Spellbound

by Sharon Ihle

  “Do something? Like what?”

  J.R. shrugged. “Don’t know for sure, but I only know how to do the one thing.”

  Illustrating, he then made an obscene gesture with his hands.

  Gant groaned. “Damn, kid. I doubt that’s what she has in mind. Maybe she just wants you to kiss her. Have you tried that?”

  “No, and I ain’t gonna. With these buck teeth, I’d probably bust her lip in two.” He sighed heavily.

  “Besides, even if I could get around them teeth, I don’t know how to kiss. I guess I’m just wondering how to talk to her and all. She’s the first honest-to-God real lady I’ve ever known.”

  Gant stared out at the muddy waters, wondering how to council this brother of his, who was innocent in so many ways. “Sorry, J.R. I don’t know any more than you do about women. You’ve come to the wrong man.”

  “Well, hell, Gant, I don’t know who else to ask. Don’t look like there’s a fellah on board this ship knows how to make a woman happy, ‘cept maybe for Gus. If I listen to him, I’d probably wind up married with a passel of kids, which I ain’t looking to get.”

  “Check around, J.R. There’s plenty of happy folks aboard this ship.”

  “Not the courting kind. I just come from the show ring and I damn near got run over by that big lion-tamer and the Gypsy-girl, Rayna. The way they was carrying on, I thought for sure the North and South were at it again.”

  “They were fighting?”

  “Hell bent for leather, they was, with him dragging her one way, and her busting loose to go another.”

  Gant thought back to Rayna’s hasty departure, and as he considered it, realized that she hadn’t been the slightest bit flirtatious when she’d gone off with Hans. In fact, if it had been any other woman, he might have taken some of her gestures, the sound of her voice for sure, as indications of fear. And yet, how could that be? How could a woman like Rayna be afraid of Hans, or anyone? She’d barely flinched when Luther had her trapped in his grip. Still, something was wrong. And damned if he wasn’t going to find out what.

  “See you at supper,” he said to J.R. “I have to go take care of a few things. Good luck with Anna Mae.”

  Gant brushed by his brother then, and hurried on by the stairs leading to the living quarters. Barreling his way past the double doors leading into the arena, he took a quick glance around. The area was deserted. Disregarding the curtain to his right, where the dressing rooms were hidden, he turned on his heel and proceeded to the left. Toward the stables.

  As Gant walked along the passageway leading to the lion cages, he passed a wheelbarrow filled to overflowing with all manner of animal excrement—a huge pile of putrescent dung, the odor of which nearly knocked him off of his feet. Holding his breath until he came to the main corridor, Gant let it out in a slow hiss. Then, above the shrieks of excited monkeys, he heard Hans’ voice.

  “It is a wonder you have not bled to death as often as za female trouble comes over you. I think you are lying to me.”

  “Can’t you figure out why? I don’t want to pick up where we left off, and you know it. Why can’t you do the decent thing and leave me alone?”

  “Decent? You dare to speak of things decent? Perhaps Mollie would like to know how decent you really are, hum?”

  “Please, Hans, I’m begging you. There’s no reason to tell Mollie about me. I’m a different person now. Can’t you just forget about the past and let me get on with my life?”

  “You are the same woman I remember from Brazil, and your life here will be with me. You liked me before, you will like me again.”

  There was a moment of quiet, and then Rayna’s voice, this time filled with both distress and anger.

  “Hans, stop that.” Another pause. “I don’t want this. I mean it.”

  Hans muttered something that Gant couldn’t understand, and then he heard sounds of a scuffle. Not wasting another minute, he stormed around the corner and headed for the stalls. There he saw Rayna struggling against Hans’ determined embrace.

  “Take your hands off of her,” Gant shouted as he bore down on them. The German didn’t budge. “Now, Hans, or I swear, I’ll tear them off myself at the shoulder.”

  Hans glanced up briefly, surprise and anger in his expression. “This does not concern you. Get out.”

  “With pleasure.” Gant reached for Rayna. “She’s going with me.”

  “It’s all right,” Rayna said, her eyes filled with fear. “We were just having a little argument and it got out of hand.”

  “You go,” Hans added triumphantly.

  Thinking of the things he’d heard the German say to Rayna, Gant drew back his fist, intent on dulling the gleam in at least one of Hans’ bright blue eyes. When he let it fly, he succeeded in putting out that gleam altogether.

  Hans stumbled backwards after the blow, releasing Rayna as he attempted to regain his balance. Then he raised his fists and staggered forward, one eye puffed shut, the other glittering with rage.

  “That was a terrible mistake,” he growled as he took a vicious swing.

  Gant ducked the blow, and Hans fell up against the birdcage. Startled doves and cockatoos took flight, the flutters of their wings lost in the frightened shrieks of the neighboring monkeys. Poodles yapped excitedly, and even Sweetpea tossed in an agitated squeal.

