Stranger in Camelot Read Free Page B

Or to find out why his diary and prayer book had never been returned to his native England?
    She sank her fingers into the hair on the unbruised side of her head and tugged in self-rebuke. She had to stop thinking this way.
    John’s pullover, which she now wore, carried a trace of his cologne, and every time she inhaled she felt as if he still had his arms around her. Her damp shorts were clammy on her stomach, and her sockless feet felt cold. But that wasn’t why she shivered.
    John’s question had been harmless, she repeated doggedly. No one knew about her books. She hadn’t even known about them until two months ago, when she’d opened the bank deposit box left to her in her grandfather’s will.
    “Agnes? May I come in?”
    She turned her head sharply toward John’s deep, melodic voice. He looked at her politely from one corner of the cubicle where he’d pulled the curtains aside and draped them dramatically over his shoulder.
    Aggie caught her breath. The director of the St. Augustine Theatrical Society would kill to have this man and his dulcet voice in the summer production of Macbeth . John Bartholomew as Macbeth. Hmmm. No, Hamlet. A lusty-looking Hamlet with shoulders wide enough to carry Denmark.
    “Agnes?” he said again, studying her closely.
    “It’s Aggie.”
    “Do you mind if I call you Agnes? It’s such a lovely name.”
    “Call me Agnes if you want to, but nobody else does.”
    “Good. I love being different. Bloody arrogant English pride, you know.” He smiled widely. “Fair Agnes, may I enter?”
    But he was already halfway inside the cubicle. She wondered which dominated—the polite John or the John who had taken action first then asked permission. “You’re in,” she replied.
    He let the curtains fall behind him and stepped close to the gurney. He looked rugged and indelicate against the curtain’s pristine background. Someone had givenhim a wrinkled white orderly’s top to wear. Its elbow-length sleeves displayed muscular forearms where sinews and veins struggled artfully under the bondage of skin and hair. His khaki trousers had dried stiff and tight to his straight hips and long legs. Might as well be looking at the bottom half of a nude statue after it had been covered in papier-mâché, Aggie thought. She reluctantly dragged her gaze up to his face.
    He smiled at her. His smile was so kind it only heightened the primitive, sensual thrust of his lips. Then he sat down on the side of the gurney, drawing one knee up. “The doctor tells me your head’s not cracked a bit. She suspects your fainting was brought on by a combination of the injury plus physical exhaustion. She said something about you working three jobs. She seems to know a great deal about you.”
    “We’re acquainted. I sold her a quarter-horse colt last spring.”
    “Do you really work three jobs?”
    “Yeah. I write a few articles for one of the local newspapers, and four nights a week I tend bar at one of the tourist pubs over in St. Augustine. No big deal.”
    “Why so many jobs?”
    “Need the green stuff. Moolah. Bucks. Dough. Cold hard cash.”
    “You Americans have the most inventive words for simple things. I like your imagination.”
    “I like to imagine that I have some. Money, that is. I operate my quarter-horse business on a very slender budget. In fact, I’d say that it’s so slender, it’s anorexic.”
    “Don’t you have any help?”
    “Nope.”
    A little subdued, Aggie pushed herself upright, trying desperately to ignore the pressure of John Bartholomew’s long, muscular thigh against her hip. He smelled of rain, horsehair, and a smoky masculine scent that made her think about kissing his neck.
    “Remind me to have my head examined regularly,” she muttered under her breath.
    “I beg your pardon? I didn’t catch that.”
    “Never mind. I mutter to myself in public. It’s a job hazard of the one-woman ranching business. I spend a lot of time talking to horses.”
    “Would you