Mayor Jason Strong, he and the rest of the carny community were too cautious, having been burned by town politics before. They’d learned the hard way to keep to themselves. When Carlo did seek out a woman’s wit and wiles, she was always a part of their group, a transient worker who wasn’t looking for permanency or promises.
But he could always fantasize about a waifish woman standing beyond the gates, couldn’t he? Wouldn’t do any harm.
Unthinkingly, he ran his fingertips along the cut on his cheek, right where she had touched him earlier. He could’ve cared less about that punk who had cuffed him with the sharpness of his ring. All Carlo could really remember was a sparking, sweet moment when the woman had stood in front of him, compassion in her eyes as she had searched his injury, her lips parted as she lifted her hand and…
The bonfire snapped, and Carlo came back to the moment. The carnies were getting restless, waiting for him to conjure up some pearl of wisdom. He’d been lost in thought for too long, his head scrambled by a townie who would be just a memory in two weeks when this show did its next “circus jump” to yet another destination.
“All I know,” he said, “is that we’d be wise to keep to ourselves, just as we always have. Move in, offer our wares, amuse the ladies with a wink or two, then move out. That’s the way it needs to go.”
Some of the carnies chuckled and nodded, but most of the young ones, who didn’t know any better, shuffled their feet and cleared their throats.
Hudson took off his hat before he spoke up. The skin around both of his eyes was black and blue from today’s scuffle. “Carlo, they took the fight to us this time. We’ve never had this kind of trouble before, but something’s telling me that maybe we need to give a little grief back to them.”
All Carlo had to do was stare at Hudson for a second too long. The smaller man nodded in understanding, then put his hat back on, silenced.
“Listen,” Carlo said, “there’s nothing in town that we don’t have here, so there’s no reason to cross over. We can slide out in a couple of weeks with our wallets bigger, our safety record intact and our reputation clean. True enough?”
A chorus of agreement was his answer and, after an awkward moment when nobody was brave enough to disagree again, the meeting ended. Harmon Flannery shook his head as he talked to himself on the way into his office. The rest of the group mingled, beginning to set up the beer, whiskey and lively music that would get them through another night.
As a makeshift band of a fiddle, acoustic guitars and an accordion tuned up, Carlo kept to his place, leaning against Flannery’s office. Hudson casually approached him, hands in his jeans pockets.
“I just thought I’d bring up a point, Carlo,” he said.
“It was a good one. But you know how things work outside.”
Everyone knew. Once upon a time, Carlo used to visit the towns. He’d been young and dumb, and one night, his loyalty to his carny community had resulted in a stint in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. The story was near legend. It had bought him a lot of respect, a lot of gravity. Still, most times, Carlo did his best to charm his way out of having people recall it.
Hudson obviously had something else to say. Carlo waited until the young man was ready to talk. In the meantime, Cherry Cooper sidled up to them, placing a hand on Carlo’s forearm, then removing it.
No doubt she had just taken psychic measure of him. Soon he would hear some kind of prediction from her.
Finally, Hudson said, “I talked to Cherry about this already, just to see if she could give me some third-eye guidance, but…Well, you know I been through Blossom County before, Carlo, with that other carnival two years ago.”
“Yeah.”
“The thing of it is, some townies look more familiar than others. Like…” He furrowed his brow. “Heck. There was this picketer woman out there today. I still can’t place her, but…Ah, never mind. It ain’t important.”
Carlo considered his rousty, then decided to let it go. If Hudson wanted to talk more about it, he would. Carlo wouldn’t push. “Let me know if it becomes important.”
Hudson nodded. “Will do, boss. Will do.”
He left Carlo and Cherry as the band started to play. While the crowd lost themselves in the music, Cherry gestured for Carlo to follow her away from the bonfire, toward a quieter area.
“Walk me to the gates?” his friend asked.
Once there, both of them ended up leaning against the steel, gazing at the stars. In the color of night, Carlo imagined the CMB woman’s eyes. The shimmering stars became her smile.
“Reckless,” Cherry said.
He couldn’t hide his attraction to the town woman from Cherry, psychic or not. “It’s a passing thing.”
“Good. Because you know what I saw?”
“I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me.”
She smiled, ignoring him. “You need to be listening to your own advice, Mr. Don’t-Go-Into-Town.”
Carlo’s laugh had a ring of disbelief to it. “Me? In Blossom?”
“I saw you. And I sensed hard times following your visit.”
He shook his head. Visions from the past—a small-town jailhouse and a joke of a trial—assaulted him. “You know I’m not stupid enough to cross over. Never again.”
“Tell me that later in the week.”
His idiot of a heart gave a leap as he imagined golden hair and warm blue eyes.
Did this have something to do with the townie? He wasn’t going to follow some woman, even this one, anywhere outside. Not for anything.
“Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.” With that, Cherry opened the gate, then crossed over.
Carlo watched her leave, knowing she was going to visit her fiancé, Jason Strong.
Knowing that, for her, town wasn’t off-limits anymore.
The sun rose, arced its way over Blossom, then set once again, leaving a keenly frustrated Elizabeth in its wake.
All last night, all day she’d thought about him. The look. The touch.
The possibilities.
The thrill of reveling under just one more magic gaze from a man who was perilously out of her league.
She couldn’t help it. Even though Elizabeth had spent the past couple of weeks judging youth contests at the fair, she was out of excuses to be inside of the fairgrounds now. But tonight, she created a thousand more and went there again. Putting on her favorite flowered sundress, she drove to the festivities alone, hoping no one would recognize her car parked behind a massive oak in the dirt lot.
By the time she paid for a ticket and walked past the main gates, she’d convinced even herself that she was justified in being here.
I’m just
