Chapter 1
At the crack of the whip, twelve lions stood on their
haunches and pawed the air. On command, they began
to leap from pedestal to pedestal in a quick, close-
formation, figure eight pattern. This required split-
secondtiming. With voice and hand commands the
trainer kept the tawny, springing bodies moving.
“Well done, Pandora.”
At her name and the signal, the muscular lioness
leaped to the ground and lay down on her side. One by
one the others followed suit, until, snarling and baring
their teeth, they stretched across the tanbark. A male
was positioned beside each female; at a sharp reproof
from the trainer, Merlin ceased nibbling on Ophelia’s
ear.
“Heads up!” They obeyed as the trainer walked
briskly in front of them. The whip was tossed aside
with a flourish, then, with apparent nonchalance, the
trainer reclined lengthwise across the warm bodies. The
center cat, a full-maned African, let out a great, echo-
ing bellow. As a reward for his response to the cue, his
ear was given a good scratching. The trainer rose from
the feline couch, clapped hands and brought the lions to
their feet. Then, with a hand signal, each was called by
name and sent through the chute and into their cages.
One stayed behind, a huge, black-maned cat who, like
an ordinary tabby, circled and rubbed up against his
trainer’s legs.
Deftly, a rope was attached to a chain that was hid-
den under his mane. Then, with swift agility, the trainer
mounted the lion’s back. As the door of the big cage
opened, lion and rider passed through for a tour of the
practice ring. When they reached the back door of the
ring barn, Merlin, the obliging lion, was transferred to
a wheel cage.
“Well, Duffy.” Jo turned after the cage was secured.
“Are we ready for the road?”
Duffy was a small, round man with a monk’s fringe
of chestnut hair and a face that exploded with ginger
freckles. His open smile and Irish blue eyes gave him
the look of an aging choirboy. His mind was sharp,
shrewd and scrappy. He was the best manager Prescott’s
Circus Colossus could have had.
“Since we open in Ocala tomorrow,” he replied in a
raspy voice, “you’d better be ready.” He shifted his fat
cigar stump from the right side of his mouth to the left.
Jo merely smiled, then stretched to loosen muscles
grown taut during the thirty minutes in the cage. “My
cats are ready, Duffy. It’s been a long winter. They
need to get back on the road as much as the rest of us.”
Duffy frowned. As circumstances had it, he stood
only inches higher than his animal trainer. Widely
spaced, almond-shaped eyes stared back at him. They
were as sharp and green as emeralds, surrounded by
thick, inky lashes. At the moment they were fearless
and amused, but Duffy had seen them frightened, vul-
nerable and lost. He shifted his cigar again and took
two quick puffs as Jo gave a cage hand instructions.
He remembered Steve Wilder, Jo’s father. He had
been one of the best cat men in the business. Jo was as
good with the cats as Wilder had been. In some ways,
Duffy acknowledged, even better. But she had the traits
of her mother: delicate build; dark, passionate looks. Jo-
livette Wilder was as slender as her aerialist mother had
been, with bold green eyes and straight, raven black hair
that fell to just below her waist. Her brows were deli-
cately arched, her nose small and straight, her cheek-
bones high and elegant, while her mouth was full and
soft. Her skin was tawny from the Florida sun; it added
to her gypsy-like appearance. Confidence added spark
to the beauty.
Finishing her instructions, Jo tucked her arm through
Duffy’s. She had seen that frown before. “Somebody
quit?” she asked as they began to walk toward Duffy’s
office.
“Nope.”
His monosyllabic reply caused Jo to lift a brow. It
was not often Duffy answered any question briefly.
Years of experience told her to hold her tongue as they
moved across the compound.
Rehearsals were going on everywhere. Vito the wire
walker informally sharpened his act on a cable stretched
between two trees. The Mendalsons called out to each
other as they tossed their juggling pins high in the air,
while the equestrian act led their horses into the ring
barn. She saw one of the Stevenson girls walking on
stilts. She’d be six now, Jo mused, tossing the hair from
her eyes as she watched the young girl’s wavering prog-
ress. Jo remembered the year she had been born. It had
been that same year that she had been allowed to work
the big cage alone. She had been sixteen, and it had
been another full year before she had been permitted
to work an audience.
