Kiss an Angel (7 page)

When she decided to leave, it would be because she'd given up, not because he was kicking her out or paying her off to get rid of her. He might not like Max, but he owed him.

This was his year for paying off big debts, first with his deathbed promise to Owen Quest to take the circus out for its last season under the Quest name, and then by agreeing to marry Max's daughter. In all these years Max had never asked one thing of him as repayment for having saved Alex's life, but when he'd finally gotten around to it, he'd asked for a doozy.

Alex had tried to convince Max that he could accomplish the same objective just by letting Daisy live with him, but Max was too stodgy. Originally Max had insisted that the marriage last a year, but that had been more than even Alex's gratitude could tolerate. They had compromised on six months, a period that would end at the same time as this final Quest Brothers tour.

As Alex lathered his chest, he thought about the two men who had been such a powerful force in his life, Owen Quest and Max Petroff. Max had rescued him from an existence of physical and emotional abuse, while Owen had guided him into manhood.

On the day he'd met Max, Alex was twelve and had been traveling with his Uncle Sergey in a scruffy circus that was spending the summer playing every Atlantic coast resort from Daytona Beach to Cape Cod. He'd never forget that hot August afternoon when Max had appeared like an avenging angel to rip the bullwhip out of Sergey's fist and save Alex from another savage beating.

Now he understood the reasons for Sergey's acts of sadism, but at the time he hadn't comprehended the attraction twisted men feel for little boys and how far they'd go to deny that attraction. In an impulsive gesture of generosity, Max had paid off Sergey and taken Alex away. He'd put him in military school and provided the financial, if not the emotional, resources that let Alex survive until he could take care

of himself.

But it was Owen Quest who had given Alex lessons on manhood during Alex's school vacations when he'd traveled with the circus to make money, and then later into Alex's adulthood as every few years he left the rest of his life behind and gave in to an urge to go on the road for a few months. The part of Alex's character that hadn't been shaped by his uncle's whip had been formed by Owen's long-winded lectures and generally astute observations about how screwed up the world was and how tough a man

had to be in order to survive. Life was a dangerous business in Owen's view, and he didn't see much place for laughter or frivolity. A man worked hard, kept his guard up, and always held on to his pride.

Alex turned off the shower and reached for a towel. Both men had their selfish reasons for helping out

a troubled kid. Max saw himself as a benefactor and enjoyed bragging about his various charitable projects—including Alex Markov—to his upper-crust friends. Owen, on the other hand, had a monstrous ego, and he relished having an impressionable audience waiting breathlessly for his dark insights on life.

But regardless of their motivations, they'd been the only people in his young life who'd ever given a damn about him, and neither of them had once asked for anything in return, not until this past year.

Now Alex had a ragtag circus on his hands, along with a silly, sexy ditz of a wife, who was going to do her best to drive him crazy. He wouldn't let it happen, of course. Circumstances had made him who he was—tough and stubborn, a man who lived by his own code and no longer had any illusions left about himself. Daisy Devreaux didn't have a chance.

He wrapped the towel around his waist, picked up another to dry his hair, and opened the bathroom door.

Daisy gulped as the door swung open and he came out. Oh, Lord, he was gorgeous. With his head buried in a towel while he rubbed it dry, she could look her fill, and she saw that his body was her idea of perfect, with muscles that were well-defined but not overly pumped up. He also had something she had never seen on any of Lani's toy boys— a working man's tan. His broad chest was dusted with dark hair, and some kind of gold medal nested there, but she was too entranced with the overall vista to take in much detail.

His hips were significantly narrower than his shoulders, his stomach flat. She followed the straight arrow of hair that began just above his navel and continued down into the low-slung knot on his yellow bath towel. Heat fanned through her as she wondered what he'd look like without it.

He finished drying his hair and glanced over at her. ' You can sleep with me or you can sleep on the couch. Right now I'm too tired to care which one."

"I'll sleep on the couch!" Her voice held a tiny squeak, whether from his words or the sight before her eyes, she wasn't certain.

