Tempting the Ringmaster (A Big Top Romance)

by Aleah Barley

  Belle shifted back and forth from foot to foot, suddenly five years old again and listening to one of Dorothy’s lectures. The older woman had been like a second mother over the years, stepping in where Barnaby couldn’t. Dorothy was the one who’d encouraged her to go to Chicago, to build her own life apart from the circus.

  Belle turned and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her as she hurried to find something to wear.

  “I’m going to make some breakfast,” Dorothy called through the shaky partition.

  “Help yourself.”

  The woman snorted. “I always do.”

  Belle scrambled into clean underwear, jeans, and a shirt with the circus’s logo on the front. The shirt was stained, but it smelled clean, like laundry detergent and sweet hay. She stumbled back out into the body of the trailer.

  Dorothy was making eggs at the three-burner stove. She was wearing a pink dress with white flowers on it. Her hair was pulled up into a tidy ponytail. She looked good. She was humming to herself quietly while she made breakfast. Happy.

  Only that wasn’t possible.

  Dorothy’s entire life had been spent in the circus, with her husband and her sons, there was no way she could be happy after the night’s events. It was just a brave front, put on for the benefit of the other performers.

  “Sit down,” she ordered. “Drink some coffee. This’ll just be a minute.”

  “Right,” Belle slid onto the bench seat and took a quick sip of coffee. Heaven. The percolator was stained by too many years of use and had a threadbare cord, but it made great freaking coffee—hot, black, and sinful—just the way she liked it. “You here to ask me what’s going to happen next?”

  “I already know what’s going to happen next.” Dorothy slid the eggs onto waiting plates, next to toast, cheese, and slices of melon that Belle had stuck in the fridge two weeks earlier. It looked damn good, and when the scent hit Belle’s nose her belly began to rumble hungrily.

  The horse mistress placed the two plates carefully down on the table along with clean forks and surveyed her work. “Wait a minute.” She opened a cabinet door to retrieve a bottle of hot sauce and put that on the table as well. She sat down and began to dig into her food. “Eat up, before it gets cold.”

  Belle did what she was told. The food tasted better than she could have imagined. She ate an egg, a piece of toast, and all of the melon before her brain had time to catch up with her belly. “What’s going to happen?”

  “You’re a good girl. You worked hard. Nobody could ask any more from you.” Dorothy dumped some hot sauce on her eggs. “Now, you’re going to do what your daddy was planning to do before he died—what he should have done years ago—you’re going to sell.”

  “What?” Belle’s throat went dry. “What are you talking about?”

  Barnaby Black would never have sold the circus, not for all the money in the world, not with a gun to his head. Would he?

  “Your daddy had debts. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now. Big debts. I’m surprised you’ve managed to keep us going this long.”

  Belle knew all about the debts; food bills for people and animals, lot rents that had gone unpaid for years, and big gambles that had never quite paid off. She’d done her best to pay them off by selling the campground in Florida and her part of the tattoo business. What might her father have done?

  “Who was he going to sell it too?” Belle asked. “Frank? Keith?”

  “That clown?” Dorothy let out a loud guffaw. “He doesn’t have two fake pennies to rub together.” She shook her head. “There’s a carnival outfit in California, Fun Fair Co. or something fool like that. They’ve got teams traveling all over the place. Not much of a show—the way I hear it—but they make a lot of money on games and rides.”

  “Games and rides,” Belle repeated in disbelief.

  Her father had always hated the idea of circuses with games and rides. He’d always said they were for suckers and county fairs, people who couldn’t put on a decent performance to save their life. He’d always insisted that his circus was the real circus, the old fashioned circus, the only kind of circus worth having.

  “Are you sure that Barnaby was going to sell?”

  “He’d filled out the paperwork and everything. Fun Fair Co. is real eager to buy the place. This whole mess—the fire—doesn’t change any of that. They just want the name—Black Shadows has been around for a long while, and it’s got a good reputation—not the equipment.”

