Perilous Pleasures (6 page)

Stefan shrugged. "That's why Tony's there."

"
Tony almost waited too long to shoot
!" Joanna cried, her voice shrill. She wanted Stefan's reassurance that this would never happen again.

Instead, he touched his hand to her face, making her feel vulnerable, and said, "I'll be ready for Shani next time." He glanced at Walter. "Meanwhile, I'd better do something about my battle wounds so Walter will stop hounding me." He rested his weight on his injured leg and grimaced.

Joanna backed away, nails curling into her palms. Only a fool would care for a man who had such a casual disregard for his life. She might be attracted to Stefan, but that's where it would end. Somehow she'd have to remember that the next time he tried to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

***

After the doctor finished tending Stefan's wounds and left, Joanna crossed the passageway to see how he was faring. She found him sitting with his leg propped on a foot stool, looking with annoyance at the bandage that covered the stitches on his calf. He bent his arm several times to keep it from becoming stiff. Joanna eyed the bowl of peroxide and the stack of unused gauze compresses sitting beside it. "You're supposed to soak your arm," she said. "I heard the doctor tell you that when he was leaving."

Stefan let out a grunt of disgust. "My arm is fine. Just a little stiff."

"It's red and swollen and it could get infected." Joanna moistened a gauze compress with peroxide, stretched out Stefan's arm, and placed the pad over the puncture wounds.

Ignoring the compress, Stefan curved his arm around Joanna's waist and pulled her onto his lap. "This is what I need," he said, dumping the compress onto the floor, "A beautiful woman sitting right here." He threaded his fingers into Joanna's hair. Their lips met with a hunger Joanna had not anticipated. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, savoring the feel of his lips on hers, the musky taste of him on her tongue. He held her tighter, until her breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest, and she could feel his heartbeat, strong and silent. A low moan escaped her throat...

Followed by the sound of voices coming from the direction of the open door...

 
"Walter told me you had trouble with—" Helen Janacek swept through the doorway and stopped short. Kitta bumped into her, then peered over her mother's shoulder. "I'm sorry," Helen said, looking from Joanna to Stefan. "I didn't know you had company."

Kitta moved to stand beside her mother, arms folded, eyes fixed on Joanna.

Joanna pushed out of Stefan's arms, awkwardly climbed off his lap, and smoothed a hand over her disheveled hair. "We were just—"

 
"Discussing what happened," Stefan cut in. "I take it Walter told you."

Helen blinked several times, eyes darting between Joanna and Stefan, and said to Stefan, "Walter said Shani turned on you and that you'd been injured. How bad is it?"

"Minor. All I need is a little—" Stefan winked at Joanna "—tender love and care."

Joanna picked up the compress that had fallen on the floor and disposed of it. "What you need is to soak your arm," she said, mortified at what Stefan's mother must be thinking, finding a woman sitting on her son's lap, arms wrapped around his neck, kissing him like there was no tomorrow. Someone he'd only just met. As she turned to moisten another compress, she glanced at Kitta, whose disapproval was palpable.

Helen looked at Stefan. "Certainly you don't plan to go on tomorrow?"

"I can't very well back out," he said. "After all, I am—" his eyes flashed with amusement "—king of the gypsies."

"King of the gypsies be hanged," Helen said. "Let Tony fill in for you."

"Tony hasn't handled Rafat. I've gone on with a lot worse injuries than these."

Joanna stopped what she was doing and stared at him. "You say that like it's common practice to be mauled," she said, hoping no one detected the quaver in her voice. "How often does this kind of thing happen?"

Stefan shrugged. "Not often. You've probably seen the last of it."

Joanna met Helen's gaze and caught the dark look on her face, but she couldn't read the meaning behind it. If it was disapproval, it wasn't open like Kitta's. She squeezed out the compress and went to place it on Stefan's arm.

"You don't need to do that," Kitta said, her voice brittle. "I always help Stefan." She took the compress from Joanna and stepped between Joanna and Stefan.

