by Kay Hooper
“No. I just knew.”
Now, that was unnerving, he thought. “How?”
“It’s a knack I have,” she answered serenely.
Before Gideon could probe further, there was a thud near the door that might have been a knock, and the redhead member of the tea party, the garland of flowers still in his hair, peered in at them and spoke in an aggrieved tone with a touch of Scotland in the rhythm.
“Maggie, love, you’ve got to do something about Oswald! He’s taken them again.”
She turned her head to look at the visitor. “Farley, I can’t teach Oswald to love bagpipes. And I can’t keep him from hiding them from you. Why don’t you challenge him to a poker game and bet the pipes? He always loses to you.”
Farley brightened. “That’s a thought, it is indeed, love. It’ll appeal to his sense of honor, what’s more.”
“Of course it will. Farley, this is Gideon.”
“Hello,” Farley said briefly to the other man, and then vanished from the doorway.
Gideon told himself silently that endearments probably came naturally to Farley; it didn’t mean a thing.
Maggie apparently considered their previous conversation over, because she picked up the first-aid box and rose to her feet. She put the box away in the big wardrobe, then came back around the foot of the bed and looked at Gideon with a faint smile. “Do you want to go meet the other people you’ll be putting out of work?”
He blinked, the attack totally unexpected. Not that it was an attack, exactly; her voice remained sweet and calm. But the words…Getting to his feet, he said slowly, “You obviously know I mean to sell the carnival.”
“Yes. Natural, I suppose. Our income barely covers expenses, and we could by no stretch of the imagination be a tax write-off. You aren’t carny, so you have no feeling for this life or what it means to the people involved. I understand Balthasar was such a distant connection you aren’t certain how you were related to him, so no family feeling is involved.”
Gideon opened his mouth, but she was going on in the same soft, childlike voice.
“The wagons are all antiques and will probably fetch a healthy price. Trained animals are always in demand, and those that don’t perform can certainly go to zoos. We have a number of costumes and carnival games you can doubtless unload for a few dollars. You won’t have to worry about severance pay, of course, or retirement benefits or pension plans; carnies don’t sign employment agreements. So it doesn’t really matter that most of the people here quite literally have no place else to go, or that at least three of them were born in Wonderland wagons. That certainly isn’t your problem.”
At least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.
Chapter 2
She was still an enigma, but Gideon now knew at least one thing about her: She could flay the bark off an oak tree without raising her voice or losing her gentle smile. He felt a bit flayed and—now—defensive.
“What do you expect me to do?” he demanded. “I don’t know a damned thing about carnivals, and I have no desire to own one.”
“Of course not. Along with the other drawbacks, it’s a totally alien way of life to you. I expect you’re doing the only reasonable thing to be done.”
Her voice was unchanged, and her agreement held no sarcasm whatsoever, but for some reason Gideon felt even worse about the situation. “What will you do?” he asked, unable to halt the question.
“Unlike the others, I do have somewhere else to go.”
“Where?”
“That isn’t your concern. Do you want to meet the others now, or shall I break the news to them myself?”
Gideon wanted to shake her. He wanted to kiss her. She stood in her ridiculous wagon telling him things he didn’t want to hear in her sweet voice, looking up at him with her enigmatic, haunting eyes. And he was still intrigued by her, dammit, even more than ever.
Realizing that he badly needed to think this through before he made a total fool of himself, he said tightly, “It’s getting late. I’ll stay in town tonight and come back in the morning. I’ll meet the others then.”
“As you wish.”
He hesitated, then asked unwillingly, “You’ll be here, won’t you?”
She chose to answer the question generally, though it had been directed specifically at her. “We’ll be here.”
Gideon hesitated again, then swore beneath his breath and left the wagon.
Maggie stepped to the doorway and leaned against one side, gazing after him. His tall form moved with natural grace, she noted idly, and with the unthinking power that came not only from physical strength but from intellectual and emotional certainty; Gideon Hughes had always known exactly who and what he was.
