Kiss an Angel(118)

“I have a say, all right. And I’m going to make sure you and the baby are safe.”

Her eyes grew wary.

“I’ll play dirty,” he said quietly. “It won’t take me long to find out where you’re working, and I guarantee I’ll make your job disappear.”

“You’d do that to me?”

“I won’t even hesitate.”

Her shoulders slumped, and he knew he’d won, but he felt no satisfaction.

“I don’t love you anymore,” she whispered. “I don’t love you at all.”

His throat closed. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I love you enough for both of us.”





23




Alex drove Daisy to the small house on a narrow street in a working-class neighborhood not far from the zoo. The house had a plaster statue of the Blessed Mother in the tiny front yard, along with a sunflower pinwheel guarding a bed of pink petunias. She rented a bedroom in the back with a view of a chain-link fence, and while she packed her meager possessions, he slipped away to settle up with her landlady, only to discover that Daisy had already paid her rent for the month.

From the chatty woman, he learned that Daisy worked as a receptionist at a beauty shop during the day and waited tables at a neighborhood tavern at night. No wonder she seemed so tired. She had no car, so she either walked or took a bus everywhere, and she was saving all her money to get ready for the baby. The fact that his wife had been living in penury while he had two luxury cars and a house filled with priceless art pounded another nail into his coffin of guilt.

As they set out on the road, he briefly considered taking her to his home in Connecticut, only to reject the idea. She needed more than physical healing; she needed emotional healing, and maybe the animals she loved would help him give that to her.



It was all so familiar that Daisy experienced a moment of well-being as the truck swayed to a stop. She and Alex were on the road, making a jump to the next lot. She was in love and pregnant and—she jolted awake as reality crashed in on her.

He pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the door.

“I have to get some sleep before I run us into a bridge abutment. Wait here while I check in.” He climbed out of the truck and closed the door behind him.

She leaned back against the seat, and as she shut her eyes against the gathering dusk, she also closed her heart to the gentleness she had heard in his voice. He was filled with guilt, anyone could see that, but she wouldn’t be manipulated. The lies he’d spoken earlier had undoubtedly made him feel better, but believing them would only trap her. She had a child to protect, and she could no longer afford the luxury of such foolish optimism.

He’d told her that her father and Amelia had tampered with her birth control pills and apologized for not trusting her. More guilt. She shut him out.

Why couldn’t he have left her alone? Why had he forced her to come back with him? For the first time in weeks, the tide of emotions she’d worked so hard to repress rose inside her. She pressed her knuckles to her lips and fought the feelings back until she once again slipped behind the comforting barrier that had kept her functioning this past month.

For as long as she could remember, she had been a woman who had run on emotions, but she hadn’t been able to continue to do that and survive. Pride is everything, Alex had told her, and now she knew he was right. Pride had kept her going. It had enabled her to answer the phone and shampoo heads all day, then spend her nights carrying heavy trays loaded with greasy food that made her stomach heave. Pride had kept a roof over her head and let her lay money aside for her future. Pride had kept her running when love had betrayed her.

And now what? For the first time in weeks, she experienced a fear that had nothing to do with making her rent. She was afraid of Alex. What did he want with her?

The biggest threat to a young tiger is an older male tiger. Tigers don’t have strong family bonds like lions and elephants. It isn’t unusual for a father tiger to kill his own cub.

She fumbled for the door handle only to see her husband stalking toward her.



Alex pulled a chair back from the table where the room-service waiter had set out the meal he had ordered. “Sit down and eat, Daisy.”

He hadn’t chosen a sleazy highway motel. Instead, he’d booked them into a luxury suite in a shiny new Marriott located along the Ohio River at the Indiana-Kentucky border. She thought of the way she used to count pennies when she grocery shopped and gave him lectures on extravagance when he bought a bottle of good wine. How he must have been laughing at her.

“I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

“Keep me company, then.”

It was less work to take the chair he held out for her than argue. He tightened the knot on the sash of the white terry robe he’d put on after his shower and sat across from her. His hair was still damp, and it curled a bit at the temples. He needed a haircut.

She looked down at the huge quantity of food he’d ordered for her: a dinner-plate-size salad, chicken breasts smothered in mushroom sauce, a baked potato, a side order of pasta, two rolls, a large glass of milk, and a slab of cheesecake.

“I can’t eat this.”

“I’m starved. I’ll eat some of it for you.”

Although he enjoyed food, he wasn’t a big enough eater to put a dent in all this. She felt her stomach pitch. She’d had more trouble holding food down since she’d left him than she’d had during her entire first trimester.