Got A Hold On You (Ringside Romance) (36 page)

Dressed as Tatianna, she sauntered up to Jack, her
breasts spilling over the top of her two-piece costume. All wrong, she was all
wrong.

She wasn’t Frankie.

“Hey, big guy.” She looped her arm through his. “You
ready to make some music?”

She leaned forward to kiss him but he turned his
cheek, avoiding lip-to-lip contact.

“Hey,” she protested.

“When do we go on?” he asked Billings.

“About ten minutes, depending on the heat from the
crowd. They’re really dead tonight. We might have to call this match early.
That’s why I want you to be ready.”

“I’m ready,” Sally purred, running her blood-red, fake
fingernails across Jack’s chest.

Damn, how he missed the feel of Frankie’s well-trimmed
fingers grazing his skin.

“We’re not on yet, sweetheart.” He grabbed her wrist
and removed her hand.

“You’re a real poop, you know that? Here I thought we
could have a little fun, like we did in Tulsa that one time. Remember?” Her
eyes gleamed.

“Nope.” And he didn’t. He’d blocked out anything and
everything that came before Frankie McGee.

“Jerk!” She shoved at his chest and walked away from
him.

Good. Maybe if he aggravated her he’d be safe from
getting mixed up about who he was and what he was doing with Tiger Lady this
time around.

“The crowd is falling asleep. They’re calling the
match,” Billings said, waving Jack over.

He walked up beside a pouting Sally.

“Ready?” He took her arm. She wouldn’t look at him.

The music started and he led Sally down the aisle. The
same fans who seemed nearly comatose a second ago screamed, shouted, and waved
signs professing their allegiance to Jack and Tatianna.

But this wasn’t Tatianna. The real Tatianna was curled
up on a couch back in Boston with her accountant fiancé, her perfect man,
living her perfect life.

He waved his Stetson at the crowd and forced a smile.
Time would fix things. A few weeks from now he wouldn’t even remember the
fascinating color of Frankie’s eyes or the scent of her body wash.

Except every time he saw a rainbow or spied
wildflowers blooming in a garden.

He sucked in a quick breath of air. This would pass.
It had to.

As directed, he led Sally to the metal stairs but she
didn’t let go of his hand.

“Kiss me. We
are
man and wife,” she challenged.

He complied, hating the feel of her lips and the pinch
of those fingernails as they dug into his shoulder muscles.

The crowd roared; his temper flared.

He gripped her arms and broke the kiss. “Enough,” he
growled, pushing her away.

Grinning, she acted as if she’d won this round. He was
sick of games, manipulation…the whole damn thing.

She climbed the stairs and stepped into the ring.
 
With a flip of her feathers and a
wiggle of her behind, she had the men in the audience practically drooling.
Couldn’t they see this wasn’t the real Tatianna? Didn’t they miss the wobbly
hitch in her step or the awkward but determined snap of her whip? Sally didn’t
even reach for the piece of leather tied to a belt around her waist.

Prince Priceless cracked his fake smile to welcome
Jack to the announcer’s table. The Prince would get in bed with the devil
himself if he thought it would earn him a chance at fame.

“Welcome, Black Jack. What a night we’ve got in store
for the fans!”

Jack put on the headset. “Thanks, Prince.”

“So, any predictions about this match? Have you been
giving Tatianna some personal pointers?” He raised his eyebrows. Twice.

Jack glared at him.

“Come on, Black Jack. The fans want to know how it’s
going at the Hudson Homestead, especially in the bedroom.”

“Fine and dandy, thanks very much.” He directed his
attention to Sally’s opponent, Luscious Leeza. How the hell did they get Sally
to agree to this match? She was outsized by at least six inches and who knew
how many pounds of muscle mass. When Sally had left WHAK she said she’d never
fight again.

“And here’s the delectable, Luscious Leeza. Boy, she
looks like she’s grown since the last time we saw her in the ring, wouldn’t you
say, Black Jack?”

“I’d have to agree with you there, Prince.”

“You would? You’re actually agreeing with me about
something?”

“Don’t push it,” he threatened. One thing he didn’t
have patience for tonight was wisecracks from this moron.

