Kiss an Angel

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  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 Twinkie.

  “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 voce 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.

  “Thank you so much for keeping my husband company while I was gone.”

  The waitress, whose smiley-face name tag read kimberly, seemed a bit taken aback by Daisy’s friendly attitude. “It was—that’s okay.”

  Daisy lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “Not everyone has been so nice to him since he’s gotten out of prison.”

  Alex choked on the mouthful of coffee he’d been about to swallow.

  Daisy leaned down to thump him on the back while she beamed at Kimberly’s shocked face. “I don’t care how much evidence the state presented. I’ve never for one moment believed he murdered that waitress.”

  This started Alex choking all over again. Kimberly quickly backed away. “I—excuse me. My next order’s up.”

  “Run along,” Daisy said gaily. “And God bless!”

  Alex finally had his choking fit under control. He rose from behind the booth, his expression even more ominous than usual. Before he had a chance to say a word, she reached up and pressed a gentle finger over his lips.

  “Please don’t spoil this moment for me, Alex. It’s the first time since our wedding ceremony that I’ve gotten the best of you, and I want to enjoy every precious second.”

  He looked like he was going to strangle her. Instead, he tossed several bills onto the table and pulled her from the restaurant.

  “You’re going to be grouchy about his, aren’t you?” Her sandals slid in the gravel as he dragged her toward the truck with its ugly green trailer in tow. “I just knew it. You’re the grouchiest man I ever met. It’s not becoming, Alex; it really isn’t. Whether you want to accept it or not, you’re a married man, and you really shouldn’t—”

  “Get inside before I spank you in public.”

  There it was again, another of his maddening threats. Did that mean he wouldn’t spank her if she did as he said or that he simply planned to spank her in private? She was still mulling over the whole unpleasant concept when he started the truck. Moments later, they were back on the highway.

  To her relief, the subject of spanking didn’t come up again, although, in a perverse way, she was almost sorry. If he’d physically threatened her, she could have been free of her sacred vows and at peace with her conscience.

  The morning was sunny, the warm air coming in through the half-opened window not yet oppressive. She saw no reason for him to waste a perfectly lovely morning sulking, so she finally broke the silence. “Where are we going?”

  “We have a date up near Greenwood.”

  “I guess it’s too much to hope you mean the dinner and dancing kind of date.”

  “Afraid not.”

  “How long will we be there?”

  “Just one night.”

  “I hope we won’t have to get up this early tomorrow morning.”

  “Earlier. We have a longer jump.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “That’s the way circuses like this operate.”

  “Are you saying we do this every morning?”

  “There are some places we’ll be staying for two days, but not many.”

  “How long does this last?”

  “The circus is booked into October.”

  “That’s six months from now!” She envisioned an endless future of crooked eyeliner. Six months. The exact time span of their marriage.

  “What are you worried about?” he replied. “You don’t seriously believe you’re going to stick it out that long, do you?”

  “Don’t you think I can?”

  “It’ll be a long six months,” he said with far too much relish. “We’ll be covering lots of miles. We have dates as far north as Jersey, as far west as Indiana.”

  In a truck without air-conditioning.

  “This is the last season for Quest Brothers,” he said, “so we’re well booked.”

  “What do you mean, the last season?”

  “The owner died in January.”

  “Owen Quest? The name on the side of the trucks?”

  “Yes. His wife Bathsheba inherited the circus, and she’s put it up for sale.”

  Was it her imagination, or had his mouth tightened almost imperceptibly? “Have you been with the circus for a long time?” she asked, determined to know more about him.

  “Off and on.”

  “Were your parents circus people?”

  “Which ones? My Cossack parents or the ones who abandoned me in Siberia?” He tilted his head, and she saw a gleam in his eyes.

  “You weren’t raised by Cossacks!”

  “You must not have been listening very well last night.”

  “That was nothing but P. T. Barnum showmanship. I know somebody had to have taught you how to ride and use a whip, but I hardly think it was Cossacks.” She paused. “Was it?”

  He chuckled. “You’re something else, angel face.”

