Getting into Trouble

  Trouble Series Book 2

  by

  Leslie Kelly

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  PROLOGUE

  SEEING A SHAGGY brown camel drinking from a bucket on somebody’s lawn would normally be surprising, at least to anyone not born in a country whose main landscape feature was sand. Damon Cole, however, could muster no surprise. Because here—in the Florida mobile home community where his grandparents lived—the sight made just about as much sense as anything else.

  And he suddenly found himself smiling.

  His own reaction startled him. He hadn’t had anything to smile about in a long time. Weeks. Months? Hard to remember the last happy, contented moment in his life. Yet, as he turned into the short gravel driveway fronting the mobile home, contentment was what he felt.

  That could have been caused by the great memories he had of the place from his childhood, or by how much he’d missed his grandparents. Or even, simply, by the camel. Whatever the reason, he was glad. The emotions provided a respite from the more common feeling of helpless anger he’d experienced in recent weeks.

  When he’d left Jacksonville that morning, he hadn’t known where he was headed. He’d just had to get away—from his job, his life, his reality. So maybe it wasn’t at all unusual that he’d found himself in Gibsonton where he’d often enjoyed another type of reality altogether during his childhood. His grandparents’ place had been his favorite spot on Earth when he was a kid. Both thrilling and a little frightening, it had provided many adventures and a whole lot of fantasies. Of escape.

  “Yeah, not much of a surprise there,” he muttered. Escaping had been all he’d been able to think about for weeks, since he’d hit rock-bottom professionally and emotionally. Since he was now officially unemployed, having quit his job as a counselor and caseworker with the Florida Department of Children & Families, he was ready to make that escape.

  Swallowing, he pushed some ugly images out of his mind and cut the car engine. He looked around, trying to remember how long it had been since he’d come for a visit. Ten months, at least. Grandson of the year, he was not.

  The neighborhood hadn’t changed much. The road signs were dull and hard to read, and the narrow street was pitted with potholes. Neatly trimmed, lush lawns competed for the small amount of rain with neighboring brown patches of weed. Pink flamingos and garden gnomes stood sentry over colorful flower beds.

  At first glance it seemed a typical Florida retirement community for the blue-collar people whose bones couldn’t handle the northern winters, or whose social security checks couldn’t deal with northern prices. It looked overwhelmingly normal. Except for the camel. And the man on stilts walking down the middle of the road. And the elephant grazing down the block.

  “Damon!”

  Glancing at the porch, he saw his grandmother rushing out to greet him. As spry as she’d been a decade ago, she wore a flowery dress and a sun hat. If not for the nearby menagerie and the sparkle of cunning mischief in her eyes, she could be mistaken for any snowbird wintering in Florida.

  Few would recognize Madame Natasha, who’d told the fortunes of thousands of fair-and carnival-goers in forty-eight states. Not unless she took off that hat and unwound the waist-length hair, once jet-black but now an even more dramatic shimmery grey.

  “Nona,” he said as he got out. He braced himself for either a huge hug or a rap on the head because he hadn’t been in touch.

  He got the hug. She flew into his arms, her hat falling off as she kissed each of his cheeks. “I knew you were coming.”

  He laughed as he let her go. “Of course, you did.”

  “You doubt me?” Taking his arm, she tugged him toward the house, giving the camel a wide berth. Seeing the line of drool dangling out of the animal’s mouth, Damon did the same. He knew from experience that camel spit could travel a long way.

  Once inside, Nona pointed at the table, neatly set for three with a platter full of steamy fried oysters and corn on the cob. “Papa went to get your favorite beer,” she explained.

  “Okay. You were expecting me.”

  “It wasn’t my crystal ball,” she admitted. “I read the latest article in the paper today and thought you might arrive at my door.” Her expression haunted, she added, “I’m so sorry.”

  Yeah. So was Damon.

  “Did you really quit your job? Resign in anger like the article said?” She pushed him toward a chair while she spoke, putting a plate in front of him and filling it with food in her typical eat-no-matter-what-the-occasion manner.

  “I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said through a throat that seemed too tight to inhale even enough air to keep his heart beating. Sometimes he wondered if he even possessed a heart at all, since his had felt pulverized that day six weeks ago. It had been wounded when he’d realized he couldn’t keep his promises to a little boy who’d counted on Damon to keep him safe. It had been crushed when he’d learned that boy was back in the hospital, badly injured by parents who’d never been fit for the job. Parents Damon had fought to keep out of the child’s life, and who’d nearly killed their son less than a month after getting him back from a safe foster home.

  At least now those fucking parents were in jail and the boy’s loving foster parents were anxious to adopt him. But it was one hell of a way to get a child into a safe environment. And frankly, Damon didn’t feel much incentive to stick around to grow attached to another kid he couldn’t help, considering the state’s red tape, low budget, and lack of support. He’d find another way to help; he just couldn’t do it that way anymore.

  His grandmother shook her head and tsked, kissing a small St. Jude’s medal that hung from a silver chain around her neck. “Bless his precious soul.” Sitting opposite him at the table, she filled a plate for herself. “So where are you going?”