  They wanted to take her circus and turn it into something else, something loud and crude, something without magic and light and the roar of the crowd… something without clowns.

  Suddenly the eggs tasted dry in her mouth. All the blood was rushing from her head. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. The entire world felt like it was spinning upside down; first the fire and now this. Her father had been preparing to sell the circus—to sell her home—to a bunch of strangers who didn’t know its people or care about its history.

  She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “I know it’s a lot to take in and you need time to think it through… I’ve got the paperwork already in my trailer when you’re done. Think about it, you can go back to Chicago—back to your real life—or you could even stay here. Buck Falls isn’t such a bad town. That man you’re stringing along seems like a nice fellow. I certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating popcorn.”

  Dorothy stood and dropped her dirty dishes in the little trailer sink. She hustled towards the door. She paused for a moment at the opening. “I’ve always thought of you as the daughter I never had—all those boys—I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  The door slammed shut behind her as she left, the noise ringing in the quiet morning air.

  What the heck was that supposed to mean?

  Belle wasn’t hungry anymore. She didn’t have time to eat, not when the circus was still in disarray. She grabbed a gray sweatshirt from her closet and poured the rest of the coffee into a thermos. A quick chug and she was out the door, looking for something to do.

  There wasn’t much. Most of her people had gone back to their trailers for a nap, fighting a fire in the middle of the night could be exhausting. Belle helped Blue fence off the last of the trailers remains and went to visit Tiny.

  The elephant had been recaptured and moved back to her temporary corral. Belle didn’t know what a freaked out elephant would look like, but Tiny looked pretty much the same: big and gray, with ears. The animal gave a slight bellow and rumbled over to look for an apple. She was getting spoiled. When she couldn’t find any treats, she went back to searching for nearby trees.

  There was still work to do.

  Tiny needed fresh hay. Tiny always needed fresh hay. She ate like… well… an elephant.

  Frank stopped by while Belle was mucking out the corral, the scent of elephant dung thick in the air. They talked for a while, and when he left, she was more confused than ever. She kept working, liberating apples from the cooking trailer and setting up the buckets to give Tiny a bath.

  She was filling the buckets when Graham walked up. The police chief looked like death warmed over in black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a loosely fitting sweatshirt, but she supposed that was only to be expected.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?” She asked.

  “I checked myself out.”

  “They let you do that?”

  “Even gave me some nifty painkillers.” He grinned. “I’m going to be fine.”

  That was good to hear. She turned off the hose and began to mix soap in with the water. The elephant rescue in Tennessee might not have had room for a new inmate, but the keeper there had been kind enough to send her a ten-page email on elephant care. Bath time was important. She remembered that much, and the twenty dollar an ounce elephant soap that had arrived in the mail two days ago had helped to ensure she wouldn’t forget it.

  “Everything looks good around here,” Graham said.

 
“Liar.”

  “Better than I’d expected.”

  “Three families have left in the last hour. They said it was too dangerous. They couldn’t stay here.” She soaped up a sponge and gave a whistle.

  Tiny bounded over enthusiastically. At least someone was happy to see her.

  “The Gates family is staying, but I guess they don’t have much of a choice. They’re calling around, trying to find a new trailer for Carter and the kids.”

  Graham was nodding slowly. Had he even heard a word she was saying? People were leaving, fleeing her circus like rats fleeing a cotton candy ship. They’d stuck around for the years with her father, all the sweetness, the good times. Now that things were a little hard, they’d taken to the road.

  The acrid scent of smoke hit her as the wind shifted. Maybe they had a point.

  Maybe she couldn’t keep them safe.

  Maybe she should sell.

  The elephant trumpeted happily as the first bit of water splashed against her. The unexpected joy made Belle grin. That was all she’d wanted—all she’d ever wanted—a little appreciation from the people around her. Even if the person currently appreciating her was a pachyderm.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen next?” Graham asked.

