Kiss an Angel (4 page)

"Are you a rancher?"

"Do I look like a rancher?"

"Right now you sound like a psychiatrist. You answered a question with a question."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. I never visited one."

"Of course not. You're obviously much too well-adjusted." She'd meant the remark to be sarcastic, but she didn't do sarcasm well, and it seemed to go right past him.

She gazed out the window at the hypnotically flat stretch of highway. Off to her right, she saw a dilapidated house with a scraggly tree in the front yard holding a collection of bird feeders made from gourds. The hot air blew over her.

She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was inhaling. Until today, she hadn't realized how addicted she was to nicotine. As soon as things settled down, she'd have to quit. She'd be in a new

setting, and she'd make some rules for herself. For example, she wouldn't ever smoke in the ranch

house. If she wanted a cigarette, she'd slip out onto the veranda or lie on a chaise next to the pool.

As she drifted into sleep, she once again found herself praying.
Please, God, let
there be a veranda. Let there be a pool. . . .

Sometime later, the jolting of the truck awakened her. She jerked upright, opened her eyes, and gave a choked gasp.

"Something wrong?"

"Tell me that's not what I think it is." Her finger shook as she pointed toward the moving object on the other side of the dusty windshield.

"It's pretty hard to confuse an elephant with anything else."

It was an elephant. A real, live elephant. The beast picked up a clump of hay in its trunk and tossed it

on its back. As she gazed into the glare of the late afternoon sun, she prayed that she was still asleep

and this was only a bad dream. "We're stopping here because you want to take me to the circus, right?"

' 'Not exactly.''

"You want to go to the circus yourself?"

"No."

Her mouth was so dry it was difficult forming the words. "I know you don't like me, Mr. Markov, but please don't say you work here."

"I'm the manager."

"You manage a circus," she repeated faintly.

"That's right."

Stunned, she sagged back in the seat, but even her naturally optimistic nature couldn't find a silver lining in this dark cloud.

The sun-parched vacant lot held a red-and-blue striped big top, several smaller tents, and a variety of trucks and trailers. The largest one was painted with red and blue stars, along with the bright red legend QUEST BROTHERS CIRCUS, OWEN QUEST, OWNER. In addition to a number of shackled elephants, she saw a llama, a camel, some large animal cages, and all kinds of disreputable people, including some dirty-looking men, most of whom seemed to be missing their front teeth.

Her father had always been a snob. He loved ancient lineages and royal titles.

He boasted of his own descent from one of czarist Russia's great aristocratic families. The fact that he'd given his only daughter to a man who worked for a circus was the clearest message he could have sent of his feelings for her.

"It's not exactly Ringling Brothers."

"I see that," she replied weakly.

"Quest Brothers is what's known as a mud show."

"Why is that?"

His response sounded faintly diabolical. "You'll find out soon enough."

He parked the truck in a row with several others, turned off the ignition, and got out. By the time she'd climbed down, he'd taken both their bags out of the back and set off with them.

She tottered awkwardly after him over the uneven ground, her high heels sinking into the sand. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

Her knee poked through a widening hole in her shredded nylons, the singed gold satin jacket slipped off one shoulder, and her shoe sank into something ominously soft. With a sinking heart, she looked down, only to see that she'd stepped in exactly what she'd feared.

"Mr. Markov!"

Her shriek bore an edge of hysteria, but he didn't seem to hear. Instead, he kept walking toward a row of house trailers and motor homes. She wiped the sole of her shoe in the sandy soil, filling it with grit in the process. With a strangled exclamation, she set off again.

He approached two vehicles that sat close together. The nearest one was a sleekly modern silver motor home that had a satellite dish on top. Next to it rested a battered and rust-streaked trailer that might have been green in a past life.

Let him be going to the motor home instead of that horrible trailer. Let him
be—

He stopped at the ugly green trailer, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

She groaned, then realized she was so numb to shock she wasn't even surprised.

