Author: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Category: Literature
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“What did Daisy do to me?”
“The way she—you know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“You know.” She gazed at a spot on the carpet. “Kissed you like that out where everybody could see and everything. Embarrassed you.”
The way he remembered it, he’d been the one who’d instigated the kiss. He hadn’t liked knowing that everyone in the circus was staring at her waist and counting months on their fingers. He also didn’t like the way people ridiculed her behind her back, especially when he knew he was partially to blame.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with you, Heather.”
She clutched her hands at her sides and let it all come out in a rush. “Everybody knows how you feel about her and everything. How you don’t like her. And when my dad told me she wasn’t pregnant or anything, I couldn’t figure out why you married her. Then I remembered that guys get kind of crazy if a girl’s real pretty and maybe they want to—you know—have relations with her, but she might say she won’t unless they get married. And so I figured out that’s why you married her. But what I want to tell you is—I mean, if you want to make her leave and everything . . .”
For the first time since her tirade had begun, she looked him directly in the eye, and he saw desperation there. She screwed up her face and let the words tumble out. “I know you think I’m a kid, but I’m not. I’m sixteen. I might not be pretty like Daisy, but I’m still a woman, and I could—I could let you have sex with me and everything, so you wouldn’t have to have it with her.”
Alex felt as if he’d been poleaxed, and he couldn’t think of a thing to say. Her cheeks had turned bright red—probably the same color as his—and she was once again staring a hole through the floor.
He rose slowly to his feet. He’d faced down nasty drunks and knife-wielding truck drivers, but he’d never faced anything like this. She’d mistaken his friendship for something more, and he had to set her straight right away.
“Heather . . .” He cleared his throat and walked around the end of the desk. As he came to a stop, Daisy appeared in the doorway behind Heather, but the teenager was so wrapped up in what she’d done that she didn’t notice. Daisy must have sensed that something important was going on because she immediately went still and waited.
“Heather, when a young girl gets a crush . . .”
“It’s not a crush!” Heather lifted her head, and her eyes were moist with entreaty. “I fell in love with you at first sight, and I thought maybe you liked me, too, but because I was so young and everything, you might be afraid to say anything about it. That’s why I decided I had to tell you.”
He wished Daisy would help him out, but she stood quietly, taking it all in. For Heather’s own good, he had to make her see the reality of the situation. “You don’t love me, Heather.”
“I do!”
“You think you do. But you’re young, and it’s only a silly crush. You’ll get over it. Believe me, in a couple of months we’ll both laugh about this.”
Heather looked as if he’d just slapped her, and he realized he’d said the wrong thing. She drew in her breath, and her eyes filled with tears. Appalled, he tried to think how to repair the damage.
“I like you, Heather, I do. But you’re only sixteen. I’m a grown man, and you’re still a child.” He saw by her face that he was making it worse. He’d never felt so helpless, and he shot Daisy a look of entreaty.
To his annoyance, she rolled her eyes at him, as if he were the stupidest person on earth. Then she came stalking forward advancing on poor Heather with guns blazing.
“I knew I’d find you here, you hussy! You think just because you’re young and incredibly lovely that you can steal my husband, but I’m going to fight you for him!”
Heather’s mouth gaped, and she took an automatic step backward. Alex stared at Daisy in disbelief. Of all the lame-brained, idiotic things she’d done, this one took the cake. Even a moron could see through her histrionics.
“I don’t care how youthful and beautiful you are!” she exclaimed. “I won’t let you ruin my marriage!” With a dramatic sweep of her hand, she pointed her finger toward the door. “Now I suggest you get out of here right now before I do something I regret.”
Heather slammed her mouth shut. At the same time, she stumbled toward the door and fled.
Several long seconds ticked by before Alex slumped down on the couch. “I blew it, didn’t I?”
Daisy regarded him with something like pity. “For a smart man, you certainly don’t have much sense.”
12
Alex stared at the door through which Heather had just disappeared, then looked back at his wife. “That was the lousiest performance I’ve ever seen. Did you really say, ‘I’m going to fight you for him’?”
“She believed me, and that’s all that counted. After what you said, she needed to have someone treat her like an adult.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her, but what was I supposed to do? She’s not an adult; she’s a kid.”
“She gave you her heart, Alex, and you told her it didn’t mean anything.”
“It wasn’t only her heart she was offering. Just before you came in, she let me know that her body was part of the package.”
“She’s feeling desperate. If you’d taken her up on it, she’d have been scared to death.”
He shuddered. “Sixteen-year-olds aren’t on my list of favorite perversions.”
“What is?” She immediately bit her lip. When was she going to start thinking before she spoke?
He gave her a maddening smile that made goose bumps break out on her skin. “It’ll be more fun for you to find that out for yourself.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Why don’t you just wait and see.”
She studied him. “Does it have anything to do with—no, of course not.”
“Are you worrying about those whips again?”
“Not really,” she lied.