For Jo, there had never been any home but the circus.
She had been born during the winter break, had been
tucked into her parents’ trailer the following spring to
spend her first year and each subsequent one of her life
thereafter on the road. She had inherited both her fas-
cination and her flair with animals from her father, her
style and grace of movement from her mother. Though
she had lost both parents fifteen years before, they con-
tinued to influence her. Their legacy to her had been
a world of restlessness, a world of fantasies. She had
grown up playing with lion cubs, riding elephants,
wearing spangles and traveling like a gypsy.
Jo glanced down at a cluster of daffodils growing by
the side of Prescott’s winter office and smiled. She re-
membered planting them when she had been thirteen
and in love with a tumbler. She remembered, too, the
man who had stooped beside her, offering advice on
bulb planting and broken hearts. As Jo thought of Frank
Prescott, her smile grew sad.
“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” she murmured as she
and Duffy moved inside.
Duffy’s office was sparsely furnished with a wooden
desk, metal filing cabinets and two spindly chairs. A
collage of posters adorned the walls. They promised
the amazing, the astounding, the incredible: elephants
that danced, men who flew through the air, beautiful
girls who spun by their teeth, raging tigers that rode
horseback. Tumblers, clowns, lions, strong men, fat
ladies, boys who could balance on their forefingers;
they brought the magic of the circus into the drab lit-
tle room.
As Jo glanced over at a narrow pine door, Duffy fol-
lowed her gaze. “I keep expecting him to come busting
through there with some crazy new idea,” he mumbled
as he began to fiddle with his prize possession, an auto-
matic coffeemaker.
“Do you?” With a sigh Jo straddled a chair, then
rested her chin on its back. “We all miss him. It’s not
going to seem the same without him this year.” She
looked up suddenly, and her eyes were angry. “He
wasn’t an old man, Duffy. Heart attacks should be for
old men.” She brooded into space, touched again with
the injustice of Frank Prescott’s death.
He had been barely into his fifties and full of laugh-
ter and simple kindness. Jo had loved him and trusted
him without reservation. At his death she had grieved
for him more acutely than she had for her own parents.
In her longest memory he had been the core of her life.
“It’s been nearly six months,” Duffy said gruffly as
he studied her face. When Jo glanced up, he stuck out
a mug of coffee.
“I know.” She took the mug, letting it warm her
hands in the chilly March morning. Resolutely, she
shook off the mood. Frank would not have wanted to
leave sadness behind. Jo studied the coffee, then sipped.
It was predictably dreadful. “Rumor has it we’re fol-
lowing last year’s route to the letter. Thirteen states.” Jo
smiled, watching Duffy wince over his coffee before he
downed it. “Not superstitious, are you?” She grinned,
knowing he kept a four-leaf clover in his billfold.
“Pah!” he said indignantly, coloring under his freck-
les. He set down his empty cup, then moved around
his desk and sat behind it. When he folded his hands
on the yellow blotter, Jo knew he was getting down to
business. Through the open window she could hear the
band rehearsing. “We should be in Ocala by six tomor-
row,” he began. Dutifully, Jo nodded. “Should have the
tents up before nine.”
“The parade should be over by ten, and the matinee
will start at two,” Jo finished with a smile. “Duffy,
you’re not going to ask me to work the menagerie in
the sideshow again, are you?”
“Should be a good crowd,” he replied, adroitly skirt-
ing her question. “Bonzo predicts clear skies.”
“Bonzo should stick with pratfalls and unicycles.”
She watched as Duffy chewed on the stub of a now dead
cigar. “Okay,” she said firmly, “let’s have it.”
“Someone’s going to be joining us in Ocala, at least
temporarily.” He pursed his lips as his eyes met Jo’s.
His were blue, faded with age. “I don’t know if he’ll
finish out the season with us.”