He reappeared in the doorway a moment later and watched her wobbly approach. When she reached the bottom of the bent metal step, he gave her a cynical smile. "Home sweet home, angel face. Do you want me to carry you over the threshold?"

Despite his sarcasm, she chose that particular moment to remember that she'd never been carried over a threshold, and regardless of the circumstances, this was her wedding day.

Maybe a small bow to sentiment would help both of them salvage something positive from this terrible experience.

"Yes, please."

"You're kidding."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I don't want to."

She tried to swallow her disappointment. "All right, then."

"It's a damned trailer!"

"So I see."

"I don't even think trailers have thresholds."

' 'If something has a door, it has a threshold. Even an igloo has a threshold."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that they were beginning to draw a crowd.

Alex noticed, too. "Just get in here, all right."

"You're the one who offered."

"I was being sarcastic."

"I've noticed you're that way a lot. In case no one has ever pointed it out, it's an annoying habit."

"Get inside, Daisy."

Somehow a line had been drawn, and what had begun impulsively had turned into a battle of wills. She stood at the bottom of the step, her knees shaking with dread, but still trying to hold her ground. "I'd appreciate it if you'd at least honor this one tradition."

"For chrissake." He jumped down, scooped her up, and carried her inside, kicking the door behind him. As it shut, he dumped her onto her feet.

Before she could make up her mind whether she'd won or lost that particular skirmish, she became

aware of her surroundings and forgot everything else. "Oh, dear."

"You're going to hurt my feelings if you tell me you don't like it."

"It's awful."

The inside was even worse than the outside. Cramped and cluttered, it smelled of mildew, old age, and stale food. A miniature kitchen sat just in front of her, its blue Formica top faded and chipped. Dirty dishes had been piled in the tiny sink, and a crusty pan sat on top of a stove, just above an oven door held shut by a piece of twine. The threadbare carpet had once been gold but now held so many ancient stains its color could only be described in terms of body functions. To the right of the kitchen, the faded plaid upholstery of a small couch was barely visible beneath stacks of books, newspapers, and remnants of male clothing. She saw a chipped refrigerator, cupboards with peeling laminate, and one unmade bed.

She whirled around looking for another. "Where are the rest of the beds?'

He regarded her evenly, then stepped around the bags he'd dropped in the center of the floor. "This is a trailer, angel face, not a suite at the Ritz. What you see is what you get."

"But—" She clamped her mouth shut. Her throat felt dry and her stomach quivered.

The bed took up most of one end of the trailer, separated from the rest only by a sagging length of wire holding a faded brown curtain that was pushed back against the wall. The bedsheets tangled with a few items of clothing, a bath towel, and something that appeared from a distance to be a heavy black belt.

"The mattress is nice and comfortable," he said.

"I'm sure the couch will be fine for me."

"Whatever."

She heard a series of metallic clinks and turned to see him unloading his pockets on the cluttered kitchen counter: change, truck keys, wallet.' 'I was living in another trailer until a week ago, but it was too small for two people, so I arranged for this one. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to call my interior decorator." He jerked his head. "Donnicker's in there. It's the only thing I've had time to clean up. You can try to fit your stuff into that storage closet behind you. Spec starts in an hour; stay away from the elephants."

Donnicker? Spec?

"I really don't think I can live like this," she said. "It's filthy."

"You're right about that. I guess it needs a woman's touch. There's some cleaning stuff under the sink."

He moved past her to get to the door, then paused. The next thing she knew, he had crossed back to the counter and repocketed his wallet.

She was deeply offended. "I'm not a thief."

"Of course you're not. And let's just keep it that way." His chest brushed her arm as he turned sideways to slip past her to the door. "Today we have shows at five and eight. Be at both of them."

"Stop it right now! I can't stay in this awful place, and I'm not cleaning up your filth!"

He glanced absently down at the toe of his boot, then back up at her. She gazed into those pale golden eyes and felt a quiver of dread, along with a sensation of heightened awareness that she was afraid to examine too closely.

