“That I was jealous?” He smiled just a little. “I am.”
“Why?” she asked blankly. “Noah, you surely can’t doubt how I feel about you! I love you. Carlos was never more than a friend, and sometimes not even that.”
After a moment Noah spoke slowly. “It isn’t that. I’m not jealous of him the way I’d be of another man in your past. It’s just—he’s a part of that world you belonged to. He knows the people you know, knows a way of life that’s familiar to you. D’you understand, Alex? He knows a part of you I wish I could have known.”
She watched his serious profile and listened, beginning to understand, finally, the yearning look in his eyes whenever he’d asked her about her life in the circus.
“You were a child when you ran away to the circus, and you grew to be a woman there. I think that’s something a man always wishes he could have known about the woman he loves. And for us, that part of your life is so damned important. You didn’t just grow up, you learned a whole new set of instincts, a completely different way of life. I wish I could have seen that, Alex.”
Alex didn’t quite know what to say, but an instinctive part of her found words. “That coming of age wasn’t very important to the people I lived with then, Noah. It wasn’t unusual to them, so they didn’t watch. They didn’t care.” She leaned across the console to touch his cheek briefly. “And Carlos wouldn’t have seen it anyway. He was with our circus for only a few months before he moved on, and that was just before I left myself. He was a trainer between jobs, traveling.”
Noah nodded and sent her a smile. “I just wanted you to understand how I feel about that part of your life,” he said huskily.
In a quiet voice she said, “You came of age in a war.”
“Yes.”
“I’d never want to see a war,” she said. “But I wish I could have seen a boy become a man. I wish I could have seen that part of you.” She could remember blue-gray eyes that were weary, devastated by war, and she wished she could have held Noah at that moment in his life the way she had held that other soldier, and perhaps eased his pain.
Noah reached out for her hand, holding it tightly. After a long moment he said softly, “There were times then that I dreamed about someone like you. Those dreams kept me sane.”
Alex lifted his hand to her cheek, silent, wondering about that other soldier. Had he died in that war despite a woman’s conviction that he lived? Was that why he hadn’t come back to her? She pushed the thoughts away, grateful that this man had survived a war to find her.
They stopped briefly to buy take-out food along the way, then halted and parked the van some distance off the little-traveled road to catch a few hours sleep; they wanted to arrive in Stockton early in the morning. The pets were fed and allowed to stretch their legs, then all settled down to sleep.
And Alex dreamed of a blond woman laboring alone in childbirth, and of a Gypsy girl who no longer danced and sang before a campfire….
The van was moving again when Alex woke, yawning, to find that Noah had stopped somewhere and gotten coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast.
“And you shaved,” she observed, studying his smooth cheeks as she unwrapped a roll.
“I refuse to meet even a small part of your past with a morning stubble,” he said calmly. “Battery-powered razors are terrific. I also let Cal stretch his legs before we started, and fed both pets. Cal ate a dozen jars of baby food, and three cans of liver.”
“He doesn’t eat heavily when we’re traveling.”
He glanced at her suddenly, quizzical. “What were you dreaming?”
“Did I say something?” she asked casually.
“No. You just looked sad.”
Alex reached across him to place his coffee in the holder clipped to the window, then handed him a roll. “Aren’t dreams peculiar?” she asked. “Sometimes you can’t even remember them.” She uncapped her own cup and placed it in the holder clipped on her side before beginning to eat her roll.
If Noah noticed that her response was evasive, he didn’t comment on the fact. He ate his breakfast.
They rolled into Stockton when the sun was still low in the eastern sky, and a few questions at a service station sent them to the outskirts of town and the fields leased by the Cordova Circus.
There were tents and wagons spread around, and the air was already ringing with busy sounds. Roustabouts were working to erect the big show tent, their mallets pounding stakes into the ground, and people scurried around with buckets and equipment as wild animals greeted the morning with their own particular voices.
