Her friend frowned, obviously not liking the idea. “I don’t know,” Tessa whispered, still staring out her own cleared-off circle of windowpane. “But I can tell you one thing. I’m going to that carnival opening, and I’m going to find out.”

  DAMON HAD BEEN traveling the carnival circuit with his cousin Paulie’s outfit for six weeks now, and his initial skepticism about the whole thing had definitely worn off. Because far from being greeted with jeers as an impostor, everywhere they went, his “mesmerist” act was the biggest moneymaker of the fair.

  Every performance was sold out by the end of the first night in any given town. He’d recently given in to Paulie’s pleas to add another two to his already busy schedule. Most carnivals ran Sunday to Saturday, with two shows a night. Now, with another one each Friday and Saturday afternoon, he was standing up on stage masquerading as a Roma king sixteen times a week.

  “You need to wear a red shirt one of these nights,” someone said from the doorway of his trailer, which served not only as his dressing room but his permanent home on the road.

  Recognizing the voice, he didn’t even look up from the mirror. He simply finished applying the most minute amount of stage makeup he could get away with to avoid looking like an anemic vampire under the bright spotlights.

  Makeup. Unreal. He’d gone from running group counseling sessions for teens and helping abused kids get over their traumas to putting on face makeup every day of the week.

  Not that he was complaining. In fact, he was having a damned fine time. No, he wasn’t ready to throw away everything he’d worked for and become a permanent fixture on the Slone Brothers schedule. But for this summer—this painful, awful summer when he so needed an escape—it had proved perfect.

  “Didja hear me?” his cousin—two years older, twenty pounds heavier and usually forty decibels louder—asked. Entering the tiny camper, he kicked the door shut behind him, then hung the plastic-wrapped clothes he’d been carrying on the back of Damon’s closet door. “Gypsies were colorful, right?”

  “I’m not a gypsy.”

  “Nona says we’re all part gypsy.”

  “The word gypsy is offensive; it’s Roma, Paulie. Besides, she also says we all have a destined mate who our souls will recognize at first sight.”

  “She was right in my case,” Paulie pointed out. “Of course, since she and Bella’s grandmother were friends for forty years, I think they played up that angle to force us together.”

  Damon wouldn’t be surprised. But considering how happy Paulie was with his wife, who traveled with the troupe as an on-the-road nurse, he didn’t think that was such a bad thing.

  Dropping onto the lumpy couch that had come with the equally lumpy trailer, Paulie sprawled out in exhaustion. “Just sold the last ticket for tonight’s show. I had to step into the box office to help because they couldn’t keep up with demand!”

  Damon shrugged, not surprised.

  “I’m telling you, that painting gets ’em every time. Women were lining up before we even opened the booth.”

  Shaking his head, Damon murmured, “Oh, great, another all-female audience, huh? Wonder if any of them will offer to let me hypnotize her right out of her clothes this time.” His tone dry, he added, “Wouldn’t that be original.”

  Paulie, who’d been happily married for eight years, wagged his eyebrows up and down. “Might be better if one of these times you said yes. Come on, man, you’re getting ass thrown at you left, right and center. When are you going to catch some of it?”

  Damon didn’t even flinch at Paulie’s crassness, because his cousin was right, and the terms he used pretty appropriate. The number of women offering easy sexual experiences to the Roma king had become something of a joke among the whole outfit. Last he heard, there was a bet between some of the barkers about whether he’d hold out until the Fourth of July…and whether he’d go for a blonde, brunette, or redhead when he finally caved in.

  Brunette. The word flashed in his head, though he didn’t know why. There was no way he was taking up with any woman this summer. Sex wasn’t what this escape from reality was about.

  Besides, carnival groupies were not his thing. He particularly disliked the persistent ones who followed the troupe from town to town. So far, Damon hadn’t had to forcibly throw anyone out of his trailer, but he’d had to start locking the door at night. After one performance, a determined redhead—with a tattoo of a bleeding heart on one shoulder and a rattlesnake on the other—had burst in on him while he was changing.

