn’t going to be easy, but maybe someday soon they could be friends.

  “And afterwards you’ll tell me?” he asked Alexandra as they both headed toward the altar, since he wasn’t ready to let her go.

  “Every day for the rest of your life, Sir Joe.”

  He smiled at her, his heart full. “Just call me Joe.”

  Want to read more books by Theresa Ragan?

  Theresa writes Medieval Time Travels, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Suspense, and her first romantic thriller will be released May, 2011.

  Return of the Rose — Time Travel Romance

  2004, 2005, and 2007 Golden Heart Finalist

  Twin sisters are born in Medieval England. One of the infants is dying and is taken to the Witch of Devonshire, who uses supernatural powers to transport the ailing babe to the future. It is the year 1986 when Cathy Hayes, a woman who has lost her child and husband in a car accident, finds the baby at her doorstep, gets her the medical attention she needs, and raises the baby as her own. Morgan grows up in the twentieth century with a mysterious attraction to a hollow suit of armor that stands in the window of her mother’s antique store.

  Morgan is twenty-four-years old when she becomes entangled within the armor’s metal plates and is whisked back in time where she is mistaken for Amanda Forrester, a twin sister she knows nothing about. In Amanda’s place, Morgan is forced to marry King Henry’s favored knight, Derek Vanguard, Lord of Braddock Hall. Abandoned by his mother and having failed as a child to gain his father’s love, Derek’s heart is as cold as the stone walls of his castle.

  Taming Mad Max — Romantic Comedy

  2008 Golden Heart Finalist under the title, Better Late than Never

  Max Dutton, a starting NFL linebacker for the Los Angeles Condors, is certain he’s going to die young since his father and grandfather both passed away at an early age. Believing his life will be cut short, Max tries to live every moment to its fullest. For this reason, Max shies away from forming close relationships. What would be the point of falling in love and starting a family only to leave them as his father left him and his sisters? When Max discovers he has a thirteen-year old daughter though, it throws all his years of planning and preparation for an early death into a tailspin.

  Nutrition expert, Kari Murphy, used to think Max Dutton, aka Mad Max, was to die for, but she’s older and wiser now. The last time Kari reacted with her heart instead of her brain, she conceived the thing she loves most in life...her daughter, Molly. As much as she dislikes Max Dutton for taking her declaration of love and throwing it in her face fourteen years earlier, she knows that if it wasn’t for him her life would be meaningless. And that really ticks her off, especially when she’s hired by the NFL franchise to follow Max around for a couple of weeks and give him healthy-eating advice, foolproof facts about carbohydrates and tasteful tips on cooking and shopping smart.

  Kari doesn’t want to be anywhere near the man, but what choice does she have? Her career is on the line.

  Finding Kate Huntley — Romantic Suspense

  2008 Golden Heart Finalist

  During a vacation in the Caribbean, fifteen-year old Kate Huntley’s father, a prominent U.S. scientist, is murdered before her eyes. For the next ten years, Kate grows up alone in Haiti, one of the most dangerous and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t think of her father. Kate pushes herself to become stronger, mentally and physically. Every day is a struggle for survival. And yet she lives for only one reason...revenge.

  FBI Agent Jack Coffey has eidetic memory, the ability to recall images with great accuracy. While looking for a drug lord via satellite in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, Jack spots Kate Huntley. Jack is sent by the agency to find Ms. Huntley and bring her back to the States. They have many unanswered questions about her father’s death. A professional and responsible man, Jack is confused by Kate’s lack of cooperation. He wants to help her return to the States where he believes she’ll be safe, but she treats him like the enemy and refuses to go. Everything about Kate Huntley is a contradiction. She looks fragile and innocent, but every time he turns around she’s putting another thug in his place. In the beginning Jack wonders if Kate’s distrust of his superiors is warranted or just simple paranoia. In the end, Jack realizes nothing is as it seems.

  ABDUCTED — Romantic Thriller (T.R. Ragan)

  Elizabeth Gardner (Lizzy) is seventeen when she tells her parents she’s going out with her girlfriends. Instead, she meets with Jared Shayne, her boyfriend of two years. As she walks home beneath an inky black sky, her perfect night becomes her worst nightmare.

  Twelve years later, Lizzy is a licensed PI known as the "one who got away." When she’s not searching for runaway teenagers, working on insurance scams, or talking to her therapist, she’s at the local high school teaching young girls to defend themselves. But her world is turned upside down for the second time after she receives a call from Jared Shayne. He’s an FBI special agent now and he needs her help. Lizzy has no plans to get involved. Not until Jared tells her that the kidnapper left her a personalized note.

  The Source of Magic by Cate Rowan

  I’m delighted to introduce an unusual romantic novel from another award-winning author, Cate Rowan. If you enjoyed the pairing of the modern world and medieval times in A Knight in Central Park, take a look at The Source of Magic, a fantasy romance set on a medieval world:

  When a gorgeous man clasps Jilian Stewart to his chest and yanks her from Scotland into a magical battle, she thinks it must be another of her bizarre dreams. Plagued by unnerving visions of this man, she’s sure they’re brought on by the stress of her mother’s deadly paralysis. Instead, Jilian finds herself ensnared in a world of fantasy, treachery, and family secrets, opposing the one man who can make everything right.

  Prince Alvarr, her sexy abductor, offers a cure for her dying mother, but won’t send Jilian home with it until she helps him destroy the evil mage threatening his people—with mystical powers she never knew she had.

  “Rowan is definitely an author to watch!” —Alyssa Day, NYT bestselling author

  The Source of Magic is an 83,000-word novel and has won sixteen awards. The ebook version contains a bonus excerpt from another Rowan novel, Kismet’s Kiss, which has been called “a magical, exh
ilarating, sensual delight” (Smexy Books) and “a must-read for all fantasy romance lovers” (The Romance Reviews).

  Intrigued? Visit your preferred online retailer to sample or purchase Cate Rowan’s The Source of Magic!