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But her baby was determined. The way he bent his arm backward to find the tiny ring of oats made her wonder if he had a future as a contortionist. Finally, with a grunt of effort, he got his prize and gobbled it, flashing her a two-toothed smile.
“Will you look now?”
Allie tore her attention off Hank, who was busily searching for another treat that might be lurking on the tray of his highchair or stuck to his arm. Fortunately, she didn’t think he’d dropped any down into the front of his diaper. She knew from experience that he could get at those. Ick. “Huh?”
“Hello?” Tessa said, reaching across the table and grabbing Allie by the chin. She forcibly turned her head and made her look out the grubby front window of Tootie’s Tavern, where the two of them had met for breakfast this hot June morning.
“Tootie needs to invest in some Windex.” She moved her head, searching for an inch of clean glass through which to peek.
Tessa grabbed a napkin and wiped a spot. “Check him out.”
At first, she thought Tessa was talking about the guy changing a flat tire on his primer-speckled pickup right outside the restaurant. She couldn’t say for sure, but she’d bet that unattractive half-moon salute appearing out of his too-low jeans belonged to Freddy, a guy who worked at the gas station. “Eww.”
“Not him,” Tessa said, gesturing to the left.
Allie immediately saw the line of dusty trucks and big rigs winding down Trouble’s main street. One was loaded with huge, glittering beams and arches of a Ferris wheel. Right behind it came a flatbed truck bearing concession booths—one marked tickets, another offering cotton candy and candy apples.
Her mouth began to water. She hadn’t had cotton candy since she was a little kid. Probably not since she was about six years old—before her father had died. Because after that, she and her family had gone to live with her very strict grandfather, who believed sugar was a tool Satan had created to corrupt humans into decadence. So, his grandchildren had gone usually without while living under his roof with their widowed mother.
“Mmm,” she mumbled. She could go for some decadence. It wasn’t as if she had to worry about what he thought anymore, that was for sure. Grandfather’s prejudice against sugar was one more thing she’d left behind when she’d told him to screw off after he’d disowned her for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that fluffy spun sugar until she spied that puff of pink on the sign. “I wonder how cotton candy would taste on pancakes.”
“Not that.” Tessa sounded ready to pound her. Considering bubbly, blond-haired Tessa was five foot two and tiny, that’d be a feat. Allie had lost most of her pregnancy weight, but she still had a few extra pounds on her already curvy figure.
“Fine.” Allie shifted her gaze to the next truck, a big grayish white one, its panel sides painted with crazy clowns and funhouse mirrors. She’d gotten lost in a hall of mirrors as a kid, until her sister Sabrina had rescued her. She’d hated them ever since. Besides, her post-breast-feeding boobs were quite big enough, thankyouverymuch. She didn’t need to see them reflected all around her.
“See?”
“Ugh. Clowns. They’re creepy.”
“Not the clowns. Keep looking,” Tessa said with a sigh, obviously knowing Allie would eventually stop yanking her chain.
It was their common routine. Over the past year, being pregnant and then raising her baby on her own, Allie had grown pretty pragmatic. Sarcastic, even. And very focused on the life she was building for her and Hank. So, she wasn’t easily dragged into Tessa’s manbabble or her addiction to fashion magazines. Or carnivals, as enticing as cotton candy may be.
“I’m talking about him!”
Allie gazed at the next truck and suddenly found herself entirely sucked dry of all thought, all feeling, everything except awareness. And want. “Ho-ly….” she managed to whisper before her voice trailed off. Then she could only stare.
The vehicle was a typical carnival truck—oversized, road weary and a bit gaudy. Its graying paint matched the sad vehicles that had preceded it, but there the similarities ended. Because freshly painted on the side of this one was an invitation. Two invitations, really. One beckoned to the world to come inside and meet Damon the Roma King: The World’s Greatest Mesmerist.
The other invitation wasn’t spelled out quite as directly. Instead, it was implied through the sultry stare of a man whose huge portrait stared down at the street below.
The painting had none of the distorted, freakish quality often depicted in sideshow displays. This one was actually very good. As for its subject? Well, he was to die for.
The Roma king’s tall, solid form was showcased to perfection in tight black pants and a silky black shirt, open almost to the waist. A red sash pulled tight across his lean hips provided contrast to the breadth of his shoulders and thickness of his chest. He was solid from top to bottom, shaped the way every woman wanted a man to be shaped. But the body wasn’t the end of it, not by a long shot.
He had the kind of silky, jet-black hair that only seemed to naturally grace men and had to be stolen from a bottle by women. Its inky length, gathered at the nape of his neck and tied with a brightly colored ribbon, emphasized the man’s dangerous—almost otherworldly—good looks. His chin tilted up in challenge, he dared any woman to resist him. The pose was punctuated by the high, carved cheekbones, strong nose and sensuous lips so perfectly curved in a knowing smirk Allie could almost feel them pressed on her own.
And the eyes. Oh, the eyes.
They weren’t blue. Not exactly. And they weren’t the dark brown or black she’d have expected with that ebony hair. No. They were purple. Vivid and clear, as bright as some exotic orchid she’d seen only in magazine photos of some movie star’s wedding.
Which was when she realized the painting—the whole thing—had to be one big fat lie. Black-haired gods all dressed in silk didn’t have purple eyes. And they certainly didn’t show up in dinky nowhere towns like Trouble, Pennsylvania. Not a chance.
“He can’t be real,” she muttered, tearing her gaze away from the truck, which had stopped on the street directly in front of the window. “He’s an artist’s rendering, right? He’s probably really five feet tall, with a bald spot and bad teeth.”
Her friend frowned, obviously not liking the idea. “I don’t know,” Tessa whispered, still staring out her own cleared-off circle of windowpane. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m going to that carnival opening, and I’m going to find out.”
