“Of course I can. You make great chili.”
To her surprise, he frowned. “Fine. Forget I said anything.”
Thunderstruck, she realized she’d hurt his feelings. She thought he’d been teasing, but with Alex, she should have known better. Still, it surprised her that he cared about her opinion. “I was just warming up for the good stuff,” she said.
“It’s no big deal. It really doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter, and she was pleased. “Let me think.”
“Forget it.”
She squeezed his hand. “You do what you believe is right, even if other people disapprove, so I should admire your integrity. I do admire your integrity, but—” She folded her fingers around his hand. “Do you really want me to be honest?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
She ignored the belligerent thrust of his jaw. “You have a wonderful smile.”
He looked faintly befuddled, and his hand relaxed around hers. “You like my smile?”
“I do. Very much.”
“Nobody ever said that to me before.”
“Not many people get to see it.” She hid her own smile as she watched the serious way he pondered what she’d told him. “There’s one other thing, but I don’t know how you’re going to take this.”
“Go on.”
“You have a really great body.”
“A great body? Is that it? That’s the second-best thing you can come up with about me?”
“I didn’t say it was the second-best thing. All I’m doing is telling you something good about you, and that’s something really good.”
“My body?”
“It’s terrific, Alex. It really is.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The pounding of the surf filled the brief silence that fell between them.
“You, too,” he said.
“What?”
“Your body. I like it.”
“Mine? But there’s not one great thing about it. My shoulders are too narrow for my hips, and my thighs are too fat. My stomach—”
He shook his head. “The next time I hear a woman going on about how neurotic men are, I’m going to remember this. You tell me you like my body, and what do I say? I say, thank you. Then I tell you I like yours and what do I hear? A long list of grievances.”
“It’s the burden women bear who’ve grown up playing with Barbie.” His grunt of disgust somehow pleased her. “Thank you for the compliment, but—be honest. Don’t you think my breasts are a little small?”
“This is a trick question, right?”
“Just tell me the truth.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” He caught her by the shoulders so that she was facing the ocean, then stepped behind her. His arms slipped around her and he cupped her breasts. Her skin prickled with need as he gently squeezed and molded the flesh. He ran his thumbs down their soft slopes and brushed them over the hardening tips.
Her breath quickened. His lips feathered her earlobe as he whispered to her, “I think they’re perfect, Daisy. Just the right size.”
She turned, and no force in the world could have kept her from kissing him. Clasping her arms around his neck, she went on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his, her lips soft and yielding. His tongue teased and hers responded. She lost all concept of time or even of separation. Her body became a part of his and his part of hers.
“Looky there, Dwayne! It’s them two from the circus.”
Daisy and Alex jumped apart like two teenagers caught necking by the cops.
The owner of the strident voice was a plump, middle-aged woman dressed in a lime green floral outfit and carrying a big black purse. Her husband’s blue net gimme cap concealed what was probably a bald head. His slacks were rolled up to his calves and his sport shirt pulled tight over his belly.
The woman beamed at them. “We saw your show. My Dwayne, he didn’t believe you two was really in love. He said it was all fake, but I told him you couldn’t fake somethin’ like ‘at.” She patted her husband’s belly. “Me and Dwayne been married thirty-two years, so we know somethin’ about true love.”
Next to her, Alex had stiffened like a poker, leaving Daisy to smile at the couple. “I’m sure you do.”
“Nothin’ like a good marriage to keep your feet on the ground.”
Alex gave the couple a curt nod and grabbed Daisy’s arm to pull her away. Daisy turned and called out to them. “I hope you have thirty-two more!”
“You, too, hon!”
She let Alex carry her along, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to protest. The subject of love made him so skittish that she felt an absurd desire to comfort him. By the time they reached the steps that led back to the boardwalk, she gave into it.
“Alex, it’s all right. I’m not going to fall in love with you.”
As she spoke the words, she felt a funny little hip-hop someplace around her heart. It scared her because she knew that falling in love with him would be a disaster. They were too different. He was tough, stern, and cynical, while she was exactly the opposite.
Then why was it, she wondered, that he stirred something so elemental within her? And why did she seem to understand him so well when he would tell her nothing about his past and nothing about his life apart from the circus? Despite that, she knew that in some way she couldn’t entirely explain, he had helped her create herself anew. Thanks to him, she had a sense of independence she’d never possessed. For the first time in her life, she actually liked herself.
He mounted the stairs. “You’re a romantic, Daisy. It’s not that I think I’m so irresistible—God knows, I don’t—but over the years it’s been my observation that the minute any man puts a red flag in front of a woman, she changes it in her mind to a green one.”
“Pooh.”
They reached the top. He leaned his hips against the rail and studied her. “I’ve seen it happen too many times. Women want what they can’t have, even if what they can’t have isn’t good for them.”
