by Nora Roberts
“It’s okay. I like putting up the tent.”
Jo understood his feeling. “So do I. There’s a game in the cookhouse,” she told him with a gesture of her arm. “You might like to sit in.”
“I’d rather be with you.” As he moved closer, Jo caught the faint whiff of beer. He’s been celebrating, she thought and shook her head.
“It’s a good thing tomorrow’s Monday,” she commented. “No one’s going to be in any shape to pitch a tent. You should go to bed,” she suggested. “Or get some coffee.”
“Let’s go to your trailer.” Bob weaved a little, then took her arm.
“No.” Firmly, Jo turned in the opposite direction. “Let’s go to the cookhouse.” His advances did not trouble her. She was close enough to the cookhouse tent that if she called out, a dozen able-bodied men would come charging. But that was precisely what Jo wanted to avoid.
“I want to go with you,” he said, stumbling over the words as he veered away from the cookhouse again. “You look so pretty in that cage with those lions.” He put both arms around her, but Jo felt it was as much for balance as romance. “A fella needs a pretty lady once in a while.”
“I’m going to feed you to my lions if you don’t let me go,” Jo warned.
“Bet you can be a real wildcat,” he mumbled and made a fumbling dive for her mouth.
Though her patience was wearing thin, Jo endured the kiss that landed slightly to the left of bull’s-eye. His hands, however, had better aim and grabbed the firm roundness of her bottom. Losing her temper, Jo pushed away but found his hold had taken root. In a quick move, she brought up her fist and caught him square on the jaw. With only a faint sound of surprise, Bob sat down hard on the ground.
“Well, so much for rescuing you,” Keane commented from behind her.
Turning quickly, Jo pushed at her hair and gave an annoyed sigh. She would have preferred no witnesses. Even in the dim light, she could see he was furious. Instinctively, she stepped between him and the man who sat on the ground fingering his jaw and shaking the buzzing from his ears.
“He—Bob just got a bit overenthusiastic,” she said hastily and put a restraining hand on Keane’s arm. “He’s been celebrating.”
“I’m feeling a bit enthusiastic myself,” Keane stated. As he made to brush her aside, Jo clung with more fervor.
“No, Keane, please.”
Looking down, he fired a glare. “Jo, would you let go so that I can deal with this?”
“Not until you listen.” The faint hint of laughter in her eyes only enraged him further, and Jo fought to suppress it. “Keane, please, don’t be hard on him. He didn’t hurt me.”
“He was attacking you,” Keane interrupted. He barely resisted the urge to shake her off and drag the still seated Bob by the scruff of the neck.
“No, he was really more just leaning on me. His balance is a trifle impaired. He only tried to kiss me,” she pointed out, wisely deleting the wandering hands. “And I hit him much harder than I should have. He’s new, Keane, don’t fire him.”
Exasperated, he stared at her. “Firing was the least of what I had in mind for him.”
Jo smiled, unable to keep the gleam from her eyes. “If you were going to avenge my honor, he really didn’t do much more than breathe on it. I don’t think you should run him through for that. Maybe you could just put him in the stocks for a couple of days.”
Keane swore under his breath, but a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. Seeing it, Jo loosened her hold. “Miss Wilder wants to give you a break,” he told the dazed Bob in a tough, no-nonsense voice that Jo decided he used for intimidating witnesses. “She has a softer heart than I do. Therefore, I won’t knock you down several more times or kick you off the lot, as I had entertained doing.” He paused, allowing Bob time to consider this possibility. “Instead, I’ll let you sleep off your—enthusiasm.” In one quick jerk, he pulled Bob to his feet. “But if I ever hear of you breathing uninvited on Miss Wilder or any other of my female employees, we’ll go back to the first choice. And before I kick you out,” he added with low menace, “I’ll let it be known that you were decked by one punch from a hundred-pound woman.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Prescott,” said Bob as clearly as possible.
