Roughneck

By Alexandra Sellers

The secret she kept

THE SON HE NEVER KNEW

Calla was first and foremost a mother. So when the child she loved formed a bond with the enigmatic and exciting Josh Wrangler, her every instinct told her to be afraid. Because no matter how much she wanted Josh, there were some things they couldn't share, not if she was going to protect Jonathan the son Josh had never known .

THE WOMAN HE LOVED

Josh Wrangler was falling hard for Calla. But despite the passion in her kiss, a secret lurked in her eyes. Would it keep him from making her the wife he'd always wanted and away from the little boy he'd just begun to love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460880401

Alexandra Sellers

Alexandra Sellers is the author of the award-winning Sons of the Desert series. She is the recipient of the Romantic Times' Career Achievement Award for Series (2009) and for Series Romantic Fantasy (2000). Her novels have been translated into more than 15 languages. She divides her time between London, Crete and Vancouver.

Book preview

Prologue

Iskandar roared. The long hand caressed his forehead and ear, and he roared again and shook his mane. The crowd behind breathed audibly in unison. He knew the sound, and liked it. He roared again.

Now Adam touched him on the flank, and called out, and Iskandar leapt down from his seat and loped easily and obediently towards the centre of the ring, his powerful body displaying all the promise of muscles that tensed and stretched, of paws that met the ground as though he were lord of it.

Mummy, is he a tame lion? asked a child’s high voice from the ringside. The voice was nervous—instinctively, the child knew, as the lion knew, the truth; but it was a deeply buried knowing, and the child allowed itself to be comforted.

Yes, darling, he’s tame. He’s just like a big pussycat.

He’s like Moxie, isn’t he? the child lied.

That’s right, darling, said the mother.

Kiss! called Adam; and Iskandar lifted himself on his hind legs, rested his forepaws on his friend’s shoulders, and touched his wide regal nose to his friend’s.

You see, darling? said the mother.

The crowd sighed, and laughed, and applauded. Iskandar knew the sounds, felt the attention of the crowd caress him like the warm glow of a light. It was a big crowd tonight; the crowds always liked The Kiss, and tonight there were cheers.

Good boy, said Adam caressingly. Good boy! Iskandar’s great green-gold eyes met the man’s blue ones for an assessing moment while the response from the crowd peaked. Yes, he would give them the little extra they wanted. He pressed his cheek against his friend’s face and rubbed affectionately. The crowd broke into renewed applause as Adam caressed his ears.

Platz! called Adam then; and Iskandar lifted his paws, turned, and dropped to all fours. He loped lightly back to his pedestal and climbed up, while, at the trainer’s call, Haroun and Cyrus moved to the centre of the ring and began rhythmically leaping over each other’s backs.

Iskandar turned to examine the audience on the other side of the huge cage that enclosed the ring. They were noisy and boisterous, excitable, and all of it was familiar; he understood it. Noise and lights and the smell of candy floss had been his world from birth.

A woman with a box of popcorn moved into the row of people just behind him, and he turned and raised his head in her direction, his nostrils working. A faint message drifted to his powerful odour detectors. Blood. Something stirred in him, and he gazed at the woman, his eyes not lazy now, but questing, assessing. He pressed his face against the bars of the arena cage. Blood.

On opposite sides of him the two tigers had returned to their pedestals. Iskandar! Adam called firmly, and as he obediently turned to look in the Man’s direction, the scent of blood faded from the cat’s nostrils.

Iskandar! he heard again, and the Man pointed his long arm to the lowest pedestal of the pyramid. Iskandar turned his head towards Xerxes, beside him, and the big tiger shifted restlessly, not sure whether to get down. Adam moved his long arm to touch the tiger’s flank. How, he told the tiger, and when the tiger was still he turned to Iskandar again.

Iskandar, he called insistently, and pointed to the pedestal again.

He remembered now. It was the new trick. Tonight they would do it for the people.

Good boy, said Adam, as the cat slipped gracefully down from his seat. Now the trainer turned and stepped in between the two high pedestals, his head and shoulders above them.