Joanna glared at Kitta's back, lips tightening with suppressed anger. Moving around Kitta, she said to Stefan, "Now that you're in good hands, I'll just be on my way."

Stefan reached out and grabbed her hand. "Don't go."

The sound of men's voices in the passageway trailed through the opened doorway. Two pairs of dark eyes focused on Stefan and Joanna's clasped hands. Twisting her hand from Stefan's grip, Joanna said to Stefan's brothers, "I was helping Stefan soak his arm."

Kitta let out a snort.

Laszlo, the larger of the two, nudged his younger brother. "Maybe Stefan's not the poor fool we thought. I should get such attention."

Joanna nervously fluttered her eyelids. "Yes, well, he has family now to help, so I'll just return to my stateroom."

"Which is conveniently just across the passageway," Kitta said, with irony.

Ignoring Kitta's remark, Joanna returned to her quarters, relieved to be away from the humiliating situation.

She'd barely finished tidying her surroundings when a knock sounded on the door. Expecting it to be Stefan, she swept the door open, surprised to find Helen Janacek instead. "I only have a minute," Helen said, "but I must talk to you, alone."

 
"Please come in." Joanna stepped aside for her to pass. "I can't imagine what you must think, walking in and finding us like you did," she said, "but it's really not the way it seemed. Well it is, and it isn't.
 
I mean... Stefan and I..." she stopped short. There was no way to explain what happened because she didn't understand it herself. Nothing made sense. She and Stefan had only just met, and already he was the most important person in her life. But it wasn't like when she'd met Karl, though she'd rushed into a relationship with him as well. But Karl never made her limbs weak with just the sight of him, or her heart ache when she thought about the danger he faced, or made her long to have his arms around her and his lips on hers for all eternity.

Helen's eyes softened. "I know my son. He has many opportunities with women, but he has avoided any kind of relationship since he and his wife divorced, so it's obvious he cares for you. It's also obvious you care for him. That's why I'm here."

Joanna remembered Tekla Janacek's words,
'Rom and gorgio not good
.' She suspected Helen Janacek was here on
Tekla's
behalf. "If it's because I'm not gypsy..."

"That has nothing to do with it," Helen assured her. "Although a relationship between Rom and
gorgio
is not without problems."

As Helen stood nervously knotting her fingers, Joanna said, "Please sit down."

Helen lowered herself into a chair, and Joanna sat on the bunk, facing her. After a few moments, Helen looked at Joanna and said, "Do you know what it's like to love a man who goes into a cage with vicious animals day after day?"

Joanna felt her heart quickening as the image of the leopard attacking Stefan emerged. "Yes, I do have some idea," she replied, weakly.

"No, I don't think you do. If you did, you wouldn't leave yourself open to such a relationship." Helen's thumb began restlessly stroking the palm of her other hand. "When he's with the cats, the terrible fear is always there. It starts in your belly and moves up to your chest and grips you like a vise. Do you have any idea how many times you'll paste a smile on your face and excuse yourself to go into the nearest doniker and vomit? Or how often you'll lay awake at night, wondering if tomorrow's performance will be his last?"

"Stefan says what happened today rarely happens."

"Stefan's an optimist, although I don't know why. His own father was killed by cats. The trouble is, Stefan has excuses for every accident that ever happened to him, always some plausible reason why it won't happen again. But he wasn't there when five lions jumped his father, dragging him around the arena, tearing at him while he yelled desperately for help until his cries grew weaker and weaker and all that could be seen was a stream of blood flowing out from a circle of frenzied animals—" Helen stopped, eyes bright with tears. "And do you know what I felt at his bedside that same night, when he finally died?"

Joanna saw in Helen's eyes the pain, the memory, the horrible truth. When she could finally find her voice, she said, "I cannot imagine, but it must have been terrible."

Helen raised her chin. "I felt relief. My husband had just died, and I felt relief. At least I would be able to sleep at night without wondering when the time would finally come." She reached out and squeezed Joanna's hand. "You need to know these things now," she said, "before it's too late. Before you fall in love with Stefan."