Noah pulled the van beneath a large tree at the edge of the field, and no one paid any attention to them. And a glance toward the interior of the van told him that Cal remained undisturbed by the nearby roars of various of his feline kin.
“I hope,” Noah said, “we can leave the pets alone for a little while. I want to see this circus.”
Alex knew very well that it wasn’t the circus he was most interested in, but she said nothing about that. “I don’t see why not. No one’s likely to bother the van, and we won’t be gone that long anyway. At least I hope we won’t.”
They locked up the van and made their way across the field. Moving through the confusion of busy people, they garnered a few curious glances, but no one stopped or questioned them.
“Do we look like circus people?” Noah asked her wryly.
“It’s all in the attitude,” she told him. “If you act as if you belong in a place, you can generally get away with it.”
“Hi, Alex!”
“Hello, Tino.”
Noah looked back as they continued walking. “Who was that?”
“A flyer. I know quite a few of these people, Noah.” She was lifting a hand in acknowledgment to several other calls. “Noah?” Backtracking, she found him watching an elephant being washed, and took him by the arm. “This way.”
“Did you say we could get an elephant cheap?”
“They’re fascinating, aren’t they?”
“I wish I had my camera.” He realized they were taking what was obviously a direct route to somewhere. “D’you know where we’re going?”
“Of course. Carlos is a trainer. He trains the big cats. So that’s where we’re going. I’m following my ears.”
“I wondered.”
They continued walking, occasionally dodging busy people. The sounds of restless cats were getting louder.
“Alex? Alex!”
A dark-haired man erupted through the flap of a tent, catching Alex in a hug that lifted her off the ground as he swung her in a circle.
Noah, watching silently, studied the man. He was just slightly over medium height and build except for the obviously powerful strength of his shoulders and arms. A T-shirt advertised rippling muscles—and the beginning of an ugly scar near the base of his neck. Somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, he was quite handsome and seemed delighted to see Alex again.
Once she was set back down on her feet, Alex turned and introduced the two men, and Noah found his speculation had been correct. This was Carlos. Cheerful dark eyes filled with easy confidence met his own, and it was more than instinct that told Noah this man had been “never more than a friend” by Alex’s choice alone.
The other man’s lips twisted oddly as they shook hands, but he was smiling casually when he returned his attention to Alex.
“Still circus, Alex?” he asked.
“No, not anymore, Carlos. Not for years. But we’re planning to start a children’s zoo in San Francisco, and I need a favor.”
“Name it,” he said promptly.
“Don’t agree so quickly,” she said. “I’ll be asking you to sink your scruples.”
“Scruples? You saved my life, cara; what use would scruples be to a dead man? Ask away.”
Alex seemed faintly surprised as she gazed at him, but shrugged as though to herself and asked. “I need a bill of sale for an adult male lion. You remember Cal?”
“
The toothless kitten? Is he still alive?”
“Very much so.” Alex grinned a little. “I stole him. Now I need to make him legal so he can be a part of our zoo. Can you help me?”
“I gather this is a rush job?” He didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the request.
“Very much so,” Noah said.
Carlos looked at him, and for a moment there was something very like an instinctive challenge in his dark eyes. Then the hot flicker was gone, and he was smiling again. Almost ruefully. “Sorry,” he said directly to Noah. “I spend too much time in cages. I sometimes forget the law of the jungle doesn’t hold true outside the bars.”
“Maybe it does,” Noah said pleasantly.
The dark eyes weighed him, then flicked toward Alex’s puzzled face. “Yes,” he said dryly. “Maybe it does. Give me a few minutes, Alex, and I’ll see what I can do.” He strode off toward the line of wagons nearby.
“What,” Alex asked, “was that all about?”
Noah smiled down at her, feeling for the first time that he really had won a lioness. “What was what all about?” he repeated.
“For a minute there I thought it was going to be bared bodkins at twenty paces,” she said, bewildered. “Like two lions about to lunge at each other’s throats. I told you Carlos was only a friend.”
“Takes two lions to lunge,” he reminded her pointedly.