  That was a good question, to which he didn’t have an answer. He just knew he needed to go. To keep moving, until he figured out what he was going to do with his life now that he’d walked away from the career he’d been working toward since grad school. “Not sure. I packed up most of my personal stuff and let a friend move into my apartment for the summer.”

  Her vivid violet eyes widened. “That long?”

  “It’s a start.” Three months hardly seemed long enough to figure out where he’d gone wrong, what he could have done differently—and what direction the rest of his life would take.

  Then again, three months also probably seemed pretty self-indulgent to normal people raised on a traditional nine-to-five, two-weeks-vacation-a-year work ethic. He supposed having a carnival family background made the idea of dropping out of the real world for a little while not only possible but very appealing. If only he knew where he was going as a dropout.

  Cancún? Fiji? Not on a former state employee’s salary.

  “You can afford this?”

  Shrugging, Damon helped himself to more oysters, suddenly rediscovering his appetite. “For a while.”

  He was twenty-nine, mostly free of debt, except for one student loan. His rent was covered for a little while and his car paid off. Yeah. He could handle a few months as a surf bum, even if Cancún or Fiji were beyond his means.

  Not that he knew how to surf. His grandparents might live in Florida, but Damon had grown up in landlocked Indiana. His mother had been the black sheep of her family for marrying a quiet dentist and moving to Fort Wayne. She hadn’t yet forgiven Damon for moving to Florida after college.

  “You know, your cousin Paulie is having trouble lining up acts for this summer’s Slone Brothers circuit. Things change so much—everyone has tattoos, so who cares about a man who is covered with them?”

  He chuckled at her sour expression.

  “So. There you go.”

  “There I go, what?”

  She didn’t even look at him. She simply sprinkled more pepper on her corn. “He needs help. You need a distraction.”

  He barked a quick laugh, finally getting it. “Sorry. I haven’t learned to swallow swords since we last saw one another.”

  “You have Roma blood in you, my boy.”

  Right. He’d wager his veins had as many drops of caveman blood as of the European tribe his grandmother claimed as her ancestors. Not that he’d tell her that. She was as fierce about defending her heritage as she was about her psychic abilities. Which, Damon had to concede, he’d at least seen evidence of. He’d never been able to get away with anything as a kid when Madame Natasha was around.

  “You know that hypnotizing thing, don’t you? I remember how much you loved learning about it.” She sounded so nonchalant, for a moment he was fooled into thinking she’d just thought of the idea. But she’d probably been planning this since he’d first mentioned the class during his college days.

  “Yeah, I studied hypnotherapy. Some therapists use it to help patients with addictions, that sort of thing.”

  He hadn’t used it in his own work, though. His patients—the kids who’d been assigned to him by DCF—had more to deal with than quitting smoking or losing weight. Much more.

  “So, there is your schtick. I see throngs of people crowding into a tent for a performance of…hmm, what shall we call you?”

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  “Surf bum,” he muttered.

  She ignored him. Lowering her corn and scrunching her brow in concentration, she fell silent for a moment, then suddenly snapped her fingers. Rising, she spread her arms up into the air, almost making him see the invisible banner she envisioned. “Come be enthralled and meet the world’s greatest mesmerist.”

  She paused for a pregnant moment—the woman did have a flare for the dramatic. Then, with a glint in her eye, she introduced him to the person she wanted him to be for the next three months.

  “Presenting Damon, the Roma King!”

  Suddenly, he caught the vision. Saw the possibilities. And for some crazy reason, that person didn’t sound so bad.

  Not so bad at all.

  Chapter 1

  “THAT MAN COULD hypnotize me into doing anything.”

  Allie Cavanaugh hadn’t really been paying attention to her friend, Tessa, until the awed-sounding pronouncement. Up to that point Tessa had been jabbering about the carnival cruising into town today and Allie had just zoned out.

  Tessa wasn’t the only one jabbering, either—everyone else had been just as giddy. Apparently, Trouble, Pennsylvania, had been off the lists of traveling shows for a long time, and the residents considered this a mark of their slow crawl back onto the world map. In fact, the town had nearly disappeared off the map until her boss, millionaire Mortimer Potts, had bought up most of it and brought it back to life.

  Allie couldn’t muster much interest in the carnival talk, though. Laughing at her nine-month-old son, Hank—who was trying to lick a rogue Cheerio off the back of his sticky, pudgy hand—was much more fun.

  “Almost got it baby-cakes,” she said, clapping in encouragement.

  He clapped too, which made the piece of cereal disappear.

  “Oooh, it slipped,” she said, wondering how he was going to get the treat, which had ridden a line of baby drool down his arm until it landed near his dimpled little elbow.

  But her baby was determined. The way he bent his arm backward to find the tiny ring of oats made her wonder if he had a future as a contortionist. Finally, with a grunt of effort, he got his prize and gobbled it, flashing her a two-toothed smile.

  “Will you look now?”

  Allie tore her attention off Hank, who was busily searching for another treat that might be lurking on the tray of his highchair or stuck to his arm. Fortunately, she didn’t think he’d dropped any down into the front of his diaper. She knew from experience that he could get at those. Ick. “Huh?”