Feeling a genial closeness in Helen's touch, Joanna looked into her sober eyes and said, "But I don't know how to stop what's happening."

After a long stretch of silence, Helen gave a shrug of hopeless resolve, sighed heavily, and said in a wistful voice, "Unfortunately, neither did I."

CHAPTER THREE

An eerie moaning resonated through the boat as boiler pressure began building, then the raucous shriek of the whistle pierced the night air, and the paddlewheel began beating the water. Slowly at first, the big wheel began to churn with sluggish swashing strokes, gradually turning faster, until soon the boat whished through the water with a steady drone
 
as it headed south towards Greenville, Mississippi, their next stop.

 
It was an unusually hot night, and after checking Joanna's stateroom and finding it unoccupied, Stefan wandered onto the promenade deck and found her standing at the rail, looking towards the dockyards of Helena as they drifted past. He had not talked to her since the incidence in his stateroom two days before. While in Helena, he'd stayed in his wagon to be close to the menagerie to make sure no one got near the cats. And during their off-time, Joanna was nowhere to be found, undoubtedly still upset about what happened in his stateroom. He hoped to square things away with her. Walking up to her, he placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed the side of her face. "Sorry I missed your act," he said. "I'm always busy with the cats after a performance. I hope it went well."

"It did," she replied, while continuing to stare across the water.

"Did you see my animals perform?" he asked, hoping she had. His cats behaved more like well-trained dogs than surly felines.

"I watched from a distance," she said, in a clipped dry tone. "I was surprised you got the leopard to perform after the way he attacked you."

"He was having an off-day down in the dirt... like some performers have up with the doves." He waited for a clever retort, which never came. When she continued to silently stare at the scene slipping by, he took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "When my cats are aloof," he said, "I know there's trouble. What gives? What happened to the cheeky woman who confronted me in the menagerie?"

"I'm not one of your cats," Joanna snapped. "And I don't understand how you can simply shrug off what happened with the leopard. You have fourteen stitches in your leg and deep puncture wounds in your arm, and it doesn't seem to phase you."

"What you saw with the leopard was rare. Today's performance was more the way it usually is. You did see Shani walking on the globe, didn't you?"

"Yes," she clipped. "And I also saw the pyramid of lions, and your tiger jumping through the fiery hoop, and the lot of them rolling over. I admit, it was truly amazing how you've trained them. But it's also foolhardy."

"I could argue that flying on a trapeze is foolhardy," Stefan countered, "but it's your job and it's something you love. And training cats is mine. I doubt if anything like what happened with Shani will happen again. He was docile as a house cat today."

...Stefan's an optimist... His own father was killed by cats...

The image of the leopard attacking Stefan emerged, an image that had been playing over and over in Joanna's mind, no matter how hard she tried to shut it out. What she didn't understand was why she'd been affected so deeply by it. She'd witnessed accidents with other performers—a unicyclist falling from a high wire, a horse rearing back on its rider, a dancer's cape catching fire. But those incidents never kept her from falling asleep, or made her stomach twist with queasiness, or awakened her in the dead of night in a cold sweat...

...You need to know this before it's too late, before you fall in love with Stefan...

She looked at Stefan, who was studying her with an intensity that made her heart quicken, and felt a pull so strong, she wondered if she would be able to hold her feelings in check. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe she was already in love.

Hands tightening on her arms, Stefan said, "Don't do this to me, Joanna."

"Do what?"

"Worry about me."

"How did you know what I was thinking?"

"I know that look. I've seen it in my mother's eyes, and I saw it in my wife's eyes. But I thought you'd be different, that you'd understand and accept the danger."

"Well, I don't," Joanna said, feeling a pang of jealousy over the woman who once held Stefan's love. She'd been disturbed by the notion of Stefan with a wife ever since Helen Janacek mentioned it. She'd tried to envision the kind of woman who could capture the heart of a man as compelling and unique as Stefan, and wondered how the woman could have ever let him go.

Not caring that the question was personal, but feeling a need to know, she said, "What happened between you and your wife?"

Stefan shrugged. "She wanted me to give up my cats."