He spoiled her view of his front by walking to the bed where he turned his back on her to coil the whips and place them in a wooden case he pulled out from beneath the bed. With the whips out of sight, she found herself able to enjoy the view of his back much more.

Once again, he turned to face her. "In exactly five seconds I'm going to drop this towel."

He waited, and as more than five seconds passed, she realized what he meant.

"Oh. You want me to

look away."

He laughed. "Let me get just one good night's sleep, angel face, and, I promise, you can look all you want."

Now she'd done it. She'd given him completely the wrong impression, and she had to correct it. "I'm afraid you misinterpreted."

"I sure hope not."

''But you did. I was just curious. .. not curious, exactly, but—well, yes, I guess curious.. .. That's only natural. But you shouldn't assume—"

"Daisy?"

"Yes?"

"If you say another word, I'm going to pull out one of those whips you're so worried about and see if I can get into that perversion thing."

She snatched up a clean pair of panties and a faded University of North Carolina T-shirt she'd pulled

from his drawer while he was in the shower, then flounced into the bathroom.

She closed the door

with a satisfying bang.

Twenty minutes later she emerged freshly showered and wearing his T-shirt.

She'd decided it was preferable to the only nightwear she'd found in her suitcase, a scrap of pink silk and lace she'd bought in the days before Noel and her mother had betrayed her.

Alex was sound asleep, lying on his back with the bed-sheet twisted around his naked hips. There was something impolite about staring at a person while he slept, but she couldn't turn away. Instead, she

crept to the end of the bed and gazed down at him.

Asleep, he didn't seem nearly as dangerous as he did awake, and her hands itched to touch that hard, flat belly. She slid her gaze from his waist to his chest and was admiring the perfect symmetry of it when she caught sight of the gold medal hanging on a chain around his neck. As she saw what it was, she froze.

He wore a beautifully enameled Russian icon.

. . . wearing nothing but rags and a priceless icon hanging on a leather thong
around his neck.

Her skin prickled. She studied the face of the Virgin Mary pressing her cheek to that of her child, and although she didn't know much about icons, she could see that this Virgin wasn't from the Italian tradition. The gold ornamentation on her black robes was purely Byzantine, as was the elaborate costume worn by the infant Jesus.

She reminded herself that just because Alex wore what was obviously a valuable icon didn't mean the cockamamie story about Cossacks was true. It was probably a family piece that he'd inherited. But she still felt uneasy as she made her way to the opposite end of the trailer.

The couch was littered with clothes from her suitcase that she hadn't put away along with a clutter of newspapers and magazines, some of which were several years old. She pushed everything aside and

made up the bed with some clean sheets from the storage closet. But between the nap she'd taken and

her troubled thoughts, she couldn't fall asleep, so she read an old issue of Newsweek. By the time she'd finished, it was nearly three. She felt as if she'd barely closed her eyes before she was rudely jarred awake.

"Up and at 'em, angel face. We've got a long day ahead."

She rolled over onto her stomach. He tugged at the sheet and she felt the brush of cold air on the backs

of her bare thighs. She refused to move. As long as she didn't move, she wouldn't have to face a new day.

"Come on, Daisy."

She buried her face more deeply into her pillow.

A large warm hand settled over the fragile silk of her panties, and her eyes shot open. With a gasp, she rolled to her back, scrambling to cover herself with the sheet.

He grinned down at her. "I thought that might get you moving."

He was the devil incarnate. Only the devil would be fully dressed and shaved at this ungodly hour. She bared her teeth at him. "I'm not a morning person. Go away and don't ever touch me again."

His eyes ran over her in a leisurely fashion, making her aware of the fact that she had nothing on beneath the sheet but his old, worn T-shirt and a very small pair of panties.

"We have nearly a three-hour jump ahead of us, and we're pulling out in ten minutes. Throw some clothes on and make yourself useful." He moved away from her to the sink.

She squinted at the gray light coming in through the small, dirty windows. "It's the middle of the night."

"It's almost six." He poured a mug of coffee, and she waited for him to bring it to her. Instead, he tilted it to his own lips.

She lay back on the couch. "I didn't go to sleep until three. I'll stay in here while you drive."

