“I couldn’t do much with the carpet,” she explained, still breathless from the last-minute rush to have everything in place, “but I’ve gotten rid of the worst of the stains, so it’s not too bad. When I get the money, I’m going to do the bed, too, with one of those pretty Indian cotton spreads and more scatter pillows. I’m not much of a seamstress, but I think I can . . .”
“Where did you get the money to do this?”
“From my paycheck.”
“You used your own money?”
“I found all kinds of thrift stores and second-hand shops in the towns we’ve visited. Do you know I’d never been in a Wal-Mart until two weeks ago? It’s amazing how far you can stretch a dollar if you’re careful, and—” The expression on his face finally registered and her smile faded. “You don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. I can see it in your face.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it; I just don’t think it makes sense to waste your money on this place.”
“I don’t think it’s a waste.”
“It’s a trailer, for god’s sake. We’re not going to live here that long.”
That wasn’t the real reason for his objection. As she gazed at him, she realized she had two choices. She could go off and treat herself to a well-deserved sulk, or she could force him to be honest with her. “Tell me exactly what’s wrong.”
“I already have.”
“No, you haven’t. Sheba said you’d turned down a nicer trailer for this place.”
He shrugged.
“You wanted to make it as hard on me as possible, didn’t you?”
“Don’t take it personally. I hadn’t even met you when I made the decision about the trailer.”
“But you’d heard about me from my father.”
He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine he’d bought the day before, a bottle that she’d considered too expensive for their budget.
She refused to let him shut her out. “Did you want to keep living in this place the way it was?”
“It was all right.” He reached in the drawer for the corkscrew.
“I don’t believe you. You’re a man who enjoys beautiful things. I’ve seen the way you take in the scenery when we’re traveling or point out something pretty in a store window. Yesterday when we stopped at that roadside stand, you said the basket of fruit reminded you of a Cézanne.”
“Do you want a glass of wine?”
She shook her head, and as she studied him she began to understand. “I’ve stepped over the line again, haven’t I?”
“I don’t know what you mean, by that.”
“That invisible border you’ve set up in your mind between a real marriage and a pretend one. I’ve crossed it again, haven’t I?”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Sure I am. You’ve made up a whole list of rules and regulations for our pretend marriage. I’m supposed to follow your orders without question and stay out of your way except when you want me in bed with you. But most of all, I’m not supposed to make any emotional attachments. I’m not allowed to care about you, about our marriage, our life together. I’m not even allowed to care about this dumpy little trailer.”
She’d finally gotten to him, and he slapped the flat of his hand down on the counter, shaking the wine bottle. “I don’t want you nesting, that’s all! It’s a bad idea.”
“I was right,” she said quietly.
He shoved his hand back through his hair. “You’re such a damned romantic. Sometimes when I see you looking at me, I have the feeling you’re not seeing me at all. Instead, you’re seeing the way you want me to be. You’re doing the same thing with this—this legal tie between us. You’re going to try to make it into something it’s not.”
“It’s a marriage, Alex, not just a legal tie. We made sacred vows.”
“For six months! Don’t you understand that I care about you? All I’m trying to do is protect you from getting hurt.”
“Protect me? I see.” She took a deep breath. “Is that why you’ve been checking to make certain I’m taking my birth control pills?”
His expression grew stony. “What does that have to do with anything.”
“At first I couldn’t figure out why I’d find them on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet when I’d left them on the bottom. Then I realized that you’d been handling them.”
“I was just making sure you weren’t forgetting them, that’s all.”
“In other words, you’ve been checking up on me.”
“I’m not going to apologize. I told you how strongly I feel about not having children.”
She gazed at him bleakly. “We don’t have anything, do we? No respect, no affection, no trust.”
“We have affection, Daisy. At least I do.” He hesitated. “And you’ve earned my respect, too. I never figured you would take your work so seriously. You’ve got guts, Daisy.”
She refused to feel grateful for his words. “But I don’t have your trust.”
“I trust your good intentions.”
“You also believe I’m a thief. That doesn’t say much for good intentions.”
“You were desperate when you took that money. You were tired and frightened, or you wouldn’t have done it. I know that now.”
“I didn’t take the money.”
“It’s all right, Daisy. I’m not holding it against you any longer.”
The fact that he still didn’t believe her shouldn’t be so painful. The only way she could convince him was to implicate Heather, and now she knew she couldn’t do that. What would be the point? She didn’t want to be responsible for having Heather banished. And if she had to submit proof to Alex, his belief in her innocence would be meaningless anyway.
“If you trust me, why were you checking to make sure I was taking the pills?”
“I can’t take any chances. I don’t want a child.”
