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“You can afford this?”
Shrugging, Damon helped himself to more oysters, suddenly rediscovering his appetite. “For a while.”
He was twenty-nine, mostly free of debt, except for one student loan. His rent was covered for a little while and his car paid off. Yeah. He could handle a few months as a surf bum, even if Cancún or Fiji were beyond his means.
Not that he knew how to surf. His grandparents might live in Florida, but Damon had grown up in landlocked Indiana. His mother had been the black sheep of her family for marrying a quiet dentist and moving to Fort Wayne. She hadn’t yet forgiven Damon for moving to Florida after college.
“You know, your cousin Paulie is having trouble lining up acts for this summer’s Slone Brothers circuit. Things change so much—everyone has tattoos, so who cares about a man who is covered with them?”
He chuckled at her sour expression.
“So. There you go.”
“There I go, what?”
She didn’t even look at him. She simply sprinkled more pepper on her corn. “He needs help. You need a distraction.”
He barked a quick laugh, finally getting it. “Sorry. I haven’t learned to swallow swords since we last saw one another.”
“You have Roma blood in you, my boy.”
Right. He’d wager his veins had as many drops of caveman blood as of the European tribe his grandmother claimed as her ancestors. Not that he’d tell her that. She was as fierce about defending her heritage as she was about her psychic abilities. Which, Damon had to concede, he’d at least seen evidence of. He’d never been able to get away with anything as a kid when Madame Natasha was around.
“You know that hypnotizing thing, don’t you? I remember how much you loved learning about it.” She sounded so nonchalant, for a moment he was fooled into thinking she’d just thought of the idea. But she’d probably been planning this since he’d first mentioned the class during his college days.
“Yeah, I studied hypnotherapy. Some therapists use it to help patients with addictions, that sort of thing.”
He hadn’t used it in his own work, though. His patients—the kids who’d been assigned to him by DCF—had more to deal with than quitting smoking or losing weight. Much more.
“So, there is your schtick. I see throngs of people crowding into a tent for a performance of…hmm, what shall we call you?”
“Surf bum,” he muttered.
She ignored him. Lowering her corn and scrunching her brow in concentration, she fell silent for a moment, then suddenly snapped her fingers. Rising, she spread her arms up into the air, almost making him see the invisible banner she envisioned. “Come be enthralled and meet the world’s greatest mesmerist.”
She paused for a pregnant moment—the woman did have a flare for the dramatic. Then, with a glint in her eye, she introduced him to the person she wanted him to be for the next three months.
“Presenting Damon, the Roma King!”
Suddenly, he caught the vision. Saw the possibilities. And for some crazy reason, that person didn’t sound so bad.
Not so bad at all.
Chapter 1
“THAT MAN COULD hypnotize me into doing anything.”
Allie Cavanaugh hadn’t really been paying attention to her friend, Tessa, until the awed-sounding pronouncement. Up to that point Tessa had been jabbering about the carnival cruising into town today and Allie had just zoned out.
Tessa wasn’t the only one jabbering, either—everyone else had been just as giddy. Apparently, Trouble, Pennsylvania, had been off the lists of traveling shows for a long time, and the residents considered this a mark of their slow crawl back onto the world map. In fact, the town had nearly disappeared off the map until her boss, millionaire Mortimer Potts, had bought up most of it and brought it back to life.
Allie couldn’t muster much interest in the carnival talk, though. Laughing at her nine-month-old son, Hank—who was trying to lick a rogue Cheerio off the back of his sticky, pudgy hand—was much more fun.
“Almost got it baby-cakes,” she said, clapping in encouragement.
He clapped too, which made the piece of cereal disappear.
“Oooh, it slipped,” she said, wondering how he was going to get the treat, which had ridden a line of baby drool down his arm until it landed near his dimpled little elbow.