“Good. Because you don’t have anything to be concerned about.” He paused. “If I do it exactly right, it hardly hurts at all.”
Her eyes widened. “Will you stop it!”
“What?”
His innocent expression didn’t fool her one bit “Stop planting all these seeds of suspicion in my mind.”
“I haven’t done a thing. You’ve put the suspicions there all by yourself.”
“Only because you keep playing games with me. You’ve baited me about this from the beginning, and I don’t like it. Just answer one simple question. Yes or no? Have you ever whipped a woman?”
“Yes or no?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“No qualifiers?”
“None.”
“All right, then. Yes, I have definitely whipped a woman.”
She swallowed and said weakly, “I take that back about the qualifiers.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but you lost your chance.” With a grin, he sat down behind his desk. “I have work to do, so maybe you’d better tell me what you wanted to see me about.”
Several seconds passed before she could gather her wits enough to remember what had brought her here in the first place. “It’s Glenna.”
“What about her?”
“She’s a large animal and that cage is too small for her. We need a new one.”
“Just like that? You want us to buy a new gorilla cage?”
“It’s inhumane keeping her so closely confined. She’s really sad, Alex. She has these wonderful soft fingers and she pushes them out through the bars as if she’s starved for contact with another living being. And that’s not the only problem. All the cages are so old that I’m not even sure they’re safe. The lock on the leopard cage is being held together with wire.”
He picked up a pencil and absentmindedly tapped the eraser on the battered desktop. “I agree with you. I hate that damned menagerie—it’s barbaric—but cages are expensive, and Sheba’s still thinking about selling off
the animals. You’ll just have to do your best.” He spotted something out the window, and his chair creaked as he leaned back to get a better view. “Well, will you look at that. It seems you have a visitor.”
She looked outside and saw a baby elephant standing untethered in front of the red wagon. “It’s Tater.”
As she watched, he lifted his trunk and bellowed, looking for all the world like a tragic hero calling out for his lost love. “What’s he doing over here?”
“Trying to find you, I imagine.” He smiled. “Elephants form strong family ties, and Tater seems to have bonded with you.”
“He’s a little large to be a pet.”
“I’m glad you feel that way because he’s not sleeping in our bed, Daisy, no matter how much you beg me.”
She laughed. At the same time she refrained from telling him that she wasn’t certain she’d be sleeping there, either. Too much still needed to be settled between them.
As Sheba approached Alex, she was having the grandmother of bad days. Just that morning Brady had told her that Daisy wasn’t pregnant. The idea of that woman bearing Markov babies was so abhorrent she should have been relieved, but instead, something ugly had pooled in the pit of her stomach. If Alex hadn’t married Daisy because she was pregnant, then he must have done it out of choice. He must have done it because he loved her.
Acid burned inside her. How could he love that no-talent little rich girl when he hadn’t loved her? Couldn’t he see how unworthy Daisy was? Had he lost all his pride?
Now she intended to put into action a plan that had been taking shape in her mind for days. It made business sense—she never did anything that wasn’t for the good of the show, regardless of her personal feelings—but this idea also might finally pull the blinders away from Alex’s eyes regarding his new bride.
She came up behind him as he worked on the stake driver. His damp T-shirt clung to the strong muscles in his back. She remembered how that taut skin had once felt beneath her hands, but instead of arousing her, the memory filled her with self-hatred. Sheba Quest, the queen of the center ring, had begged for this man’s love and been rejected. Her stomach curled with loathing.
“I need to talk to you about your act.”
He picked up a greasy rag and wiped his hands with it. He’d always been a first-rate mechanic, and he’d somehow managed to keep the ancient stake driver running, but right now she couldn’t summon any gratitude for the money he was saving her.
“Go ahead.”
She shaded her eyes, taking her time, making him wait. Finally she spoke. “I think you need a change. You’ve only made a few variations in your act since the last time you went out with us, and there’s too much of the season left for you to get stale.”
“What do you have in mind?”
She pulled the sunglasses from the top of her head and folded in the stems. “I want you to put Daisy in it.”
“Forget it.”
“Afraid she won’t be able to do it?”
“You know she won’t.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to make her. Or does she wear the pants in the family?”
“What are you trying to do, Sheba?”
“Daisy’s a Markov now. It’s time she started acting like one.”
“That’s my business, not yours.”
“Not while I own this circus. Daisy has a way with the crowd, and I intend to take advantage of it.” She gave him a long, hard stare. “I want her in the show, Alex, and I’ll give you two weeks to get her ready. If she needs persuading, remind her that I can still file a criminal complaint against her any time I want.”
“I’m getting real sick of your threats.”
“Then think about the good of the show instead.”
Alex finished repairing the stake driver, then stalked to the trailer to scrub the grease off his hands. As he took a nail brush and a bar of Lava from a chipped saucer under the kitchen sink, he forced himself to acknowledge the truth of what Sheba had said. Daisy did have a way with the crowd, and although he hadn’t admitted it to Sheba, he’d already thought about putting her in his act. He’d hesitated, however, because of the difficulties of training her.