  She wasn’t going to let him derail her. “How long have you been with the circus?”

  “I traveled with Quest Brothers when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Since then I’ve gone out for a few weeks here and there.”

  “What were you doing the rest of the time?”

  “You know the answer to that question. I was serving time in prison for murdering that waitress.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, letting him know she had his number. “Are you saying you’re not a full-time circus manager?”

  “Nope.”

  Maybe if she backed off for a bit, she’d get more personal information out of him. “Who were the Quest Brothers, anyway?”

  “There was just Owen Quest. Because of the Ringling tradition, circus people think it sounds better to say a show is owned by brothers, even if it isn’t. Owen owned this circus for twenty-five years, and just before he died, he asked me to take it out for its final season under his name.”

  “That must be a sacrifice for you.” She regarded him expectantly, and when he didn’t respond, she prodded him a bit more. “Leaving behind your regular life . . . your regular job . . .”

  “Mmm.” Ignoring her probing, he pointed to a power pole off the side of the highway. “Keep your eyes open for more of those arrows, will you?”

  She noticed three red cardboard arrows, each of them imprinted with the blue letter Q, tacked to the pole and pointing off to the left. “What are they for?”

  “They lead us to our next lot.” He slowed as he approached an intersection and turned left. “Dobs Murray—he’s our twenty-four-hour man—goes out the night before and puts them up. It’s called ‘arrowing the route.’ “

  She yawned. “I can’t wait till we get there. As soon as we get in, I’m going to take a long nap.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to do your sleeping at night. The circus doesn’t carry any excess baggage, and everybody works, even the kids. You have jobs to do.”

  “You’re expecting me to work?”

  “Afraid you’ll break a nail?”

  “I’m not nearly as spoiled as you think.”

  He gave her a look that said he didn’t believe it, but since she was trying to avoid another argument, she ignored his baiting. “I simply meant that I don’t know anything about the circus.”

  “You’ll learn. Bob Thorpe, the guy who usually runs the ticket window, is gone for a couple of days. You can help out until he gets back, assuming you can count well enough to make change.”

  “In all major currencies,” she replied with a touch of defiance.

  “Then you’ve got some housekeeping duties to attend to. You can start by cleaning up that god-awful mess in the trailer. And I wouldn’t object to a hot meal tonight.”

&
nbsp; “Me, either. We’ll have to look for a good restaurant.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind. If you don’t already know how to cook, I’ll help you get started.”

  She stifled her irritation and adopted a reasonable tone. “I don’t think assigning me all the domestic chores is the best way to start this marriage. We should have an equal division of labor.”

  “Agreed. And it’s time you start taking care of your half of that equal division. There’ll be other jobs, too. Once we get you a costume, I’ll put you in spec.”

  “Spec?”

  “Short for spectacle. It’s the parade that starts the circus, and it’s compulsory.”

  “You’re going to put me in the show?”

  “Everybody except the workingmen and the candy butchers are in spec.”

  “What are candy butchers?”

  “The circus has a language all its own; you’ll pick it up after a while. The concessionaires are called butchers because, during the nineteenth century, a man who was a meat butcher quit his job to sell concessions for the old John Robinson Show. Cotton candy is floss; the concession stands are joints. The big top is always called the top, never a tent; the only tents in a circus are the cook tent and the menagerie. The lot is divided into the backyard, where we live and keep the trailers, and the front yard, or the public area. The acts have a separate language, too. You’ll get the hang of it.” He paused. “If you’re here long enough.”

  She ignored his baiting. “What’s a donnicker? I remember you used that word yesterday.”

  “The toilet, angel face.”

  “Oh.” They drove on for several miles while she mulled over what he’d told her. But it was what he hadn’t told her that worried her the most. “Don’t you think you should give me a little more information about yourself? Real information.”

  “I can’t think of a single reason why.”

  “Because we’re married. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  That hurt her feelings, but once again she didn’t make an issue of it. “Whether we like it or not, we took vows yesterday. I think the question we both need to ask is, are we going to work at making something of this marriage?”