Got A Hold On You (Ringside Romance) (18 page)

Jack smiled at the blond-haired kid who wore a Black
Jack T-shirt. “Hi, Bruce.” He shook the boy’s hand but the kid didn’t look up.

“Don’t mind him. He’s shy,” Vic said. “Not like his
gramps.”

“It’s great to see you, Vic. We didn’t know what
happened. You kind of disappeared.”

A twenty-something security guard ran up to them and
cleared his throat. “Sir, we really need to keep the line moving.”

“Cool it, kid. We’ll make sure everyone gets what they
came for. Do you know who this man is?”

The guard shook his head, not the least bit interested
in Vic’s stats.

“Vicious Vic, three-time U.S. Wrestling Champion. His
signature move was the Victory Vice. Want a demonstration?”

The guard’s eyes widened. “Uh, no, thanks.”

“Good, then get out of my face and give me a minute
with my friend.” He turned his attention back to Vic.

“We’d better go,” Vic said to his grandson.

“No, wait. What’s been going on? I thought you were
joining the Navy.”

Something dimmed in Vic’s eyes.

“Wanted to, but the body was shot. Between the bad
knees and ruptured discs, I would have had to bribe the president himself to
pass the physical.”

“Your dad was career Navy. That’s all you talked
about.”

Vic shrugged.
 
“Didn’t work out. But I took over a thriving business and I’ve got the
best grandkids in the world, don’t I, Bruce?”

“Not Dee Dee.”

Vic laughed. “Dee Dee is Bruce’s little sister,” he
explained. “Well, life can’t be perfect, now can it?”

Jack’s gut knotted. No one wanted perfect. They wanted
to live normal, healthy, and happy lives. Instead, too many of them ended up
like Vic, sent out to pasture with their dreams stripped away. Jack was not going
to be one of them.

“God, what a life,” Vic said. “I’ll never forget going
three hundred nights a year, fighting with a broken hand, bruised ribs,
abdominal tears. Those were the days.”

“Yeah.” This was one trip down memory lane Jack didn’t
welcome. Laughing about the pain didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Well, we’d better get going. Thanks for the
autograph.”

“Wait, come here, kiddo.” Jack grabbed Bruce and sat
him on the table. “How about an autograph, right here.” He scrawled his name
across the boy’s shirt.

The kid giggled and his eyes lit up. Vic lifted him
off the table with a grunt and placed him on the ground. It pained Vic to lift
his own grandkid. What the hell was the matter with all of them?

“Take care,” Jack said.

“You too.”

Vic ambled across the stage, his grandson jumping up
and down, pointing to his shirt. The little boy slipped his fingers into his
grampa’s hand and Jack’s heart skipped. Well, at least Vic had that. He might
have forfeited his dream of serving his country but he had a family that loved
him. You couldn’t put a price on that gift.

“Who was that old guy?” Frankie asked.

He whirled on her, catching himself before he
completely blew.

“That ‘old guy’ is in his fifties and is one of the
best wrestlers to ever step into the ring.”

He motioned for the security guard to send up the next
batch of fans. Anger burned through his chest, anger at the ignorant princess
sitting next to him, anger at Vic’s lost dream and broken-down body, anger at
himself for not seeing this business for what it really was before he got
hooked and couldn’t wriggle off the line.

He successfully ignored Frankie for the next hour
except when he’d pass her a photo and his arm brushed against hers. Then the
electrical current zapped him, making him angrier than a bucking bronco.

A vacation would be perfect right about now. It would
help clear his head and get his perspective back. He spied the crowd of fans
stretched twenty stores deep and took a fortifying breath. He and Frankie would
be here for at least another two hours. Sure, the mall manager had scheduled
the signing to end in an hour, but it wasn’t Jack’s policy to walk out on
people who’d waited all day to see him.

A pack of gawky-looking teenage boys approached the
table, led by a tall redhead in a leather jacket with three earrings in his
left ear. He puffed out his chest and jammed his hands into his black jeans
pockets. “The guys think wrestling’s fake.”

“Yeah? I’ll send them my chiropractor bills.” Jack
grinned and signed his name.

“I’m gonna be a wrestler someday.”