She looked confused for a moment, then frowned at him. “Carlos never even made a pass, for heaven’s sake!”
Noah took her arm and led her back the way they’d come. “Let’s go see the elephants being washed,” he said, “while we wait for Carlos to come back.”
Alex knew a change of subject when she heard one. She accepted this one, deciding not to probe—right now anyway—into what looked like another of those purely male matters.
But she wondered.
Carlos’s few minutes stretched into an hour, but neither Noah nor Alex minded. They wandered around, Alex introducing him to various old friends and explaining how a circus was set up. A vendor not yet set up for the coming night and expected crowds nonetheless supplied them with soft drinks and peanuts.
And Noah had to restrain Alex firmly when she spotted yet another old friend. In a cage.
“But that’s Simba!”
“Alex, please. I know I said that I wanted to see this part of your life, but I don’t want to see you in a cage with a tiger!”
“He wouldn’t hurt her,” Carlos said, appearing suddenly beside him. “She raised him.”
In spite of Noah’s cautious grip on her arm, Alex had leaned forward to reach through the bars of a cage and was rubbing a fierce-looking tiger behind his left ear. The beast was nearly purring. Then she straightened and looked hopefully at Carlos. “Any luck?”
With a flourish Carlos produced a paper and presented it to her. “But of course. Cordova’s a friend of mine—in addition to being my boss.”
“I thought she was,” Alex said with a lift of one brow before turning her attention to the bill of sale.
Noah was watching Carlos. He saw a flicker of some emotion cross the other man’s face as he gazed on Alex’s downbent head, but it was gone too quickly to be defined. By sight, Noah thought he could identify it by instinct.
Regret. Perhaps loss.
Then Carlos was speaking casually. “If anyone asks, the Cordova Circus sold you an old male lion. Actually we had to have an old one put down a few days ago, so it fits pretty well. The bill’s dated for today; sale price cheap but believable. Anyone here’ll back up the story. And now,” he finished, “I owe Elena.”
Alex looked up, her face glowing. “Well, you don’t owe me anymore. We’re even, Carlos. Thank you so much!”
Carlos reached out to brush his knuckles briefly against her cheek. “Not quite, cara. I haven’t forgotten Simba’s teeth in my back.”
Noah sent a glance toward the placid tiger. “Him?”
“Him,” Carlos confirmed. “He still doesn’t like men, but I never turn my back to him. A lesson I learned the hard way.”
“I still consider us even,” Alex said firmly, holding out her hand.
Carlos shook hands with her and then with Noah, and his eyes met the other man’s obliquely. “You’ve got quite a lady here, friend,” he said almost roughly. “Take care of her.”
“Always,” Noah told him, quiet.
Alex stared after the retreating man, her expression startled. “How strange,” she murmured. “I haven’t seen him in more than six years. But for a minute there I thought … Well, never mind. Let’s go, okay?”
Noah fell into step beside her silently. He didn’t agree completely with Alex. It wasn’t, he thought, strange at all. Six months … six years … six centuries. A woman like Alex could haunt a man for a very long time. But Noah agreed with her unfinished comment.
For a minute there he, too, had thought Carlos was going to cry.
“You said he wasn’t always a friend,” Noah said as they left the circus behind. “What did you mean?”
She shrugged. “Just that. When we first met, we got along like two cats tied up in a bag. Clash of personalities, I guess. Gradually, though, we started to talk and … things changed. It’s funny, though …”
“What?”
“I never felt quite at ease around Carlos,” she confessed, faintly bewildered. “He was never one of the shady characters I had to be on guard around, but … Oh, I don’t know.”
“Maybe he wanted something you couldn’t give him.”
Alex stared at Noah for a moment, then laughed a bit uncertainly. “I told you, he never even made a pass.”
Noah was silent, then reached to take her hand. “He’s a trainer, too, Alex. He wouldn’t have to make a pass to realize you weren’t interested, I think.”
