Free Hard Day's Knight by Katie MacAlister Page A

here.”
    “I’m sure your friends won’t mind if I borrow you for a few hours,” Farrell said politely.
    Everyone in the Three Dog Knights camp stood as silent as statues, their eyes flickering between me and Farrell. No one said a word, but I was very much aware of a wall of hostility that had gone up at Farrell’s arrival. He was not one of them, their wary expressions said. He was not welcome there. Despite his bravado, Farrell looked uncomfortable, no doubt aware that his presence had put a damper on things. In a way, I empathized with him—I was a stranger among them, too. But it was the look in Walker’s eyes that left me with a clammy, cold feeling deep in my stomach.
    “By all means, go with him,” Walker said, his beautiful silver eyes positively glacial with scorn. “We wouldn’t want to be accused of forcing you to rough it with us when you could be dining in splendor, courtesy of Farrell’s many sponsors.”
    “It really galls you that so many companies have come forward to sponsor my troupe, doesn’t it? Oh, but I forget, you’ve left such crass commercial concerns behind in your new career as a . . . failure, isn’t it? Tsk,” Farrell said, holding up his hand to stop Walker’s protest before he could speak. “My mistake, the word is farrier, not failure, although the two can be so alike, can’t they?”
    “Do you think you two could have your pissing contest somewhere else? Our dinner is getting cold,” CJ said in a deceptively mild tone of voice. Her eyes were angry, and Butcher stood next to her with a hand on her arm, as if he were holding her back. I thought she was angry at Farrell until her frown hit me. She glared as if I had done something wrong.
    “Hey, I’m innocent here, I didn’t do anything—” I started to tell her.
    “Oh, just go have dinner with him,” she said abruptly, then turned her back to me and poked at the hamburgers grilling on the portable grill, her shoulders twitching angrily.
    I glanced around. Everyone’s faces were closed, polite masks of disinterest. Obviously none of them cared what I did. They probably wouldn’t even blink if I were to drop down dead right at their feet.
    “Fine, if that’s the way you want it . . .” I reached for Moth. Walker stepped backward so I was out of his reach before he plucked Moth from his shoulders and held the cat out to me, his eyes refusing to meet mine. I had a sudden urge to cry at the implied rejection, but I swallowed back the lump of tears as I set Moth on the ground and gave Farrell a watery smile. “Looks like I’m all yours.”
    Goose bumps went up my back at the flow of icy chill that emanated from Walker. Farrell flashed him a triumphant look before waving a graceful hand toward the opposite end of the tent city. “My team’s rigs are this way.”
    “I’ll see you later, Ceej?” I asked over my shoulder as I followed Farrell.
    “I wouldn’t count on that,” she muttered without even turning around to face me.
    The last sight I had of the camp as I left was of Walker’s eyes glittering in the dying sun, his long face as unmoving as if it had been hewn out of rock. The lump of tears tightened my throat painfully until I reminded myself that I wasn’t really interested in Walker, not that way, so his willingness to get me off his hands wasn’t really a rejection.
    It sure felt like one, though.

Chapter Four
    “So what exactly is the story on Walker?” I asked Farrell a short while later. We were seated in an air-conditioned black-and-red RV, one of four RVs, all with California plates and the word Joust! written in fancy gold script along the sides. Farrell had told me that his sponsors paid for the team’s RVs, so they could travel around the country in style and comfort. The sponsorship I didn’t doubt for a moment—not only were the squires and varlets (the ground crew) wearing matching garb with sponsor patches on their arms, but the saddle that was sitting on a chair next to where