Tempting the Ringmaster (5 page)

Bring.
Briiing.
The ring of a cell phone interrupted the quiet night, shocking them apart. Was there someone else in the parking lot?
Briing.
Graham’s hands patted awkwardly at his pockets until he found his phone.

“You have to take that?” Belle demanded, lust still coursing through her veins.

“It’s a transfer from the emergency switchboard. Someone called 9-1-1.” He hit the talk button. “Chief Tyler speaking.”

Belle couldn’t make out the words coming through the phone’s small speakers, but she recognized the harried tone. The person on the other end was hysterical.

“Marta,” Graham said. “Marta, calm down.” His gaze ghosted over Belle’s body before he turned away to concentrate on what was being said. “Can you repeat that?”

Belle took a deep breath and attempted to force down her bubbling
libido. She slipped off the hood of the truck, smoothed her dress, and buttoned her coat.

It was time for the fantasy to end. She wasn’t Cinderella, and he wasn’t Prince Charming. He was a cop, brash, invasive, and controlling; everything she didn’t want hanging around the circus.

It would never work between the two of them.

They came from two different worlds.

Her movement must have caught Graham’s attention because he turned back towards her. There was an expression on his face somewhere between shock and awe, like he’d just been hit by a truck.

“Just hang tight,” he said, “I’ll be there as soon as possible.” He hit the end button on his phone. “Hell.”

“I guess that mean’s our evenings over.” Belle crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Can you drop me off at the fairgrounds on the way? Or, should I call someone from the circus to pick me up?”

“I think you’d better come with me. It’s…“ Graham shook his head ruefully. “I don’t even know how to say this. That was Marta Sanchez. My next-door neighbor—your next door neighbor while you’re at the fairgrounds—the woman’s 90 if she’s a day, but she’s still sharp as a tack. She doesn’t make things up.” There was a slight pause. “She says there’s an elephant tearing up her rose beds. An elephant! I had her repeat herself three times. She says it’s definitely an elephant.”

“Oh,” Belle said, her mind scrambling. There weren’t any elephants in Black Shadows Circus, but the beast’s presence couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it? “Hell.”

Chapter Four

The thing sniffing at Marta’s flower garden had big ears, gray skin, and a long trunk. It was definitely an elephant.

Graham parked in the middle of the road and got out of his car. He jogged around to the trunk to grab his .45 then tugged on his bulletproof vest. The Kevlar probably wouldn’t be much protection against an elephant, but it was all he had.

“Hold on a second, Rambo.” Belle opened her door and got out slowly. The hem of her red dress whipped against her knees. She shivered in the cool night air, pulling her ugly jacket tight around her body as she watched the elephant. “It doesn’t look dangerous.”

The door to a nearby farmhouse opened and Marta stomped out. The woman had been at least a million years old when he was in Sunday school, and she’d only gotten older since. Her pink sweater set hung loosely across her hunched shoulders, and she had to lean on a cane to support herself.

“Don’t you dare wave that gun around here, young man. I won’t have any violence on my property. You fire that gun, and I’ll put you over my knee. Don’t think I can’t.”

Graham’s jaw dropped. Women. They were insane. Sexy, he conceded as he watched Belle walk slowly across the yard.

So damn sexy.

The memory of their kiss flooded his senses. The way the sweet scent of cinnamon had clung to her hair, and the way her body had felt, pert and perky, underneath his hands.

He’d only meant it to be a soft kiss—a thank you for a fun night out—but then she’d been kissing him back, and he’d wanted her so much.

So, yeah. Women were sexy… and spunky… and psychotic.

It was a freaking elephant, and they were defending it.

“That’s close enough,” he called out when Belle was twenty feet from the animal.

She ignored him and kept walking.

“That’s—“ Hell. He slipped his gun into the waistband of his jeans and hustled forward to catch up with her. “I told you to stay put.”

Bringing her had clearly been a bad idea. Just because she was in the circus didn’t make her an expert on elephants. The woman was going to get herself killed.

If anything happened to her… Graham’s breath caught in his throat. He’d spent less than half a dozen hours with Belle—they were practically strangers—but he still cared about her safety.

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hard against his body. “Don’t get any closer.”

The elephant’s ears flickered slightly at the noise. It turned slightly, flicking its trunk forward. The rubbery appendage whisked air across Graham’s face, its mouth opening slightly before it turned back to the flowers.