“Go to bed,” Jo said kindly, seeing him pale. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Obviously,” Keane commented as Bob lurched away, “you haven’t done much drinking.” He turned to Jo and grinned. “The one thing he’s not going to feel in the morning is better.” Jo smiled, pleased to have Keane talk to her without the thin shield of politeness. “And where,” he asked and took her hand for examination, “did you learn that right jab?”
Jo laughed, allowing Keane’s fingers to interlock with hers. “It would hardly have knocked him down if he hadn’t already been tilting in that direction.” Her face turned up to his and sparkled with starlight. In his eyes an expression she couldn’t comprehend came and went. “Is something wrong?”
For a moment he said nothing. In her breast her heart began to hammer as she waited to be kissed. “No, nothing,” he said. The moment was shattered. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your trailer.”
“I wasn’t going there.” Wanting to put him back into an easy mood, she linked her arm with his. “If you come with me, I’ll show you some magic.” Her smile slanted invitingly. “You like magic, don’t you, Keane? Even a sober, dedicated lawyer must like magic.”
“Is that how I strike you?” Jo almost laughed at the trace of annoyance in his voice. “As a sober, dedicated lawyer?”
“Oh, not entirely, though that’s part of you.” She enjoyed feeling that for the moment she had him to herself. “You’ve also got a streak of adventure and a rather nice sense of humor. And,” she added with generous emphasis, “there’s your temper.”
“You seem to have me all figured out.”
“Oh, no.” Jo stopped and turned to him. “Not at all. I only know how you are here. I can only speculate on how you are in Chicago.”
His brow lifted as she caught his attention. “Would I be different there?”
“I don’t know.” Jo’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “Wouldn’t you be? Circumstances would. You probably have a house or a big apartment, and there’s a housekeeper who comes in once—no, twice—a week.” Caught up in the picture, she gazed off into the distance and built it further. “You have an office with a view of the city, a very efficient secretary and a brilliant law clerk. You go to business lunches at the club. In court you’re deadly and very successful. You have your own tailor and work out at the gym three times a week. There’s the theater on the weekends, along with something physical. Tennis maybe, not golf. No, handball.”
Keane shook his head. “Is this the magic?”
“No.” Jo shrugged and began to walk again. “Just guesswork. You don’t have to have a great deal of money to know how people who do behave. And I know you take the law seriously. You wouldn’t choose a career that wasn’t very important to you.”
Keane walked in silence. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I’m not certain I’m comfortable with your little outline of my life.”
“It’s very sketchy,” Jo told him. “I’d have to understand you better to fill in the gaps.”
“Don’t you?”
“What?” Jo asked, pausing. “Understand you?” She laughed, tickled at the absurdity of his question. “No, I don’t understand you. How could I? You live in a different world.” With this, she tossed aside the flap of the Big Top and stepped into its darkness. When she hit the switch, two rows of overhead lights flashed on. Shadows haunted the corners and fell over the arena seats.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Her clear voice ran the length of the tent and echoed back. “It’s not empty, you know. They’re always here—the troupers, the audience, the animals.” She walked forward until she stood beside the third ring. “Do you know what this is?” she asked Keane, tossing out her arms and turning a full c
ircle. “It’s an ageless wonder in a changing world. No matter what happens on the outside, this is here. We’re the most fragile of circuses, at the mercy of the elephants, of emotions, of mechanics, of public whims. But six days a week for twenty-nine weeks we perform miracles. We build a world at dawn, then disappear into the dark. That’s part of it—the mystery.” She waited until Keane moved forward to join her.
“Tents pop up on an empty lot, elephants and lions walk down Main Street. And we never grow old, because each new generation discovers us all over again.” She stood slender and exquisite in a circle of light. “Life here’s crazy. And it’s hard. Muddy lots, insane hours, sore muscles, but when you’ve finished your act and you get that feeling that tells you it was special, there’s nothing else like it in the world.”
“Is that why you do it?” Keane asked.