  Unmindful of the sudden din, intent only on Hans, Gant dove at his gut, driving his head into the man’s ribs. They both toppled over, clawing and punching one another. Locked in battle, the pair rolled across the straw-riddled aisle toward Pierre’s makeshift stall.

  Chasing after the men, Rayna hollered, “Stop. Stop it the both of you.”

  But it was no use. They either ignored her, or couldn’t hear her over their own grunts and groans, much less the clamor they’d raised with the animals. Even the slumbering lions, their bellies bloated with fresh venison, couldn’t ignore the calamity. They yowled, a sound no less terrifying than a full-blown roar.

  The mule brayed in fright as he nervously sidestepped the grappling men. The whites of his eyes huge and jittery, Pierre shied, and then stepped down on Hans’ wrist. The bone gave for a moment, and then broke with a loud pop.

  “Aye-e-e-e!” the German screamed. “Get off of me.”

  When Gant realized that Hans was done, he released the hold he had on his throat, and then slowly staggered to his feet.

  Standing above Hans, winded and still too angry for rational thought, Gant shook a fist in the air. “If you ever put your hands on Rayna again, you’ll wish for this moment when your arm was the only broken bone in your miserable body. You understand me?”

  Hans, who was holding his wrist and writhing in pain, glared at Gant. “Take her. Go on, get out. She is nothing but a pickpocket and a liar, anyway.”

  “Would you like that other wrist broken?”

  “For telling za truth?” He laughed cruelly. “Why not ask this perfect lady about za Pierre jail? Ask her if her cell was warm enough.”

  In answer, Gant hurled a wad of spittle in the general direction of the man, who was still lying in the straw, and then turned and started for Rayna. From behind him, Hans continued to hurl accusations.

  “Tell him, darling. Tell him that you are a criminal, a witch.”

  Refusing to respond, Gant took Rayna by the elbow and continued on his way out of the stables. The German wasn’t done. This time he got more personal.

  His voice louder, nastier, he screamed after their retreating figures, “Go on, take her. I have had my fill of her. She is a wooman any man can have, a whore.”

  Those final words reached Gant’s ears just as he and Rayna turned into the hallway that led to the arena. Taking her by the shoulders, he said, “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Gant silenced her by pressing his finger against her lips.

  “Stay right here for just one minute.”

  She pushed his hand away. “But Gant---“

  “I’m asking you not
to move from this spot until I come back. Do this for me.”

  Gant’s eyes were darker than Rayna had ever seen them, hard and black as coal. Never before had she seen him—any man—look quite so dangerous. Her voice the merest whisper, she said, “All right.”

  With an abrupt nod, Gant turned and reached for the handles of the wheelbarrow beside him. Without a backward glance, he steered the load of odoriferous droppings around the corner, and then disappeared into the main hallway.

  A moment later Rayna heard several muffled oaths. Then Hans cried out. When Gant returned shortly thereafter, empty-handed, he wore an expression that almost, but not quite, passed for a smile.

  Eyes wide with surprise, Rayna said, “You didn’t---“

  “I most certainly did.” Now Gant did smile. “Don’t look so horrified. All I did was cover up za lion-tamer with something a little cleaner than his mouth.”

  Rayna managed a small laugh. “Thanks.”

  Without another word between them, Gant took Rayna by the hand and pulled her out of the stable area. He led her past the show ring and beyond to the curtain which concealed the dressing rooms. After ducking around the heavy velvet drape, he veered not to the left as he had the night he found her dancing, but to the right, behind the false wall.

  Once he had Rayna tucked safely inside the private office and felt sure that no one had followed them, Gant spoke to her in a voice low with concern.

  “Did Hans hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “Just my pride.”

  Sliding his finger beneath her chin, Gant gently lifted until she was forced to meet his gaze. “What kind of talk is that coming from a strong, proud woman like you?”

  Done with deceit, Rayna squared her shoulders. “Maybe you’ll change your opinion after I tell you that most everything Hans said about me is true.”

  With a shrug, Gant brought his other hand to her chin and cupped her face with a tenderness that almost took her legs out from under her.

  Then he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Why was he doing this? Rayna knew for certain that he couldn’t have missed any of those accusations.

  “You heard,” she said. “You heard every rotten thing he said about me.”

  Of course he had, loud and clear. But Hans’ taunts had somehow blended with the voices in Gant’s mind, the sounds of righteous Texas citizens from ten years ago. He could still hear them charging him with the heinous crimes perpetrated by his father, demanding that he pay for those crimes with his life. Only one man—a deputy who happened to be in the bank that day—offered the voice of reason, of compassion. One man made the difference of seven years and his very life. In Rayna, he saw a chance to repay that kindness.

  Again he shrugged. “I do recall hearing Hans muttering about something, but I couldn’t make a damn bit of sense of it. Why don’t we just forget about him and his nasty insults?”

