Kiss an Angel (32 page)

I love you.

I love you.

"I have to take you back," she finally whispered, tears seeping through her closed eyelids. "But I won't abandon you. Ever."

The purring and the heartbeat became as one.

She stayed there on the ground for some time, her cheek pressed to his neck.

She had never felt so peaceful, not even when she sat between Tater's front legs. There was so much evil in the world, but

not here. This place was holy.

Only gradually did the others come into focus. They were frozen like statues.

Off to the sides. Before

her. Behind her.

Alex still had his gun aimed at Sinjun. Silly man. As if she would let him hurt this animal. Her husband's healthy tan had faded to chalk, and she knew she was causing him terrible fear. With the echo of the tiger's heartbeat beneath her cheek, she understood she had upset Alex's world in a way he would find difficult to forgive. When this was over, there would be terrible consequences to face.

Her father, looking old and gaunt and gray, stood not far behind Alex, next to Sheba. Heather clutched Brady's arm. The schoolchildren were absolutely silent.

The outside world had invaded, and she could no longer stay where she was.

Slowly, she stood. Keeping her hand curved over the back of Sinjun's neck, she let the tips of her fingers sink into his fur.

"Sinjun's going back to his cage now," she announced to everyone. "Please stay away from him."

She began to move and wasn't at all surprised when the tiger came with her since their souls were so intertwined that he had no other choice. The side of her leg brushed against him as she led him toward

the cage. With every step, she was aware of Alex's gun trained on him.

The closer they got to their destination, the more she felt the tiger's sadness.

She wished she could make him understand it was the only place she could keep him safe. When they reached the cage, he balked.

She knelt and gazed into his eyes. "I'll stay with you for a while."

He gave her his unblinking stare. And then, to her amazement, he rubbed his cheek against the side of

her head. His whiskers brushed her neck, and once again she heard his deep, gruff purr.

And then he was gone. With one powerful thrust of his hindquarters, he leaped into the cage.

She heard a rustle of movement behind her and spun around to see Neeco and Alex running toward the cage, ready to grab the broken door and shove it back in place.

"Stop!" She held out her arms, warding them off. "Don't come any closer."

They froze in their tracks.

"Daisy, get out of the way." Alex's voice vibrated with tension, and lines of strain had made his

handsome features stark.

"Leave us alone." She moved directly in front of the open cage door and turned her back on them.

Sinjun watched her. Now that he was once again imprisoned, he stood as imperiously as ever: regal, aloof, with everything lost to him except his dignity.

She somehow knew what he wanted, and she couldn't bear it. He wanted her to be his jailer. She was the one he had elected to close the broken door of the cage and imprison him.

She hadn't realized she was crying until she felt the tears sliding down her cheeks. Sinjun's golden eyes shimmered, and he regarded her with his customary disdain, making her feel as if she were somehow his inferior.

Do it, weakling!
those eyes commanded.
Now.

Bracing herself, she lifted her arms to grasp the cage door. The broken hinge made it heavy and difficult to maneuver, but with a sob, she managed to close it.

Alex rushed forward and grabbed for the door to secure it, but the moment he touched it, Sinjun bared

his teeth and gave a bone-chilling roar.

"Let me do it!" she exclaimed. "You're upsetting him. Please. I'll fasten it."

"Damn it!" He quickly stepped back, sounding angry and frustrated.

Her position was awkward. The platform the cage rested on stood over three feet off the ground, and

she had to raise her arms to hold the door shut. Neeco appeared with a wooden stool, which he set next to her. Then he gave her a piece of rope.

For a moment, she couldn't imagine what it was for.

"Loop it through the bars by the hinge," Alex said. "Lean against the door while you work so you can use your weight to keep it in place. And for god's sake get ready to jump back if he decides to attack."

Coming up behind her, he slipped his hands around her hips to brace her. Their support comforted her as she tried to do as he'd said, holding the door closed with her shoulder while she attempted to secure the rope around the broken hinge. Her body began to tremble from the strain of her awkward position. She felt the bulge of the gun he'd tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

His hold on her tightened. "You've almost got it, sweetheart."