Iskandar remembered; he had done it many times before, though this was the first time before the crowd. He would leap from the lower pedestal to the upper, and then up over Adam’s head onto the other upper pedestal, to the lower, and down. He would turn and do it again, each time being sure to leap high, clearing the Man’s head.

As his great hind paws touched the ground, the scent of blood wafted to him from the woman behind, and for a moment he was confused. The odour troubled him, calling to his muscles and sinews. Iskandar! called the Man, and his authority was strong. The cat turned away.

Platz! called Adam, touching the pedestal with his long pointed arm to remind him where to go, and then stepping back again into position. Iskandar moved to position beside the lower pedestal, and as he responded to his training, that other, different response, urging him to the smell of blood, receded. His muscles bunched, and the great cat leapt up, and then up, and then, delicately lifting himself, he made a high leap over the Man’s head to come down on the pedestal opposite, down another level, and then onto the ground.

The crowd roared its approval, applauding and cheering; and Iskandar turned where he stood and his forepaws lifted back up onto the lower pedestal again, and his big body began to follow.

Fire! cried a voice from the crowd beyond the cage. "Fire, fire!" Another voice took it up on the other side of the ring. The faint, malodorous stink of hot plastic threaded its way gently across the air.

The crowd was sucked to its feet, and a cry as if from one voice beat the air, so loud that for a moment Iskandar, well used to sudden loud noises in the big top, turned his head. Then his feet came together on the lower pedestal, and he bunched for the next leap, while frightened, questioning shouts from the crowd now beat in his ears.

Alison, get up, go ahead of Daddy!

Come on, Adrian, it’s all right, but we must get out. Don’t cry.

Oh, George, what bedlam! Can you reach—ohh! Oh, God, Sarah! Sarah! Get up!

There were screams now as people leapt and fell over the barrier that separated the ringside seats from the arena cage. Bodies began to press and bang against the huge cage, shaking it, as, between one second and the next, the god Pan embraced the crowd in his suffocating arms. The cage rattled and shook, and bright colours and arms and legs pressed against it. The Man shouted, Gate! Gate! Get them out! as the tigers began to move restlessly and come down off their pedestals.

Iskandar, never bothered by crowd noise, found the shaking of the cage, the sudden movement of so many people, the colours, the shapes, disturbing. The faint smell of blood came to his nostrils again. In mid-leap to the upper pedestal, he turned and instead dropped to the floor in front of Adam; and everything was different.

He did not notice, the world change. He only knew that something moved in front of him, making deep bleating noises, while a twig scratched and dug at his flank. Prey.

The Prey was close, his scent strong in the cat’s nostrils. It bleated again, and there was a loud clanging somewhere. Something stirred in the cat’s memory, something he must do, but in the midst of the unfamiliar, one thing was certain: the Prey was close. No leaping at this range, just bring it down with one great swipe of a paw.

The Prey fell with a satisfying thud, still crying, and its long arm, like a twig, dug painfully at the cat’s face and flank. He ignored that, and bent his head to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of the Prey’s own flank. Some tigers loped by him, and he lifted his head, but he scarcely troubled even to growl. Tigers did not join in a communal Kill; the Prey was all his.

As he lowered his head again, the scent of the Prey disturbed him, so that he paused. It was familiar, reminding him of something different, some other reality. For a moment he was troubled, as though he had been awake, and now was dreaming, or perhaps the other way around.

Iskandar! the Prey cried, its voice high with pain and fear but still familiar, and that, too, was something he should know.

Iskandar! said the voice. There was clanging and screaming in his ears, and the cat growled his confusion. Then the Prey moved to escape. His powerful paw instantly flashed out, the great claws fully extended, to keep the Prey close. The satisfying odour of blood sprayed his nostrils, and his confusion disappeared, and the great cat bent to his kill.

Chapter 1

"Get out there and man the exits!" Josh, running in from

outside the tent, called indiscriminately to the artists and workers, who had been waiting to perform or move the props, and now clustered around the entrance to the ring, stunned by the rapidity of what had happened. Tell them there’s no danger, but get them out! Maria, go tell Denis to get the lights full up. Then find Lance, he’s in the office.

Is there a fire? a girl in tights and a sequined bra asked nervously.

