Kiss an Angel (46 page)

Sheba swiped at the counter with a dishcloth. "Daisy's all anyone talks about anymore. I'm getting

sick of it."

"That's because you don't like her, and I can't understand why. I mean I know you and Alex used to be together and everything, but you don't care about him anymore, and she's so sad, so what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that Sheba can't stand it when anybody gets the best of her."

Brady stood just inside the door, although neither of them had heard him come in.

Sheba got her hackles up right away. "Don't you ever knock?"

Heather sighed. "Are you two going to start arguing again?"

"I don't argue," Brady said. "She's the one."

"Ha! He thinks he can tell me what to do, and I won't let him."

"That's what he says about you," Heather pointed out patiently. And then, even though she was beginning to think she was wasting her breath, she said, "If the two of you would just get married, you'd be so busy bossing each other around that you'd leave everybody else alone."

"I wouldn't marry him for anything!"

"I wouldn't marry her if she was the last woman on earth!"

"Then you shouldn't be sleeping together." Heather adopted her best Daisy Markov voice. "And I know you sneak over here to be with her just about every night, Dad, even though sex without a deep commitment to the other person is immoral."

Sheba turned red. Her dad opened and closed his mouth a couple of times like a goldfish, then began to bluster. "You don't know what you're talking about, young lady. Sheba and I are just friends, that's all. She's been having trouble with her water tank, and I—''

Heather rolled her eyes. "I'm not a moron."

"Now listen here—"

"What kind of example do the two of you think you're setting for me? Just yesterday I was reading about adolescent psychology for my homework assignment, and I already have a couple of big strikes against me."

"What strikes?"

"I lost my mother, and I'm the product of a broken home. That, plus what I see going on right now with the two most influential adults in my life, makes me more likely to have a teenage pregnancy."

Her dad's eyebrows shot up practically to his hairline, and she seriously thought he was going to pee his pants. Even though she wasn't afraid of him like she used to be, she wasn't stupid, either. "Got to go.

See you guys later."

She slammed out of the trailer.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Settle down," Sheba said. "She's just trying to make a point."

"What point?"

"That the two of us should get married." Sheba plopped a dab of taco meat in her mouth. "Which just goes to show how much she knows about the real world."

"You got that right."

"She still hasn't figured out how incompatible we are."

"Except in there." He jerked his head toward the bedroom in the rear.

"Yeah, well..." A foxy smile came over her face. "You peasant boys do have your uses."

"Damn right we do." He drew her into his arms, and she snuggled against him.

He started kissing her,

but then he drew back because both of them had things to do, and once they got started with each other, they had a hard time stopping.

He saw that her eyes looked troubled. "The season's almost over," she said. "A couple of weeks and

we'll be in Tampa."

"We'll still see each other this winter."

"Who says I want to see you?"

She was lying, and both of them knew it. They'd become important to each other, and now he had the feeling she wanted something from him that he couldn't give.

He buried his lips in her hair. "Sheba, I care about you. I guess I even love you.

But I can't marry you.

I got my pride, and you're always stomping over it."

She stiffened and drew away, shooting sparks at him and acting like he was some kind of cockroach.

"I don't think anybody asked you to get married."

He wasn't good with words, but there was something he'd been trying to say to her for a long time, something important. "I'd like to marry you. But it'd just be too hard being married to someone who's putting me down all the time."

"What are you talking about? You put me down, too."

"Yeah, but I don't mean it, and you do. There's a big difference. You really think you're better than everybody else. You think you're perfect."

"I never said that."

"Then name something that's wrong with you."

"I can't fly like I used to."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something inside you that's not as good as it should be. Everybody has things like that."

"There's nothing wrong with me, and I don't know what you're talking about."

He shook his head sadly. "I know you don't, babe. And until you figure it out, there's not much hope

for us."

He let her go, but before he made it all the way to the door, she started yelling.

"You don't know anything! Just because I'm tough doesn't mean I'm not a good person. I am, damn it! I'm a good person!"

"You're also a snob," he said, turning back. "Most of the time you don't think about anybody's feelings but your own. You hurt other people. You're obsessed with the past, and you're the most stuck-up

person I ever knew."

For a moment she stood there stunned, but then she started to scream. "Liar!

I'm a good person! I am!"

"Keep saying it, babe, and maybe one day you'll believe it."

Her cry of fury sent a chill down his spine. He knew she'd fight back, and he managed to make it out the door before the plate of tacos came crashing into it.

* * *

As Daisy roamed the lot that night, she found herself wishing she were still performing with Alex. At least it would have kept her busy. When he'd announced that she wasn't going back into the ring with him, she'd felt neither relief nor disappointment. It simply made no difference. In the past six weeks she'd discovered a pain far more hurtful than any that could be inflicted by the whip.

She watched the crowd file out of the top. Weary children clung to their mother's sides and fathers carried tired toddlers with candy-apple stains around their mouths. Not so long ago, the sight of those fathers had made her eyes fill with sentimental tears as she'd imagined Alex carrying their child. Now her eyes were dry. Along with everything else, she had lost the ability to cry.

Since the circus wasn't moving on that night, the workers were free for the evening, and they set off for town in search of food and liquor. The lot fell quiet. While Alex tended Misha, she slipped into one of his old sweatshirts, then made her way through the sleeping elephants until she reached Tater. Kneeling down, she tucked herself between his front legs and let the baby elephant plop the end of his trunk on

her knee.

She buried herself deeper in Alex's sweatshirt. The soft fleece carried his scent, that particular combination of soap, sun, and leather that she would have recognized anywhere. Was everything she loved going to be taken from her?

She heard the sound of quiet footsteps. Tater shifted his rear quarters and a pair of denim-clad legs appeared that she had no difficulty recognizing.

