“What’s happened to you?” Sheba exclaimed. “Since when did you start keeping your brains in your cock?”
“Not another word.” He turned to Heather, who was taking in the exchange. “Go on now, sweetheart. This’ll all be sorted out by morning.”
Heather moved away reluctantly, but Daisy noticed that others were beginning to gather. Neeco Martin, the elephant trainer, came over with Jack Daily, and Brady approached with one of the showgirls.
Alex also noticed they were attracting a crowd, and he turned back to Daisy. “If you hand the money over now, we can keep this from getting any uglier.”
“I don’t have it!”
“Then I’ll have to look for it, and I’m going to start by searching you.”
“No!”
He grabbed her arm, and Sinjun emitted a great, barking roar as Alex began marching her toward their trailer. Sheba walked just off to Alex’s left, making it clear that she intended to come along.
Out of the corner of her eye, Daisy saw the stern, unsmiling expressions of the others, the same people who had been gathered around the wedding cake the night before. Jill was there, but this time she refused to meet Daisy’s eyes. Madeline turned away, and Brady Pepper glared at her.
As Alex’s fingers bit into her flesh, she felt a sense of betrayal that went all the way to the depths of her soul. “Don’t let this go any further. You know I’d never steal.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t know anything of the sort.” They were at the trailer, and he reached around her to open the door with the same hand that held the whip. “Get inside.”
“How can you do this?”
“It’s my job.” With a push, he propelled her up the step.
Sheba followed them into the trailer. “If you’re innocent, you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?”
“I am innocent!”
He tossed the whip down on a chair. “Then you won’t mind letting me search you.”
Her gaze flew from one of them to the other, and the cold purpose she saw in both sets of eyes made her feel ill. Regardless of their past history, the two of them were now united against her.
He took a step closer, and she backed against the kitchen counter, the place where only a few hours ago he had kissed her with such passion. “I can’t let you do this,” she said desperately. “We spoke vows, Alex. Don’t turn your back on them.” She knew she was making herself look guiltier in his eyes, but marriages were built on trust, and if he destroyed that, they wouldn’t have a chance.
“Let’s get this over with.”
She moved sideways along the counter. “I can’t let you touch me. Please take my word for it! I didn’t steal the money! I’ve never stolen anything in my life!”
“Stop it, Daisy. You’re only making it worse for yourself.”
She saw he wasn’t going to give in. With a singleness of purpose that frightened her, he backed her against the storage closet.
She gazed numbly up at him. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Please. I’m begging you.”
For a moment he froze. Then his palms cupped her sides. While Sheba watched, he drew them down over her waist and hips, then moved up to feel her stomach, her back, the breasts he had cupped so gently in his hands only hours earlier. She shut her eyes in revulsion as he slipped them between her legs.
“You should have believe me,” she whispered when he’d finished.
He took a step away, and his eyes were troubled. “If you didn’t have it on you, why did you fight me?”
“Because I wanted you to trust me. I’m not a thief.”
Their gazes locked. He looked as if he were about to say something when Sheba stepped forward.
“She had plenty of time to get rid of the money. Why don’t you search the trailer, and I’ll look in your truck?”
Alex nodded, and Sheba left Daisy’s teeth began to chatter even though the night was warm. It said something about the relationship between Alex and Sheba that in this matter at least, each seemed to trust the other. Neither, however, trusted her.
Daisy collapsed on the couch and clasped her hands around her knees to keep herself from shaking. She didn’t watch as Alex went through the storage closets and riffled her belongings. A sense of inevitability had come over her. She could no longer remember what it felt like to have her life under control. Maybe she never had. First she’d done her mother’s bidding, then her father’s. Now this dangerous new husband had taken over her life.
The rustling noises were replaced by a heavy silence. She stared down at the worn pattern on the rug. “You found the money, didn’t you?”
“In the bottom of your suitcase, right where you hid it.”
She looked up and saw the bag lying open at his feet. A small pile of folded bills rested in his palm. “Someone put it there. I didn’t hide it.”
He pushed the money into his pocket. “Stop playing games. You’re backed into the corner. At least have the guts to tell the truth and face the consequences.”
“I didn’t steal the money. Someone wants to frame me.” It seemed obvious to Daisy that Sheba was behind this. Surely, Alex saw that. “I didn’t do it! You have to believe me.”
Her pleas died on her lips as she saw the rigid set of his jaw and realized there was nothing she could do to change his mind. With an awful feeling of resignation, she said, “I’m going to stop defending myself. I’ve told the truth, and I can’t do anything more.”
He walked over to the chair across from her and sat down. He looked tired but not as tired as she felt. “Are you going to call the police?”
“We handle our own problems.”
“And you’re judge and jury.”
“That’s the way it works.”
A circus was supposed to be a magical place, but all she’d found was anger and suspicion. She stared at him, trying to see through the impenetrable facade he presented. “What if you make a mistake?”
“I don’t. I can’t afford to.”
She felt a chill of foreboding at the certainty in his voice. Such perfect arrogance was a sure invitation for disaster. A lump grew in her throat. She’d said she wouldn’t defend herself again, but a tumult of emotions dragged at her. Swallowing hard, she stared at the limp, ugly curtains that covered the window behind him. “I didn’t steal the two hundred dollars, Alex.”
