Circus Wolf (5 page)

****

Skull returned to the circus grounds behind Tigra
and lurked outside her window for a few minutes, hoping to see her undress. He
could have connected with her in the wilds, but an inner wisdom had told him to
hold off. It could have been a rapturous encounter there in the picturesque
rolling hills. Or he could have dragged her to one of the nearby caves and
taken her in darkness.

No, with her, he wouldn’t hurry it; anticipation was
part of the thrill. In a day or two, he would choose his next victim, create a
telepathic bond, and use his mesmerizing power of hypnotism to go into the very
soul of the poor helpless creature. He imagined the gory glory. His mind, his
brain and hers would lock in psychedelic euphoria, and they’d soar to a wild
and heightened erotic state. In that state, their brains would produce their
own hallucinogens. It would be glorious…then would come his favorite part…the
gore and his afterglow.

****

Tigra stepped out of her caravan, tensed and ready
for anything. She had to go to her tigers. Stripes and Sly
were still upset and edgy over last week’s attack on Rolo and the
disappearance of Candy. She wanted to get them out of the cages for a while.
With the grounds quiet and deserted, she felt it was safe to walk them without
fear of running into someone.
And if she ran into the peeping
tom, too bad for him.

She put the tigers on special heavy duty leather
leashes, and burning with curiosity, she headed toward caravan thirteen.

****

Hugh stepped out the door of caravan thirteen and
sat down on the steps, far too excited to sleep. At a ferocious growl, he
looked up and saw two tigers straining at leashes held by Tigra Tortella, the
Queen of Tigers. She no longer wore those exciting strips of fur, but the jeans
and sweater were no less enticing. She wasn’t as big as her banner suggested.
Could the petite version of the Queen hold back two giant lurching tigers? He
stood,
ready to take any needed action.

Tigra glared at him with slanted cat eyes. “What are
you doing in Rolo’s Caravan?” Her tone was devoid of friendliness and her
sensuous lips curled like those of her tiger friends.

A flash of annoyance rose and then rolled off of him. “Mr.
Coleman assigned me this unit. I’m a new hire to take Rolo’s place until he
returns. I’m supposed to report to you in the morning.”

“To begin with, buddy, no one can take Rolo’s place.
But if the boss hired you, I suppose he saw talents not yet apparent to me.
What do you know about big cats?”

He frowned. She had a crumby attitude but somehow
the sexy tilt of her head and the saucy lift of her breasts made irritation and
apprehension secondary emotions. He shifted and then said the first thing that
popped in his head. “Mating is often a lively and seemly violent ritual among
tigers—then after, they calm down and loll side by side.”

“Don’t toy with me, Mr.… What did you say your name was?”

“
Didn’t
say, Ma’am.”

Hugh’s cool slipped another notch, making his heart pound
erratically. He managed to smile.
Damn.
She was baiting him, but by hiding his irritation he’d strike a quicker blow
than if he let her see how badly she’d gotten to him
.
“
I’m Hugo Marshall
Hall. I prefer to be called Hugh.” He stuck out his hand and, after glancing at
the tigers, withdrew it. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait until tomorrow to shake
hands, when you’re not flanked with your pets.”

“Good decision. What else do you know about tigers?”

“They need love, care, and patient handling.” Probably
much like the Queen herself, he thought. “And frankly, I hate to see them caged
up.”
Most of the time.
But not tonight.
He
darted a wary look at the tigers. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to take big cats
for a walk like domestic pets?”

She threw back her head and laughed with a bitter tone. Her
reddish-blonde hair was waist-length and wild. She’d approached close enough
for him to see that her
cat eyes were
emerald green. She was dangerously beautiful. His hands sweated and he felt a
facial tic near the corner of his eyelid.

 
Her shapely
feline beauty sent heat to his lower regions, but he was too uneasy to
appreciate the experience. She and her cats looked as though they were about to
eat him alive.

“There’s no danger unless I shout
attack
.” Her words were a soft,
seductive purr.

Was her
arousing tone spoken for a purpose other than to avoid alarming the cats?

“Look, if my staying in Rolo’s place upsets you I can find
shelter in the hills. I need this job and I don’t want any trouble. You’ll find
I’m a hard worker and I’ll stay out of your way, if that’s what you want.
Okay?”

“Sounds like a deal.”

As he admired her curves and feline slenderness, Hugh
reminded himself she was a lifetime gypsy and he was merely a temp-gypsy, out
to see the world before settling down.

She bent and whispered something to the tigers. Her jeans
and sweater molded to her slender, firm-looking body. The wool neckline barely
contained her beautiful tan mounds and the kind of cleavage he’d love to get
lost in. Testosterone flooded his system. He usually could control thinking of
sex around a beautiful woman…at least two-percent of the time.

 
She straightened,
thrusting out her ample breasts. His heart raced and his heart wasn’t the
muscle he wanted to exercise. He tried to keep breathing, tried to keep his
heart from going into cardiac arrest, but the mental image of the banner with
the tiger-queen in those two little strips of fur sent a new surge of heat to
his groin.

Oh, Lord,
help me
, he prayed silently.
My lustful reaction is more dangerous than
jumping off a high wire into a pit of fire. The tiger queen definitely isn’t
the Sunday school-teacher type I need and looking to befriend. This wild woman
who seems more comfortable with her tiger friends than people isn’t someone I
should be interested in pursuing
.
What
am I going to do?
Everything about
her intrigues me, fascinates me
,
including
the defiant gleam in her eyes.

Her features were delicate, yet her manner was as
strong and disturbing as her “pets.” She glanced at him from beneath her
lashes, flashing glinting sparks from those slanted emerald eyes. Then she
turned away, leading the tigers with her. She glanced back over her shoulder.
“Just stay out of the way of the tigers and we’ll get along well enough.”

