GYPSY

  The Traveling Series, Book 5

  JANE HARVEY-BERRICK

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  About the Traveling Series

  Acknowledgements

  More books by JHB

  Gypsy

  Copyright © 2022 Jane Harvey-Berrick

  Editing by Krista Webster & Tonya Allen

  First published in Great Britain, 2022

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you do, you are STEALING. We earn our living from writing; we’d ask for you to respect that. Thanks!

  Jane Harvey-Berrick has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph by Stuart Reardon

  Cover model: Vivian Dyer

  Cover design by Sybil Wilson / Pop Kitty Designs

  ISBN 978-1-912015-16-0

  Created with Vellum

  DEDICATION

  To Vivian – a free spirit

  PROLOGUE

  Gypsy

  Are you looking for your soulmate? Are you looking for the one person in all the world who’ll love you and support you and travel with you on this journey of life?

  I can help.

  Ever since my first memory as a child of the Emerald Isle, I could see things that others couldn’t and I knew things that others didn’t—I could see the future. I didn’t even realize this was unusual until I was older and learned that it wasn’t always a good idea to tell people what they didn’t necessarily want to know.

  I’ve been called a fraud and a fake, a witch, a heathen, and far worse. People like me have been hated, feared, feted and venerated across the millennia. Now, the wheel is turning again, and people come to me for help and healing.

  But lately my Gift has become more specific, pointing in just one direction, the direction of love.

  Are you looking for your soulmate?

  You’re not alone.

  Are you looking for your one true love?

  So am I.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Huck

  I was heading south, running from trouble that didn’t need to find me.

  Another day riding, just riding, pointing my motorcycle and chasing the open road. I’d had enough of big cities to last me a lifetime or two, and I couldn’t face another New Jersey winter, so I was following the sun like some old snowbird.

  Old. I’d turned 30 two days ago, but I only remembered this morning.

  Without anywhere to be, and with no one giving a damn whether I lived or died, I could go where the wind blew me. I was utterly free.

  I knew that should mean something, but it didn’t.

  I came, I went, I left no trace—not in the eyes of people who saw me pass by, or the dirt under my wheels. It can get so a man feels like he’s invisible, or maybe dead already. Only the hunger pangs in my belly and the dust in my throat reminded me that I was still alive. Still part of the human race.

  Soon, I’d need to stop riding, find somewhere to stay a while, get a job, earn some money, before moving on again. Always moving on, drifting through my life, a ghost—existing but not; living but not; being but not. And one day I’d fade out of this world like a photograph left in the sun. I touched no one’s life, I hurt no one. No one would remember me, no one would mourn me.

  And that didn’t seem so bad.

  I’d been traveling through the Ozarks for days now, winding my way along the single-lane country road named the Pig Trail, with its sharp, hairpin turns and steep hills, going off-road where I could, staring at nothing but the vast green canopies of towering trees all around, catching glimpses of small towns, flashes of silvery rivers and mountain lakes.

  I only saw her for a second, but it was long enough, like staring into the sun, the image burned into my brain—golden skin and long hair lifting in the breeze. Butt naked, and it looked like she was dancing. I wondered if the heat had sent me crazy. Dancing and naked, her hands above her head, poised to dive into the dark blue water of the lake, breaking the silent surface, and disappearing.

  And then I hit a rock in the road and nearly exited the world for good. When I wrestled my old Indian Chief Motorcycle upright, the woman and the lake had vanished from view.

  Ahead the road forked, and I paused: should I go right, traveling west toward Fayetteville, or left towards Little Rock?

  Hell, I’d never taken a right turn in my life, so why start now. I headed south.

  And I wondered, had I dreamed her?

  I rolled into El Dorado, Arkansas on a blistering hot day in May when even the bugs seemed too sleepy to go about their business.

  The air was hazy from fine, yellow pollen that had settled over the buildings, windows and sidewalks. Even a bunch of colorful posters that advertised the arrival of a carnival in a couple of weeks were smeared with yellow dust. Only the beds of flowers in the main street held their color and that was because someone had watered them recently. A town with civic pride. Which probably meant that a stranger on an old motorcycle wouldn’t be welcome.

  I glanced around, looking for cop cars, but seeing none. The whole town dozed in the afternoon sunshine.

  Sweat-soaked and bone tired, I sat on my motorcycle, letting fatigue wash through me, a weariness that had little to do with hours on the back of an old bone-shaker. Slowly, I kicked down the stand and swung my leg over the cracked leather seat. I’d been riding so long, the world was still tilting under my feet, and I moved like a sailor on shore leave. Heat from the sidewalk burned the soles of my boots and the air was stifling. The flat, unrelenting blue of the sky made me squint behind my sunglasses.