He rose and walked toward the door. “We’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow. Don’t try to leave the trailer. I promise that I’ll find you if you do.”
She heard the chill in his voice and wondered what kind of punishment he would impose. It would be harsh, of that she had no doubt.
He opened the door and stepped out into the night. She heard the roar of a tiger and shivered.
Sheba watched Alex walk away from her. As she gazed down at the two hundred dollars he’d given her, she knew she had to get away, and moments later she was speeding down the highway in her Cadillac, not caring where she was going, merely needing privacy to celebrate Alex’s humiliation. For all his pride and arrogance, Alex Markov had married a common thief.
Just hours ago when Jill Dempsey had told her Alex was married, Sheba had wanted to die. She’d been able to tolerate the ugly memory of the day she’d lost her pride and degraded herself in front of him because she’d known he would never marry anyone else. How could he find a woman who understood him as well as she did, his twin, his other self? If he wouldn’t marry her, he wouldn’t marry anyone, and her pride had been salved.
But today all that had come to an end. She couldn’t believe he had rejected her for that useless little toy, and the memory of herself, crying and clinging to him, begging him to love her, grew as fresh as if it had just happened.
And now, more swiftly than she could have imagined, Alex was being punished and she could keep her head up. She couldn’t imagine a more bitter blow to his pride than this. At least her humiliation had been a private one, but his was revealed for all the world to see.
; Sheba hit the button on the radio and flooded the car with the sound of hard rock. Poor Alex. She pitied him, really. He’d passed up the chance to marry the queen of the center ring and ended up with a common thief.
As Sheba Quest flew down the moonlit North Carolina highway, Heather Pepper sat huddled behind her father’s Air-stream with her thin arms wrapped around her chest and her cheeks wet with tears.
Why had she done such an awful thing? If her mom were alive, she could have talked to her about it, explained how she hadn’t planned it, but the cash drawer had been open and she hated Daisy, and the whole thing had just happened. Her mom would have helped her straighten everything out.
But her mom wasn’t alive. And Heather knew if her dad ever found out what she’d done, he would hate her forever.
8
“Here’s the shovel, Miz,” the elephant man said. “And there’s the wheelbarrow. Get the truck mucked out.”
Digger, who took care of the animals for Neeco Martin, the trainer, pushed the shovel at her and hobbled away. The old man was wizened and arthritic, and his mouth had collapsed from lack of back teeth. Digger was her new boss.
Daisy stared dully down at her shovel. This was her punishment. Somehow she had expected that Alex would keep her confined in the trailer, using it as a traveling jail cell, but she should have known he wouldn’t do anything that simple.
Last night she had cried herself to sleep on the couch. She had no idea when he’d come in, or even if he’d returned. For all she knew, he could have spent the night with one of the showgirls. Misery welled inside her. He had barely spoken during this morning’s ride other than to tell her she would be working for Digger and that she wasn’t to leave the lot without his permission.
She looked from the shovel in her hand to the interior of the truck. The elephants had already been unloaded from the massive trailer through wide sliding doors in the center that opened out onto a ramp. Her stomach rolled, and a wave of queasiness brought the bile up into her throat. There were piles of it inside. Piles. Some of the piles were almost neat, with pieces of straw protruding. Others had been squashed by giant feet.
And the smell.
She turned her head away and took a gulp of fresh air. Her husband believed she was a thief and a liar, and as punishment, he’d exiled her to work with the elephants, even though she’d told him she was afraid of animals. She looked back inside the truck.
Sweet Mary McFadden.
Defeat swept over her, and at that exact moment, she knew she’d failed. She simply couldn’t do this. Other people seemed to have hidden reservoirs of strength to draw upon in times of crisis, but she didn’t. She was soft and useless. Everything her father had ever said about her was true. Everything Alex had said. She wasn’t good at anything except making party conversation, and that had no value in this world. As the late morning sun beat down on her head, she looked into her soul and couldn’t find even the smallest vestige of courage. I give up. Her shovel fell to the ramp with a clatter.
“Have you finally had enough?”
She looked down at Alex standing at the bottom of the ramp, and she slowly nodded.
He gazed up at her, his hands resting on the hips of his faded jeans. “The men have been betting on whether or not you’d even make it inside the truck.”
“How did you bet?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, and it had an awkward little croak to it.
“You weren’t raised to shovel shit, angel face. Anybody can see that. But just for the record, I stayed out of it.”
Not from any loyalty to her, she was certain, but only to protect his reputation as the boss. She regarded him with a distant curiosity. “You knew all along I wouldn’t be able to do this, didn’t you?”
He nodded slowly. “I knew.”
“Then why did you make me go through it?”
“You had to understand you weren’t going to be able to cut it here. But you’ve been slow to catch on, Daisy. I tried to tell Max that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving here, but he wouldn’t listen.” His voice grew almost gentle, and for some reason, that bothered her more than his contempt. “Go back to the trailer, Daisy, and change your clothes. I’m buying you a plane ticket out of here.”