The knot was big and clumsy, but it held. She dropped her arms. Alex pulled her off the stool and gathered her against his chest.

She stayed there for several long comforting moments before she looked up into eyes so very much like the tiger's. The new knowledge that she loved this man filled her with a sense of awe. They were so different, yet she felt the call of his soul as clearly as if he'd spoken out loud. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"We'll talk about it later."

He would drag her back to the trailer for a private lambasting. Maybe this was the incident that would finally push him over the edge, and he'd send her away.

She pushed aside the thought and stepped back from him. "I can't leave yet. I promised Sinjun I'd stay with him for a while."

The lines of strain deepened near his mouth, but he didn't question her. "All right."

Her father stormed forward. "You don't have the brains of an idiot! It's a wonder you're still alive! Whatever possessed you? Don't you ever do anything like that again. If you even—"

Alex cut in. "Shut up, Max. I'll take care of this."

"But—"

Alex lifted one eyebrow, and Max Petroff immediately fell silent. That was all Alex did—lift one eyebrow—but it was enough. She had never seen her domineering father concede to anyone in that way, and it reminded her of what he'd said. For centuries it had been the duty of the Petroffs to obey the wishes of the Romanovs.

At that moment some part of her accepted what her father had told her as true, but she returned her attention to Sinjun, who looked restless and edgy.

"Amelia will be wondering where I am," her father said from behind her. "I'd better be getting back. Good-bye, Theodosia." He seldom touched her, and she was surprised to feel the soft brush of his hand on her shoulder. Before she could respond, he turned to Alex and said his farewells, then walked away.

The activity of the circus had begun to return to normal. Jack was talking with the teacher as he helped her escort the children to the school. Neeco and the others had gone back to work. Sheba walked forward. "Good job, Daisy."

The words were delivered begrudgingly. Although Daisy thought she saw a glimmer of respect in the circus owner's eyes, she also had the eerie feeling Sheba's dislike of her had intensified. Sheba avoided looking at Alex and walked away, leaving them alone with Sinjun.

The tiger stood, tense and watchful, but still regarding both of them with his customary hauteur. She wrapped her hands around the cage bars. Sinjun moved. She heard Alex's quick, indrawn breath as the tiger began to rub his great head against her fingers.

"I wish you wouldn't let him do that."

She reached farther between the bars to scratch Sinjun behind his ears. "He won't hurt me. He doesn't respect me, but he loves me."

Alex gave a thin chuckle and then, to her surprise, enfolded her in his arms from behind as she stroked the tiger. His jaw moved against the top of her head.

"I've never been so scared in my life."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm the one who's sorry. You warned me about the cages, and I should have checked all of them.

This is my fault."

"It's mine. I'm responsible for the menagerie."

"Don't you dare blame yourself. I won't allow it."

Sinjun's tongue stroked her wrist. She felt the muscles in Alex's arms tense as the tiger licked her.

"Would you please take your hands out of that cage now?" he asked quietly.

"You're giving me heart failure."

"In a minute."

"I've already lost ten years off my life. I can't afford to lose any more."

"I like touching him. Besides, he's a lot like you. He doesn't give his affection easily, and I don't want to offend him by backing away."

"He's an animal, Daisy. He doesn't have human emotions."

She was feeling too peaceful to argue.

"Sweetheart, you have to stop befriending wild animals. First Tater, now Sinjun. I'll tell you what. You obviously need a real pet. First thing tomorrow, we'll get you a dog."

She looked up at him in alarm. "Oh, no, we can't do that."

"Why not."

"Because I'm afraid of dogs."

He looked stunned, and then he began to laugh. At first it was the merest rumble deep in his chest, but it soon turned into a rich, hearty sound that bounced off the walls of the big top and echoed through the lot.

"It figures," she grumbled through her own smile. "Alex Markov finally laughs, and it's at my expense."

He turned his head into the sun, drew her tighter against him, and laughed all the harder.

Sinjun regarded them both with faint annoyance, then stretched out against the bars of the cage to lick Daisy's thumb.