Alex crouched down next to her and propped his elbows on his splayed knees, hands dangling between. He looked so tired that, for a fraction of a second, she wanted to comfort him. "Please come out of there," he whispered. "I need you so badly."

She rested her cheek against Tater's wrinkly gunnysack leg. "I think I'll stay here a while longer."

His shoulders sagged, and he poked his finger in the dirt. "My house... it's big.

There's a guest room on the south side that looks out on an old orchard."

She released her breath in a soft sigh. "It's chilly tonight. Fall's coming."

"I thought we could maybe make it into a nursery. It's a nice room. Sunny, with a big window. Maybe

we could put a rocking chair there."

"I've always liked the fall."

The animals shifted, and one of them snorted quietly in its sleep. Tater lifted his trunk from her knee and draped it on her husband's shoulder. The softness in Alex's voice didn't hide its bitterness. "You're not ever going to forgive me, are you?"

She said nothing.

"I love you, Daisy. I love you so much I hurt."

She heard his suffering, saw the vulnerability in his face, and even though she knew it came from guilt, she had endured too much pain herself to find any pleasure in inflicting it on another, especially one who still meant so much to her. She spoke as gently as she could. "You don't know how to love, Alex."

"That might have been true once, but not anymore."

Maybe it was the comfort she received from sitting beneath Tater's heart or maybe it was Alex's pain,

but she could feel the icy barrier inside her beginning to crack. Despite everything, she still loved him. She'd lied to him and to herself when she'd said she didn't. He was the mate of her soul, and he would own her heart forever.

With that realization came a deeper and more bitter knowledge. If she ever again let herself fall victim to the love she had for him, it might very well destroy her, and for the baby's sake, she couldn't let that happen.

"Don't you see? What you're feeling is guilt, not love."

"That's not true."

"You're a proud man. You violated your sense of honor, and now you're trying to make amends. I understand that, but I'm not going to let my life be dictated by words you don't really mean. This

baby is too important to me."

"The baby's important to me, too."

She winced. "Don't say that. Please."

"I'd prove my love if I could, but I don't know how to do that."

"You're going to have to let me go. I know it'll hurt your pride, and I'm sorry about that, but being together like this is too difficult."

He didn't say anything. She shut her eyes and tried to slip behind the icy barrier that had been keeping

her safe, but he'd put too many cracks in it. "Please, Alex," she whispered brokenly. "Please let me go."

His voice was barely audible. "Is that what you really want?''

She nodded.

She had never thought she'd see him look defeated, but at that moment some internal spark seemed to

be extinguished. "All right," he said hoarsely. "I'll do what you want."

A spasm of anguish ripped through her as she realized it was finally over, and she stifled a sob as he rose to his feet.

If this was what she wanted, why was it so painful?

Off to the side a shadow moved, but both Daisy and Alex were too absorbed in their own misery to

notice that their most private conversation had been overheard.

24

"Alex!"

His head shot up from the stake driver's engine as he heard Daisy's voice calling out to him and sounding exactly the way it used to. Hope surged through him. Maybe time hadn't run out for him after all. Maybe she hadn't meant what she'd said two nights ago, and he'd no longer have to put her on a plane for New York that very afternoon.

He threw down the wrench he'd been using and turned to face her, only to have his hope fade as he saw the expression on her face.

"Sinjun's gone! They've unloaded all the animals, and he isn't there. Trey's missing, too."

Brady came around from behind the stake driver where he'd been trying to help Alex. "Sheba's behind this. I'd bet anything."

Daisy's face paled with anxiety. "Did she say something to you?"

"No, but she's been a bitch on wheels these last couple of days."

Daisy looked at Alex, and for the first time since he'd found her at the zoo, he felt as if she were really seeing him. "Did you know about this?"

"No. She didn't tell me anything."

"She knows how you feel about that tiger," Brady said. "My guess is that she's sold him behind your back."

"But she can't do that. He's mine!" She bit her lip, as if she realized that what she'd said wasn't true.

"I tried to find Sheba earlier," Brady said, "but she hasn't shown up yet. Shorty drove her RV, but her car's missing."

Daisy clenched her fists. "She's done something terrible with him. I know it."

Alex wanted to reassure her, but he suspected she was right. "I'll make some calls and see what I can

find out. Why don't the two of you go talk to the workers and see if any of them know anything?"

But no one did. For the next two hours, they spoke with everyone in the circus, only to discover that Sheba hadn't been seen since the previous evening.

Daisy grew increasingly frantic. Where was Sinjun? What had Sheba done with him? She'd learned enough about the market for aging circus animals to realize that the chances of a reputable zoo taking

him were slim. What was going to happen to her tiger?

The time came and passed for her to leave for the airport. Alex had insisted she go to her father's until

she decided what she wanted to do, but now there was no question of her leaving. She ignored the pearl gray Lexus with its Connecticut license plates—

another of Alex's guilt offerings— and sat on the tailgate of the old black pickup that had carried her on her summer's journey of the soul to this bleak October night. From there, she watched the lot.

The first performance ended and then the second. The last of the crowd filed out. This was the circus's final two-night stay before they reached Tampa. Once again the workers had set off for town, taking along some of the showgirls and leaving the lot with a deserted feeling. She was cold, but she waited until Alex had changed out of his costume and gone to check on Misha before she returned to the trailer.

Her suitcase lay abandoned on the bed. She walked past it and removed his old gray sweatshirt from a wall hook. After slipping into it, she began to go back outside only to hesitate in front of the shabby, built-in chest where Alex kept his clothes. Squatting down, she opened the bottom drawer and moved his jeans out of the way so she could see what she knew was hidden behind them: a cheap blue plastic rattle, a yellow duck, a child's box of animal crackers, a bib stamped with a picture of a rabbit, a paperback copy of Dr. Spock.