Farley appeared around the end of the wagon and followed her gaze. “Where’s he going?”
“Town. But he’ll be back,” she said absently.
“Tomorrow?”
“No. Tonight. No room at the inn.”
Farley looked up at her quizzically. “Want me to pitch the extra tent?”
“I suppose you’d better.” She waited until he began to turn away, then spoke mildly. “Farley? You’ve never called me love until a few minutes ago.”
He looked at her, hazel eyes bright with laughter. “The mood just took me,” he explained innocently.
“Anything in particular spur the mood?” she asked.
“I expect it’s a dog-in-the-manger attitude,” he said in a judicious tone, then winked at her and turned away.
Maggie looked after him until he was out of her sight, then murmured to herself, “You were listening, Farley; I really wish you hadn’t done that.” After a moment she glanced toward the settling cloud of dust that Gideon’s departure had created, then said even more softly, “And you showed up before I was ready for you. What am I supposed to do now? Damn.”
Not quite what she had expected, Mr. Gideon Hughes. There was…well, too much of him. Too much physical presence, too much intelligence and perception, and too many plans she couldn’t let him discuss with the others. It would be better all around, she thought, if she made him so mad he’d just leave.
He had the look of a man with a formidable temper, which didn’t disturb Maggie at all; she had yet to encounter a temper unruly enough to trigger her own. The only problem with that option was that she doubted he’d leave no matter how mad she made him; he certainly hadn’t bothered to hide his interest in her, and he also had the look of a man accustomed to getting what he wanted whether it required patience or a pitched battle.
He was less likely to concentrate on dismantling the carnival while in the midst of a pitched battle, of course.
Farley reappeared with an armful of canvas and poles. “Where d’you want it?” he asked cheerfully.
Maggie pointed to a cleared space near her wagon. “There, I suppose.” She ignored his raised eyebrows and watched as he began setting up the tent.
—
It was almost dark when Gideon returned to the carnival’s campsite. He didn’t know quite how he felt about the fact that renovations in one of the town’s two motels and a regional businessman’s convention in the other had made getting a room impossible; after his earlier encounter with Maggie he was uncertain of his welcome since he didn’t dare guess how she’d feel about his return.
He parked his car nearer her wagon than before and approached it a bit warily. The campsite was relatively quiet; lights and voices came from most of the wagons and several tents, along with the appetizing scents of cooking, but he didn’t see anyone moving around outside. A new tent, a hideous yellow color, had been pitched about twelve feet from Maggie’s wagon, and Gideon averted his eyes from it.
“Back so soon?” Despite her question, he had the notion that she wasn’t at all surprised to see him.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps leading to her door and gazed up at Maggie as she stood in the doorway. Soft light from an oil lamp insi
de the wagon silhouetted her slender figure and turned the diaphanous dress she wore into little more than a gauzy veil. All his senses responded instantly to the sight of her, and he had to force himself to concentrate on what he was saying. “I couldn’t get a room in town,” he explained, and hesitated briefly before going on. “Since it’s only for one night, I thought I could stay here. If you don’t mind.”
“This is your carnival,” she pointed out mildly. “The wagons are all occupied, but if you’d like to kick somebody out—”
“No, dammit!” Gideon was feeling defensive again and didn’t care for the emotion. “If there’s no extra room in a wagon or tent, I’ll sleep in the car.”
Maggie left the doorway and moved to sit on the third step. Her expression was still polite, and her voice was serene when she said, “As a matter of fact we do have an empty tent. The yellow one there. You’re welcome to it.”
Before he could speak, Gideon caught a hint of motion behind her, and even as a loud thud shook the wagon he realized that the bed had fallen.
Maggie didn’t even flinch.
“What the hell?”
“Defective catch,” she said. “The bed is supposed to stay up against the wall. Like beds in trains. But the catch has a mind of its own. Are you going to take the tent?”