  Rayna almost jumped at the offer. She probably would have a few weeks ago. Now she realized that if she backed away from her past, if she allowed Gant to blindfold himself to what she had been, there might never be a moment’s truth between them, however short their time together might be. She had no choice but to accept the fact that she had to live without love, but she couldn’t live with any more lies.

  Bracing herself, Rayna admitted, “Hans said that I was jailed in Illinois. I was, both as a thief and as a witch.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Gant cut in. “I don’t care.”

  “But I do. I know you have no reason to believe otherwise, so there’s no point in pleading my innocence. Let me just say that while I wasn’t completely innocent, I wasn’t guilty as charged either.”

  Gant slid his thumb across her lips, quieting her. “None of that matters. I don’t even know that woman, so there’s no point in telling me about her.”

  Rayna just stood there staring at Gant in quiet shock. Because of her, his hair was littered with bits of sawdust and straw, and his shirt, mussed and soiled with a ragged tear near the shoulder. At the corner of his mouth, near his swollen bottom lip, a crooked little stream of blood trickled. All because of her. And now this. Gant's apparent determination to turn a blind eye to her past. Something huge swelled in her breast, an emotion so big and foreign, for a moment Rayna couldn’t draw a breath.

  When she was able, she addressed one other issue. “If what happened to me in Illinois doesn’t bother you, what about the rest?”

  “What rest?”

  “The part about me and Hans in Brazil, the fact that we were once together.”

  The thumb that still caressed Rayna’s cheek, slid back to her lips, sealing them again.

  Then Gant said, “I don’t know that woman either. As far as I’m concerned, the day we met you were untouched, in all things. Maybe you can think of me in that way, too.”

  At last Rayna recognized the feeling swelling inside of her. Now she understood that a great tide was rising within her, a well of emotions she’d always managed to cap in the past. She reached for a breath of fresh air, but caught a sob instead. Blinked back her tears, and mistakenly released them.

  Gant, who hadn’t been kidding when he told J.R. that he didn’t know the first thing about women, had no idea what to make of this weeping Rayna. He released her and stepped away.

  Not knowing what else to do, he said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know exactly what I’ve said or done to upset you this way, but believe me, I’m sorry.”

  The apology, so unexpected and so unnecessary, dissolved Rayna’s tears into laughter, and again she couldn’t speak. When she glanced at Gant, she could see that her response had made him even more leery. He took another step back, and she laughed even harder.

  Hands raised in surrender, Gant said, “I give up. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but maybe it’d be best if I left you alone for a while.”

  “No,” she choked out. “Please don’t. You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me.”

  One skeptical eyebrow raised, he said, “And you are what? Crazy?”

  Laughing again, Rayna shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe I am. I just know that I’ve spent my entire life looking for a man like you—and hoping that I’d never find him.”

  Gant nodded solemnly. “Crazy it is, then, because I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No, I don’t suppose that you do.” Rayna took a minute to collect her thoughts, and then tried to explain. “When I was a child, the bastard child of King Raymond, his wife put a terrible curse on me. She doomed me to a life without love, and ensured that I would remain barren forever.”

  “A curse? That doesn’t sound like much of a problem to me.”

  “Oh, but it is to me. The Gypsy Queen who put the curse on me is very powerful. I learned as a young girl to accept what my life would be, and over the years, I have never given much thought to the things she took from me.”

  Gant cocked his head, thinking this over, and then said, “And this has something to do with you being sorry that you met me?”

  “I didn’t say I’m sorry I met you.” Choosing her words carefully so he wouldn’t be more confused or leery than he already was, she amended, “What I mean to say was that until I met you, I never realized what I was missing.”

  Gant retraced his steps and reached out to touch her cheek. “I think I understand what you’re saying. What I don’t understand is why you don’t simply break the curse. You’re a Gypsy, too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I can’t break Queen Persa’s curse. It can only break me or any man foolish enough to fall in love with me.”

  He grew solemn then. “I’m not looking to fall in love, Rayna.”

  “Neither am I,” she assured him, relieved on some levels, disappointed on others. “But falling in love is still the problem I fear most. I’m afraid that if I’m not very careful with my heart, I could quite easily fall in love with you.”

  Gant couldn’t just leave it at that,
not without responding in some way, but he was fresh out of answers. He only knew that her confession had touched him, gripped him with an almost overwhelming urge to drag Rayna off to the private dressing room and show her in the only way he knew how, just how much he cared. Strangely enough, something stronger held him back, kept that urge at bay. He couldn’t put a name to it, but Gant had a feeling that whatever transpired here, would be far more important in the long haul than a few stolen moments in the straw.

  At least as confusing was this Gypsy business. Gant still didn’t understand how something so intangible as words formed into a curse could affect a person for life. He did know that Rayna believed it was so, and that was good enough for him for now. He didn’t know much about love either, enough however, to know that he wasn’t ready to turn his heart over to anyone. And this, he thought, might be the best answer of all.