Kiss an Angel(12)

Before Daisy could tell her she was Alex’s wife, not his girlfriend, the teenager had disappeared. Even putting the best face on it, she could hardly say her first encounter with one of the circus people had gone well.

She spent the next half hour roaming the lot, watching the elephant rides from a safe distance and trying to stay out of everyone’s path. She realized there was a subtle order in the way the circus was set up. The midway in front held the food and souvenir concessions along with a tent decorated with brightly painted vertical banners depicting wild animals gruesomely devouring their prey. A sign across the entrance read quest brothers menagerie. Opposite it sat a trailer with a ticket window at one end. Heavy trucks had been parked off to the side and away from the crowd, while the house trailers, RVs, and campers occupied the back.

As the crowd began gathering in front of the big top, she moved past the stands selling food, souvenirs, and cotton candy to get closer. The smells of Belgian waffles and popcorn mingled with the odors of the animals and a faint hint of mildew from the nylon big top. A man in his early thirties with thinning sandy hair and a big voice was trying to entice the onlookers into the menagerie.

“For only one dollar you’ll see the most vicious Siberian tiger in captivity, along with an exotic camel, a llama the kids’ll love, and a ferocious gorilla . . .”

As the spiel went on, Daisy moved around the side, passing a cook tent where some of the workers were eating. From the time of her arrival, she had noticed how noisy everything was, and now she found the source of that continuous rumble, a truck that contained two large yellow generators. Heavy cables extended out from it, some of them snaking toward the big top, others toward the concession stands and house trailers.

A woman in a robin’s-egg-blue cape edged with marabou emerged from one of the campers and stopped to speak with a clown wearing a bright orange wig. Other performers began to gather under a canopy that she decided must be the performers’ entrance to the big top, since it sat opposite the entrance the crowd was using. She had seen no sign of Alex, and she wondered where he was.

The elephants appeared, magnificent in their crimson-and-gold blankets with plumed headpieces. As they lumbered over to take their place, she shrank back toward one of the house trailers. Small dogs terrorized her, and if an elephant came near her, she was fairly certain she’d faint.

Several sleek horses decked out in jeweled harnesses pranced by. She nervously fumbled in her pocket for the nearly empty pack of cigarettes she’d managed to bum from one of the truck drivers and drew one out.

“Line up for spec, everybody! Let’s go!”

The man, who earlier had been enticing the crowd to view the menagerie, made the announcement as he slipped into a ringmaster’s bright red jacket. At the same time Alex appeared, mounted on a sleek black horse, and Daisy realized he wasn’t just the circus manager but a performer as well.

Dressed in a theatrical adaptation of a Cossack’s costume, he wore a silky white shirt with billowy sleeves and flowing black trousers tucked into a pair of high black leather boots that molded to his calves. A jewel-encrusted scarlet sash encircled his waist, and the fringed ends trailed down over the horse’s side. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him riding across the Russian steppes on his way to rape and pillage. She spotted a coiled whip hanging from his saddle, and with a sense of relief, she realized she had let her imagination run wild. The whip lying on the bed had been nothing more than a circus prop.

As she watched him lean down from the horse to talk with the ringmaster, she remembered she had taken sacred vows that bound her to this man, and she knew she could no longer keep ducking her conscience. With unblinking honesty, she saw that agreeing to this marriage had been the most cowardly thing she had ever done. She had been too lacking in character, too unsure of her ability to care for herself, to turn her back on her father’s blackmail and make her own way, even if it had meant going to jail.

Would this be the pattern for the rest of her life? Ducking responsibility and taking the easy way out? She felt ashamed remembering that she’d spoken those sacred wedding vows with no intention of keeping them, and she knew she had to make amends.

Her conscience had been whispering the solution for hours, but she’d refused to listen. Now she accepted the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself unless she made an attempt to keep those vows. Just because it would be difficult didn’t make it any less necessary. She had the distinct fear that if she ran away from this, there would be no hope for her.

Even as she knew what she had to do, her mind balked. How could she honor vows she’d made to a stranger?

You didn’t make them to a stranger, her conscience reminded her. You made them to God.

At that moment Alex spotted her. Her decision was too new for her to be comfortable talking to him now, but she had no escape. She took a nervous puff on her cigarette and kept a wary eye on his fierce-looking horse as he approached. The horse was wearing exceptionally beautiful tack and trappings, including a richly embroidered crimson silk saddle cloth and a bridle set with filigreed gold medallions and elaborately mounted red stones that looked like real rubies.

He glared down at her. “Where have you been?”

“Exploring.”

“There are a lot of rough people around the circus. Until you get used to things, stay where I can keep an eye on you.”

Since she had just promised she was going to do her best to respect her vows, she swallowed her resentment toward his dictatorial manner and made herself respond pleasantly.