“You’ve made that clear.” She wanted to ask him if it was the thought of having a child that was so repugnant to him, or just the thought of having a child with her, but she was afraid of the answer she’d hear. “I don’t want you checking my pills again. I told you I’d take them, and I will. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”
She saw his struggle. Despite the way her mother had betrayed her with Noel Black, she hadn’t lost her faith in the human race. But Alex didn’t seem to trust anyone except himself.
To her surprise, she felt her indignation fade and compassion take its place. How terrible it must be to go through life always expecting the worst from those around you.
She brushed her fingertips over the back of his hand. “I would never deliberately hurt you, Alex. I’d like it very much if you’d at least trust me that far.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“I know. But you need to do it anyway.”
He gazed at her for a long time before he gave a shaky nod. “Okay. No more checking up.”
She somehow knew what this concession had cost him, and she was touched.
“Aaaaaand now, entering the center ring of Quest Brothers Circus for the very first time, is Theodosia, the beautiful bride of Alexi the Cossack!”
Daisy’s knees trembled so badly that she stumbled, ruining her first entrance. What had happened to the wild gypsy maiden? she wondered frantically, as she listened to Jack’s new spiel for the first time. That morning at the rehearsal, he had begun with the gypsy theme but then walked out in frustration when she’d screamed. She’d known when Sheba had thrust this new costume at her that they were going with another idea, but Sheba had walked away without giving her the courtesy of an explanation.
The music of the balalaika threaded through the big top, which had been set up in a parking lot in the resort town of Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Alexi stood across the ring, the bullwhip dangling from his hand. Shimmering crimson glitter from the balloons he’d just broken clung to the polished tops o
f his black boots, and the red sequins in his sash sparkled like fresh blood.
“Does she look nervous to you, ladies and gentlemen?” Jack make a sweeping gesture in her direction. “She looks nervous to me. None of us can fully comprehend the courage it’s taken for this sheltered young woman to come into the arena with her husband.”
Daisy’s costume rustled as she moved slowly into the ring. The slimly cut virginal white gown covered her from its high lacy neck to its rhinestone-encrusted hem, and just before he’d gone on, Alex had fastened a tissue-paper pink rose between her breasts. He’d told her it would be part of her costume.
She felt the audience’s eyes on her. Jack’s voice rose along with the Russian music, and the sides of the tent billowed in the breeze blowing off the ocean. “The child of wealthy French aristocrats, Theodosia was kept secluded from the modern world by the nuns who schooled her.”
Nuns? What was Jack up to?
As the ringmaster continued, Alex began the slow whip dance, which had previously served as the climax to his act, while she stood motionlessly in a pool of light across from him. The lighting grew softer, and as the audience listened to Jack’s story, they stared with fascination at Alex’s graceful movements.
“She met the Cossack when the circus performed in a village near the convent where she was living, and the two of them fell deeply in love. But her parents rebelled at the idea of their gentle daughter marrying a man they considered a barbarian, and they disowned her. Theodosia had to leave everything familiar behind.”
The music became more dramatic, and Alex’s whip dance changed from an athletic feat into a bridegroom’s dance of seduction. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, she comes into the ring with her husband, but it’s not easy for her. The bullwhip terrifies this gentle young woman, and we ask for you to be as quiet as possible as she faces her fears. Remember that she enters the ring protected only by one thing”—Alex’s dance reached its climax—“the love she feels for her fierce Cossack husband.”
The music crescendoed, and without warning, Alex cracked the whip in a dramatic arc over his head. Her breath left her body in a strangled exclamation, and she dropped the tube she had just withdrawn from the special pocket Sheba had finished sewing in her dress only a few hours earlier.
The audience gasped, and she realized that Jack’s improbable story had worked. Instead of laughing at her reaction, they’d somehow picked up on her tension.
To her surprise, Alex walked over to her, picked up the tube she’d dropped, and presented it to her as if it were a single rose. Then he dipped his head and brushed his lips across hers.
The gesture was so romantic that she was almost certain she heard a woman in the front row sigh. She would have sighed, too, if she hadn’t known he was merely playing to the crowd. Her fingers trembled as she held the tube as far away from her body as she could.
She managed to keep her composure as he cut it away, but when it came time for her to put it in her mouth, her knees once again started to shake. Slipping the tube between her lips, she closed her eyes and presented him with her profile.
The whip cracked and the end dropped off. She balled her hands into fists at her side. If she’d thought having an audience would make this any easier, she was wrong.
He cracked the whip twice more until only the stub stayed between her lips. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t swallow.
Jack’s voice intruded, hushed and dramatic. “Ladies and gentlemen, I ask for your cooperation as Alexi attempts to make the final cut in the small paper tube being held in his young bride’s mouth. He needs absolute quiet. Remember that the lash will be passing so close to her face that the slightest miscalculation on his part could scar her for life.”
Daisy whimpered. Her fingernails dug so deeply into her palms that she was afraid she had broken the skin.
The noise exploded in her ears as the whip sliced the last of the tube from her mouth.