“Oh, Duffy, not some first of mayer we have to break
in this late?” Jo demanded, using the circus term for
novice. “What is he, some energetic writer who wants
an epic on the vanishing tent circus? He’ll spend a few
weeks as a roustabout and swear he knows all there is
to know about it.”
“I don’t think he’ll be working as a roustabout,”
Duffy muttered. Striking a match, he coaxed the cigar
back to life. Jo frowned, watching the smoke struggle
toward the ceiling.
“It’s a bit late to work in a new act now, isn’t it?”
“He’s not a performer.” Duffy swore lightly under his
breath, then met Jo’s eyes again. “He owns us.”
For a moment Jo said nothing. She sat unmoving, as
Duffy had seen her from time to time when she trained
a young cat. “No!” She rose suddenly, shaking her head.
“Not him. Not now. Why does he have to come? What
does he want here?”
“It’s his circus,” Duffy reminded her. His voice was
both rough and sympathetic.
“It’ll never be his circus,” Jo retorted passionately.
Her eyes lit and glowed with a temper she rarely let
have sway. “It’s Frank’s circus.”
“Frank’s dead,” Duffy stated in a quiet, final tone.
“Now the circus belongs to his son.”
“Son?” Jo countered. She lifted her fingers to press
them against her temple. Slowly, she moved to the win-
dow. Outside, the sun was pouring over the heads of
troupers. She watched the members of the trapeze act, in
thick robes worn over their tights, head toward the ring
barn. The chatter of mixed languages was so familiar
she failed to notice it. She placed her palms on the win-
dowsill and with a little sigh, steadied her temper. “What
sort of son is it who never bothers to visit his father? In
thirty years he never came to see Frank. He never wrote.
He didn’t even come to the funeral.” Jo swallowed the
tears of anger that rose to her throat and thickened her
voice. “Why should he come now?”
“You’ve got to learn that life’s a two-sided coin,
kiddo,” Duffy said briskly. “You weren’t even alive
thirty years ago. You don’t know why Frank’s wife up
and left him or why the boy never visited.”
“He’s not a boy, Duffy, he’s a man.” Jo turned back,
and he saw that she again had herself under control.
“He’s thirty-one, thirty-two years old now, a very suc-
cessful attorney with a fancy Chicago office. He’s very
wealthy, did you know?” A small smile played on her
lips but failed to reach her eyes. “And not just from
court cases and legal fees. There’s quite a lot of money
on his mother’s side. Nice, quiet, old money. I can’t
understand what a rich city lawyer would want with a
tent circus.”
Duffy shrugged his broad, round shoulders. “Could
be he wants a tax shelter. Could be he wants to ride an
elephant. Could be anything. He might want to take in-
ventory and sell us off, piece by piece.”
“Oh, Duffy, no!” Emotion flew back into Jo’s face.
“He couldn’t do that.”
“The heck he couldn’t,” Duffy muttered as he
stubbed out his cigar. “He can do as he pleases.
If he wants to liquidate, he liquidates.”
“But we have contracts through October...”
“You’re too smart for that, Jo.” Duffy frowned,
scratching his rim of hair. “He can buy them off or let
them play through. He’s a lawyer. He can figure the way
out of a contract if he wants to. He can wait till August
when we start to negotiate again and let them all lapse.”
Seeing Jo’s distress, he backpedaled. “Listen, kiddo, I
didn’t say he was going to sell, I said he could.”
Jo ran a hand through her hair. “There must be some-
thing we can do.”
“We can show a profit by the end of the season,”
Duffy said wryly. “We can show the new owner what
we have to offer. I think it’s important that he sees we’re
not just a mud show but a profitable three-ring circus
with class acts. He should see what Frank built, how
he lived, what he wanted to do. I think,” Duffy added,
watching Jo’s face, “that you should be in charge of
his education.”
“Me?” Jo was too incredulous to be angry. “Why?
You’re better qualified in the public relations depart-
ment than I am. I train lions, not lawyers.” She could
not keep the hint of scorn from her voice.
