McKnight in Shining Armor

by Tami Hoag

  “Sure!” He was going to give them a second chance! Kelsie looked heavenward and mouthed a heartfelt thank-you. “I’ll be certain to bring the right briefcase this time. I know you’ll be impressed with the work Darwin’s done—”

  Alec winced. “I didn’t mean about the campaign. I meant you and me on a date.”

  Kelsie’s heart shifted into overdrive. Her knees suddenly felt like marshmallows. “A date?” she asked, as if the word were only vaguely familiar to her.

  “You bet.” He smiled his slow, devastating smile, even though she couldn’t see it.

  Kelsie shivered from head to toe, then all her nerve endings went numb. If she hadn’t been on such a tight schedule, she might have gotten sick. A date. A date with Alec McKnight with the million-dollar grin, holder of the fate of her business.

  Just the word date sent Kelsie into a tailspin. She hadn’t been on ten dates in the past three years. She’d dated only one man before that—her ex-husband. Mere mention of dating turned competent, capable Kelsie into a shy, insecure teenager. Since her divorce, she’d become a master at avoiding dating. It hadn’t been difficult because she hadn’t met anyone she was that attracted to. Now a man she was that attracted to was asking, and she was paralyzed with panic.

  “Kelsie?” Alec asked. Had she hung up on him? Dead silence wasn’t the usual response he got when he asked a lady out. Using his most persuasive tone of voice, he said, “Come on, Kelsie. Let me make this morning up to you. Go out with me.”

  Shivers coursed over her as if he’d caressed her. It took no imagination at all to conjure up the image of his direct, penetrating stare. She had to look down at the photograph of her parents that sat on the table to break the imaginary eye contact. “Um—I don’t think so.”

  “I’m really sorry about this morning. We got off on the wrong foot. Give me another chance, Kelsie,” he said, smiling to himself. He was too accomplished a bachelor not to know the effect his voice could have on a woman.

  “A—gee—a—Alec,” she stammered. In spite of her acute fear of dating, he was actually seducing her with his voice. Before she could succumb to the temptation, she took a deep, sustaining breath and launched into a hundred-mile-per-hour delivery of her usual rejection speech. “I’d like to but I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time for that kind of thing because between work and my kids and all I’m just really tied up and I’m already late for a lingerie party so I’d better go thanks for calling bye.”

  Alec stared at the phone in wide-eyed amazement. He reached down and moved it a quarter of an inch to the right on the immaculately polished antique cherry table that sat beside his smoke-blue sofa.

  She’d hung up on him. She’d turned him down flat and hung up on him. Unprecedented. Still, she hadn’t sounded disinterested. Nor had she said anything about seeing someone else. Talk about mixed signals!

  Lingerie party, huh? Now, that sounded like something worth going to. With one finger he lifted the black satin-and-lace waist cincher he’d found behind the couch in his office after Kelsie and company had left, an idea taking shape.

  “Bring on the beefcake!” Paula Budke screamed, dancing around her maid of honor’s living room in a purple peignoir. Shrieks from half a dozen other partygoers egged her on as the party built to a fever pitch in anticipation of the entertainment that was to arrive shortly.

  Kelsie forced a smile. She sat on the sidelines nursing a wine cooler and a vise-grip headache. Ordinarily she enjoyed these wedding showers. The women were usually in the mood for having fun and spending money. But the day had taken its toll on her fun-loving abilities. On top of everything else, she’d been fifteen minutes late to the party. The bride-to-be had been half in the bag by then.

  Carla, the hostess, tossed a red feather boa around her shoulders and cranked up the stereo so that the driving, sexy beat of Prince’s latest hit song rattled the glass in the china cabinet. Two of the bridesmaids danced out of a bedroom, modeling more lingerie.

  Kelsie sat back and thought of Alec McKnight, reasonably certain she was going to throw up. Alec McKnight wanted to go out with her—on a date. Alec McKnight, who could have melted the polar ice cap with his smile, wanted to go out with her, Kelsie Connors. Alec McKnight, who at the moment, wielded a lot of power over her future.