Jo shook her head and moved out of the circle of light into the dark and into another ring. “It’s all part of the same thing. We all have our own reasons, I suppose. You’ve asked me that before; I’m not certain I can explain. Maybe it’s that we all believe in miracles.” She turned under the light, and it shimmered around her. “I’ve been here all my life. I know every trick, every illusion. I know how Jamie’s dad gets twenty clowns into a two-seater car. But each time I see it, I laugh and I believe it. It’s not just the excitement, Keane, it’s the anticipation of the excitement. It’s knowing you’re going to see the biggest or the smallest or the fastest or the highest.” Jo ran to the center ring and threw up her arms.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced with a toss of her head. “For your amazement and astonishment, for the first time in America, a superabundance of mountainous, mighty pachyderms led in a stupendous exhibition of choreography by the Great Serena.” Jo laughed and shifted her hair to her back with a quick movement of her hand. “Dancing elephants!” she said to Keane, pleased that he was smiling. “Or you listen to the talker in the sideshow when he starts his spiel. Step right up. Come a little closer.” She curled her fingers in invitation. “See the Amazing Serpentina and her monstrous, slithering vipers. Watch the beautiful young girl charm a deadly cobra. Watch her accept the reptilian embrace of the gargantuan boa. Don’t miss the chance to see the enchantress of the evil serpent!”
“I suppose Baby might sue for slander.”
Jo laughed and stepped up on the ring. “But when the crowds see little Rose with a boa constrictor wrapped around her shoulders, they’ve gotten their money’s worth. We give them what they come for: color, fantasy, the unique. Thrills. You’ve seen the audience when Vito does his high wire act without a net.”
“A net seems little enough protection when he’s balancing on a wire at two hundred feet.” Keane stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned. “He risks his life every day.”
“So does a police officer or a fire fighter.” Jo spoke quietly and rested her hands on his shoulders. It seemed more necessary than ever that she make him understand his father’s dream. “I know what you’re saying, Keane, but you have to understand us. The element of danger is essential to many of the acts. You can hear the whole audience suck in their breath when Vito does his back somersault on the wire. They’d be impressed if he used a net, but they wouldn’t be terrified.”
“Do they need to be?”
Jo’s sober expression lightened. “Oh, yes! They need to be terrified and fascinated and mesmerized. It’s all included in the price of a ticket. This is a world of superlatives. We test the limit of human daring, and every day it changes. Do you know how long it took before the first man accomplished the triple on the trapeze? Now it’s nearly a standard.” A light of anticipation flared in her eyes. “One day someone will do a quadruple. If a man stands in this ring and juggles three torches today, tomorrow someone will juggle them on horseback and after that there’ll be a team tossing them back and forth while swinging on a trap. It’s our job to do the incredible, then, when it’s done, to do the impossible. It’s that simple.”
“Simple,” Keane murmured, then lifted a hand to caress her hair. “I wonder if you’d think so if you could see it from the outside.”
“I don’t know.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders as he buried his other hand in her hair. “I never have.”
As if his thoughts centered on it, Keane combed his fingers through her hair. Gradually, he pushed it back until only his hands framed her face. They stood in a pool of light that threw their shadows long behind them. “You are so lovely,” he murmured.
Jo neither spoke nor moved. There was something different this time in the way he touched her. There was a gentleness and a hesitation she had not felt before. Though they looked directly into hers, she could not read his eyes. Their faces were close, and his breath fluttered against her mouth. Jo slid her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his.
Not until that moment had she realized how empty she had felt, how desperately she had needed to hold him. Her lips were hungry for his. She clung while all gentleness fled from his touch. His hands were greedy. The weeks that he had not touched her were forgotten as her skin warmed and hummed with quickening blood. Passion stripped her of inhibitions, and her tongue sought his, taking the kiss into wilder and darker depths. Their lips parted, only to meet again with sharp new demands. She understood that all needs and all desires were ultimately only one—Keane.
His mouth left hers, and for an instant he rested his cheek against her hair. For that moment Jo felt a contentment more complete than she had ever known. Abruptly, he drew away.
Puzzled, she watched as he drew out a cigar. She lifted a hand to run it through the hair he had just disturbed. He flicked on his lighter. “Keane?” She looked at him, knowing her eyes offered everything.