  “Doesn’t do a man any good to build up all that backwash,” Paulie said, sounding as wise as only a man who’d spent his teen years fishing Ping-Pong balls out of goldfish bowls could. “You’re gonna explode or something. I read it in a magazine.”

  Probably in one with pictures of naked women on every page.

  Besides, if Paulie was right, Damon’s head would have shot off his shoulders long before now. During the last few months at his former job, the stress had made any semblance of a social life impossible. A sexual one, even more so. “Forget it. I haven’t met a woman on the road who I’d consider sharing a cab with, much less take to bed.”

  “Doesn’t have to be a groupie,” Paulie said, obviously not giving up. “There’s lots of women right here with us who’d be bouncing like Pogo sticks if you said jump.” A sly smile curled his cousin’s lips, and he suddenly looked very much like their grandmother. “That Rhoda’s a nice girl. And she’s single.”

  Damon’s jaw dropped and he slowly shifted around to face his cousin. “You mean the ring-toss barker who everyone says should start appearing as Flatulent Girl?”

  Digging a dingy toothpick out of his front pocket, Paulie stuck it between his lips. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “I’m not begging.” Nor am I choosing.

  “Your decision,” his cousin said as he sauntered toward the door. “But I’m still laying money that sooner or later you’re gonna look out into the audience and find someone who makes those tight pants the ladies love fit a little tighter.”

  Considering how tight those pants were, that would be a very bad thing indeed. But he didn’t worry. It wouldn’t happen. What was left of his heart had finally begun to heal with this life of easy travel and he wasn’t about to let anything interfere with that. He liked having no responsibilities, no personal interaction beyond the odd family he’d gained when he’d run off to join the sideshow. He didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

  But a few hours later, as he stood on the portable stage finishing up his first performance in Trouble, Pennsylvania, he glanced into the shadows, saw a woman who took his breath away…and suddenly began to wonder.

  ALLIE HADN’T INTENDED to do much at the carnival on opening night. She had to attend, since she’d volunteered to work a shift at the firehouse’s bingo tent but wasn’t planning to stay afterward. Hank was at home with her landlady, Miss Emily, and she almost never left him in the evening.

  But somehow, after she’d awarded a gift certificate for a Thanksgiving turkey to the winner of a full-card match—finishing her shift—Allie found herself wandering the fairgrounds. “Just for cotton candy,” she whispered as she explored the rides and maneuvered through the gauntlet of games decked out with every color stuffed animal ever invented.

  Quickly finding the right vendor, she’d invested in a bag of cotton candy big enough to make an entire kindergarten class bounce off the walls for hours. But before she could grab a handful to savor on the way to her car, something else equally as irresistible had caught her eye: The Roma king’s show.

  It was sold out. But it hadn’t been hard to spot an untied flap in the rear of the tent. Which was how she had come to be standing in the shadows, watching a performance taking place on a small, portable stage a few yards away.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered as she stared, unable to tear her eyes off him.

  The painting hadn’t lied. Not one bit. The mesmerist was just as sexy, mysterious and devastating as his image had promised him to be. More, really, since she could so easily make out the power of his muscular body beneath the tight clothes and appreciate the richness of his black hair—tied back in a short ponytail—beneath the shimmering spotlights. She honestly had never imagined just how hot a man could look in a pair of tight, silky black pants and a flowing shirt, equally as black. That dramatic red sash just emphasized his lean hips and taut butt…not to mention the ripples of muscle, and other bulges. Such bulgedy bulges.

  His profile revealed a hard, determined jaw and high cheekbones, with dark, slashing hollows beneath. A light beard, maybe two days’ growth, gave him a slightly swarthy, dangerous look that was so damned sexy she could almost feel it scraping over her smooth skin. Though not prominent, his nose was strong, his mouth sinfully shaped and meant for kissing.

  Unfortunately, from this angle, she couldn’t see his eyes. A skeptical voice inside her said they wouldn’t be purple—no man could be that perfect. But she found herself hoping she was wrong.