Chapter
Seven

 
Tigra prayed
the morning’s stormy weather would clear by afternoon. Circus revenues couldn’t
stand another dreary day. Her jumble of concerns for the circus, everyone’s
jobs, Rolo, and her own well-being were like dagger-like hail on her nerves.
Grandy, her adopted
grandpa,
always said her
loner nature didn’t match her mothering instincts and one day soon her dual
natures would whip around like a striking rattler and bite her in the ass. If
being cautious and guarding her heart was a flaw, she felt too vulnerable to
even attempt to overcome it.

With her duality secret, learning to completely
trust anyone probably wasn’t possible anyway. In self-defense, she had to
continually grow as a woman, strengthen her back bone to the ultimate, and
remain aware of all the signs of danger in time to ward off trouble. Her
wariness had made her a loner and she tried to convince herself she liked going
solo. Her complicated existence had been manageable up to now and the promises
of improvements in her life professionally and financially were coming to pass.
She glanced up at the calendar—it was 2010, the Chinese year of the tiger and
according to those who studied such things, it was a year holding great promise
not only for those born under the sign, but also for those with tiger blood
flowing in their veins. With the fast pace of all of the astrological signs
this year, she knew better than to make a hasty decision like the one she faced
.
In spite of the good things coming to
pass, horrific incidents like the tiger attack on Rolo had created a dark cloud
over her existence. Personally and romantically her life was on the downward
plunge of the roller coaster and she didn’t need another complication.

Since Hugh came on the scene, her emotions whirled out of
control like a runaway tilt-a-whirl. She paced her caravan office, lit only by
dim, shadow-inducing lamplight. A clap of thunder broke nearby. She shivered
and went to the window as a bolt of lightning arced and illuminated the circus
grounds and the still, dark Ferris wheel, giving the usually glowing arcade an
eerie quality.

An icy chill slid down her spine. She rubbed her
arms and then with a fingertip, she followed a water droplet as it slithered
down the outside of the windowpane like a translucent snake. Frowning, she
paced again, unable to shake her edginess. She’d always dreamed of performing.
And since she’d hit adulthood, her long-term goal had always been to make a
successful career with the circus and enjoy a semblance of harmony in her life.
She looked upward.
Lord, is that so much to ask?

She’d worked hard to be her
best self. Long ago with Grandy’s support and encouragement, she’d
established her goals and high standards of
professional conduct. Each day she challenged herself with self-assurance to
fulfill her potential. But since meeting Hugh last night, the ground under her
feet trembled as though shivering on a bed of liquefaction.

She plunked down at her desk and thumbed through the
circus receipts. She was luckier than some at the circus. She pulled in two
generous incomes. Besides entertainer, she was the on-site accountant and
book-keeper. A stream of hazy light fell across her desk. She went to the
window and stared out. The mist had lifted and the sun poked through the ceiling
of gray clouds. Halleluiah! The circus needed the burst of sunshine to draw the
crowds. And she needed the brightness to improve her mood.

With the foul weather they were experiencing, it was
ironic that the next tune on her CD was “
Summertime
”.

She sang a few bars then sank back into her churning
thoughts. Other than her secret affliction, she was pretty satisfied with her
achievements and enjoyed being admired for her show-woman-ship and
tiger-handling talents. Everything seemed connected; if she didn’t have the
affliction, she might not have had the same bond with the tigers.
But was she meeting her own expectations?

Rolo getting mauled during her act had given her a
stomach-churning sense of failure, and her necessary secrecy brought on a
dangerous moodiness which could contribute to an increased edginess among the
tigers. To heighten her challenge, she was forced to take on an inexperienced
and very disturbing trainer.

There had to be a way to protect this Hugh fellow,
until she could test his abilities. It didn’t help that he was like a sliver
embedded deeply under tender skin. Gnawing shadowy images of him under the dim
lighting of his caravan flipped through her mind. His thick, dark, highly
arched eyebrows and his intense gaze in the haziness were perplexing, a little
terrifying, and yet the composite of him seemed to add up to something
enthralling and intriguing. She tried to push thoughts of him aside and
concentrate on her agenda for the day. But blast it, the agenda included
training him.

Due to her sharp tiger hearing, the sound of light
footsteps on the steps alerted her. She tucked a strand of long auburn hair
behind her ear with tense fingers.

 
Although
forewarned, she flinched at the tap on her door. “Come in,” she said, sensing
it was him and mentally gearing up to handle her reaction to the disturbing
hunk-of-manhood.

Hugh removed his dripping, water soaked baseball
cap, and, ducking, entered the caravan office, filling the space with his
imposing presence. His stance was alert, almost coiled like some wary creature
from the wilds. He stomped his wet moccasins on the entry rug and shook the
silken strands of shoulder-length midnight-black hair in such a way the
florescent lights picked up glints of blue in his dark tresses.

She sensed a quickening of her heartbeat and feared
her eyes were giving away how glad she was to see this virtual stranger. What
was there about him that his mere presence sent her into a tailspin like this?

As though in answer to her question, ridiculous
irony struck again, the CD was now softly playing,
“Love
Walked
In.”

No way
!
her
brain screamed while
she battled the insane urge to rush to him and run her fingers through the
waves. Was his mane as wet, slippery, and silky as it looked? Even in the
dreary light, she thought she saw some kind of aura around the man. Her
compelling feeling was too strong to dismiss.

She met his gaze unflinchingly for a long moment.
His eyes were gray. But gray didn’t get to the essence of those eyes. Not by a
long shot. They were striking, unusual eyes.
Gentle eyes that
seemed never to blink and held hers with unnerving tenderness as if he could
see her flaws and accepted them.