Kiss an Angel(34)

They were alone in the world, two lost souls. She felt every thud of his heartbeat. His breath seemed to fill her lungs, and gradually her fear evaporated. Instead, she experienced a deep sense of peace. Her soul melded with his—they became one—and at that moment she would have been happy to be his food and sustenance because no barrier existed between them.

And then—more rapidly than she could have imagined—her peace shattered, and she was hit by such an explosion of pain, she groaned aloud. In the farthest reaches of her mind, she understood the pain was coming from the tiger and not herself, but that made it no less acute.

Sweet Jesus. She clutched her stomach and doubled over. What was happening to her? Sweet Jesus, make it stop! It was too much to bear.

She slumped forward. Her cheek pressed into the dirt. She knew she was going to die.

As abruptly as the pain had come, it disappeared. She gasped for air. Trembling, she pushed herself to her knees.

The tiger eyes burned with quiet rage.

Now you know how a captive feels.



Alex was furious. He stalked through the lot with Sheba Quest at his side and a whip coiled in his fist. It was Saturday night, payday for the workers, and some of them were already drunk, so he carried his bullwhip as a deterrent. At the moment, however, it wasn’t the workers who were giving him difficulty.

“Nobody steals from me!” Sheba declared, “and Daisy’s not going to get away with this just because she’s your wife.” The low, clipped tones of the circus owner’s voice underscored her anger. Her red hair blazed behind her, and her eyes shot sparks.

Alex’s deathbed promise to Owen had placed him in a constant struggle of wills with his widow. Sheba Quest was his employer, and she was determined to push him as far as she could, while he was equally determined to honor Owen’s wishes. So far, it had been a series of compromises satisfying neither one of them, and open warfare had been inevitable.

“You don’t have any proof that Daisy took the money.”

Even as he spoke, he was angry with himself for trying to defend her. There was no other suspect. He wouldn’t have put it past her to take his money—she seemed to regard that as her due—but he hadn’t expected her to steal from the circus. It just showed that he was still capable of letting his sex drive interfere with his good judgment.

“Get real,” she snapped. “I checked the cash drawer after she came back on duty. Face it, Alex. Your bride is a thief.”

“I’m not making any accusations until I’ve had a chance to talk to her,” he said stubbornly.

“The money’s missing, isn’t it? And Daisy was in charge. If she didn’t steal it, why has she disappeared?”

“I’m going to find her and ask.”

“I want her arrested, Alex. She stole from me, and as soon as you find her, I’m calling the police.”

He stopped in midstride. “We don’t ever call the police. You know that as well as anyone. If she’s guilty, I’ll take care of her just like I’d take care of anybody else around here who breaks the law.”

“The last person you ‘took care of’ was that driver who was selling dope to the workers. There wasn’t a whole lot left of him when you were done. Is that what you’re going to do to Daisy?”

“Lay off.”

“You’re a real shit, you know that? You’re not going to protect your dopey little bimbo from this. I want every cent back, and then I want her punished. If you don’t do it to my satisfaction, I’ll make sure the law does.”

“I said I’d take care of it.”

“See that you do.”

Sheba was the toughest woman he knew, and now he looked her straight in the eye. “Daisy doesn’t have anything to do with what happened between the two of us. I don’t want you trying to get to me through her.”

He saw a flash of the vulnerability she so rarely displayed, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “I hate to deflate that ego of yours, but you seem to have an exaggerated idea of your importance to me.”

She walked away, and as he watched her go, he knew she was lying.

The two of them shared a long, complicated history that went back to the summer he had just turned sixteen, when he was spending his school vacation traveling with Quest Brothers and listening to Owen’s views on manhood. The Flying Cardozas had also been with the show that summer, and Alex was immediately besotted with the twenty-one-year-old queen of the center ring.

At night he fell asleep dreaming of her beauty, her grace, and her breasts. The girls he’d known until then seemed like children in comparison to the luscious and unattainable Sheba Cardoza. In addition to lusting after her, he felt a kinship with her in her drive for perfection and relentless push to be the best. In Sheba, he saw a will that matched his own.

She also had an egotistical streak, nurtured by her father, that Alex had never possessed. Sam Cardoza had raised Sheba to believe she was better than everyone else. But she also had a softer, maternal side, and although she was young, she served as a mother hen to the other members of the troupe, clucking over them when they misbehaved, filling their stomachs with her home-cooked spaghetti dinners, and counseling them on their love lives.

Even at the age of twenty-one, she liked playing the grand matriarch, and it wasn’t long before she brought Alex into the clan, taking pity on the parentless sixteen-year-old who watched her with young, hot eyes. She made certain Alex ate well and badgered Owen to keep him away from the rowdier workmen, ignoring the fact that Alex had spent too many years with circuses to be sheltered now.