  She also found herself breathing faster. Leaning toward the stage, she could feel her heart tripping over itself in her chest.

  “I’m going to count backward from ten, now, Mr. Fitzweather,” the performer said, addressing a balding, middle-aged man who stood facing the audience. “When I reach one, I want you to be the nine-year-old boy you once were and tell us why you didn’t do your homework assignment.”

  Allie snorted, wishing somebody would hypnotize nasty old Mr. Fitzweather into keeping his clothes on. The man was a weekend nudist, as Allie knew from firsthand experience. There wasn’t enough soap in the world to wash away the mental image of Butch—her sister’s poodle—dangling between the inn owner’s chunky, hairy legs. Butch had accidentally mistaken the man’s family jewels for a pair of kiwis.

  “I did the report, honest,” Mr. Fitzweather said. He remained in place, but his body had changed. He was hunched over, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his foot scuffing the floor of the stage like a nervous kid. He even stuttered a bit before adding, “B-but a big gust of wind blew it out of my hands on the way to school today. Can I use the bathroom?”

  The audience laughed, Allie along with them, acknowledging this was meant to be entertaining, not humiliating. She’d heard of Vegas hypnotist acts where audience members made fools of themselves by stripping, quacking like ducks or crawling like babies. This gentle ribbing wasn’t like that, which made her appreciate the hot-as-sin performer even more.

  But, gentle or not, it was still pretty darn funny, especially since Mr. Fitzweather wasn’t a particularly good sport. She suspected he’d only gone up on stage to prove he couldn’t be hypnotized, which made his sudden transition to nervous schoolboy even better for the home-town crowd.

  Though she told herself she needed to slip back out of the tent the same way she’d crept in, she couldn’t help standing there for a few more moments. She couldn’t stop staring at the so-called mesmerist…Damon—at least that’s what the sign had said his name was.

  The name’s probably as fake as his eyes.

  When, she suddenly wondered, had she become such a skeptic? She didn’t wonder for long. It had been when she’d been used and dumped by a guy who’d only been out for payback against her sister. Still, she couldn’t hate Peter-the-prickface too much anymore, for two reasons. First, because he’d given her Hank. Second, because he’d since stayed away from both of them, which was exactly the way she wanted it.

  Suddenly realizing she no longer heard the tittering of the audience or the boyish stammerings of a hypnotized Mr. Fitzweather, she shook the bad thoughts out of her brain and peered toward the stage again. And immediately found herself staring into a pair of intense-looking eyes.

  Even from here, she could see they were not the stormy purple from the painting, but rather a clear, brilliant violet that were somehow even more disarming. Beautiful. Intelligent. And they were looking right back at her.

  Chapter 2

  TRAPPED BY THE captivating stare of the mysterious Roma king, Allie could do nothing but remain frozen in place, whispering the word crap a few times under her breath.

  She’d been busted. She was a carnival crasher, sneaking into a sold-out show like a horny kid trying to get a peek at the half-naked dancers. Mr. Fitzweather had obviously snapped out of his daze and gone back to his seat, and the audience had gone silent. As had the main attraction, who was, at this moment, staring at her with such powerful intensity that she felt almost magnetically pulled to him.

  She sent a message to her feet. Move. Backward. Now.

  Instead, they Moved. Forward. Now.

  “Come out here,” his strong voice demanded. His hand rose as he beckoned her toward him.

  No way, bud. But her feet continued to ignore her, edging forward an inch at a time.

  She hadn’t gone too many inches when suddenly Mr. Mysterious was right before her eyes. He’d obviously gotten tired of waiting and had come to her. “No need to hide in the shadows,” he murmured. “I don’t bite.”

  The black clothes and hair, swarthy face and brilliant gleam of his white teeth as he smiled made her question that assertion under her breath. “Sure you don’t.”

  His eyes glittered. She obviously hadn’t spoken as quietly as she’d thought. “Well, maybe just a little bit, when I’m asked. And only very carefully.”

