Florida Knight Read Online Free PDF Page A

help you,” she hissed, hoping he hadn’t heard the slight hitch in her voice. Legally, she didn’t have to cooperate. Morally, she was on shaky ground if she didn’t. Professionally, she could be in serious trouble.
    Michael thought of his brother the last time he’d seen him. Mark , the dashing Black Knight , struggling to master transfers from bed to wheelchair, Mark attempting to learn to read, stumbling through a few terse sentences of conversation. No way was Michael going to lose this contact with LALOC. And to hell with politically correct.
    Kate’s knees buckled. She found herself back in her office chair. The frighteningly powerful hands which had put her there came to rest on the table behind her, pinning her in place. The lines of hard living scoring the FHP officer’s harsh face loomed scant inches above her. The depths of his dark eyes were bottomless. Kate fought the sensation of falling, falling, losing control . . .
    No! This was not a road she was willing to travel. She controlled her life. There wasn’t room for anyone else. And no man—no matter how intimidating—was going to get so much as his big toe in the door.
    Then again, there was something called her job, her obligation to Barbara Falk who tolerated Kate’s unusual hours, her even stranger avocations. Barbara Falk, who was also her friend. Not to mention the wandering Black Knight she had run into enough times to know where all the charm in the Turco family had gone.
    Michael’s growl penetrated Kate’s distress. “Now listen very carefully,” he instructed. “I know you don’t have a boyfriend, Barbara Falk told me so. Therefore, you are about to acquire one. Me.” Ignoring Kate’s outraged protest, Michael stormed ahead, a jet liner on a take-off run. “You are going to take me to every damned Event you go to and you’re going to tell everyone I’m exactly who and what I say I am. Do. You. Understand?”
    “Yes. But I won’t do it.”
    Michael closed his eyes, took a deep breath. He’d blown it. He’d done exactly what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do. He’d lost his temper and blown his one chance to penetrate LALOC. He couldn’t just show up at the damned events on his own. Everything about him screamed cop . Without this woman to vouch for him, he was sunk.
    “And, besides,” Kate muttered, her strong chin tilted defiantly in his direction, “no one would ever believe it.”
    Was that a blink? Didn’t this stubborn female understand she’d just won? They were in a stand-off, eyeball to eyeball, yet something about the way she’d added that last remark . . .
    Okay, two could play that game. Michael straightened up, stepped back. Not quite knowing what to do with the hands that still threatened to slip around her neck of their own accord, he assumed the position of Parade Rest, feet spread, arms akimbo behind his back. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “During my six years in LALOC I’ve spent a lot of time convincing a remarkable number of people I wasn’t interested in sharing their beds. Absolutely no one is going to believe I’ve changed my attitude.”
    Impossible! There she sat, looking like a Viking goddess, wisps of blond hair escaping from her fancy braid, framing her face in a halo of silver-gold. Her nose was as strong as her chin, but her features were so well put together Michael had no trouble picturing her as a Valkyrie sent to bear mere mortal men to a very special kind of Valhalla, preferably one here on earth. Then again, what a way to go! The male members of LALOC probably fought harder for her favor than they did to become knights. One look at her, and lust was rampant . . .
    Kate enjoyed the thoughts flitting across her adversary’s face. Michael Turco wasn’t a man who gave much away, but somehow she knew what he was thinking this time. She even caught the moment the Awful Thought occurred to him. His inky pupils almost seemed to roll back in his