“Why’s that?” He passed the photo to Frankie and
glanced at the young man.

“For the babes. I want to be famous so they’ll scream
my name when I walk into a mall.” The kid glanced over his shoulder at the
upper level. A crazed group of teenage girls screamed on cue.

“Seems fun to you, does it? Getting all this
attention?”

“Damn straight. I’m good at banging heads, right?” he
asked his group of hormonally-challenged friends. They grunted in confirmation.

“It’s not just about banging heads,” Jack said.
“You’ve got to be in prime physical condition and know how to execute the
moves.”

“No problem. I took a kick-boxing class and got an A
in advanced tumbling last semester.”

Great, another acrobat.

He wanted to tell the kid to chase another fantasy,
pursue medical school or become a teacher. But he recognized that look, a look
he’d seen so many times in the eyes of admiring fans.

Dreams keep you going. Jack couldn’t squash this boy’s
dream no matter how much he wanted to spare him the pain.

“Good luck, kid,” he said with a nod. Frankie passed
the photograph to the last of the group and they strutted off the stage,
shoulders squared, chins up. Ah, the power of bravado, the beauty of ignorance.

“Unbelievable,” she said.

“What?”

“I can’t believe you encouraged him to become a part
of this…this business.”

Taking a deep, calming breath he counted to ten,
trying not to let her get under his skin. She still didn’t understand. She
probably never would. This woman looked at the world through her own lens and
nothing was going to change her focus. Must be nice to live each day with
everything in order from the number of strokes of your toothbrush to your exact
carbohydrate count. Jack, on the other hand, was lucky if he knew which hotel
he’d be sleeping in from one night to the next.

“There are better careers for those boys than
professional wrestling,” she said.

“Like what?” He took a swig of water.

“Law, accounting, politics.”

He choked and nearly spit water across the remaining
glossies. “Yeah, politics.
 
From
one circus to the next.”

“I’m trying to make a point. We should be directing
our youth into noble professions, not fantasy play.”

She cared about the future of the country. He had to
give her credit for that. He glanced offstage at the rowdy teens that were closing
in on a pack of giggling girls.

“Nothing I said would have changed his mind.” He eyed
her. “Sometimes you have to find things out for yourself.”

Frankie struggled to rip her gaze from his
mesmerizing, dark green eyes, but couldn’t. There was more to his words than
sound and syllable. An incredible feeling of compassion flooded her heart. A
part of her wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, to somehow ease the
melancholy she saw there.

“You gonna sign my finger?” A little boy waved a
three-foot foam “Number One” finger between them.

Jack turned his attention to his fan, and Frankie
blinked, struggling to get her bearings. Okay, so she was attracted to the guy.
That didn’t mean she had to actually empathize with whatever misfortunes he’d
supposedly endured. He didn’t have it so bad. He was a star, admired and loved
by thousands maybe even millions. Surely that made up for whatever tragedies he
thought he’d suffered.

Yet there was something behind his eyes, something in
his voice that struck a chord deep inside her chest.

It was time to find a replacement. She couldn’t take
much more of the grinning and signing or listening to Jack’s words of wisdom,
tender words that made her sympathize with him way too much. Pushing her chair
away from the table, she stood and took a step back. He glanced at her with
question in his eyes.

“Stretching my muscles,” she said.

He nodded and continued to greet fans. How did he do
it? She was exhausted, hungry, and her face hurt. Who would have thought a
simple appearance would be such a laborious chore?

It didn’t seem like a chore to Jack. He willingly
shared generous smiles and insightful words with those who sought them. If she
didn’t know better she’d think him a sage, not a barbarian.

Now she knew she was suffering from low blood sugar.

After what seemed like twelve hours later, he pushed
the last of the photos toward her. She scrawled her mark and summoned a smile.

“That’s it.” He stood and waved to the lingering
crowd.

A security guard parted the curtain and led them down
the hallway. Her stomach growled and she automatically placed her hand on her
belly.

“Hungry?” Jack said.

She shrugged.

“We’ll pick up something on the way home.”