The assistants he’d worked with in the past had all been seasoned circus performers, and the whips hadn’t bothered them, but Daisy was full of fears. If she flinched at the wrong time . . .
He pushed away the thought. He could train her not to flinch. His Uncle Sergey had trained him. Even when the show was over and the perverted son of a bitch was beating the shit out of him for some imagined offense, Alex had held himself completely still.
He’d mentally traveled the torturous path of his childhood too many times, and he had no interest in stirring up the muck again, so he pushed the old images away. There was another advantage to using Daisy as his assistant, one that was more important to him at the moment than simply sprucing up his act. This would give him a valid reason to ease her workload, a reason she couldn’t argue with.
He still couldn’t believe that she’d refused to let him make things easier for her. This morning when he’d started to insist, he’d seen something in her expression that had made him back off. Her work had become important to her, he realized, a survival test.
But regardless of what she thought, he didn’t intend to let her drive herself into exhaustion. And whether she knew it or not, performing in the ring with him would be a lot easier than hauling elephant manure and cleaning out animal cages.
As he rinsed his hands and reached for a paper towel, he remembered how fragile she’d felt under his hands last night. Their lovemaking had been so good it scared him. He wasn’t quite certain what he’d expected, but he’d never imagined that Daisy would have so many facets to her: sultry and tempting, innocent and unsure, both aggressive and giving. He’d wanted to conquer her and protect her at the same time, and that confused the hell out of him.
On the opposite side of the lot, Daisy stepped out of the red wagon. Alex wouldn’t be happy when he saw that she’d been making long-distance calls on his cellular phone, but she was more than satisfied with what she’d learned from the keeper at the San Diego Zoo. He’d suggested some changes she was going to try: adjustments in the animals’ diets, additional vitamins, alterations in their feeding schedules.
She walked toward the trailer, where she’d seen her husband heading a few minutes earlier. When she’d finished her work in the menagerie and gone to help Digger out, the old man had growled at her that he didn’t need her help, so she’d decided to grab the extra few hours and make a trip to the library. She’d spotted it earlier as they’d driven through town, and she wanted to do some more research on the animals. First, however, she had to get Alex to part with the keys to his truck, which, until now, he’d refused to do.
As she entered the trailer, she saw him standing at the sink drying his hands. A silly sort of giddiness passed through her. He looked too big for such small confines, and she decided those dark, brooding good looks were better suited to roaming a nineteenth-century English moor than managing a twentieth-century traveling circus. He turned and she caught her breath against the impact of his amber eyes.
“I’d like to borrow the keys to the truck,” she said when she found her voice. “I need to do some shopping.”
“Are you out of cigarettes already?”
“You must not have noticed. I’ve stopped smoking.”
“I’m proud of you.” He tossed the damp paper towel in the trash, and she saw how his T-shirt clung to his sweat-dampened chest. A grease mark cut across the sleeve. “If you wait an hour or so, I’ll drive you.”
“I’d rather go alone. This morning I noticed a laundromat next to the town library. I thought I could do the laundry and catch up on some reading at the same time. Is that a problem?”
“Not exactly. I just think it might be better if I drive you.”
“Are you afraid I’ll run off with your truck?”
“No. I just—it’s not really my t
ruck. It belongs to the circus, and you’re probably not used to driving anything like it.”
“I’m an excellent driver. I’m not going to wreck it.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
She held out her hand, determined to have her way in this. “Please give me the keys.”
“I wouldn’t mind a trip to the library myself.”
She gave him her steeliest gaze. “The keys, please.”
He rubbed his chin with his knuckle as if he were thinking it over. “I’ll tell you what. Unbutton your shirt and I’ll give you the keys.”
“What?”
“It’s my best offer. Take it or leave it.”
As she saw what passed for mischief glinting in his eyes, she wondered how someone so serious could have such a playful nature when it came to sex. “You actually expect me to . . .”
“Uh-huh.” He leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms over his chest waiting for her.
A flare of heat bolted through her as she saw the desire in his eyes. She was by no means certain she was ready for another sexual encounter with him, but on the other hand, what would be the harm in a little naughty foreplay? The dampness of her blouse reminded her she’d been working all morning and wasn’t any too clean. On the other hand, neither was he, and after all, they were just playing around, so what did it matter?
She looked down her nose at him in her best imitation of royalty. “I’m certainly not going to use my body as barter. That’ s offensive.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” He withdrew the keys from his pocket and, with exaggerated innocence, tossed them up and down in his palm.
The soft skin of her breasts prickled beneath her damp shirt, and the nipples pebbled. “How would you like it if I did something like this to you?”
“Sweetheart, I’d love it.”
Suppressing a smile, she slowly opened the top button. “Maybe just a peek.” An inner voice told her she was playing with fire, but she ignored it.
“A peek might get you the key to the tailgate, but not the ignition.”