  It was the same damn question that Keith had asked. It was also the question that had been on Frank’s lips when he walked up to the elephant enclosure.

  Dorothy was the only one who hadn’t asked what was going to happen next. She was the only one with an answer; sell, get out, go back to Chicago.

  It was what her father would have done.

  “Dorothy says there’s an outfit in California that might be willing to buy me out, but I don’t know.” She wiped her face on the back of her hand. “I’m considering my options.”

  He nodded, thoughtfully. “How’s the tent?”

  Belle flinched. That was another question that she didn’t want to hear. It was another question that she couldn’t answer, not really. “Frank took a look at the tent this morning. He took a couple of looks. The tent is gone. It can’t be salvaged.”

  Her nice, clean, easy to set up modern circus tent was gone. The payments for the tent had been in arrears when she’d taken over, but it was the first debt she’d paid off. “You can’t have a circus without a tent.”

  “Does that mean it’s over?”

  “It’s never over until the fat lady sings.”

  Tiny had lowered herself into a lying position, allowing Belle to splash water all over her and rub it in with the big sponges. The motion loosened dead skin and made the elephant chortle happily to herself.

  “Of course, we don’t have a fat lady. There used to be one, twenty years ago, back when my father still ran some sideshow acts: the fat lady, the world’s largest dwarf…” Belle’s lips twitched into a smile at the memory. “Blue’s mother was a mermaid—Adela—the woman could swim like a fish. Then one day they all folded up shop and left. I was six, Blue was ten. He didn’t come back until a few years ago. When he left, I lost a friend. I lost part of my family.”

  There’d been rumors at the time that Adela and Barnaby had been involved. When they burned out, it was the end of the sideshow.

  “Have you ever thought about what you might do without the circus?”

  “If I sell out?” She shrugged. “Go back to Chicago, probably.”

  “What’s in Chicago?” Graham asked.

  “Wind.” She dug her fingers into Tiny’s back. “Music, art. This great little margarita place off the Red Line with duck fajitas. It’s where I went before, when I left the circus. I worked in a tattoo parlor.” She paused. That wasn’t quite right. “I co-owned a tattoo parlor.”

  She’d built something, and it had been great. Long days full of work she was good at, and nights spent with people who didn’t ask her for more than a laugh and a smile.

  “If I go back, I won’t be a partner again—I sold my share when I inherited the circus—but Dodge would never turn down a talented artist.”

  “When you left the circus—” Graham’s voice was bright with surprise. “You left?”

  Belle blinked in surprise. Hadn’t she told him? She quickly reviewed all the conversations they’d had in the past week. Had it only been a week?

  It felt like a lifetime.

  “I was eighteen years old,” she said. “We were in this little truck stop town in Indiana for two weeks. I met this guy. Billy Austin. He was perfect—back then they were always perfect—and he liked me. He took me out dancing. We even went skinny dipping at the local swimming hole. It was like magic.”

  “Was he your first boyfriend?”

  “Nope. Back then I’d fall in love at the drop of a hat, but he was the first one—I thought it was real. You know?” It wasn’t just what they’d done together… all the things they’d done together on sunny afternoons.

  It had been lying side by side in the grass, whispering her hopes and dreams to him over a stolen bottle of beer. She’d told him her deepest fears. She’d thought they would end up together, with a ring on her finger, a cake in the oven, and a baby on the way.

  She should have known better.

  She didn’t know how to make a cake.

  “Then one day I overheard him flirting with another girl—a member of the cheerleading team. She asked him about me: ‘Don’t you already have a girlfriend.’ And, he laughed. He said that I was fun but temporary. He called me a gypsy—just like my father—and promised her I’d be gone before school started again.”

  Her stomach had dropped out from inside of her. Tears had been streaming down her face, but she hadn’t moved. She hadn’t said a word. She’d just stood there, listening while Billy tore her world apart.

