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DAMON HAD BEEN traveling the carnival circuit with his cousin Paulie’s outfit for six weeks now, and his initial skepticism about the whole thing had definitely worn off. Because far from being greeted with jeers as an impostor, everywhere they went, his “mesmerist” act was the biggest moneymaker of the fair.
Every performance was sold out by the end of the first night in any given town. He’d recently given in to Paulie’s pleas to add another two to his already busy schedule. Most carnivals ran Sunday to Saturday, with two shows a night. Now, with another one each Friday and Saturday afternoon, he was standing up on stage masquerading as a Roma king sixteen times a week.
“You need to wear a red shirt one of these nights,” someone said from the doorway of his trailer, which served not only as his dressing room but his permanent home on the road.
Recognizing the voice, he didn’t even look up from the mirror. He simply finished applying the most minute amount of stage makeup he could get away with to avoid looking like an anemic vampire under the bright spotlights.
Makeup. Unreal. He’d gone from running group counseling sessions for teens and helping abused kids get over their traumas to putting on face makeup every day of the week.
Not that he was complaining. In fact, he was having a damned fine time. No, he wasn’t ready to throw away everything he’d worked for and become a permanent fixture on the Slone Brothers schedule. But for this summer—this painful, awful summer when he so needed an escape—it had proved perfect.
“Didja hear me?” his cousin—two years older, twenty pounds heavier and usually forty decibels louder—asked. Entering the tiny camper, he kicked the door shut behind him, then hung the plastic-wrapped clothes he’d been carrying on the back of Damon’s closet door. “Gypsies were colorful, right?”
“I’m not a gypsy.”
“Nona says we’re all part gypsy.”
“The word gypsy is offensive; it’s Roma, Paulie. Besides, she also says we all have a destined mate who our souls will recognize at first sight.”
“She was right in my case,” Paulie pointed out. “Of course, since she and Bella’s grandmother were friends for forty years, I think they played up that angle to force us together.”
Damon wouldn’t be surprised. But considering how happy Paulie was with his wife, who traveled with the troupe as an on-the-road nurse, he didn’t think that was such a bad thing.
Dropping onto the lumpy couch that had come with the equally lumpy trailer, Paulie sprawled out in exhaustion. “Just sold the last ticket for tonight’s show. I had to step into the box office to help because they couldn’t keep up with demand!”
Damon shrugged, not surprised.
“I’m telling you, that painting gets ’em every time. Women were lining up before we even opened the booth.”
Shaking his head, Damon murmured, “Oh, great, another all-female audience, huh? Wonder if any of them will offer to let me hypnotize her right out of her clothes this time.” His tone dry, he added, “Wouldn’t that be original.”
Paulie, who’d been happily married for eight years, wagged his eyebrows up and down. “Might be better if one of these times you said yes. Come on, man, you’re getting ass thrown at you left, right and center. When are you going to catch some of it?”
Damon didn’t even flinch at Paulie’s crassness, because his cousin was right, and the terms he used pretty appropriate. The number of women offering easy sexual experiences to the Roma king had become something of a joke among the whole outfit. Last he heard, there was a bet between some of the barkers about whether he’d hold out until the Fourth of July…and whether he’d go for a blonde, brunette, or redhead when he finally caved in.
Brunette. The word flashed in his head, though he didn’t know why. There was no way he was taking up with any woman this summer. Sex wasn’t what this escape from reality was about.
Besides, carnival groupies were not his thing. He particularly disliked the persistent ones who followed the troupe from town to town. So far, Damon hadn’t had to forcibly throw anyone out of his trailer, but he’d had to start locking the door at night. After one performance, a determined redhead—with a tattoo of a bleeding heart on one shoulder and a rattlesnake on the other—had burst in on him while he was changing.
“Doesn’t do a man any good to build up all that backwash,” Paulie said, sounding as wise as only a man who’d spent his teen years fishing Ping-Pong balls out of goldfish bowls could. “You’re gonna explode or something. I read it in a magazine.”
Probably in one with pictures of naked women on every page.
Besides, if Paulie was right, Damon’s head would have shot off his shoulders long before now. During the last few months at his former job, the stress had made any semblance of a social life impossible. A sexual one, even more so. “Forget it. I haven’t met a woman on the road who I’d consider sharing a cab with, much less take to bed.”
“Doesn’t have to be a groupie,” Paulie said, obviously not giving up. “There’s lots of women right here with us who’d be bouncing like Pogo sticks if you said jump.” A sly smile curled his cousin’s lips, and he suddenly looked very much like their grandmother. “That Rhoda’s a nice girl. And she’s single.”
Damon’s jaw dropped and he slowly shifted around to face his cousin. “You mean the ring-toss barker who everyone says should start appearing as Flatulent Girl?”
Digging a dingy toothpick out of his front pocket, Paulie stuck it between his lips. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’m not begging.” Nor am I choosing.
“Your decision,” his cousin said as he sauntered toward the door. “But I’m still laying money that sooner or later you’re gonna look out into the audience and find someone who makes those tight pants the ladies love fit a little tighter.”
Considering how tight those pants were, that would be a very bad thing indeed. But he didn’t worry. It wouldn’t happen. What was left of his heart had finally begun to heal with this life of easy travel and he wasn’t about to let anything interfere with that. He liked having no responsibilities, no personal interaction beyond the odd family he’d gained when he’d run off to join the sideshow. He didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
But a few hours later, as he stood on the portable stage finishing up his first performance in Trouble, Pennsylvania, he glanced into the shadows, saw a woman who took his breath away…and suddenly began to wonder.