“Is that the way you feel about yourself? That you’re not good for the people in your life.”
“I just don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I got upset when I saw what you’d done with the trailer. The place looks great, and it’ll be easier to live in, but I don’t want us playing at being man and wife. Regardless of the legality, we’re having a fling. That’s all there is to it.”
“A fling?”
“An affair. Whatever. All right—a circumstance.”
“You jerk!”
“You’re proving my point.”
She fought down her anger. “Why did you marry me? I thought it was because my father paid you, but now I don’t believe that.”
“What happened to make you change your mind?”
“I got to know you.”
“And now you don’t think I can be bought?”
“I know you can’t.”
“Everybody has a price.”
“Then what was yours?”
“I owed your father a favor, and I needed to pay him back. That’s all there is to it.”
“It must have been a big favor.”
His expression grew stony, and she was surprised when, after a long silence, he went on. “My parents died in a train wreck in Austria when I was two years old, and I was handed over to my closest relative, my mother’s brother Sergey. He was a sadistic sonovabitch who got his kicks from whipping the crap out of me.”
“Oh, Alex . . .”
“I’m not telling you this to earn your sympathy. I just want you to understand what you’ve gotten yourself into.” He sat down on the bench, and some of the anger seemed to leave him. Leaning forward, he rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Sit down, Daisy.”
Now that it was too late, she wondered if she should have started this, but she’d gone too far to back away, and she took a seat next t
o him. He stared directly ahead, looking tired and empty.
“You’ve read stories about abused kids who are locked away in attics for years.” She nodded. “Psychologists say that even after these kids are rescued, they don’t develop the same way other kids do. They don’t have the same social skills. If they weren’t exposed to language by a certain age, they never learn to talk. I guess I think love is like that. I didn’t experience it when I was young, and now I can’t do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not one of those cynics who doesn’t believe love exists, because I’ve seen it in other people’s relationships. But I can’t feel it myself. Not for a woman. Not for anyone. I never have.”
“Oh, Alex . . .”
“It’s not as though I haven’t tried. I’ve met some wonderful women in my life, but in the end, all I’ve done is hurt them. That’s why I’ve been so concerned about your birth control pills. Because I can’t ever have a child.”
“You don’t believe any relationship you have with a woman will last? Is that it?”
“I know it won’t last. But it goes deeper than that.”
“I don’t understand. Is there something wrong with you?”
“Haven’t you been listening?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“I can’t feel the emotions other men feel. Not for anyone. Not even for a child. Every kid deserves to be loved by their father, but I can’t do that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe it! I know myself, and this isn’t some quirk on my part. A lot of people take the business of having children lightly, but I don’t. Kids need love, and if they don’t get it, something damaging happens to them inside. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I’d done that to a child.”
“Everybody’s capable of love, certainly of loving their own child. You’re making yourself sound like some kind of . . . of monster.”
“Mutation might be a better word. My upbringing changed me from the norm. I can’t tolerate the idea that I could have a child who’d grow up knowing his own father didn’t love him. The abuse starts and ends with me.”
The night was still warm, but she shivered as she realized that the ugly legacy of Alex’s violent past had never left him. It had also spilled over to hurt her, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She had never consciously imagined them having a child together, but maybe the idea had wormed its way into her subconscious, because now she felt bereft.
She gazed over at him and saw his profile outlined against the spinning carousel in the distance. The juxtaposition filled her with pity. The brightly painted horses with their wooden manes seemed to be everything innocent, carefree, and childlike, while Alex with his brooding eyes and empty heart was one of the damned. All this time she had thought she was the needy one, but he was far more wounded than she had ever been.
They didn’t talk while they walked back to the trailer because there was nothing she could say. Tater had gotten loose again and stood in wait for her. He trotted up, giving a trumpety little bleat of welcome.
“I’ll take him back,” Alex said.
“It’s all right. I’ll do it. I need to be alone for a while.”
He nodded and rubbed his thumb across her cheek, his eyes so bleak she couldn’t bear it. She turned away to stroke Tater’s trunk. “Come on, sweetheart.”
She led him over to the other babies and tethered him, then picked up an old woolen blanket to spread on the ground next to him. As she sat down on it and hugged her knees, Tater shifted his position. For a moment she thought he was going to step on her and she tensed, but instead, he settled his front legs on either side of her and dropped his trunk.
She was in a warm elephant cave. She pressed her cheek to his scratchy, gunnysack body just between his legs and heard the strong thud of his sweet, mischievous heart. She knew she should move, but even though she was resting beneath a ton of baby elephant, she had never felt safer. As she sat there, she thought of Alex and wished he were small enough to fit where she was, right beneath Tater’s heart.
15
Alex was asleep by the time Daisy returned to the trailer. She undressed as quietly as she could, then slipped into one of his T-shirts. As she began to make her way to the couch, she heard a husky whisper.