“You’ve had a long day,” he began in an oddly polite tone. Jo winced as if he had struck her. “I’ll walk you back to your trailer.”
She stepped off the ring and away from him. Pain seared along her skin. “Why are you doing this?” To her humiliation, tears welled in her eyes and lodged in her throat. The tears acted as a prism, refracting the light and clouding her vision. She blinked them back. Keane’s brows drew together at the gesture.
“I’ll take you back,” he said again. The detached tone of his voice accelerated all Jo’s fury and grief.
“How dare you!” she demanded. “How dare you make me . . .” The word love nearly slipped through her lips, and she swallowed it. “How dare you make me want you, then turn away! I was right about you from the beginning. I thought I’d been wrong. You’re cold and unfeeling.” Her breath came quickly and unevenly, but she refused to retreat until she had said it all. Her face was pale with the passion of her emotions. “I don’t know why I thought you’d ever understand what Frank had given you. You need a heart to see the intangible. I’ll be glad when the season’s over and you do whatever it is you’re going to do. I’ll be glad when I never have to see you again. I won’t let you do this to me anymore!” Her voice wavered, but she made no attempt to steady it. “I don’t want you to ever touch me again.”
Keane studied her for a long moment, then took a careful drag on his cigar. “All right, Jo.”
The very calmness of his answer tore a sob from her before she turned and ran from the Big Top.
Chapter Ten
In July the troupe circled through Virginia, touched the tip of West Virginia on their way into Kentucky, then moved into Ohio. Audiences fanned themselves as the temperatures in the Big Top rose, but they still came.
Since the evening of the Fourth, Jo had avoided Keane. It was not as difficult as it might have been, as he spent half the month in Chicago dealing with his business. Jo functioned. She ate because eating was necessary in order to maintain her strength. She slept because rest was essential to remaining alert in the cage. She did not find any enjoyment in food nor was her sleep restful. Because so many in the troupe knew her well, Jo struggled to keep on a mask of normalcy. Above all, she needed to avoid any questions, any a
dvice, any sympathy. It was necessary, because of her profession, to put her emotions on hold a great deal of the time. After some struggle and some failure, Jo achieved a reasonable success.
Her training of Gerry continued, as did his progress. The additional duty of working with him helped fill her small snatches of spare time. On afternoons when no matinee was scheduled, Jo took him into the big cage. As he grew more proficient, she brought other cats in to join Merlin. By the first week in August they were working together with her full complement of lions.
The only others who were rehearsing in the Big Top were the equestrian act. They ran through the Thread the Needle routine in the first ring. Hooves echoed dully on tanbark. Jo supervised while Gerry sent the cats into a pyramid. At his urging, Lazarus climbed up the wide, arched ladder that topped the grouping. Twice he balked, and twice Gerry was forced to reissue the command.
“Good,” Jo commented when the pyramid was complete.
“He wouldn’t go.” Gerry began to complain, but she cut him off.
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry. Bring them down.” Her tone was brisk and professional. “Make certain they dismount and take their seats in the right order. It’s important to stick to routine.”
Hands resting on hips, Jo watched. In her opinion, Gerry had true potential. His nerves were good, he had a feeling for the animals, and he was slowly developing patience. Still she balked at the next step in his training: leaving him alone in the arena. Even with only Merlin, she felt it too risky. He was still too casual. Not yet did he possess enough respect for the lion’s guile.
Jo moved around the arena, and the lions, used to her, were not disturbed. As the cats settled onto their pedestals, she once more moved to stand beside Gerry. “Now we’ll walk down the line. You make each do a sit-up before we send them out.”
One by one the cats rose on their haunches and pawed the air. Jo and Gerry moved down their ranks. The heat was becoming oppressive, and Jo shifted her shoulders, longing for a cool shower and a change of clothes. When they came to Hamlet, he ignored the command with a rebellious snarl.
Bad-tempered brute, thought Jo absently as she waited for Gerry to reissue the command. He did so but moved forward as if to emphasize the words.
“No, not so close!” Jo warned quickly. Even as she spoke, she saw the change in Hamlet’s eyes.