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“Still no luck, huh?” Paulie asked from the other side of the trailer where he’d been digging into Damon’s tiny fridge. Paulie was trying to avoid the diet food Bella was forcing on him. “What I wouldn’t give for a sausage sandwich with peppers.”
“I’ll sneak you ten of them if you find her for me.”
Paulie looked up, amusement making his angular face appear elf-like. “Guess that betting pool’s about to pay off.”
“Not if I can’t find her before we leave here.”
“You kissed her, and she ran. Priceless.” His cousin snickered as he gave up and slammed the refrigerator door.
“She kissed me,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
Paulie’s laughter got a little louder.
“What?”
“Some hot babe kisses you and you mope about it for a week.”
“Only because she disappeared right afterward.”
“That’s what’s so great about it. One kiss and she went into the witness protection program. You losing your touch?”
Paulie’s comment rankled. It did seem as though Allie, the brown-haired beauty, had disappeared. If not for the way he smiled when he pictured her “snapping out” of her hypnotic spell, and the way he had to shift in his pants at the memory of that amazing kiss, he’d wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.
“I better go.” Paulie’s sigh could have been heard from the next town. “Bella’s making meatless hamburgers. Why not just call it a hockey puck on a bun and be done with it?”
Damon barely paid attention as his cousin left. He still couldn’t get over how clever the stranger had been—how quick to take what she’d wanted. A hot kiss that he could still taste. In public. With absolutely no repercussions. At least not for her.
Oh, he felt pretty certain some of the townspeople had been whispering about him. He suspected he’d been cast as a manipulative carny, hypnotizing an innocent young woman from their town into carrying on like that.
They were protecting her from him. Even though he’d been the innocent party. Well, pretty much. He hadn’t remained a bystander once her arms had encircled his neck and her curvy body had melted into his. Oh, no. He’d participated in that kiss big-time.
He didn’t suppose the townspeople would feel any better hearing that, however, since nobody would tell him one thing about his mystery woman. All his queries had been met with blank stares, innocent shrugs and some type of frown.
The frowns told him he was being had. The pursed lips and disapproving scowls on the faces of the older ladies told him why: the wagons had circled around one of their own.
Carny prejudice wasn’t unusual. His own grandparents had been accused of any number of crimes when they’d been on the circuit, simply by virtue of their professions. Stranger equaled criminal in a lot of places. Including, apparently, Trouble, Pennsylvania.
Finally, unable to stand staring at the walls of his trailer anymore, he decided to get out for a while. The run ended tomorrow night. By this time Sunday, the caravan would be setting up at another fairground, in the next state, and he could move on.
The carnival grounds were right by a small park. Grabbing a paperback from his camper, he headed out. He’d kill an hour or two in the bright June sunshine and be back in plenty of time for tonight’s first show.
But the moment he reached it, he realized he’d chosen a lousy place to relax. “Bad idea,” he muttered. The park was busy, crowded with mothers pushing their children on swings. Normal. Happy. Unbearable.
The sound of children’s laughter stinging his ears, his body tensed. When one boy with white-blond hair ran past with a cheery grin, a stab of regret cut through Damon with the power of a blade. Closing his eyes, he immediately saw another face—the face of the child who’d trusted him to keep him safe, even from his own parents. The child he’d failed. “God, Tyler, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
He almost left but stopped himself. Because he slowly realized that the laughter of the children did hurt but not as much as it had a few months ago. Maybe this road trip actually was doing what his grandmother had assured him it would do—help him heal.
No, he wasn’t ready to work with children again—nor, even, spend time with them. And he never wanted to be responsible for one again as long as he lived. The guilt over his one brutal failure was all he could handle during this lifetime. But at least he’d gotten used to the sounds of laughter and childish voices at the carnival, so hearing them elsewhere didn’t instantly send him walking the other way.
Slowly lowering himself to the bench, he forced himself to stay. It wasn’t as if he could hide from the world forever. And frankly, he’d realized it wasn’t the world he was trying to hide from, anyway. It was his own helplessness. His own guilt.
At first, nobody seemed to notice him. But he’d only been reading for five minutes when he realized everything had gotten quiet. Too quiet. When he looked up, he realized why.
She was there. Just a few feet away, watching him from the sidewalk. And everyone else was watching her watch him.
Damon didn’t care. For a second, he just stared back, wanting to make sure she wasn’t some phantom rising out of his heated imagination.
“Hi,” she said, offering him a tiny smile. The twinkle in her eyes and the way she nibbled the corner of her mouth told him she was still embarrassed about their last meeting. The way she licked those lips told him even more…like maybe she wanted to repeat what had happened at that last meeting.