Who the hell knows? Josh snapped. He slowed only to grab up a couple of fire pails, and continued on his way to the arena cage. Stop the panic, and get them out before they kill someone! Daniel, you and Ahmed find the fire. Josef, get whoever started this if you can.

Without a word the strong man, in glittering silver gladiator costume and a silk-lined cloak, turned to stride out the stage exit. The clown in whiteface and a squashed top hat, followed by a wiry dark man in a colourfully striped circus uniform jacket, went through into the ring, bent to lift the protective hanging tarpaulin and stepped across the metal supports under the tiers of seats.

Adam, someone said at his elbow, as the brightly costumed artists and workers began to move from the backstage area out into the screaming, panting crowd. Perhaps thirty seconds-had passed since the first cry of Fire, but in any emergency the discipline of the circus stood them all in good stead.

I’ll look after Adam, said Josh grimly. He upturned the red metal fire pails and emptied the sand onto the grass. Get me that broom, he ordered a pale, terrified boy in a striped jacket. Guy. The kid wasn’t circus, he’d only been hired for the season; half-panicked himself, he’d be useless trying to calm the crowd.

Grateful for this firm direction, Guy ran to where a broom stood ready to clean up the sawdust after Adam’s animal act, and brought it to Josh, already at the cage door. Abruptly the lights went up to full white. Denis had not waited to be told.

Inside the cage, Iskandar crouched beside Adam’s motionless body under the cover of the pedestal, one great paw across the bloody back, claws lethally extended, his teeth buried in the flesh at his waist. There was blood on the great lion’s muzzle, mane and paws, and the trainer’s bloodsoaked white jacket showed garishly against the sawdust, half in the pedestal’s shadow, half under the glaring lights. Blood was also sprinkled liberally in the sawdust. Adam lay face down, protecting his head and neck with his arms.

As Josh opened the cage door, Josh, don’t go in! screamed a voice, and a woman rushed through the curtain and flung herself on him, trying to drag him back. She was dressed in glittering tights and a faded blue dressing gown carelessly open over bare breasts; her makeup was half complete. For God’s sake, he’ll go for you, too! Don’t go in alone! Wait for Marsh!

Get the hell out of my way, said Josh levelly, shaking her off his arm with one rough movement so that she fell backwards to the ground. Then he stepped into the cage. Hi-yuh! he barked loudly and aggressively. He lifted the. broom and began a sudden clamour, beating the metal pails and shouting in sharp, insistent barks as he quickly approached the lion across the ring. The lion lifted his head and the golden eyes focused on him in cold, predatory assessment.

Josh, come out! screamed Sonia, and someone shouted, Shut up, you stupid cow!

Iskandar rose to his feet and bared his teeth at the disturbing new threat that approached. He growled. Beneath him was the taste of blood and meat, but beyond there was noise and melee, and ahead, something unnervingly unfamiliar, no ordinary rival come to challenge his right to his prey. He swung his head in confusion.

Gate! Josh called, sensing the moment. Suddenly, surrounded by the unfamiliar, the cat heard something it knew. A loud clang! smote his ears from behind, and then again. Clang! Clang! It was insistent, breaking through his confusion, a noise he must obey: to this stimulus, at least, he knew how he must respond. In the wilderness of the disconcertingly strange, it promised the safety of the known.

Yet at his feet, the scent of the prey beckoned, strong and compelling. He lowered his head questioningly to the intoxication of blood.

Hi-yuh! shouted Josh again, advancing quickly towards the lion, his voice sharp and threatening over the clatter of the broom against the pails. Now he prodded the lion with the end of the broom, hard, driving him away from the body at their feet, jabbing hard at the lion’s face, chest, flank.

Again Young Uchi let the gate fall with a clang, raising it again instantly as the cat turned towards the one recognizable stimulus and its powerful body, automatically responding to that determined message, slunk into a turn and charged through the gate and down the tunnel.

The gate fell shut again behind him, and then Uchi, followed by half a dozen late arrivals on the scene, tore open the cage door and rushed inside.

How bad is he?

Omigod, omigod, Josh, what happened?

Adam! Adam!

