Florida Knight Read Online Free PDF Page B

at her tiny dining table and buried her face in her hands. Viagra , she scoffed, steaming as the first wisps of cool air began to filter into the room which served as living room, dining room and kitchen. If ever there was a man who had no need for Viagra, it was Lieutenant Michael Turco. He was a menace. A feminist’s Awful Example of macho male virility ready to bulldoze anybody and everybody into doing exactly what he wanted. Particularly female bodies. Kate flipped her French braid to the front, ripped off the ribbon, and began to chew on the rubber band beneath. Damn him, damn him, damn him! How dare he do this to her?
    Kate’s teeth clamped tight around a mouthful of blond hair and elastic. A vision—a highly unwanted vision—of Michael Turco as a rookie FHP trooper bloomed before her. Young, probably eager, without the harsh lines that now marked his face. Snappy gray uniform, black boots, one of those wide flat-brimmed campaign hats. Gun on his hip, spring in his step. The ultimate image of a Bad Boy, the kind women loved. Dear Lord, he must have had females chasing him down the highway. Or else . . . they drove ninety miles per, figuring it was worth the fine to get a ticket from Michael Turco.
    Kate’s vision was photo clear. Trooper Turco flashing the lights of his black and tan, stopping behind her on the grassy verge of I-75. That craggy face—which must have exuded strong character even way back then—bending down to her window, asking for her license and registration, disappearing back into his vehicle to run Kate Knight through the system. Finding . . . what? How detailed were those files? Would they say Kate Knight hadn’t existed until seven years ago?
    Her bubble burst. Dreams were stupid, stupid, stupid! That’s why she’d turned her back on them.
    I’ll be in touch , he’d said as he went out the door. Touch. Touch was what terrified her. The man didn’t know what he was asking. They would be living together for a weekend. Several weekends . . . in close quarters. If the hands he’d placed on her shoulders had seared her soul, what would happen when the two of them were confined in the intimate space of . . .
    “Kate, hey, Kate, guess what?” Mona Ellis, Kate’s next-door neighbor, swung open the door, bounded down the hallway. “I got a promotion and a raise! Yee-aw-aw!” Mona pumped her arm in triumph while filling Kate’s single-wide with her personal version of the Rebel Yell. “Assistant Manager,” she crowed. “Would you believe?” Mona’s exuberance dimmed a bit. “Not that I get paid much more, but it sounds good, y’ know.”
    “You get to work twice as hard for a dollar more an hour?” Kate suggested wryly.
    “Yeah, something like that.” Though Mona’s figure was slight, Kate’s old couch sagged as she plopped down onto its faded flower-print cushions. The smile on Mona’s cherubic face sagged as well. Her short brown curls seemed to have deflated with her spirits, clinging limply to her cheeks in the still stiflingly hot room.
    “I’m sorry,” Kate said. “It’s just that you’re so good at your job, but you barely make enough to get by.”
    “This’ll be the most I’ve ever made.”
    “Right.” Her cynical tone echoed hollowly in Kate’s ears. If only she could take back the way she’d reacted to Mona’s grand announcement. All too often, that’s how their conversations went. Mona bubbled, Kate tossed on the ice water. She wondered why Mona stuck with her. Maybe it was simply propinquity. The inevitable bonding of two women, approximately the same age, living in aging mobile homes on tiny plots of land in a neighborhood real estate agents avoided like the plague.
    Okay, Kate conceded as Mona burbled on about her new responsibilities, she’d become what used to be called a sour old maid. What was the twenty-first century version of that condition? Kate wondered. Independent single? Single professional female? Oops! Not quite. That expression