“You were closer to Frank than anyone. And there
isn’t anyone here who knows this circus better than
you.” Again he frowned. “And you’ve got brains. Never
thought much use would come of all those fancy books
you read, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Duffy.” Her lips curved into a smile. “Just because
I like to read Shakespeare doesn’t mean I can deal with
Keane Prescott. Even thinking about him makes me
furious. How will I act when I meet him face to face?”
“Well.” Duffy shrugged before he pursed his lips.
“If you don’t think you can handle it...”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t handle it,” Jo muttered.
“Of course, if you’re afraid...”
“I’m not afraid of anything, and I’m certainly not
afraid of some Chicago lawyer who doesn’t know saw-
dust from tanbark.” Sticking her hands in her pock-
ets, she paced the length of the small room. “If Keane
Prescott, attorney-at-law, wants to spend his summer
with the circus, I’ll do my best to make it a memora-
ble one.”
“Nicely,” Duffy cautioned as Jo moved to the door.
“Duffy—” She paused and gave him an innocent
smile. “You know what a gentle touch I have.” To prove
it, Jo slammed the door behind her.
Dawn was hovering over the horizon as the circus
caravan drew up in a large grassy field. Colors were
just a promise in a pale gray sky. In the distance was
grove upon grove of orange trees. As Jo stepped from
the cab of her truck, the fragrance met her. It’s a per-
fect day, she decided, then took a long, greedy breath.
To her, there was no more beautiful sight than dawn
struggling to life.
The air was vaguely chilly. She zipped up her gray
sweat jacket as she watched the rest of the circus troupe
pouring out of their trucks and cars and trailers. The
morning quiet was soon shattered by voices. Work
began immediately. As the Big Top canvas was being
unrolled out of the spool truck, Jo went to see how her
lions had fared the fifty-mile journey.
Three handlers unloaded the traveling cages. Buck
had been with Jo the longest. He had worked for her fa-
ther, and during the interim between his death and Jo’s
professional debut, he had worked up a small act with
four male lions. His shyness had made his retirement
from performing a relief. To Buck, two people were a
crowd. He stood six foot four, and his build was pow-
erful enough for him to pad the sideshow from time to
time as Hercules the Strong Man. He had an impres-
sive head of wild blond hair and a full, curling beard.
His hands were wide, with thick, strong fingers, but Jo
remembered their gentleness when the two of them had
delivered a lioness of a pair of cubs.
Pete’s small frame seemed puny beside Buck’s. He
was of indeterminable age. Jo guessed between forty
and fifty, but she was never certain. He was a quiet
man with skin like polished mahogany and a rich, low-
pitched voice. He had come to Jo five years before, ask-
ing for a job. She had never asked where he had come
from, and he had never told her. He wore a fielder’s
cap and was never seen without a wad of gum moving
gently in his teeth. He read Jo’s books and was the un-
disputed king of the poker table.
Gerry was nineteen and eager. He was nearly six feet
and still carried the lankiness of his youth. His mother
sewed, and his father was a souvenir salesman, or a
candy butcher, as circus jargon had it. Working the big
cage was Gerry’s dream, and because it had been hers,
Jo had finally agreed to tutor him.
“How are my babies?” she demanded as she ap-
proached. At each cage she paused and soothed a ner-
vous cat, calling each by name until they had settled.
“They’ve traveled well. Hamlet’s still edgy, but it’s his
first year on the road.”
“He’s a mean one,” Buck muttered, watching Jo
move from cage to cage.
“Yes, I know,” she replied absently. “He’s smart, too.”
She had twisted her hair into one thick braid and now
tossed it to her back. “Look, here come some towners.”
A few cars and a smattering of bikes drew into the field.
These were the people from the outlying towns who
wanted to see a Big Top raised, who wanted to see the
circus, if only for a moment, from the other side. Some
would watch while others would lend a hand with tent
poles, stretching canvas and rigging. They would earn
a show pass and an unforgettable experience.
“Keep them clear of the cages,” Jo ordered, nodding
to Pete before she moved toward the still-flaccid can-
vas. Buck lumbered beside her.
The field was alive with ropes and wire and people.