The crowd erupted in cheers. Daisy squeezed her eyes open and felt so dizzy she was afraid she would faint. Alex gestured toward her with his hand, giving her a cue to style. The most she could manage was a slight dip of her chin.
As she lifted her head, the tip of the bullwhip flew through the air toward her, and the crimson tissue-paper flower tucked between her breasts exploded in a shower of fragile paper petals.
She jumped back with a hiss of alarm, and the audience applauded. He made a sharp upward gesture toward her, the cue to raise her arms and cross her wrists. She numbly followed directions.
The whip cracked and the crowd gasped as the lash curled around her wrists. He waited for a moment before he released the tension. There was an indecipherable murmur coming from the seats. He frowned at her, and she remembered that she was supposed to smile. She managed to pull the ends of her mouth upward and extend her wrists so they could see that she was unhurt. As she was doing that, the whip cracked again.
She winced. Looking down, she saw the lash wrapping her calves. He hadn’t done this before, and she shot him a worried look. He released the tension and raised his eyebrow in warning. She gave the crowd another frozen smile. Once again, he gestured for her to raise her arms. With a feeling of inevitability, she did as he commanded.
Crack!
A scream slipped from her throat as the lash coiled about her waist. She waited for him to ease the tension, but this time he didn’t. Instead, he tugged on the whip, forcing her to come to him. Only when the skirt of her dress brushed his thighs did he abruptly release the tight coils and draw her into his arms for a dramatic kiss that could have graced the cover of a romance novel.
The audience cheered.
She felt dizzy and angry with him, but somehow deliriously happy all at the same time. He whistled and Misha thundered back into the arena. Releasing her only for a moment, he vaulted onto the horse from the rear as it galloped around the ring. A prickle slithered up her spine. Surely he wouldn’t—
Her feet left the ground as he dangled from the side of the horse to scoop her up into his arms. Before she knew what had happened, she was positioned across his lap.
The lights went out, plunging the arena into darkness. The applause was deafening. He loosened one of his arms while she clung frantically to his waist. Moments later, there was an explosion of sound and the great fire whip danced above their heads.
Daisy crossed the narrow asphalt road that separated the parking lot where the circus was set up from the deserted beach. Off to her left the garish lights of the Jersey Shore boardwalk blinked their colorful mayhem in the night: the Ferris wheel and zipper ride, the carousel and concessions.
Her debut had marked the circus’s first appearance in the seaside resort, and now she was too keyed up to sleep. The audience at the second show had reacted even more enthusiastically, and a wonderful sense of accomplishment cut through her fatigue. Even Brady Pepper had set aside his customary silence to offer her a frosty nod.
She breathed in the musty sea scent and stepped down into the sand, which had lost its warmth from the day and trickled coolly into her sandals. She loved being near the ocean, and she was glad that this was one of the locations where the circus would spend more than one night.
“Daisy?”
She turned to see Alex standing at the top of the steps, his tall, lean body silhouetted against the faint glow of light reflected in the night sky. The breeze shuffled through his hair and pressed his shirt to his body. “Is this a private walk, or can anybody join?”
“Are you armed?”
“The whips are all packed away for the night.”
“Then come along.” She smiled and held out her hand.
For a moment he hesitated, and she wondered if the gesture was too personal for him. It spoke volumes about their relationship when holding hands seemed more intimate than having sex. Still, she didn’t drop her arm. This was merely one more challenge for her to meet.
The soles of his work boots tapped on the wooden steps as he came down to meet her. He
took her hand, and the ridge of calluses in his palm reminded her that he was a man accustomed to hard work. His hand, warm and strong, enfolded hers.
The beach was deserted but still littered with the debris left behind by the day’s visitors, anxious to get an early start on the summer season: empty soda cans, a rubber shower thong, the broken lid of a Styrofoam cooler. They wandered toward the water.
“The audience liked the new act.”
“I was so scared my knees were knocking. If it hadn’t been for the new story line, it would have been a disaster, but when I tried to thank Jack afterward, he said it was your idea.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Don’t you think you were stretching it a bit with the French nuns?”
“I’ve heard your lectures on morality, sweetheart. Unless I miss my guess, at least part of that erratic schooling of yours was spent with nuns.”
She didn’t deny it.
They walked for a while in comfortable silence. The breeze tossed her hair, and the pounding of the surf drove out the distant noises of the boardwalk amusement park, giving her the feeling that the two of them were alone in the world. She waited for him to drop her hand, but he held on.
“You did a good job tonight, Daisy. You’re a hard worker.”
“You really think so? Do you really think I’m a hard worker?”
“I do.”
“Thank you. Nobody’s ever said anything like that about me.” She gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “If they had, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.”
“But you believe me.”
“You’re not a man who gives praise lightly.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Not fair.”
“What?”
“I said something nice about you. Surely you can come up with at least one good thing about me.”