Where would she go? she wondered. She had no place left to run. She heard Sinjun’s barking roar, and she looked toward his cage, but the water truck blocked her view.
“I’m giving you some money to hold you over until you get a job.”
“When we were in the limo and I asked you for a loan, you wouldn’t give it to me. Why are you doing it now?”
“I promised your father I’d let you have a fair chance. I’ve kept my word.”
With that, he turned away and began heading for the trailer, certain she was behind him. It was his perfect assurance that cut through her misery and replaced it with a shot of undiluted rage so foreign to her sunny nature that she barely recognized what it was. He was so sure of her spinelessness that he didn’t even question the fact that she would surrender.
And she would, wouldn’t she?
She gazed back down at the shovel lying on the ramp. Dried manure clung to the blade and the handle, attracting a swarm of flies. As she stared down at it, she realized this filthy shovel was what all the choices she had made in her life had come down to.
With a great shuddering sob, she snatched it up and plunged into the malodorous interior of the trailer. Holding her breath, she pushed the blade under the nearest pile, struggled to scoop it up, and with shaking arms, carried it to the wheelbarrow. Her lungs burned from the effort. She gasped for fresh air and nearly gagged from the smell. Without giving herself time to think, she struggled with the next pile and the next. Her arms began to ache, but she didn’t slow down.
Alex’s boots thudded on the ramp. “Stop it, Daisy, and get out here.”
She swallowed hard against the constriction in her throat. “Go away.”
“You’re not going to survive here. Your stubbornness is only postponing the inevitable.”
“You’re probably right.” She lost the battle to hold back her tears. They spilled over onto her cheeks. She sniffed, but she didn’t stop working.
“The only thing you’re proving to me is how foolish you are.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything to you, and I really don’t want to talk any longer.” With a shuddering sob, she lifted another heavy pile and barely found the strength to haul it to the wheelbarrow.
“Are you crying?”
“Go away.”
He stepped inside and came around in front of her. “You are. You’re crying.”
Her voice quivered. “Excuse me, but you’re in my way.”
He reached for the shovel, but she snatched it away before he could touch it. A burst of anger-fueled adrenaline gave her the strength to shove the blade under another pile, scoop it up, and thrust it out at him. “Go away! I mean it, Alex! If you don’t leave me alone, you’re going to be wearing this.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Her arms trembled and tears dripped from her chin onto her T-shirt, but she met his gaze without flinching. “You shouldn’t dare a person who doesn’t have anything left to lose.”
For a moment he did nothing. Then he slowly shook his head and backed away. “Have it your way, but you’re only making this harder on yourself.”
It took her two hours to clean the trailer. Maneuvering the heavy wheelbarrow down the ramp was the most difficult. On the first trip, it tipped, and she had to clean up the mess all over again. She’d cried the whole time, but she didn’t stop. Occasionally, she looked up and saw Alex pass by, his golden eyes watchful, but she ignored him. The pain in her arms and shoulders grew unbearable, but she gritted her teeth and somehow forced herself to go on.
When she had finished hosing down the interior, she stood in the doorway. The jeans and T-shirt Alex had bought her two days earlier were crusted with filth, as was every other part of her. Hair str
aggled around her face, and her fingernails were broken. She surveyed her work and tried to feel some sense of pride in her accomplishment, but all she felt was exhaustion.
She sagged against the truck’s loading door. From her vantage point at the top of the ramp, she could see the adult elephants chained near the road to advertise the circus to those driving by.
“Come on down here, Miz,” Digger said. “Day’s not over.”
She limped to the bottom of the ramp, keeping a wary eye on the young elephants milling untethered not ten yards away.
He gestured toward them. “The babies got to be watered. Use this bull hook to move ’em over to the trough.” He indicated a pole several feet long with a hook at the end, then walked over to the baby elephants, each of whom had to weigh close to a ton. With a combination of voice commands and light raps from the bull hook, he got them moving toward a galvanized tank filled with water. Daisy stayed as far away as possible, her heart pounding with fear.
He looked back at her. “You’re not gonna git the job done from way over there.”
She moved forward gingerly, telling herself that, despite their size, they were only babies. At least they weren’t nasty little dogs.
She watched as some of them used their mouths to sip directly from the trough while others sucked water partially up into their trunks, then carried their trunks to their mouths. Digger noticed the way she continued to hold back. “You ain’t afraid of ’em are you, Miz?
“Call me Daisy.”
“You cain’t never let any animal see you’re afraid.”
“That’s what people keep telling me.”
“You got to show ’em who’s boss. Show ’em you’re in charge.”
He slapped one animal, moving him to the side to make way for the others. From her vantage point in the bleachers, she’d found the babies cute with their floppy ears, long, curling lashes, and solemn expressions, but now they scared her to death.
She saw Neeco Martin over by the adult elephants—the bulls, she reminded herself, even though she’d been told they were all females. She winced as he gave one of them a strong whack with the bull hook. She might not be an animal lover, but something inside her twisted with revulsion. These elephants hadn’t chosen to be in a circus, and she didn’t think they should be brutalized because they didn’t follow the rules humans set for them, especially when those rules ran counter to the instincts of their species.