  The last thing she wanted to do was offend him, but she would not go out with him to make this deal. No matter how badly she needed to land the Van Bryant ad campaign, she wouldn’t sell herself for it. Not that he had suggested such a thing; it probably hadn’t even occurred to him.

  He’s a man, isn’t he? her alter ego asked. Of course it occurred to him.

  Stop it, she scolded herself, not all men were the kind of pond scum Jack turned out to be.

  Regardless of his intentions, she couldn’t go out with Alec McKnight. She had a business to run and another job at night. Between the two she had to sandwich in quality time with her children to be Mom and Dad. Then there were the two cats, the dog, the parrot, the rabbits, and fish that needed her attention too. And she had a dozen other responsibilities as an organizer for civic groups and charities. How could she even think of being wined and dined by Alec McKnight?

  What did she know about dating anyway? Nothing. She’d been a bookish wallflower in high school. When Jack Connors had asked her out, she’d latched on to him like a burr on a dog. She’d come a long way since those days, but she still didn’t know anything about the subtle aspects of dating. According to what she’d heard from single girlfriends and women at these Naughty Nighties parties, the dating scene was one big anxiety attack. Who needed that?

  The doorbell was ringing. No one seemed to hear it but Kelsie. Big surprise, she realized. Half the wedding party was doing the cancan on the sofa, while Rod Stewart wondered in song if anyone thought he was sexy.

  Sexy? Kelsie grimaced, going to the door. The guy didn’t need a mask for Halloween. Alec McKnight was sexy. Alec McKnight was—

  Here.

  Kelsie’s jaw dropped open so hard she was sure she heard it hit the floor. Alec McKnight stood in the doorway looking gorgeous in an unzipped leather bomber jacket, a cardigan sweater the exact shade of his eyes, a white shirt, and snug jeans that hugged his legs.

  “Hi.” He smiled, his direct stare capturing her eyes and holding them prisoner.

  “Alec,” she managed at last. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  He lifted the black undergarment with two fingers hooked through the satin lacing. “I thought you might need this. You left it in my office,” he said in a voice that suggested she had left it there after an afternoon of wild sex.

  Blushing, Kelsie snatched the waist cincher away from him, unconsciously holding it against herself as if to judge for size. Alec’s mouth started to water as he imagined what she’d look like wearing the provocative garment. She wasn’t very curvy but had a sleek, subtle figure, the kind a man’s hands could slide over with no difficulty, he thought as he surveyed the soft rose-colored blouse and snug-fitting navy blue skirt she wore.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, having to nearly shout as the volume of the party rose behind her.

  “I called your house. Your daughter told me where you were,” he shouted, his dark brows drawing together as he looked beyond Kelsie to the wild scene in the living room.

  There were unmentionables everywhere. Scraps of silk and satin and lace were draped over furniture and hanging from the chandelier. Six nearly nude women were doing the cha-cha around a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Before Kelsie could begin to explain, a bloodcurdling scream split the air. “He’s here!”

  Suddenly Alec was yanked into the room, into a sea of shrieking women. They danced around him, bumping and grinding, exuberantly singing along with the Beatles on “Twist and Shout.”

  “Hey!” he yelled, trying to jump back from a blonde in yellow silk pajamas who started unbuttoning his shirt. He backed into a buxom redhead who was
stealing his jacket but managed to duck away from a brunette who was eying his jeans.

  In the background, women were clapping and chanting, “Take if off, Studs! Take it off, Studs!”

  Kelsie pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a second, shaking her head. Just when she’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse, these women had to mistake Alec McKnight for Studs Malone, male stripper extraordinaire.

  “Ladies! Ladies!” she shouted, trying to wade through the gyrating bodies to rescue poor Alec. He didn’t stand a chance against a bevy of bachelorettes. Neither did anyone trying to save him. By the time Kelsie had fought her way to him, she’d lost the combs out of her hair, three buttons off her blouse, and part of a sleeve.