Six elephants were harnessed but idle, with their han-
dlers standing by the stake line. As workers pulled on
guy ropes, the dusky brown canvas billowed up like a
giant mushroom.
The poles were positioned—side, quarter, center—
while the canvas muffled the sounds of scrambling
workers. In the east the sun was rising fast, streak-
ing the sky with pink. There were shouted instructions
from the head canvas man, laughter from adventure-
some boys and an occasional oath. As the quarter poles
were driven into the sag of canvas, Jo signaled Maggie,
the large African elephant. Obligingly, Maggie lowered
her trunk. Jo stepped nimbly into the U, then scrambled
onto the wide, gray back.
The sun grew higher by the second, shooting the
first streams of light onto the field. The scent of orange
blossoms mingled with the odor of leather harnesses.
Jo had watched the canvas rise under a lightening sky
countless times. Each time it was special, and the first
raising each season was the most special of all. Mag-
gie lifted her head and trumpeted as if pleased to be
around for another season. With a laugh Jo reached back
and swatted her rough, wrinkled rump. She felt free
and fresh and incredibly alive. If there were a moment,
she thought suddenly, that I could capture and bottle,
it would be this one. Then, when I’m very old, I could
take it out and feel young again. Smiling, she glanced
down at the people swarming below her.
Her attention was caught by a man who stood by
a coil of cable. Typically, she noted his build first. A
well-proportioned body was essential to a performer.
He was lean and stood straight. She noted he had good
shoulders but doubted if there was much muscle in
his arms. Though he was dressed casually in jeans,
city stood out all over him. His hair was a dark, rich
blond, and the early breeze had disturbed it so that it
teased his forehead. He was clean-shaven, with a nar-
row, firm-jawed face. It was an attractive face. It was
not, Jo mused, smoothly handsome like Vito the wire
walker’s but more aware, more demanding. Jo liked
the face, liked the shape of the long, unsmiling mouth,
liked the hint of bone beneath his tawny skin. Most of
all she liked the directness of the amber eyes that stared
back at her. They’re like Ari’s, she observed, thinking
of her favorite lion. She was certain that he had been
watching her long before she had looked down. Know-
ing this, Jo was impressed with his unselfconsciousness.
He continued to stare, making no effort to camouflage
his interest. She laughed, unperturbed, and tossed her
braid from her shoulder.
“Want a ride?” she called out. Too many strangers
had walked in and out of her world for her to be aloof.
She watched his brow lift in acknowledgment of her
offer. She would see if it was only his eyes that were
like Ari’s. “Maggie won’t hurt you. She’s gentle as a
lamb, just bigger.” Instantly, she saw he had understood
the challenge. He walked across the grass until he stood
beside her. He moved well, she noted. Jo tapped Mag-
gie’s side with the bull hook she carried. Wearily, the
elephant knelt down on her trunklike front legs. Jo held
out her hand. With an agility that surprised her, the man
mounted the elephant and slid into place behind her.
For a moment she said nothing, a bit stunned by the
trembling that had coursed up her arm as her palm had
met his. The contact had been brief. Jo decided she had
imagined it. “Up, Maggie,” she said, giving her mount
another tap. With an elephantine sigh, Maggie obeyed,
rocking her passengers gently from side to side.
“Do you always pick up strange men?” the voice be-
hind her inquired. It was a smooth, well-keyed voice, a
good pitchman’s voice.
Jo grinned over her shoulder. “Maggie’s doing the
picking up.”
“So she is. Are you aware that she’s remarkably un-
comfortable?”
Jo laughed with genuine enjoyment. “You should try
riding her a few miles in a street parade while keeping
a smile on your face.”
“I’ll pass. Are you in charge of her?”
“Maggie? No, but I know how to handle her. You
have eyes like one of my cats,” she told him. “I like
them. And since you seemed to be interested in Mag-
gie and me, I asked you up.”
This time it was he who laughed. Jo twisted her head,
wanting to see his face. There was humor in his eyes
now, and his teeth were white and straight. Liking his
smile, she answered with one of her own. “Fascinating.