“Such a sweetheart,” Belle cooed, like the thing was a puppy that had just performed its first trick. “Graham, you’d better start looking for her owner.”

“Her owner?”

“Unless you think she walked here from Asia.”

“She’s a girl? How the heck do you know?”

“No tusks. Male Asian elephants have tusks. She’s definitely a girl.”

“Of course.” Marta started the long, slow walk from her front stoop to where Graham was standing. “That explains why she’s so interested in my flowers. Do you think she’d like something to eat?”

The old lady whacked Graham’s knees with her cane. Hard.

“Go get my guest something to eat. There are apples on the counter, and broccoli in the crisper. Hurry, before she goes after my azaleas.”

“I’m sure she’d prefer the apples,” Belle reassured.

“You heard the lady,” Marta said. She poked Graham in the side, sneaking the end of her cane under the side of his Kevlar vest. “Get my guest some apples.”

That was it. Graham was going to take Marta’s cane away. He turned to give the old lady a piece of his mind and—

The elephant trumpeted. The sound was enormous, like an antique battle horn. She rumbled forward slowly, nosing past Graham until she was standing between him and the women.

Marta reached out and poked the elephant with her cane, grinning wildly when the beast lowered its head.

“You see that, boy? At least someone around here knows how to behave.”

“Okay.” Belle edged forward, reaching out with one hand to pat the elephant on the trunk. “It’s going to be okay. You got a name, darling?”

The elephant yawned.

“How about Tiny?”

“What kind of name is Tiny for a lady?” Marta demanded. “She needs a name worthy of her… stature. She needs a queen’s name, like Catherine or Elizabeth.”

“Tiny’s a good name,” Belle countered. “All circus elephants are named Tiny…
or Jumbo. She doesn’t look like a Jumbo.”

“Uh huh.” Marta started grumbling something about idiot children who were no better than they should be. “Who do you think you are anyway?” She demanded loudly. “You just show up here in the middle of the night, claiming to know something about my elephant. You probably want to make her into soup.”

“I don’t want to make her into soup,” Belle said. “And she’s not your elephant.”

“She’s on my property, eating my roses.” Marta aimed at the younger woman with her cane. “You’re damn straight, she’s my elephant.”

Graham grabbed at the weapon before the old woman could connect. “I’m impounding this. No unlicensed weapons in my town.”

“Hmmph.” Marta dropped the cane. “Boys these days. No respect.” She leaned back against the railing of her front steps. “What’s your name anyway, elephant girl?”

“Belle-Anne Black. You can call me Belle.”

“You with a zoo?”

“Not professionally,” Belle said. “I own the Black Shadow Circus, we’re over at the fairgrounds.”

“The circus, eh? Does that mean this is one of your elephants? Can’t look
after your own livestock?”

“She’s not one of mine. We don’t have exotic animals. The Black Shadow Circus is about putting on a show, showing off the limits of the human body, not making wild animals dance around on command.”

Tiny’s ears flicked back and forth, like she was listening to the conversation. The elephant shifted backwards onto her hind legs. For one long moment, it looked like she was about to fall over.

The last thing Graham wanted to deal with was an unconscious three-ton animal.

Finally, the beast pushed herself up onto her hind legs. Her entire body wriggled happily in the dim illumination from the nearby streetlight.

Dancing.

Graham took a deep breath and struggled to remember back to a day without dancing elephants… or clowns. Had it been only yesterday? He wanted to go back there.

Only, that would mean going back to a time before he’d met Belle.

He grabbed her arm, pulling her back half a step as Tiny continued to shimmy.

“Do you know how she got here?” Belle asked Marta.

“I was having my evening tea.” Marta smacked her lips together at the memory. “Herbal, for my glaucoma. First I knew something was wrong, some semi-truck was barreling down the road. That’s dangerous! There are kids living around here. I walked out to get the license plate number, and that’s when I saw this elephant.”

“Someone just dumped her off?” Belle’s mouth dropped open in amazement. “Idiots.”

“Maybe not,” Graham said. “Maybe they knew there was a circus in town. They figured Tiny would wander over towards the fairgrounds and you’d take her in.”

The elephant appeared to have finished dancing for a moment. She placed her front feet down delicately and glanced around, looking for some sign of approval.

Up close, she wasn’t as big as he’d imagined—just a little over seven feet tall—but he wouldn’t call her Tiny either. He supposed the name was supposed to be ironic. He reached out tentatively to touch her trunk with his hand. Her skin was rough and cool, like tree bark but smoother. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, but that was par for the course.