Josh had thrown aside the broom and pails as soon as Iskandar was into the tunnel, and was now stripping off his blue-and-silver shirt. His powerful torso glistened with sweat under the lights as he knelt by the body of his friend, rolling the shirt into a pad. Atalya, go and get the first aid kit out of my trailer! Jeanne, stop screaming and call an ambulance! he commanded fiercely, bending to stanch the flow of too much blood with the shirt.

From the ringside they heard isolated moments of speech as the crowd milled and shifted. Zere is no fire, Ladies and Shentlemen. The gentle voice of Kurt, the clown, came briefly, calm and firm. Please leave the tent quietly. Zere is no danger.

This way, please. This way. Lance had run from the box office and, holding up part of the tent walling to form another entrance, was shepherding the crowd out. Madam, please don’t—

My daughter’s in there, an urgent voice interrupted, but the remainder of the conversation was lost under cries and shouts.

You’re all right, Josh said quietly, watching with a face like stone as the blue cotton of his shirt turned black with Adam’s blood in less than a minute. We’ll have you out of here in no time.

Thanks, Josh, said Adam drowsily. His face was still pressed into the sawdust; he knew better than to try to move. Curiously, he felt no pain. How’s Iskandar?

He’s fine. In the exercise run.

Don’t blame him, will you? Not his fault.

No, I won’t blame him, Josh reassured him. Shut up now. When you talk, you bleed.

Poor Iskandar. He didn’t know what was happening.

Yeah. Josh turned away as Atalya pushed through the now-silent little cluster of circus people and knelt beside him, snapping open the clasps of the big white metal box. There was a gaping tear in the net stocking on one of her long legs, and blood welled in an ugly scratch. But she was oblivious of it, all her attention on the scene before her. Behind the thick stage makeup her warm, intelligent eyes were haunted with understanding of what she saw. There was a sinister pink gleam in the sawdust beside Adam’s body.

Pads, said Josh softly, but she already knew what was needed, and her capable hands pulled out several large paper-wrapped packets labelled, Dressings. She tore the wrappings off, and laid the sterile pads on the open lid of the box. Josh, meanwhile, the sweat of fear and anguish beading on his face and shoulders, had lifted and tossed aside the bloody pad of his shirt, and was gently cutting away Adam’s own jacket and blood-stained shirt to reveal the deep claw marks on his back and, at his waist, the dangerous, gaping wound.

Atalya passed a surgical pad to Josh. Their eyes met once, briefly, and neither had to tell the other what the danger was. Josh rapidly pressed pads over the wounds on Adam’s back and Atalya covered them with surgical tape.

How bad? Adam asked weakly.

Not bad, Josh lied. You’ll be fine.

The blood flow was slower now. After another moment the trainer mercifully lost consciousness.

Jeanne got through to the ambulance right away. They are coming, Atalya said softly and matter-of-factly, cutting long strips from the largest roll of surgical tape.

Josh made no attempt to roll Adam over, or to do anything to the potentially fatal stomach wound other than strap a bandage on as best he could over the part of the wound he could reach. Atalya looked at him. Aren’t you going to—? she asked softly.

Josh shook his head. Can’t, he said. Anything like real repair was impossible here. In fact, what he was doing was borderline useless, but it had made Adam feel better, he hoped. And all the rest of them. Everybody felt better when someone took command and seemed to be doing something purposeful.

Get some more tape on that, he said to Atalya, and rose to his feet. In the distance they could hear the siren. Clear out, he told the knot of silent clowns, artists and workers in the ring. Guy, go out to the road and make sure that ambulance knows where it’s going. Everybody else, out of the ring, please. Get out and disperse the crowd. Give them vouchers for another show.

Behind him, out in the emptying seats, a terrible wailing assailed their ears. "Willa, Willa! Oh, God, oh God, oh God, noooo!"

Chapter 2

Calla automatically pushed the Save button as the phone rang. She yawned and shook her head to bring herself back to the world. It was 11:38 p.m., the little lighted dial of the digital clock informed her.

Document to be saved? the computer asked. She hit Enter and Y in quick succession with her right hand and stretched to lift the receiver with her left, all in one motion.

Hi, Harry, what’s up? she asked, yawning uncontrollably. She pulled the phone closer and reached for her pencil, then pushed the heavy wave of her chestnut hair out of her eyes.