You asked me to take a ride on an elephant because I
have eyes like your cat’s. And no offense to the lady
beneath me, but I was looking at you.”
“Oh?” Jo pursed her lips in thought. “Why?”
For several seconds he studied her in silence.
“Strange, I believe you really don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I did,” she returned, shifting her
weight slightly. “It would be a waste of time to ask a
question if I knew the answer.” She shifted again and
turned away from him. “Hold on now. Maggie’s got to
earn her bale of hay.”
The poles hung between the canvas and the ground
at forty-five-degree angles. Quickly the elephant’s
chains were hooked to the metal rings at the base of
the quarter poles. Jo urged Maggie forward in unison
with her coworkers. Poles skidded along the ground,
then up into place, pushing the canvas with it. The Big
Top billowed to life under the early-morning sky.
Her job done, Maggie moved through the flaps and
into the light. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jo murmured. “It’s
born fresh every day.”
Vito walked by, calling out to Jo in Italian. Sending
him a wave, she called back in his own language, then
signaled to Maggie to kneel again. Jo waited until her
passenger had dismounted before she slid off. It sur-
prised her, when they stood face to face, that he was so
tall. Tilting back her head, she judged him to be only
two inches shy of Buck.
“You looked shorter when I was up on Maggie,” she
told him with her usual candor.
“You looked taller.”
Jo chuckled, patting Maggie behind the ear. “Will
you see the show?” She knew that she wanted him to,
knew as well that she wanted to see him again. She
found this both strange and intriguing. Men had always
taken a second place to her cats, and towners had never
interested her.
“Yes, I’m going to see the show.” There was a slight
smile on his face, but he was studying her thoughtfully.
“Do you perform?”
“I have an act with my cats.”
“I see. Somehow I pictured you in an aerial act, fly-
ing from the trapeze.”
She sent him an easy smile. “My mother was an
aerialist.” Someone called her name, and looking, Jo
saw Maggie was needed for raising the sideshow tent.
“I have to go. I hope you like the show.”
He took her hand before she could lead Maggie away.
Jo stood still, again surprised by a trembling up her arm.
“I’d like to see you tonight.”
Glancing up, she met his eyes. They were direct and
unselfconscious. “Why?” The question was sincere. Jo
knew she wanted to see him as well but was unsure why.
This time he did not laugh. Gently, he ran a finger
down the length of her braid. “Because you’re beauti-
ful, and you intrigue me.”
“Oh.” Jo considered. She had never thought of her-
self as beautiful. Striking, perhaps, in her costume, sur-
rounded by her cats, but in jeans, without makeup, she
doubted it. Still, it was an interesting thought. “All right,
if there’s no trouble with the cats. Ari hasn’t been well.”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I’m
sorry to hear that.”
There was another loud summons for Jo, and both
looked toward it. “I see you’re needed,” he said with a
nod. “Perhaps you could point out Bill Duffy for me
before you go.”
“Duffy?” Jo repeated, surprised. “You can’t be look-
ing for a job?” There was incredulity in her voice, and
he grinned.
“Why can’t I?”
“Because you don’t fit any of the types.”
“Are there types?” he asked, both interested and
amused. Jo shook her head in annoyance.
“Yes, of course, and you don’t fit into any of them.”
“Actually, I’m not looking for a job, so to speak,” he
told her, still smiling. “But I am looking for Bill Duffy.”
It was against Jo’s nature to probe. Privacy was both
guarded and respected in the circus. Shielding her eyes
with her hand, Jo looked around until she spotted Duffy
supervising the raising of the cookhouse tent. “There,”
she said, pointing. “Duffy’s the one with the red checked
jacket. He still dresses like an outside talker.”
“A what?”
“You’d call it a barker, I imagine.” With easy grace
she mounted the patient Maggie. “That’s a towner’s
term, not a circus one.” She smiled at him, then urged
Maggie into a walk. “Tell Duffy Jo said to give you
a pass,” she called over her shoulder, then waved and
turned away.
Dawn was over, and it was morning.