"It's against the law." He set down his coffee, then bent over to snatch up some of her clothes from the floor. He eyed them critically. "Don't you have any jeans?"

"Of course I have jeans."

"Then put them on."

She regarded him smugly. "They're back home in my father's guest room."

"Of course they are." He shoved the clothes he'd collected at her. "Get dressed."

She wanted to say something unforgivably rude, but she was fairly certain he'd manhandle her if she did, so she reluctantly stumbled into the bathroom. Ten minutes later she emerged, ridiculously dressed in turquoise silk evening trousers and a cropped navy cotton top printed with bunches of bright red cherries. As she opened her mouth to protest his choice of clothes, she noted that he was standing in front of an open kitchen cupboard, looking both angry and very dangerous.

Her gaze dropped to the coiled black whip dangling from his fist, and her heart started to pound. She didn't know what she'd done, but she knew she was in trouble. This was it. Showdown at the Cossack Corral.

"Did you eat my Twinkies?"

She gulped. Keeping her eyes glued to the whip, she said, "Exactly what Twinkies are we talking about?"

"The Twinkies in the cupboard over the sink. The only Twinkies in the trailer."

His fingers convulsed around the coils of leather.

Oh, Lord,
she thought.
Flayed to death for a Twinkle.

"Well?"

"It, uh— It won't happen again, I promise you. But they didn't have any special marking on them, so there was no way I could tell they were yours." Her eyes remained riveted on the whip. "And normally I wouldn't have eaten them— I never eat junk food-—but I was hungry last night, and, well, when you think about it, you'll have to admit I did you a favor because they're clogging my arteries now instead of yours."

His voice was quiet. Too quiet. In her mind she heard the howl of a rampaging Cossack baying at a Russian moon. "Don't touch my Twinkies. Ever. If you want Twinkies, buy your own."

She bit her bottom lip. "Twinkies aren't really a very nutritious breakfast."

"Stop it!"

She took a quick backward step, her gaze flying up to meet his. "Stop what?"

He lifted the whip, thrusting it toward her. "Stop looking at this like I'm getting ready to strip the skin off your backside, for God's sake. I had to put leather dressing on it, and I was just putting it away."

She released one long breath. "You don't know how glad I am to hear that."

"If I decide to whip you, it won't be over a Twinkie."

He was doing it to her again. "Stop threatening me right this minute, or you're going to regret it."

"What are you going to do, angel face? Stab me with your eyebrow pencil?" He regarded her with some amusement, then walked over to the bed, where he pulled out the wooden case beneath it and laid the whip inside.

She drew herself up to her full five feet, four inches and glared at him dead on.

"I'll have you know, Chuck Norris himself gave me pointers in karate."

Unfortunately, it had been ten years ago, and she

didn't remember a thing, but that was neither here nor there.

"You don't say."

"Furthermore, Arnold Schwarzenegger personally advised me on a physical fitness program." If only

she'd taken just one of his suggestions.

"I hear you, Daisy. You're bad to the bone. Now move it."

They hardly spoke at all during the first hour of their trip. Since he hadn't given her nearly enough time to get ready, she had to do her makeup in the truck and fix her hair without her blow-dryer, which meant fastening it back from her face with a pair of art nouveau combs that looked pretty but didn't work very well. Instead of appreciating the difficulty of the task and giving her a little cooperation, he ignored her request to slow down while she applied her eyeliner, then had the nerve to complain because a teeny bit of her styling spray happened to get in his face.

He bought her breakfast in an Orangeburg, South Carolina, truck stop that was decorated with copper kettle lights and wall arrangements of shellacked bread loaves. After she'd eaten, she sneaked into the rest room and smoked one of her three remaining cigarettes. When she came out, she noticed two things. An attractive waitress was flirting with him. And he wasn't doing one thing to discourage her.

She watched him cock his head, then smile at something the waitress said. She experienced a pang of jealousy at how much more he seemed to be enjoying the waitress's company than he enjoyed hers, but she was still prepared to ignore what was happening until she remembered the promise she'd made to honor her vows. With a sense of resignation, she straightened her shoulders and made her way to the table where she gave the waitress her brightest smile.