Leeza climbed into the ring and the two women squared
off. Prince rambled about Leeza’s stats as former WHAK Women’s Champion and
Bubble Gum-Blowing Queen for the state of Kentucky. Jack threw in a word here
and there, a grunt when necessary, hardly seeing the drama unfold before him.

This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t be here so soon
after suffering from a broken heart. Hell, everything reminded him of Frankie.
Every time the mat bounced he remembered her falling backwards or stumbling
into his chest. When one of the women threw a punch Jack remembered her squeak
of horror when she thought she’d really hurt Marco during practice.

Nothing would ever be the same again. This whole place
reeked of Frankie, of the woman he loved so much he had to let her go. He
signed on for another two years, but it might as well be a life sentence.

“Can you believe it?” Prince cried, tugging on Jack’s
coat. “How do you explain it, Black Jack? How can you have two wives?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t that a second Tatianna in the ring? I think one
of them should be disqualified, but which one?”

Jack’s gaze shot to the ring where two women dressed
like Tatianna faced off. Leeza had mysteriously left.

“This is incredible, the most amazing thing that’s
ever happened in WHAK, folks. Two Tatiannas! Maybe they’re twins. Are they
twins, Jack? Or did you clone them?”

Jack couldn’t speak. Gripping the table, he struggled
to make sense of what he was seeing. He could hardly hear himself think over
the crowd’s frenzied roars. Billings hadn’t said anything about Frankie being
replaced by two Tatiannas unless one of them…

Was Frankie.

It only took a few seconds studying the second
Tatianna for Jack to know in his heart that the second woman wasn’t an actress
or a twin. It was the woman he loved. Francine McGee.

“What the…?” he muttered. How could this be? Her
fiancé would break off their engagement for sure, essentially ruining her
chance at the perfect life.

Before Jack realized he’d even stood, he was over the
announcer’s table and climbing the steps to the ring. The crowd went nuts. Out
of the corner of his eye he spied security form a thick wall to prevent fans
from jumping the guardrails.

Then they were all gone: the sounds, the sights,
everything around him disappeared into a mass of nothingness.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who stood in
the center of the squared circle with a whip in one hand and a leather strap in
the other.

A security guard handed Sally a folding chair, which
she set up in the center of the ring. That was a first, actually using a
folding chair to sit on rather than whack somebody with.

Jack climbed through the second and top ropes and eyed
the women. Frankie crooked her finger, beckoning him to come closer. Did he
dare? How much more could he take?

He knew if he got anywhere near her he’d pull her into
his arms and never let go. His heart skipped at the color of her eyes,
iridescent, tinged with the sparkle of desire.

Please God,
don’t let me be wrong about what I see in her eyes
.

Someone grabbed his wrist. He started to pull away but
heard Sally’s voice. “You’re gonna have to trust us, Jack. We’ve got it all
worked out.”

He froze, studying Frankie’s eyes. This was part of a
new angle?

He wanted out of the ring more than he’d ever wanted
anything in his life. Everyone had to read the pain on his face, the
heartbreak. Why didn’t she leave him alone to suffer with dignity?

Sally led Jack to the chair and bound his arms behind
his back. He gritted his teeth. He hadn’t thought he could hurt any more, not
after letting Frankie go.

Microphone in hand, Sally pranced to the ropes and
addressed the crowd. “This woman claims to be the real Tatianna! But we all
know that’s not true, right?”

The crowd cheered.

“So, I say…let’s fight for him!” She tossed the mic to
the mat and they went at it, Frankie charging Sally with Max’s winning move,
the Ground Hog Grunt.

He couldn’t stand sitting there, being the prize they
fought over yet neither of them wanted. That wasn’t completely true. He knew Sally
wouldn’t turn down a night of crazed sex if offered.

But he wouldn’t be offering it to Sally or any other
woman. There was only one woman he belonged with, wrapped skin to skin beneath
the sheets.

Suddenly it all became clear. Sure, he could retire and
travel, paint, even move to his cabin in the mountains. But what would it all
mean without the woman he loved sharing his life?

Even when his sentence was up with WHAK, he’d start
another eternal sentence in hell, without love, without Frankie.