  Alec looked like he’d been rolled by a gang of thugs. His hair was disheveled and his shirttail hung out of his jeans. His shirt gaped open to reveal a sculpted chest lightly dusted with dark curls. Carla had thrown the red boa around his neck. The bride had him by the belt and was doing the twist. Kelsie tried to shoulder her aside.

  “He’s not Studs Malone!” she yelled, hooking a finger through a belt loop on Alec’s jeans to steady herself.

  “Who cares!” Paula exclaimed. “He’s a hunk!”

  It was then that the real Studs Malone walked in, dressed head to toe in skintight black leather for his Wild West act. He was none too pleased to see another man stealing the limelight. Ignoring the women tearing at his cowboy outfit, he stormed toward Alec. Kelsie had gotten pushed away, but when she saw the glower on Studs’s face, she redoubled her efforts to get to Alec.

  “Who the hell are you?” Studs demanded, hands resting on the butts of his white pearl-handled six-guns.

  “Alec McKnight,” Alec answered, torn between relief at seeing someone of his own gender and apprehension at the look on the guy’s face. “Brother, am I glad—”

  “What do you think you’re doing, horning in on my gig?” Studs clamped his Stetson down low over his eyes, looking like he was about to say “Draw, pardner.”

  Stunned that anyone could think he’d purposely subject himself to a strip search by a bunch of crazed women, Alec could only gape at Studs. Studs somehow took that the wrong way, and, just as Kelsie arrived on the scene, he took a swing at Alec.

  The punch caught her a glancing blow off her left cheekbone, but Kelsie went down for the count like a felled prize fighter, dropping back into Alec’s arms as the police stepped into the house.

  When she started to come around, the first thing Kelsie saw was a blurry, somewhat one-dimensional image of Alec McKnight. He was bending over her with a worried expression creasing his forehead and turning down the corners of his interesting mouth. In the foggy recesses of her mind, she wondered what that mouth would feel like on hers. It was finely chiseled, with an almost cynical twist to it when he wasn’t smiling. Yet it wasn’t hard-looking. It looked kissable.

  As things came more into focus, she could see beyond Alec to two uniformed police officers. Police officers? She tried to sit up, groaning at the sudden bass drum beat in her head.

  “Easy, honey,” Alec said in a soothing voice, stroking a hand down the side of her face. Luckily it was the side that didn’t feel like it had been kicked in by a Clydesdale. His fingertips were firm and warm.

  “What happened?” she said, moaning, levering herself up on her elbows. Alec helped her sit up on the couch, positioning himself beside her so he could get a good look at her.

  “Jeez,” said the taller cop with the thinning blond hair, “you got socked by a guy in a leather cowboy suit.”

  “For real?” Kelsie asked. Her memory was too fuzzy at the moment for her to trust it.

  “I think so,” the cop said, nibbling on a cheese puff from the hors d’oeuvres tray, “but you never can tell nowadays. They make a pretty good vinyl that looks just like the real thing.”

  Not following his answer at all, Kelsie groaned and looked around the room. The party was over. Evidently one of the neighbors had called the police because of the noise. Many of the women had left for home. Paula, the bride-to-be, was dozing in a recliner, snoring loudly, with lingerie piled across her a foot deep.

  “How long was I out?” Kelsie asked.

  “Just a few minutes,” Alec said, fingering the purplish bruise that was beginning to color her left cheekbone, wincing when she winced. “He didn’t hit you very hard.”

  “Oh, really?” she said dryly. Her head felt as if it had been used for a soccer ball.

  “But you’re going to have a shiner,” he added.

  “Piece of raw meat’s the best thing for that,” said the tall cop.

  The cop with the bad toupee shook his head. “Cold bag of cheese curds. Conforms better to the shape of your face.”

  The pair wandered away discussing the relative merits of cheese curds.

  “Kelsie, I feel terrible,” Alec said, looking boyishly contrite.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “That punch was meant for me.” What was she going to think of him now, he wondered. That he was a rude jerk who hated animals and let women take his punches? Obviously he was going to have to postpone asking her out.