  I spotted the dark interior of a small diner shaped like a train car, and felt like falling to my knees in gratitude when air conditioning sent a cold blast across my face.

  “Table for one, honey?”

  The server was smiling at me, but I recognized the uncertainty in her eyes. I knew that my size could be intimidating and people’s first reaction tended to be wary. The leathers, the tats, the scars—I looked like a mean motherfucker. I really wasn’t, not if people weren’t assholes and not if people left me alone. I never started trouble, but I could end it fast.

  “Sure, thanks,” I said, my voice hoarse from dust and lack of use.

  “Uh, huh. Can I interest you in our specials?”

  “Yup.”

  “We have stuffed French toast with shrimp and grits, or Arkansas chocolate gravy on a warm buttery homemade biscuit,” she rattled off without looking at a menu.

  “I’ll take both, please, ma’am.”

  She laughed nervously. “Guess you’re pretty hungry.”

  “And a jug of water.”

  “Coming right up.”

  She placed a jug of tap water on my table along with a frosted glass, and I couldn’t help thinking it would look damn fine with a beer inside it, but my head was pounding and I was too dehydrated already. I emptied two glasses of ice water down my throat before I started to feel like there might be something other than dust in my veins.

  I took in my surroundings, checking for an exit, watching the cars in the street. A man lived longer by being cautious.

  When the food arrived, I had to stop myself from digging my hands in and shoving it in my mouth, it smelled so damn good. I’d been living off of canned food for weeks now.

  I followed it with pecan pie and ice cream, and the size of the portion ensured that I couldn’t have crammed in a single crumb more. Just room for a sweet iced tea as I thought about my next move. Camping out didn’t appeal, having slept under the stars for the last month and more. I needed a job and somewhere to live, then at the end of the summer, my plan was to travel west, hit up the smaller casinos, Nevada maybe. Or I could go south to Florida. Made no difference to me. There was no one waiting for me at any point of the compass, but I could make a little extra money playing cards. Sometimes.

  I nodded at the server to ask for my bill. She’d been watching me out of the corner of her eye and looked relieved that she didn’t have a runner on her hands. Not that she’d have tried to stop me if I had, but I
wasn’t about ripping off hard working folks. Rich bastards were a different story and had to look out for themselves.

  She tucked away the bills I gave her and offered to make change, but I shook my head and asked her a question instead.

  “Ma’am, would you know if there’s any mechanics around here who could fix a classic motorcycle?”

  She hesitated, glancing out of the window at my Indian.

  “Well now, I can’t say for sure, but there’s Gary’s Auto Repairs. They might be able to help you.” She paused, blinking nervously. “You able to get yourself there?”

  “Sure.”

  A relieved expression flickered across her face.

  “Okay, well, you go aways down Industrial Road and you’ll come across it,” she said as she pointed out the direction I needed.

  As I left, she turned the diner’s sign to ‘closed’ and leaned against the door as if she was catching her breath.

  I’d scared her.

  Whatever. Not my problem. I didn’t do emotions so found them strange in other people. It seemed as if everyone else was on some damn rollercoaster of highs and lows: pointless and exhausting.

  I didn’t get angry. I didn’t get excited, and when I was bored of somewhere, I moved on.

  Lives were for other people. I just lived. Simpler, easier.

  Five minutes from town, I found the motorcycle shop in a small industrial area filled with workshops and warehouses with corrugated roofs. I could hear someone pounding on metal and the whine of a power drill, and it was still hotter than Hades in the afternoon sun.

  Gary’s Auto Repairs had two Harleys parked out front with a Screamin’ Eagle logo hanging from a billboard at the entrance, but it was silent. I paused for a moment, hoping I wasn’t heading into an MCC headquarters, and when I walked into the office, the guy who looked up wasn’t wearing a patch, just a pair of old overalls and a battered Razorbacks ball cap. I figured I would be okay.

  “I’m looking for Gary,” I said.

  The man peered at me over the top of a fishing magazine.

  “That right? Well, son, he’s been dead 27 years. Can I help you?”

  “You the owner?”

  “Yup, name’s Claude Peters—proprietor, mechanic, HOGman. That your Chief out there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You got some balls bringing an Indian motorcycle to a Harley shop.” He straightened his glasses on his nose and his eyes widened as he stared at my bike. “That a ’53?”