The whole evening was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

Picking up Belle at the fairgrounds—seeing the circus performers going about their lives like there was nothing unusual about dressing in spandex or teaching dogs to backflip—taking her out to dinner in his gossip-ridden town, and then there’d been that kiss.

The kiss had been smoking hot. It had left her moaning, practically begging for more. Another few minutes and he’d have taken her right there in the darkness, not caring who might stumble into the parking lot and see their bodies locked together, writhing with pleasure.

All of his self-control had gone straight out the window. He’d been willing to risk everything, including the responsible reputation he’d spent so many years building, for just one touch.

Did she know what the kiss had meant for him? Or, had the importance slipped past her with the excitement of the elephant?

“It seems to have worked,” Marta said. “You went and nabbed her when you got the call. That’s pretty smart work for a Tyler.”

“Belle was with me when I got the call.”

“With you?” Marta wiggled an eyebrow dramatically. “Like,
with
you?”

“With me,” Graham let it slip before he could stop himself. Belle had almost given him a heart attack when she’d told Theresa that they were on a date, but he could have handled the fallout. The waitress was young and impressionable, easily mistaken.

Marta was sharp as a tack, and she had a direct hook up to Buck Falls gossip pipeline. The news that he’d been hanging around with a sexy circus performer in a short dress would be all over town in a matter of hours.

There’d be hell to pay. His father…
Tiffany… they’d all want to know exactly what was going on, and they wouldn’t be pleased.

What if someone told Trevor? He grimaced at the thought of his nephew’s questions.

Belle was only a one night stand—her position with the traveling show meant she could only ever be a one night stand—but he wasn’t sure how to explain the concept to a seven-year-old.

“Good to hear.” Marta slapped him on the arm. “It’s about time you
started dating again.” She turned and started to shuffle back towards the house. “I’m going to go put the kettle on. When you’ve got Tiny settled, you can come back for tea. I expect to hear all about it. And,” she cackled wickedly, “if you don’t stop by, I’ll just have to make everything up.”

Belle waited until Marta’s door was firmly closed behind her before letting out a long breath. “I thought I had problems with the clowns, but—”

“Want to trade?”

“Not for all the herbal tea in Buck Falls.”

“Marta’s not your problem. Tiny is.”

The elephant had returned to the flower garden. It was eating something pink. Graham hoped it wasn’t an azalea.

“What are we going to do with her?”

Belle shrugged. “Don’t you have some form of animal control in this town? Call the dog catcher.”

“The dog catcher’s name is Ernie Pyle. He’s eighty-six years old, and he threw out his back catching kittens last spring. He refuses to retire.” Graham took a deep breath. “You’re going to need to take her.”

*              *              *

“I can’t have an elephant hanging around the circus. I don’t have the experience, the permits, or the insurance.” Every elephant Belle had ever seen had traveled in a specially tricked out semi-truck. She didn’t have the money to spend on that kind of equipment, and she didn’t have the time to come up with a better solution.

The circus was only supposed to be in town for the weekend, just enough time for four performances: Friday night, Saturday night, and twice on Sunday.

“We can’t take her,” Belle insisted. “You’ll have to find another option”

“You mean someone else in town with experience wrangling elephants? I’ll get right on that…Trust me, I know every man, woman, and child in Buck Falls. The closest any of them have come to seeing an elephant is the fifth grade field trip to the Detroit zoo.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You’re the only option.”

“It’s impossible. The circus is leaving first thing Monday morning.” As soon as she figured out where they were going next. “We can’t take her with us.”

“Stay,” Graham said.

One word that made her gut clench and her stomach churn. She sucked in a breath. He wanted her to stay?

“Just for a few weeks,” he continued, and Belle’s heart resumed beating. He didn’t want her after all. He just needed someone to babysit the elephant.

He didn’t have a choice.

“I’m not running a charitable organization,” Belle said.

She’d be lucky if the circus made it through the lean season the way things were. The half dozen places she’d reached out to—looking for a place to spend the winter—had all gotten back to her with lot quotes that far exceeded her ability to pay. She couldn’t waste money hanging around the middle-of-nowhere.

“The shows this weekend will cover the lot rent, put a little extra in our pockets, but there aren’t enough people around here for anything more than that. I won’t dig into my savings to pay for another week at the fairgrounds.”