You free to go out of town? the gravelly voice asked. He coughed, and she heard the hiss of inhalation. Nothing but death would get Harry to stop smoking.

What day is it—Tuesday? Calla asked, her brain conveniently engaging. Wednesday tomorrow. Cradling the receiver against her ear, she shoved the keyboard into its niche and put a notepad in its place. Yes, I’m free. What’s the story?

Circus up at Alban’s Cross. Fire in the big top at the evening performance. Just came in.

How many hurt? Calla asked, meanwhile scrawling, Alban’s Cross, and "Circus’ on the pad.

Nobody hurt by the fire. The crowd got out. Apparently the big cat show was in full swing and they all jumped the trainer. He’s in hospital. We’ll be running an amateur photo of the attack on the front page.

Good God, Calla breathed faintly, and her grey eyes narrowed and darkened. The animal kingdom strikes back at last.

What? said Harry.

And I always thought circus animals were completely broken.

I don’t know about that. Oh—a kid got hurt. He was reading as he spoke. He’s in hospital, too. Get up there and phone me a news story—it’ll be a splash if it stands up-and a background piece for the page three lead. I’ll keep a copy taker on standby.

Right, said Calla, scribbling. The splash meant the front page banner headline. Things must be slow.

The agencies are covering the hospital, the New Commercial at Bellington, but get over there yourself if you’ve got time. Any angle you come up with.

Right.

Phil’s going up if you want to liaise. He lives near you, right?

Right, she said again.

And then she was listening to the dial tone.

They protected the stomach wound from the sawdust with damp tea-cloths from the canteen, then covered the trainer with a blanket and lifted the stretcher onto its wheels.

Someone to take the drip, said one of the ambulance attendants to Josh, eyeing the narrow cage door and the rough ground on the other side. Josh stepped forward, the blue-and-silver pants and cowboy boots of his Western costume looking gaudy and tinselled now under the harsh lights, and contrasting hideously with his naked, bloodsmeared chest and the black hollows of his eyes. But neither of the ambulance men had doubted for a moment who was in charge, tinsel or no tinsel.

Right. The band of silent watchers shifted to let them pass, and the little cortege made its slow way through the narrow gate and out the nearest gangway, where Big Uchi stood holding up the tent walling to form an emergency exit close to the waiting ambulance. A second ambulance, carrying the child, had already left.

I’ll go, Daniel said quietly to Josh as the stretcher was loaded inside. He had changed his ragged clown’s tie-andtails for cords and a shirt, but his face still bore the remnants of hastily wiped whiteface and carmine lips.

Josh nodded. He wanted to go himself, but there was too much to do here. Keep us posted, he said quietly, and Daniel crawled up into the back of the ambulance to sit beside the stretcher, where Adam, his face shockingly grey against his neat black beard, looked already dead.

Josh watched for a moment as the ambulance, kicking up the dust of the field, bucked gently over the rough ground and towards the gates.

Josef got one of them, someone reminded him gently, and he turned, heaving a sigh of deep bone-weariness.

Yeah, he said. Where are they?

At Josef’s, said Maria. Come, she ordered calmly, knowing that in that moment he could not remember where Josef’s caravan was parked. She took his hand between both of hers as they walked. He ees your very good friend, isn’t he? she commented, in her soft, musical voice. She meant Adam. You know heem all your life.

All his circus life. Yeah, said Josh, because it was easier than asking her to shut up. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired in his life.

He ees like your brother.

Yeah, he said again.

"C’mon! They ‘ll never look for you up here!" Adam had whispered, a daredevil gleam in his eye as he released the long rope ladder so that it hung straight from the centre of the ring to the top of the tent, and leapt onto it like a young monkey, gesturing to Josh to follow.

Up and up they went, high above the ring, and all the time that demon flash of blue eyes urged Josh higher.

He didn’t look down till he was balancing beside Adam on the perilously small high-wire cradle near the roof of the big top, high above the centre of the ring. Even then he had known Adam’s action for what it was—a test. There were far better places to hide a fugitive in the circus than the middle of the big top. If he had the guts, he was safe. If not, if he