“Yes.” He could, he decided, accept the unexpected calmly. Of course he could. “Thank you.”
“Why thank me? It’s your tent.”
He took a breath and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me something. Are we going to go on this way?”
“This way?” Her eyes reflected the last of the daylight like some shaded forest pool.
“Yes, Miss Durant, this way. You’re hell-bent to keep needling me about my plans for the carnival, aren’t you?”
Without replying to his question she said, “Tell me something?”
“If I can.”
“Are your plans set in concrete?”
“No,” he said after a moment. “I try never to do that. Do you want an opportunity to argue for the defense?”
“I think I do,” she said slowly, looking at him with a very slight frown that stole the fey innocence from her face and lent it an expression of troubled gravity. “But if you’re planning to leave tomorrow, that doesn’t give me much time.”
Since Gideon had mentally been searching for an excuse to spend more time with her, the opportunity was too good to pass up. “I can stay a few days. If I have to.”
The reflective green eyes looked at him with a sudden gleam of irony in their depths. “Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” she said gently.
Gideon cleared his throat and tried not to look as sheepish as he felt. Blast the woman, she was continually cutting him down to size. “Sorry. That remark was in the nature of protective coloration. A man isn’t supposed to jump at the slightest excuse to be near a woman.”
With an interested lift to her brows she said, “Who says he isn’t supposed to?”
“It’s in the macho handbook. Between chapters on why real men don’t eat quiche or wear pink shirts.” He wasn’t terribly surprised that she seemed neither flattered nor insulted by his admitted interest in her, since she understood his motives all too well.
“If I were you,” she said, “I’d throw out that particular handbook.”
“Are we back to being sensitive again? I’ve lost track.” The note of despair in his voice wasn’t entirely false.
Maggie’s mouth curved slightly. “God knows what the current phase is, but I prefer honesty. Just be yourself.”
“I was being myself,” he said, “earlier. And you as good as told me I was a selfish bastard.”
“You said that, not me. All I said was that you wanted to control the situation,” she pointed out in a tone of tranquil innocence.
He sighed. “I have the unnerving feeling that my chances of besting you conversationally are nil.”
Her smile widened, her exotic eyes holding a gleam of genuine amusement. “I hate to lose,” she murmured. “You might want to keep that in mind.” Without a change in tone she added, “There are a couple of blankets in the tent; if you need more, I have a few extra ones. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Tina’s our cook this week; she’s fixing a pot of Irish stew, I believe. Would you like some?”
“Please.”
Maggie nodded and got to her feet. “We usually eat in our own wagons, so I’ll go and get the food while you change. You are going to change, aren’t you?”
He glanced down at his neat three-piece suit. “Slightly out of place, am I?”
“A rose among daisies.”
“No man,” he said after a stunned instant, “likes to be called a rose. And that isn’t from the handbook; that’s in the marrow. Luckily, I brought a few things more casual than what I have on.” He eyed the yellow tent with a certain amount of ungrateful revulsion. “I won’t be able to stand up in there, let alone change clothes. May I borrow your wagon for a few minutes?”
“Certainly.” She descended the remaining steps until she stood before him. “I have to check the animals before dark anyway. Make yourself at home.”
Gideon watched her walk away, idly trying to decide why she seemed to move more gracefully than any other woman he could recall. A dancer, perhaps? No, he didn’t think so. Her grace was innate rather than taught, like that of some wild creature. In fact, he thought that was what intrigued him about her more than anything else. In her movements, her voice and eyes, even her quiet glances and slow smiles, there was a sense of something…not quite tamed.
His imagination, perhaps. But he didn’t think so. Whatever it was, he knew only that he had never sensed it in a woman before, and that his response to it was instinctive and emotional rather than intellectual. Just like his aversion to being called a rose, it was something as deep as his marrow.