  “He said I was just something fun to play with for the summer. Like I was a toy. Like I didn’t have any feelings. The worst part was, I didn’t even defend myself.”

  “Hell.” Graham swore. He ducked through the corral’s wide fence, reaching out to Belle, like he was trying to reassure her, like he could make everything better.

  She shook it off and kept washing the elephant. “The next stop was Chicago. I knew a guy there—Dodge—he’d seen my art. He’d told me if I ever wanted to leave the circus, he’d teach me how to do ink. He was probably joking.” She pictured her partner’s face, steady and calm. “He was definitely joking, but I didn’t know any better. I turned up on his doorstep with a bag of clothes and all the cash I could grab.”

  Tiny was done being soaped up. Now it was time for Belle’s favorite part. She walked over to the fence and turned on the hose. She began to spray the elephant up and down.

  “I liked Chicago. I had a nice apartment in Rogers Park near the subway line and some good friends. I met some nice guys.” The water felt good misting back against her skin. “I had a real life.”

  It would be so easy to go back there.

  So easy to leave.

  Graham put a hand on her arm. His fingers dug into her skin as he pulled her close. The hose flipped up, drenching them both. The combination of cool water and crisp air chilled her to the bone. Graham didn’t seem to notice. He kissed her, hard, pulling her against him. The hose fell away, water spraying across the elephant corral’s grassy bottom.

  “What was that for?” Belle asked, pulling away.

  “Don’t go back to Chicago.” He kissed her again, his fingers digging into her sweatshirt. “You can have a real life. Here. With me. You can sell the circus, and we can give this thing between us a real shot. It doesn’t have to be a fling.”

  Not just a fling. Belle’s heart surged at the thought.

  If it weren't just a fling, they could spend mornings together in bed and nights out in the apple orchard. She could have a real relationship with a man who knew everything about her—a man who’d laughed as she clowned around—and still cared for her. She could wear A-line dresses, drink lemonade in the dappled sunlight, and plant a garden.

  She’d never had a garden. There were li
ttle pots of herbs in the trailer’s window, but it wasn’t quite the same thing.

  It was a nice fantasy; gardens, dresses, and a homemade dinner on the table every night. She could learn how to make that cake. Or, she could make lemon bars. They were Graham’s favorite.

  “Say yes,” Graham ordered. “Then you can be my date to the Winter Social.”

  The Winter Social. It was the most important event on Buck Falls' social calendar, and it was only a few days away.

  Belle couldn’t go to if she were in the circus. She couldn’t go to a party where Frank, Blue, and Keith wouldn’t be welcome, where people would look down their nose at Petra.

  The June Cleaver fantasy disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  Graham didn’t know her at all, not if he thought she’d trade her family for a nice dress and a couple of free drinks.

  Her hands shook. Damn.

  “I can’t,” she said. Her heart was breaking just a little inside. Was this the end? If she turned Graham down now, would he walk away? Was this the last time they’d ever see each other? “I can’t just give up.”

  “You’re not going to sell?”

  Selling was the right thing. It was what her father would have done.

  Belle forced herself to swallow. When she’d come back to the circus, she’d thought that she was doing the right thing. She’d thought she was doing what Barnaby would have wanted.

  Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  The night before had felt so good, laughing and playing with the circus kids. She’d enjoyed getting out there in front of people and clowning around. It might not have been an audience of thousands, but when her friends had cheered, she’d felt like she was on top of the world. “I don’t want to.”

  “What do you want?” Graham asked.

  Good question. She took a deep breath and turned slowly to look at the circus, the RVs and trailers full of people, the wreckage of the big tent, the semi-trailers full of equipment, so many years of her family’s hard work and history, including the first tent her great grandfather had ever bought… her father’s lucky charm.

  ‘Trust me,’ Barnaby had said, ‘One day you’re going to be glad we didn’t leave it on the side of the road. As long as you’ve got this tent, you’ll never be without a home.’