  It seemed to Kelsie that who Studs meant to punch was irrelevant now. She was the one with the blackening eye. At any rate, the whole thing had been nothing more than a huge misunderstanding.

  “What happened to Studs?” she asked one of the officers.

  “Some other cops hauled him away. Do you want to press charges?”

  “No,” she said, resting her throbbing head in her hands. “I want to go home.”

  Alec insisted on driving her. He even talked the policemen into following them with Kelsie’s battered Blazer so she wouldn’t have to return for it the next day.

  She huddled against the door on the passenger side of his car, trying to hold her head up on her shoulders, a task that seemed not unlike balancing a bowling ball on a thumbtack.

  “I had no idea those lingerie parties got so wild,” Alec said, piloting his car down the dark, quiet streets of Hopkins toward the suburb of Eden Prairie, where Kelsie lived. “How long have you been selling?”

  “Three years. Since my divorce.” Now, why had she mentioned that, she wondered. Before he could jump on the opportunity to make personal conversation, she rushed on. “They usually don’t get this crazy, but I went to one in Bloomington once that was raided by a church group. It was pretty exciting, because the minister’s wife was modeling a pair of baby doll pajamas when they stormed in.”

  “Divorced three years with two kids to raise. Must be kind of tough.”

  “I manage.” If he wanted the gory details, he was going to have to resort to torture. She wasn’t going to discuss her private life with him even if there were very tempting notes of empathy and sympathy in his voice. She didn’t want to get into any deep conversations with Alec McKnight, conversations about things like why he had driven to Hopkins to deliver something he could have stuck in the mail. In fact, she decided, the less she said the better. If she kept her mouth shut, he couldn’t very well talk her into going out with him—that was assuming he was still interested in her after all that had happened.

  So she didn’t want to talk about her divorce, Alec mused. He could relate to that. Maybe once they knew each other better, they could swap horror stories. If she allowed them to get to know each other better, he added silently.

  “How long have you had Monkey Business going?”

  “Two years.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Very much.”

  “It must be interesting work.”

  “Yes, very.”

  The car rolled to a halt at a red light. In the soft glow of the dashboard lights, Alec turned a slow grin on Kelsie that had her wanting to turn down the car’s heater. “Are you ever going to answer me with more than two words?”

  “Probably not,” she said, fighting a smile in spite of her headache. She stared down at her feet, afraid if she went
on looking at him she would keel over on the seat.

  He kept his smile firmly in place as the car pulled away from the intersection. “Are you going to go out with me tomorrow night?”

  Kelsie’s breath bolted out of her. Her one good eye widened in surprise. “I don’t think so,” she managed to say.

  “That was more than two words,” he pointed out with a chuckle. He wasn’t terribly put out by her rejection. She wasn’t refusing because she wasn’t interested. He knew chemistry when he saw it and felt it. She just needed some coaxing. “I was hoping for ‘I am.’”

  “I can’t.”

  “Close, but no cigar,” Alec said, pulling up in front of her house.

  “It’s nothing personal, Alec,” she explained. “I just don’t have the time to date.”

  They got out of the car as the tall policeman drove up in Kelsie’s Blazer with his partner following behind in the squad car. Still holding one hand to her throbbing head, Kelsie glanced up and down the street, hoping none of her neighbors happened to be looking out their windows. Her menagerie hadn’t exactly endeared her to a couple of them. She hated to think what they’d say if they saw her coming home at midnight with a police escort.

  She and Alec both thanked the officers for being so accommodating.

  “No problem,” Officer Johnson, the taller one, said.

  “You bet,” said Officer Baines, grinning. “It’s kinda nice to have something weird break up a guy’s shift.”

  After the police had driven away, Alec walked Kelsie to the front door.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Kelsie,” he said, huddling into his bomber jacket as they stood under her front porch light. His breath silvered the October night air. “But you seem to have a real knack for being at the center of bizarre situations. I’ve hardly known you for a day, and I’ve been assaulted by a chimpanzee and mistaken for a male stripper.”

  “Those kinds of things don’t usually happen to you?” she asked, straight-faced.