* * *

Alex shouldered his way through the group of reporters and photographers that had surrounded Daisy following the final show that evening. "My wife's had enough for today. She needs to get some rest."

Ignoring him, a reporter shoved a small tape recorder toward Daisy. "What went through your mind when you realized the tiger was loose?"

Daisy opened her mouth to respond, but Alex broke in, knowing Daisy was so damned polite she'd answer their questions till she dropped. "Sorry, that's it."

Wrapping his arm around her, he began leading her away.

It hadn't taken the media long to get hold of the story of the escaped tiger, and reporters had been showing up ever since the matinee to interview her. At first Sheba had been happy with the publicity. Then she'd heard Daisy comment that the menagerie was cruel and inhumane, and she'd been furious. When Sheba had attempted to interrupt with the interview, Daisy had looked at her with those innocent eyes and said, without a speck of guile, "But, Sheba, the animals hate being in the menagerie. They're all so unhappy there."

As he and Daisy made their way to the trailer, he was so glad she was alive and unhurt that he didn't much mind anything she said. She stumbled, and he realized he was walking too fast. He was always doing that to her. Dragging her along. Pushing her. Making her stumble. What if she'd been hurt today? What if Sinjun had killed her?

He felt a crushing panic as his mind played out gruesome images of Sinjun's claws ripping into her small, slender body. If anything had happened to her, he would never have forgiven himself. She was too important to him. Too necessary.

Her fragrance drifted up at him, sweet and spicy, with a hint of something else, maybe the scent of goodness. How had she managed to work her way under his skin in such a short time? She wasn't his type of woman at all, but she'd made him feel emotions he'd never imagined, even as she turned the rules of logic upside down so that black became white and order became chaos. There was nothing rational about her. She made pets out of tigers and recoiled in fear from a small dog. She'd taught him how to laugh. She'd also done something no one else had been able to accomplish since he was a very young child. She had shattered his rigid self-control, and maybe that was why he was beginning to hurt so much.

An image flickered through his mind, at first elusive, but gradually growing clearer. He remembered frigid winter days when he'd been outside too long and come in to thaw. He remembered the pain in his frozen hands as warmth returned to them. The pain of the thaw. Was that what was happening to him?

Was he feeling the pain of thawing emotions?

Daisy looked back at the reporters. "They're going to think I'm rude, Alex. I shouldn't have left so abruptly."

"I don't give a damn what they think."

"That's because you have high self-esteem. I, on the other hand, have low—"

"Don't start."

Tater, tethered near their trailer, bleated as he saw Daisy. "I have to tell him good night."

His arms felt empty as she disengaged herself and went over to Tater where she pressed her cheek to his head. He wrapped her up in his trunk, and Alex had to fight the urge to pull her away before the baby elephant crushed her from an excess of feeling. A cat. Maybe he could buy her some kind of house cat.

Declawed so she wouldn't get scratched.

The idea didn't ease his mind. Knowing Daisy, she was probably afraid of house cats, too.

She finally left Tater behind to followed him into the trailer where she began to take off her costume only to sink down on the end of the bed. "Go ahead and yell at me. I know you've been wanting to all day."

Alex had never seen her look so forlorn. Why did she always have to think the worst of him? Even as his heart urged him to go easy, his mind told him he had to rip right into her and give her a lecture she'd never forget. The circus was full of dangers, and he would do anything to keep her safe.

As he gathered his thoughts, she gazed up at him, and all the troubles of the world were reflected in the violet depths of her eyes. "I couldn't let you kill him, Alex. I couldn't."

His good intentions dissolved. "I know." He sat next to her on the bed, picking the hay out of her hair and speaking with difficulty. "What you did today was the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"And the stupidest. Go ahead and say it."

"That, too." He reached out with his index finger and pushed an inky curl back from her cheek. As he gazed into her upturned face, he couldn't remember ever having seen anything that moved him so deeply. "When I first met you, all I could see was a spoiled little rich girl, silly and pampered, too beautiful for her own good."