of picketers, he didn’t resist. Her mother leveled a lethal stare at him, then led him away by the button-down sleeve toward the cars, with the twins following behind.
Elizabeth turned her back to all the carnies: the heavily made-up women in their exotic satin costumes, the barkers who manned their games with their white straw hats, the sweating men in grimy T-shirts.
“I can’t believe you all…us all,” she said to the CMB, voice quivering in pent-up shame. “Is this what we’ve come to?”
She whipped around, face to chest with the Ferris wheel man. Her heart caught in her throat as she tilted her gaze upward and he locked eyes with her once again.
Knees turning to liquid, she took a deep breath and gathered her courage, reached up and touched his wound with a sense of wonder. Today’s slight injury was positioned just below the longer scar.
I’m sorry, she thought. So sorry.
Once again, time slowed, floated around them, preserving the electric contact of her innocent caress.
Seconds, hours. The longing of an endless sigh.
Someone in back of her gasped, jarring her out of the moment. She’d gone too far, hadn’t she?
When Elizabeth blinked, the Ferris wheel man did, too. Then he jerked back, a delayed reaction to her unexpected gesture.
She was a townie, a picketing one. What was she doing making overtures to the so-called enemy?
As she searched for an answer, the shock faded from his expression, replaced by that carefree smile she’d first seen when he’d been balancing on the Ferris wheel.
The sexy acknowledgment that she had been staring at him, that she had been interested.
Still, he kept backing up, into the crowd of carnies, their postures wary.
“No need for lectures, Miss,” he said, voice light, as if he tolerated punches to the face every day of his life and had learned to enjoy it. He gave her an easy wink. “You just stay on your side, and we’ll stay on ours.”
He glanced pointedly at her sandaled feet, and without thinking, Elizabeth stepped back, knowing she wasn’t welcome on this patch of territory.
As soon as she got to the line, she felt a hand close over her arm, pulling her back into the committee. Returning her to where she belonged.
It was Cassie Twain. As they walked, they passed the fighting carny—Hudson. He stared at Cassie, his bloodied brow wrinkled. She ignored him and kept moving.
“Uppity, aren’t they?” she asked. “I hope this episode makes them reconsider and pack it up.”
A response stuck in Elizabeth’s throat as the CMB took up chanting again, their message louder than before. They’d been energized by the fight, hadn’t they?
One last time, Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder, finding that the Ferris wheel man was walking backward, watching her, too.
Then he was erased by a surge of his own people as they surrounded him.
The gate slammed shut, telling Elizabeth once and for all that she was locked out.
Chapter Two
That night, after the carnival shut down and the midway was left deserted, Carlo Fuentes stood to the rear of the benches surrounding a community bonfire. He was leaning against the manager’s RV office, taking part in the assembly, yet, at the same time, not really taking part in it. Waiting for the crowd to talk itself out, to come to some understanding of what was going on in Blossom County.
The rest of the carnies, some still in costume, some freshly showered for a night of revelry or relaxation, were taking turns chattering, sorting through the consequences of standing up for themselves against the Committee for Moral Behavior. Firelight danced over the red silk of the tents, the aluminum shells of their motor homes. That intoxicating “fair smell”—a mix of animals, deep-fry grease and hay—hung in the warm air.
Home, he thought. The only place I’ll ever love.
A tall, lanky man dressed in a black-and-white pinstriped suit was grandstanding at the moment, preaching to them by waving his arms and flapping his gums. Harmon Flannery, the carnival manager.
“Now, I know all about what happened at the gate today,” he said in a wheezy baritone. “And I’ve heard a few of you hotheads talking about going into town and raising a ruckus. That wouldn’t be good for business, friends. Not ’tat all.”
The group, especially the “hothead” contingent that boasted three of Carlo’s rousties, or manual laborers, groaned at Flannery. Then, quite naturally, they all turned to Carlo, waiting for him to speak up.
Resigned to the ritual, he kept his tongue, gathering his words, having known all the while that it would come to this. The crowd would wait for anything he had to say.
For some reason, these people considered him their leader. “Prince of us gypsies,” they’d joke, even though he’d never asked for the honor or the title. He was just another one of them—a nomad, a thirty-year-old professional carnival worker who had flown the coop from his indifferent, widowed father upon turning eighteen. A rousty who just wanted to make it from one town to the next without incident or injury.
Not that Blossom County was making it easy.
“You’re all watching me like I have the answers,” he said, grinning as Flannery muttered about the “thick heads around this place” and took a seat. “I don’t know much. Just about that godforsaken Swindle. Because a few of you have talked with these townies, we’ve heard about their past troubles with other carnies.”
Here, he acknowledged Cherry Cooper, aka, Lady Pandora, the circuit’s contracted fortune-teller. Even though she was leaving the troupe after their time in Blossom ended—she was engaged to marry the town’s mayor, by some odd twist of fate—she was still one of them. Decked out in her costume, an airy gypsy skirt, white peasant blouse and a scarf covering her curly brown hair, Cherry sat on the opposite side of the fire, thoughtful as can be.
And who could blame her? She was caught in the middle of this thing, and so was her fiancé. As mayor, Jason Strong was forced to walk a line between the vocal CMB and his ties to the carnival.
Hell, even now, Carlo—a real keep-to-yourself kind of guy, too—wasn’t sure exactly what had made everything go from bad to worse today. While finishing up a safety check on the Ferris wheel, he’d noted the raised voices. Then he’d found Hudson, a rousty, trading playground insults with the one-in-every-town football stud. And woven in between it all had been the woman…
The woman.
She’d caught his attention more than once outside the gates, but today had been different. There’d been something in the way they’d looked at each other, with her standing below the Ferris wheel, her beautiful face lifted toward him as a slight breeze caught the wavy golden hair tickling her back, as her white dress danced around her slender body. And when she’d crossed into the carnival itself, he’d been temporarily enraptured by the night-sparkle blue of her eyes. A gaze that contained strength, curiosity and vulnerability all at the same time.