  “One of the last off of the assembly line in Massachusetts.”

  “Hmm, had it long?”

  I followed him back outside into the brutal heat as he prowled around my bike, inspecting her from every angle.

  “Sixteen years, been riding it for twelve. Took me four years to fix her up.”

  His eyebrows rose with interest. “You do the work yourself?”

  “Yes, sir. Beat out every ding, ground out every speck of rust, rebuilt the transmission and sweet-talked her like a woman. I think she must have had a sidecar at one time because there was a 4-speed transmission.” I paused. “But I didn’t have the money for that, so I traded for a 3-speed.”

  I shrugged. I was still proud of my work.

  “Hmm,” he said again, frowning deeply.

  “Do you have any bikes to work on, I’m looking for a job,” I said, putting my cards on the table. “I can fix cars, too, and trucks. Don’t have no paper to say I can do the work…”

  His penetrating gaze drifted over my battered leathers and dusty boots, his eyes pausing at my scarred hands.

  I thought he was going to tell me to git, but he didn’t.

  “Say I had a Hog customer with a cam chain problem, what would you do?”

  “I’d say those shitty plastic shoes on the cam chain gotta go, and I’d tell the customer to swap out the chain system for a gear-driven system.”

  He laughed. “You know your bikes, son, though I’d have to worry about a man who prefers a Chief to a Harley.” He sighed. “Though she’s surely a beauty.” He peered up at me. “If I asked my good friend Lieutenant Scooter to run your ID through his police computer, he gonna find anything he didn’t oughta?”

  I almost smiled. Out of all my problems, the police wasn’t one of them.

  “No, sir. Go ahead and check,” and I handed him my driver’s license.

  “Jonathan James Berry.”

  “Folks call me Huck.”

  “This got an address in Atlantic City,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, that was the last place I lived. I move around a lot.”

  “Uh huh, kind of a rolling stone, that right?”

  I shrugged, but didn’t answer.

  “Well, alrighty. I’ll give you a week, see if I can stand having you around, with y’all peculiar taste in motorcycles. Can only pay you $500 a week right off. But if you don’t have a place to stay, you can bunk down in the mud room behind the workshop. It’s got a shower, shitter, fridge and a small cot in there. No charge. That work for you?”

  “Thank you.”

  He held out his hand and we shook on it. “Don’t thank me yet. It’s hotter’n hell in there, and just about bakes your brains in the summer, just so you know.”

  I realized I’d lost his attention when a woman wearing running shorts and glasses jogged past, her shiny honey-brown hair swinging in a high ponytail.

  “Mornin’ Claude!” she called, waving as she carried on past.

  How she could run when it was in the high eighties was beyond me.

  “Afternoon, Tonya,” he called after her, his gaze fixed to her ass. “Best backside in ten counties,” he sighed. “She was a cheerleader when I was a freshman, before they built the new high school. Her husband’s Lane. Real nice guy. They been married forever—damn shame,” and he sighed again.

  I squinted after the woman, wondering if she had any clue that my new boss had unrequited lust going back 20 years or more. Still, none of my business.

  Claude showed me where I could stow my stuff, which wasn’t much, tossed me a pair of overalls, and put me to work there and then sweeping the floor, doing a stock check, and rearranging the tool tray in the inspection pit. It was hot, dirty, boring work so I was relieved when a customer came in for a set of new tires on his truck, which took all of ten minutes plus another fifteen as he discussed the Razorbacks’ chances against another southwest conference football team with Claude. They ended the conversation with a fist bump and both yelling, “Go, Hogs!” and making me whip around to stare when they both squealed like a couple of stuck pigs, which I suppose was the point.

  Later, Claude watched from the shop’s porch while I cleaned off the dirt from my Indian, checked the tire pressure, then we chatted about the best way to replace the torn leather on the seat.

  I’d gotten so involved with thinking about how to fix my bike that I’d almost forgotten Claude was there.

  “Looks like you’ve been in a lot of fights, son.”

  I squinted up at him from where I was kneeling in the dirt, then stood up slowly, unwinding my full frame of 6’ 6”.

  “Not anymore.”

  He held out his hands in a gesture of peace. “Not askin’, just sayin’.”

  I gave him a long, hard stare, to make it quite clear that this conversation was over.

  Over the next few days, I learned three things about El Dorado: first, there was definitely something in the water here, everyone was so damn friendly. I’d breezed through a ton of small towns and not all were welcoming—most were downright suspicious of strangers.