He slowly lifted his hand, and she flinched as he clasped it gently around her throat. She felt the light abrasion of his thumb as he began rubbing the hollow just beneath her ear in something that felt very much like a caress. "Listen to me, angel face," he said softly. "We can do this easy, or we can do it rough. Either way, I'm going to win. You decide how it'll be."

Their gazes locked. In a moment that lasted forever, he wordlessly demanded that she submit to him. His eyes seemed to burn through her, dissolving her clothes, her skin, until she felt naked and open, with all her weaknesses exposed. She wanted to run away and hide, but the force of his will held her in place.

His hand moved across her throat, then brushed the boxy satin jacket down on her arms. It fell to the floor with a whisper. He touched the lacy gold strap of the dress beneath and slipped it over her shoulder. She wore no bra—the dress wouldn't allow it—and her heart began to pound.

With the tip of his finger, he drew the lace down on her breast until it caught on her nipple. Then he bent his head and put his teeth to the soft flesh he had exposed.

Her breath caught as she felt the nip. It should have been painful, but her nerve endings registered the small bite as pleasure. She felt the brash of his hand in her hair, and then he turned away, having left his mark on her, just like a wild animal. That was when she knew what his eyes had reminded her of. A creature of prey.

The trailer door swung on its hinges. He stepped outside and gazed back at her, dropping the white gardenia he had stolen from her hair.

It burst into flames.

3

Daisy slammed the door against the burning flower and pressed her fingers to her breast. What kind of man had the power of fire under his command?

As her heart thudded under her hand, she reminded herself that this was a circus, a place of illusion. He must have picked up a few magic tricks over the years, and she wasn't going to let her imagination run wild.

She touched the small red mark on the curve of her breast, and her nipple beaded in response. Gazing at the unmade bed, she sank down on one of the chairs by the trailer's built-in kitchen table and tried to absorb the irony of what had happened.

My daughter is saving herself for marriage
. Lani used to toss out the statement as dinner conversation to amuse her friends while Daisy swallowed her embarrassment and pretended to laugh right along with the rest of them. Lani had finally stopped her public announcements when Daisy had turned twenty-three for fear her friends would think she'd raised a freak.

Now that she had reached the age of twenty-six, Daisy knew she was a throwback to the Victorians, and she also understood enough about human psychology to realize that her resistance to premarital sex had its roots in rebellion. From the time she was a small child, she'd watched the revolving door on her mother's bedroom and known she could never be like that. She craved respectability. Once, she'd even thought she'd found it.

His name was Noel Black, and he was a forty-year-old executive in a British publishing firm who she'd met at a house party in Scotland. He was everything she admired in a man: stable, intelligent, well-educated. It hadn't taken her long to fall in love with him.

She'd always been a woman who'd craved touch, and Noel's kisses and expert caresses had inflamed her to the point where she'd nearly lost her mind. Even so she hadn't been able to set aside her deeply entrenched principles and go to bed with him. Her refusal initially irritated him, but gradually he'd grown to understand how strongly she felt about it, and he'd proposed marriage. She'd eagerly accepted and floated through the days until the ceremony could take place.

Lani had pretended to be overjoyed, but Daisy should have known that her mother was terrified of being alone, to the point of desperation. It hadn't taken Lani long to embark on a carefully calculated plan to seduce Noel Black.

To Noel's credit, he'd managed to resist for nearly a month, but Lani always got her man, and in the end, she'd gotten him.

"I did it for you, Daisy," she'd said when it was over, and a heartbroken Daisy had discovered the truth. "I had to make you see what a hypocrite he is. My God, you'd have been miserable if you'd married him."

They had quarreled bitterly, and Daisy had packed up her possessions to leave.

Lani's suicide attempt

had put a stop to that.

Now she pulled the lacy strap of her wedding dress up over her shoulder and sighed. It was a deep and hurtful sound, the sort of sigh that came from the bottom of her soul because she'd lost the words to express her feelings.