Untamed by Nora Roberts Page A

deciding that sympathy was the wisest course. “It’s more than he deserves.”
    â€œPatient?” Rose raised a dramatic hand to her breast. “I have the patience of a saint. Yet even a saint has her limits!” Rose tossed her hair behind her shoulders. She sighed heavily.
“Adios.
I think I hear Mama calling me.”
    Jo continued her walk toward the Big Top. Jamie walked by, his hands in his pockets. “She’s crazy,” he muttered. He stopped and spread his arms wide. His look was that of a man ill-used and innocent. Jo shrugged. Shaking his head, Jamie moved away. “She’s crazy,” he said again.
    Jo watched him until he was out of sight, then darted to the Big Top.
    Inside, Carmen watched adoringly while Vito practiced a new routine on the incline wire. The tent echoed with the sounds of rehearsals: voices and thumps, the rattle of rigging, the yapping of clown dogs. In the first ring Jo spotted the Six Beirots, an acrobatic act that was just beginning its warm-ups. Pleased with her timing, Jo walked the length of the arena. A raucous whistle sounded over her head, and she glanced up to shake a friendly fist at Vito. He called from fifteen feet above her as he balanced on a slender wire set at a forty-five-degree angle.
    â€œHey, chickie, you have a nice rear view. You’re almost as cute as me.”
    â€œNo one’s as cute as you, Vito,” she called back.
    â€œAh, I know.” With a weighty sigh, he executed a neat pivot. “But I have learned to live with it.” He sent down a lewd wink. “When you going into town with me, chickie?” he asked as he always did.
    â€œWhen you teach my cats to walk the wire,” Jo answered as she always did. Vito laughed and began a light-footed cha-cha. Carmen fired Jo a glare. She must have it bad, Jo decided, if she takes Vito’s harmless flirting seriously. Stopping beside her, Jo leaned close and spoke in a conspirator’s whisper. “He’d fall off his wire if I said I’d go.”
    â€œI’d go,” Carmen said with a lovely pout, “if he’d just ask me.”
    Jo shook her head, wondering why romances were invariably complicated. She was lucky not to have the problem. Giving Carmen an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Jo set off toward the first ring.
    ***
    The Six Beirots were brothers. They were all small-statured, dark men who had immigrated from Belgium. Jo worked out with them often to keep herself limber and to keep her reflexes sharp. She liked them all, knew their wives and children, and understood their unique blending of French and English. Raoul was the oldest, and the stockiest of the six brothers. Because of his build and strength, he was the under-stander in their human pyramid. It was he who spotted Jo and first lifted a hand in greeting.
    â€œHalo.”
He grinned and ran his palm over his receding hairline. “You gonna tumble?”
    Jo laughed and did a quick handspring into the ring. She stuck out her tongue when the unanimous critique was “sloppy.” “I just need to warm up,” she said, assuming an air of injured dignity. “My muscles need tuning.”
    For the next thirty minutes Jo worked with them, doing muscle stretches and limbering exercises, rib stretches and lung expanders. Her muscles warmed and loosened, her heart pumped steadily. She was filled with energy. Her mind was clear. Because of her lightened mood, Jo was easily cajoled into a few impromptu acrobatics. Leaving the more complicated feats to the experts, she did simple back flips, handsprings or twists at Raoul’s command. She did a brief, semi-successful thirty seconds atop the rolling globe and earned catcalls from her comrades at her dismount.
    She stood back as they began the leaps. One after another they lined up to take turns running along a ramp, bounding upon a springboard and flying up to do flips or twists before landing on the mat.