Kiss an Angel(93)

“You want some coffee before we go back out in the rain?” he called out.

She set down her lipstick and left the bathroom. He stood at the kitchen counter wearing only his jeans, with one of their yellow bath towels looped around his neck. She tucked her fingers into the pockets of his terry cloth robe. “What I want is for you to sit down and tell me what you do when you’re not traveling with the circus.”

“Are we back to that again?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever really left it. I’ve had enough, Alex. I want to know.”

“If this is about what I did to you . . .”

“That just brought it on. I don’t want any more mystery. If you’re not a medical doctor or a vet, just what kind of doctor are you?”

“How about a dentist?”

He looked so hopeful that she nearly smiled. “You’re not a dentist. I know for a fact that you don’t floss every day.”

“I do, too.”

“Liar. Every other day, max. And you’re definitely not a shrink, although you’re certainly neurotic enough.”

He picked up his coffee mug from the counter and stared down into its depths. “I’m a college professor, Daisy.”

“You’re what?”

He looked up at her. “I’m a professor of art history at a small private college in Connecticut. I’m on sabbatical right now.”

She’d prepared herself for a lot of things, but not this, although now that she thought about it, she shouldn’t have been so surprised. There had been subtle clues. She remembered Heather saying that Alex once had taken her to a gallery and talked to her about the pictures. There were the art magazines that she thought had been left behind by the trailer’s former tenants and a number of references he’d made to famous paintings.

She walked over to stand next to him. “Why did you make it such a mystery?”

He shrugged and took a sip.

“Let me guess. This is just like what you did with the trailer, isn’t it? Choosing this place instead of something nicer? You knew I’d be a lot more comfortable with a college professor than with Alexi the Cossack, and you didn’t want me to be comfortable.”

“I couldn’t let you lose sight of how different we are. I’m still a circus performer, Daisy. Alexi the Cossack is a big part of who I am.”

“But you’re also a college professor.”

“It’s a creaky old campus.”

She remembered the threadbare college T-shirt she sometimes slept in. “Did you go to the University of North Carolina?”

“I did my undergraduate work there, and I got my master’s and doctorate at NYU.”

“It’s hard to take in.”

He brushed his thumb over her chin. “It doesn’t change anything. It’s still raining like a son of a bitch, we have a show to put on, and you look so beautiful right now that all I want to do is take that robe off you and start playing doctor all over again.”

She forced herself to put aside her worries for the moment and enjoy the present. “You’re a brave man.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because this time you’re going to be the patient.”



That night, halfway through the evening performance, the wind picked up. As the nylon sides of the big top began to swell and deflate like a great bellows, Alex ignored Sheba’s assurances that the storm would blow over and ordered Jack to stop the show.

The ringmaster made the announcement in a low-key manner, telling the audience they needed to take down the big top as a safety measure and guaranteeing everyone a full refund. While Sheba fumed and added up the lost revenue, Alex instructed the musicians to play a lively tune to speed the crowd’s departure.

Some of the audience members wanted to hang back in the top’s marquee to keep dry, and they had to be urged along. As he helped with the evacuation, he kept thinking about getting to Daisy and making sure she’d followed his orders to sit in the truck until the wind abated.

What if she hadn’t done as he said? What if she was out there in the wind right now looking for someone’s lost child or helping an elderly person get to a car? Damn it, and wouldn’t that be just like her! She had more heart than common sense, and she wouldn’t think twice about her own safety if she thought someone was in trouble.

A cold sweat broke out on his skin, and it took all his self-control to look reassuring as the crowd filed through. He kept telling himself she’d be all right and even managed a smile as he remembered the dirty trick he’d played on her.

He’d laughed more in the short time they’d been together than he had in his entire life. He never knew what she’d do next; she made him feel like the kid he’d never been. What would he do when she was gone? He refused to think about it. He’d cope, that was all, just as he’d coped with everything else. Life had made him a loner, and that was the way he liked it.

As the last of the crowd left the big top, the wind grew more fierce, and the wet nylon whipped and billowed. Alex was afraid if they didn’t get the top down quickly, they’d lose it, and he moved from one group of workers to another, issuing orders and helping loosen the jumper ropes to get the quarter poles down. One of the workers released a rope too soon, and it lashed him across the cheek, but he’d felt the lash before, and he shrugged off the pain.