  “Hello?” Tessa said, reaching across the table and grabbing Allie by the chin. She forcibly turned her head and made her look out the grubby front window of Tootie’s Tavern, where the two of them had met for breakfast this hot June morning.

  “Tootie needs to invest in some Windex.” She moved her head, searching for an inch of clean glass through which to peek.

  Tessa grabbed a napkin and wiped a spot. “Check him out.”

  At first, she thought Tessa was talking about the guy changing a flat tire on his primer-speckled pickup right outside the restaurant. She couldn’t say for sure, but she’d bet that unattractive half-moon salute appearing out of his too-low jeans belonged to Freddy, a guy who worked at the gas station. “Eww.”

  “Not him,” Tessa said, gesturing to the left.

  Allie immediately saw the line of dusty trucks and big rigs winding down Trouble’s main street. One was loaded with huge, glittering beams and arches of a Ferris wheel. Right behind it came a flatbed truck bearing concession booths—one marked tickets, another offering cotton candy and candy apples.

  Her mouth began to water. She hadn’t had cotton candy since she was a little kid. Probably not since she was about six years old—before her father had died. Because after that, she and her family had gone to live with her very strict grandfather, who believed sugar was a tool Satan had created to corrupt humans into decadence. So, his grandchildren had gone usually without while living under his roof with their widowed mother.

  “Mmm,” she mumbled. She could go for some decadence. It wasn’t as if she had to worry about what he thought anymore, that was for sure. Grandfather’s prejudice against sugar was one more thing she’d left behind when she’d told him to screw off after he’d disowned her for her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that fluffy spun sugar until she spied that puff of pink on the sign. “I wonder how cotton candy would taste on pancakes.”

  “Not that.” Tessa sounded ready to pound her. Considering bubbly, blond-haired Tessa was five foot two and tiny, that’d be a feat. Allie had lost most of her pregnancy weight, but she still had a few extra pounds on her already curvy figure.

  “Fine.” Allie shifted her gaze to the next truck, a big grayish white one, its panel sides painted with crazy clowns and funhouse mirrors. She’d gotten lost in a hall of mirrors as a kid, until her sister Sabrina had rescued her. She’d hated them ever since. Besides, her post-breast-feeding boobs were quite big enough, thankyouverymuch. She didn’t need to see them reflected all around her.

  “See?”

  “Ugh. Clowns. They’re creepy.”

  “Not the clowns. Keep looking,” Tessa said with a sigh, obviously knowing Allie would eventually stop yanking her chain.

  It was their common routine. Over the past year, being pregnant and then raising her baby on her own, Allie had grown pretty pragmatic. Sarcastic, even. And very focused on the life she was building for her and Hank. So, she wasn’t easily dragged into Tessa’s manbabble or her addiction to fashion magazines. Or carnivals, as enticing as cotton candy may be.

  “I’m talking about him!”

  Allie gazed at the next truck and suddenly found herself entirely sucked dry of all thought, all feeling, everything except awareness. And want. “Ho-ly….” she managed to whisper before her voice trailed off. Then she could only stare.

  The vehicle was a typical carnival truck—oversized, road weary and a bit gaudy. Its graying paint matched the sad vehicles that had preceded it, but there the similarities ended. Because freshly painted on the side of this one was an invitation. Two invitations, really. One beckoned to the world to come inside and meet Damon the Roma King: The World’s Greatest Mesmerist.

  The other invitation wasn’t spelled out quite as directly. Instead, it was implied through the sultry stare of a man whose huge portrait stared down at the street below.

  The painting had none of the distorted, freakish quality often depicted in sideshow displays. This one was actually very good. As for its subject? Well, he was to die for.

  The Roma king’s tall, solid form was showcased to perfection in tight black pants and a silky black shirt, open almost to the waist. A red sash pulled tight across his lean hips provided contrast to the breadth of his shoulders and thickness of his chest. He was solid from top to bottom, shaped the way every woman wanted a man to be shaped. But the body wasn’t the end of it, not by a long shot.

  He had the kind of silky, jet-black hair that only seemed to naturally grace men and had to be stolen from a bottle by women. Its inky length, gathered at the nape of his neck and tied with a brightly colored ribbon, emphasized the man’s dangerous—almost otherworldly—good looks. His chin tilted up in challenge, he dared any woman to resist him. The pose was punctuated by the high, carved cheekbones, strong nose and sensuous lips so perfectly curved in a knowing smirk Allie could almost feel them pressed on her own.

  And the eyes. Oh, the eyes.

  They weren’t blue. Not exactly. And they weren’t the dark brown or black she’d have expected with that ebony hair. No. They were purple. Vivid and clear, as bright as some exotic orchid she’d seen only in magazine photos of some movie star’s wedding.

  Which was when she realized the painting—the whole thing—had to be one big fat lie. Black-haired gods all dressed in silk didn’t have purple eyes. And they certainly didn’t show up in dinky nowhere towns like Trouble, Pennsylvania. Not a chance.

  “He can’t be real,” she muttered, tearing her gaze away from the truck, which had stopped on the street directly in front of the window. “He’s an artist’s rendering, right? He’s probably really five feet tall, with a bald spot and bad teeth.”