Glaring straight ahead, he wanted the match to end.
His gaze drifted to a group of men in the front row. He recognized one of them,
but couldn’t place him. The man stared at Jack with a strange expression on his
face. Resignation?

Jack’s chair bounced as Frankie went down to the mat
and Sally applied a sleeper hold. Frankie went limp. Good, she’d be counted out
and that would be the end of her career as a wrestling diva. So that’s what
this was about? Closure?

The referee raised her limp arm once, twice, three
times and declared Sally the winner. Sally pranced to the corner, straddled the
ropes and waved at the crowd.
 
They
cheered, until Sally took the mask off.

The cheers turned to boos and hisses. They knew Sally
wasn’t the real Tatianna because they’d seen the clip of Frankie being
unmasked.

Out of the corner of his eye he spied Frankie jump to
her feet and charge Sally from behind, sending the fake Tatianna through the
ropes. Frankie raised her hands in victory. The crowd cheered, threw peanuts,
popcorn and Doodles Candy.

Then Frankie did something that shocked him: she
ripped off her mask and tossed it to the man in the front row.

Her fiancé, Bradley, aka Nipper. Jack remembered him
from the picture she carried in her wallet. But Bradley had forbidden her to
step into the ring and told her to cut all ties with her uncle or else. Did
that mean the engagement was off?

She gripped the microphone between her gloved hands.
“That Tatianna might have won the match, but I won the man.”

The crowd let loose an eardrum-shattering cry, which
grew into rhythmic chants of “Black Jack Attack.”

With a coy smile and sparkling eyes, she sauntered
across the ring and straddled his lap. “Looks like you’re mine, Black Jack.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve been yours since that first night
you knocked me out.”

“No kidding?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you didn’t want me, didn’t…love me.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“Which only happens when I’m with you.”

She kissed him, casting away all his pain, all his
angst. This was where he belonged, connected to this woman. Forever.

Frankie untied his wrists and he stood, taking her in
his arms.

“Francine, I—”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Prince Priceless called over
the public-address system. “I’d like to introduce the owner of Wrestling Heroes
and Kings, Joe Sullivan, along with former Women’s Champ, Maxine the
Miraculous.”

“What’s going on?” Jack muttered, holding Frankie
close. He wasn’t letting her go this time. Not for anything.

Sully approached the ring with Max hanging on his arm.
The pair climbed through the second and top ropes and waved at the crowd. Sully
swiped the microphone and motioned for the crowd to settle down. Jack had never
seen the man so calm, so...normal.

“Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls,” Sully began.
“It’s been a wonderful show tonight in Chicago. Let’s hear it for Black Jack
Hudson and Tatianna the Tigress!”

The fans roared.

Sully shook Jack’s hand and something scratched his
palm. He glanced down at his bonus check.

“What’s this?”

Sully grinned.

“Even though I’m sticking around for another two years?”
Jack asked.

With a hysterical giggle, Sully handed the mic to
Maxine, pulled the contract out of his suit pocket and ripped it into tiny
pieces. “You can hang up your boots, son. Although I wouldn’t mind you doing
some guest commentary now and then.”

“What about the mob?”

“A misunderstanding. There’s no mob,” Sully said.

“Wait a second, you’re letting me go?”

“With the exception of a few promo appearances now and
then.”

“Uncle Joe,” Frankie said with warning in her voice.

“It won’t hurt to do a few a year,” Sully argued.

Jack glanced at Frankie. “You did this, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I asked him for your freedom.”

Jack didn’t want to be free from Frankie. “Frankie,
I—”

“I love you, Jack.”

“But your fiancé, your perfect life—you…love
me?” His chest tightened.

“With all my heart.”

“I’m not a planner. I’m not what you need.”

“You’re exactly what I need. It’s time to trust my
heart. I’ve got some money saved up and with your bonus check we should be fine
for a while, I mean, if you still want to travel.”

“We’ll be more than fine.” He’d received good news a
few days ago but had had no one to share it with. “Butch says the fitness
centers are finally showing a profit. A healthy profit.”

She smiled. “You fall right into success, don’t you,
Black Jack Hudson?”

“I’d rather fall into bed with my favorite feline.”