“You’re imagining things,” she scoffed.
He squeezed her hand. “Am I? I suppose.”
After a few miles had passed behind them, Alex said suddenly, “Was that why you two looked at each other like that? As if …”
“As if we both wanted the lioness?”
“Good Lord,” she said blankly.
Noah chuckled softly.
Even with several stops along the way to purposely kill time, it was barely dusk when the van pulled up in front of their building in San Francisco. Neither of them wanted to tempt fate by letting Cal go public a moment sooner than necessary; even though they now had a bill of sale, some tricky footwork lay ahead of them if they weren’t to be fined, jailed, or both, for the illegal possession of a wild animal.
Both Noah and Alex got out of the van to prowl the grounds all around the building as well as inside before letting the lion out. They checked and double-checked, then hurried Cal inside to relative safety.
They thought.
TEN
IT HAD BEEN a very long day with only a few hours of sleep snatched the night before, and they were tired. They had also momentarily underestimated the diligence of the local animal control office. Or perhaps it was simply that they felt safer than ever before and relaxed their guard.
So they left the door to Alex’s loft open while they transferred boxes and bags inside, content in the knowledge that both pets were happily eating supper in the kitchen.
It wasn’t their fault that Teddy had decided to work nights.
Alex froze when she straightened from placing a box near the partition that was hiding her lion from shrewd brown eyes. She knew the lion was hidden for the moment, but even toothless lions make some noise when eating.
“Hello, Teddy,” she said weakly.
The other woman leaned against the doorjamb and smiled easily, giving Noah a friendly nod when he hurried from the bedroom where he’d just deposited Alex’s suitcase. “Hi, you two. Have a nice vacation? Oh, the door was open. Hope you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Noah said hollowly.
Alex didn’t have to look at his face to realize they both wore perfect waxworks expressions of ho
rror. Telltale sounds came from behind the partition, and they didn’t stop when a small white kitten came around to climb up Alex’s leg. She detached tiny claws from her jeans automatically, lifting Buddy so that he could balance easily on the back of the couch.
“What a cute kitten!” Teddy said cheerfully, coming farther into the loft.
“Isn’t he? He just wandered in one day,” Alex said.
Teddy stroked the kitten, still smiling at Alex. She nodded toward the kitchen. “Quite an appetite, from the sound of it. I didn’t know you had a dog.”
After a moment Alex sat down on the arm of the couch. She looked up at Noah as he came to stand by her side, then returned her gaze to Teddy. “I don’t have a dog,” she said on a sigh.
“No, I didn’t think so. You have a lion, don’t you, Alex?”
Alex nodded slowly, her eyes still locked with those shrewd brown ones. Which way would Teddy jump? She didn’t know. “Yes. Yes, I have a lion.”
Cal wandered around the partition just then. He blinked large golden eyes at Teddy, then sat down and began rubbing an itching ear against Noah’s hip.
“I have a very old lion,” Alex said quietly. “A very gentle and loving lion.” She felt Noah’s hand warmly rest on her shoulder and was more than grateful for his silent support. “A lion who’s never in his life hurt a living thing.”
“Where’d you get him?”
Alex didn’t hesitate. “I stole him from a circus six years ago. He’d lost all his teeth, and they were going to destroy him.”
“You’ve kept him hidden for six years?”
“Yes.” Alex looked up at Noah again, smiling because she loved him so much, her heart turning over at his instant tender smile. Then she looked back at Teddy. “When anyone got too close before, I ran. I couldn’t run this time.”
Bright eyes glanced from one to the other of them, then briefly studied the lion. “I see. Were you planning to go on hiding him?”
“No.” Alex shook her head. “A circus friend of mine faked a bill of sale for us. We’re hoping to start a children’s zoo. Old, gentle animals that kids can pet. If we can get the permits.”
Teddy watched as the lion came to sprawl nearly at her feet, and she smiled a little when the white kitten leaped off the couch to land on a broad, patient head and began to chew on a round ear.