Which was not to say that he didn’t respond to her on both intellectual and emotional levels as well. He did. He enjoyed talking to her—or rather, sparring with her. He felt unusually aware of his own senses when she was near, and he was also, he’d noticed, more apt to say exactly what he was thinking without feeling any need to hold back or guard his words.
Frowning, Gideon turned away from the wagon and toward his car. He was still conscious of not being in control of this situation, of being off balance and out of his element; that was largely due to Maggie but not entirely.
A rose among daisies. Great.
Leo was sitting on the hood of his rental car. They stared at each other through the deepening twilight, the cat still doubtful and the man likewise.
“Wooo?” Leo ventured.
Gideon felt an absurd urge to reply, but he had no idea what the question was. Opting for silence, he got his bag out of the trunk and then locked up the car and returned to Maggie’s wagon to change. By the time she came back around half an hour later, he was dressed in jeans and a pale brown sweater and was sitting on the green love seat looking through a heavy volume of English literature. He set the book aside quickly when he saw her and rose to take a crowded wooden tray from her.
“Let me.”
“I’m not proud,” she said, relinquishing the tray. “Wait a second while I get the table out.”
Gideon watched her unearth a card table from the big wardrobe and unfold it near the love seat. While she was doing that, she said, “By the way, we have a bathhouse set up at the other end of camp in one of the bigger tents. All the modern conveniences. Except hot water.”
He thought of shaving in cold water and couldn’t help but grimace. “Do you people always live like this?”
She unloaded the tray while he held it, placing dishes of hot stew, a basket of bread, a pitcher of iced tea, glasses, napkins, and cutlery onto the card table. “Always? I suppose. We were to have set up closer to town, but a bigger carnival got in ahead of us, so there wasn’t much use. Our next stop will probably be Wichita, but a circus was there last week, so we s
hould wait a few weeks before we go in. That’s why we’re camping here, really.”
“Ever thought about scheduling regular stops?”
“Schedules are so—so rigid. Don’t you think?” She moved around the table and sat down at one end of the love seat. “Just put the tray on the bed.”
He obeyed, wondering if the comment about rigid schedules had been aimed at him. Taking his place beside her, he said, “I suppose you know I’m a banker?”
She poured a glass of tea for him and sent him a glance of amusement. “An investment banker, I believe. Which basically means that you gamble huge sums of money.”
“Not at all. I provide financial backing for business ventures.”
“Which could well fail.”
“It’s a possibility,” he admitted, “but not that much of a gamble. I make sure the risk is minimal.”
“I’ll bet you do,” she murmured.
Gideon decided to change the subject; this one was making him sound and feel like the proverbial stuffy banker. Nodding toward the table beside the love seat where he’d put the literature book, he said, “I think that’s the textbook I remember from college. Yours?”
“Yes.”
“What did you major in?”
“Psychology, history, and computer technology.”
He blinked. “What, all three?”
“Three different colleges.” Her voice was placid. “I can usually earn a four-year degree in two years. Next fall I’ll try my hand at archaeology. Very interesting, the study of man. I always had a fondness for pyramids—maybe I’ll specialize in Egyptian archaeology.”
Gideon ate in silence for a few moments, vaguely aware that the stew was excellent. “You mean you have three four-year degrees?”
“So far.”
“And you earned them while running a carnival?”
Maggie looked faintly surprised. “No, I’m just managing the carnival this summer. Before he went off to Africa, Balthasar asked me to. I didn’t have anything else planned.”
“Three degrees, and she’s running a sideshow,” Gideon murmured to himself.
She glanced at him again, then said, “When my father died, he left a trust fund for me and asked that I use the money for my education. I like learning, and I haven’t run out of money yet, so I’m still in school. I suppose you could call me a habitual student.” Quite abruptly, her soft voice took on a steely note. “As for sideshows—there are no freaks here. No con men or rigged games. Just a group of mildly eccentric people who happen to be quite nice on the whole, and who don’t know any other way to live.”