She wanted to ask why wait? Why not stop at a local
greasy spoon? Then she considered his broad shoulders and muscular physique,
massive compared to the average man. They wouldn’t exactly blend in with the
locals even if they changed into street clothes. And she could use a good blend
right about now. Anonymity. No smiling, no nodding, no shaking hands. She
wanted to “be.” To fill a bath tub to the brim and sink down, letting the warm
water massage away her stress…

And confusion.

Confusion? Well, of course she was confused. On a
regular day she’d be sitting at her desk analyzing numbers not clinging to the
arm of a macho wrestler.

They approached the service entrance to the mall and
she sped up her pace, eager to slip into her cotton pants and silk blouse that
hung in the back of the limo. Everything would be fine. She’d change into her
comfortable clothes, they’d swing by a drive through for cheeseburgers and be
home in no time. By seven she’d be soaking in a bubble bath reading
Pride and Prejudice
for the umpteenth
time. Then she’d call Bradley and blow him a goodnight kiss over the phone.

She glided her tongue across her bottom lip
remembering the taste of Jack—spicy, sweet, and so very male.

God, she needed to get home.

They opened the service door to the back parking lot.
The setting sun glowed orange across the few scattered cars. Jack paced to the
curb and she followed. He looked right, then left. She looked right, then left.

 
“What’s
wrong?” she asked.

Ignoring her, he marched back to the mall entrance and
grabbed the door before the guard snapped it shut. “Hang on,” Jack said.
“Where’s the car?”

“What car?”

“Our limousine.”

“I don’t know. I’ll check.” The guard, a short,
middle-aged man with a receding hairline and concerned expression, pulled the
radio off his belt and clicked a button. “Central, this is Cooper. Black Jack’s
limousine isn’t here. Any chance it’s waiting at another entrance?”

A ball of anxiety formed in Frankie’s tummy.

She slipped off her shoes and sat on a metal bench
nearby. More cars pulled out of the lot, and she spotted mall employee locking
up the public entrance across the way. In the back of her mind she heard the
twang of a banjo.

“About that missing limo…” A voice crackled through
the guard’s radio. “Seems Ray and the driver got talking about the Grand Dame
Casino. Ray said the driver’s eyes glazed over and he started breathing heavy.
Next time Ray made his rounds the limo was gone.”

“Great. Just great,” Jack said.

She glanced up at him. “What?”

“We’ll need a hotel room,” he said to the security
guard. “And transportation.”

“A hotel room? Why?” She stood and ambled over to
Jack.

“Our driver won’t be coming back anytime soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“He abandoned a tag team up north last month.
Apparently he’s got a thing for quarter slots.”

“That’s unacceptable.” She started to spin into a
full-blown, I’m-gonna-pass-out panic attack. She hadn’t had one of those since
Kenny Goldman stole her Perfect Patty pencil case in third grade.

“It’s best to go with the flow,” Jack said. “We’ll
stay the night. I’m sure Bernie will show up by morning.”

“No. I’ve got to get home. Right now.” She grabbed the
security guard’s stiff polyester sleeve. “A car rental agency. Surely you have
one or two of those.”

“Sorry, ma’am. The whole town is shut down because of
the festival.”

“How about a cab?”

“Gloria’s off duty. Besides, that would be one helluva
fare.”

“Money’s no object. A tractor! I’ll buy a tractor!”

“Won’t be much help, ma’am. Those only run about
twenty-five miles per hour, tops. You’ll make it home quicker if you wait for
your driver.”

“No, I can’t wait. I have to get home.” The ringing
started in her ears. She was losing control. Her well-planned life was falling
apart in twenty-seven different ways. Dressing as a freaky feline, jumping from
the catwalk, lying to Bradley, and now being stranded in corn country with a
man who tempted her beyond all reason.

I’m in control,
always in control
.

Jack placed his hand on her shoulder. Her insides
simmered like Mount St. Helens on the verge of eruption.

She’d never make it through the night.

“Francine?”

Her breath caught at his gentle tone. She turned to
face him. A slight smile creased his lips.

“It’s okay. We’ll manage.”

“You don’t understand.” She gripped his bare arm, glad
for its rock-solid strength. “I really, really need to get home.”

I really, really
need to get away from you
.