“Not tonight, Daisy. I need you.”
She turned and gazed down into half-lidded eyes dark with desire. His hair was tousled, and the golden icon around his neck glittered in a shaft of moonlight that pierced the back window. Her mind still echoed with the memory of Tater’s heartbeat thumping out its steady message of unconditional love, and nothing on earth could have made her turn away from him.
This time there were no smiles. No teasing. He possessed her fiercely, almost desperately, and when it was over, he curled his body around hers and didn’t let her go. They fell asleep with his palm cupping her breast.
She didn’t return to the couch the next night or the one after that. She stayed in her husband’s bed and found her heart filling with an emotion she was very much afraid to name.
A week later, they reached central New Jersey, where they set up in another school yard, this one located in the middle of a suburban neighborhood containing comfortable two-story tract homes with swing sets in the backyards and mini-vans parked in the drives. On her way to the menagerie where Tater was tethered, Daisy stopped by the red wagon to make more changes in the feed order, and as she entered, she saw Jack going through several files.
He gave her a brief nod. She nodded back, then went over to the desk to locate, the papers she needed. The cellular phone rang, and she answered it. “Quest Brothers Circus.”
“I’m looking for Dr. Markov,” a man with a slight British accent responded. “Is he available?”
She sagged down on the chair. “Who?”
“Dr. Alex Markov.”
Her mind reeled. “He’s—uh—not here right now. May I take a message?”
Her hand shook as she wrote down the man’s name and number. By the time she hung up, her head was reeling. Alex was a doctor! She’d known he was well educated and that he had another life, but she hadn’t imagined anything like this.
The mysteries surrounding her husband deepened, but she had no idea how to discover the truth. So far, he had refused to answer any of her questions, and he continued to act as if he had no existence beyond the boundaries of the circus.
She licked her dry lips and looked over at Jack. “That was a man who wanted to speak with Alex. He called him Doctor Markov.”
Jack slipped several files back into the open drawer of the file cabinet without looking up. “Leave the message on the desk. He’ll see it when he comes in.”
He’d shown no reaction, so he obviously knew more about her husband’s life than she did. The knowledge hurt. “I know it’s just an oversight, but Alex hasn’t ever told me exactly which branch of medicine he practices.”
Jack picked up another file. “I guess that’s the way he wants it, then.”
Frustration ate at her. “Tell me what you know about him, Jack.”
“Circus people learn not to ask too many questions about anybody’s private life. If people want to talk about their past, they will. Otherwise, it’s their business.”
She realized that all she’d done was embarrass herself. She made a play of rustling through the papers and escaped as quickly as she could.
She found Alex with Misha, squatting down to examine the horse’s fetlock. She stared at him for a long moment.
“You’re a vet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re a veterinarian.”
“Since when?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know where you get your ideas.”
“I just got a phone call for you. Someone wanted to speak with Doctor Markov.”
“So?”
“If you’re not a vet, what kind of doctor are you?”
He straightened and
patted Misha’s neck. “Did you ever think it might be a nickname?”
“A nickname?”
“From my days in prison. You know how convicts give each other names.”
“You weren’t in prison!”
“I thought you said I was. For murdering that waitress.” She stomped her foot in frustration. “Alex Markov, you tell me right now what you do when you’re not with this circus!”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m your wife! I deserve the truth.”
“All you need to know is what you see in front of you—a bad-tempered circus bum with a lousy sense of humor. Anything more would just confuse you.”
“That is the most patronizing, condescending—”
“I don’t mean to be patronizing, sweetheart. I just don’t want you fogging up your vision with illusions. This is all there is for us. Quest Brothers. One season. The trailer and hard work.” His expression softened. “I’m doing my damnedest not to hurt you. Help me out, will you? Don’t ask so many questions.”
If he’d been hostile, she would have challenged him, but she couldn’t fight that sudden catch in his voice. Pulling back, she looked into the depths of his eyes. They were as golden as Sinjun’s and just as mysterious.
“I don’t like this, Alex,” she said quietly. “I don’t like it at all.” She headed for the menagerie.
Sometime later, Heather came into the tent, just as Daisy finished hosing down Glenna’s cage. “Can I talk to you?”
“All right.” As she turned off the hose, she saw pale purple smudges under the-teenager’s eyes, and she could feel her tension.
“Why haven’t you told Sheba about the money?”
She coiled the length of hose and laid it aside. “I decided not to.”
“You’re not going to tell her?”
Daisy shook her head.
Heather’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe you haven’t told her after everything I’ve done.”
“You can pay me back by promising not to smoke another cigarette.”
“Anything! I’ll do anything. I’ll always remember this, Daisy. Always.” Heather snatched up the hose Daisy had just coiled. “Let me help. Whatever you want me to do. I’ll do anything.”