  Gorgeous, sexy, with a hint of kink? She’d found her dream man. Forget it. Peter was your dream man once, too.

  Allie had to give herself a pass on that one. Hank’s father had never been her dream man. He’d just been her first adult male, ever.

  And because of her experience with Peter, she definitely clung to the motto Once Bitten, Twice Shy. No matter how attractive the biter.

  “Sorry, not in the market for a vampire.”

  “Then you’d better not ask me to bite you.”

  No problem, even if she could think of a few places on her body she’d like him to nibble.

  With that sheen of mystery enhanced by an enigmatic half smile, he added, “And definitely don’t invite me into your bedroom. I think vampires have to be invited in, don’t they?”

  “I’m not up on vampire lore,” she responded softly.

  Who, she wondered, was that weak-voiced, sappy girl? Surely not her, who’d once bluffed her way aboard a Greyhound bus with a poodle disguised as a service dog. This guy truly did have some magic because he’d turned her into a brainless zombie.

  “What’s your name?”

  Gone. Outta here. That’s my name.

  She opted for the truth. “Allie.”

  He touched her arm, a fleeting scrape of his fingertips against her elbow, yet she felt completely overpowered. “Come on.” With just a slight tug, he led her to the center of the stage and stood facing her. Close. But not touching. “Let’s show Allie some support,” he said to the audience.

  They began to clap. The whisper of her name raced through the crowd, and she heard Tessa’s voice call, “You go, girl!”

  The warm response melted some of her inhibitions because she knew everyone in this tent would look out for her. Funny, after living here for only a brief time, she already felt so safe. She’d been completely accepted.

  Maybe it was just because she was related by marriage to—and worked for—the town savior, Mr. Potts. Even so, the warmth she’d felt in Trouble for the past year had somehow eradicated all the dark memories of the judgmental criticism she’d grown up with in Ohio.

  “Relax,” he murmured, his mouth so close to her ear, she felt his breath on her hair. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Hmm. Hadn’t that been what Hank’s father had said right before he’d relieved her of her virginity and nearly ruined her life? Not that this guy in any way reminded her of Peter. He wasn’t a sniveling pretty boy. Oh, no. He was all sexy-pirate-or-vampire-in-a-romance-novel man.

  “Now, Allie, do you want me to hypnotize you?”

  She suspected he already had. Because though she tried to make her mouth say “No,” she couldn’t do it. Instead, she only managed to reply with a slow shake of her head.

  “You don’t?” he asked, an amused half-smile saying he doubted that.

  “I don’t believe in this stuff.”

  “Then why are you here?” His eyes sparkled, which was appropriate. After all, his body seemed to emit some kind of electrical current that gave off incredible heat and had made her incapable of moving. “There must be some reason.”

  “I was just…passing by,” she finally mumbled, wondering if her face was really candy-apple red or if the heat she felt in her cheeks was caused merely by the spotlights.

  “Taking a shortcut through the back of my tent, hmm?”

  Hearing the skepticism in his voice and chuckles from the audience helped her shake off some of the brainless lethargy. Tilting her head and cocking a brow in false bravado, she said, “Yeah. I mistook it for the animal tent, there’s so much crap being shoveled around in here.”

  His dramatic eyes flared, and he barked a surprised laugh. So did several people sitting close enough to have heard her.

  He recovered quickly. “You don’t believe in hypnosis?”

  Regretting being quite so snarky, she lowered her eyes. “I guess it’s a cute trick for the fair, but that’s about it.”

  The performer shook his head. “She doubts me. Shall I prove her wrong?”

  The audience roared. “Do it!”

  “I don’t think so.” Glancing toward the audience, Allie squinted against the spotlights, memorizing the faces of the people in the crowd who were ready to sacrifice her like some virgin to a hungry god of lust. Tessa was number one on the list.

  Then she thought about it. Mmm…hungry lust god. Interesting. True, she wasn’t exactly a virgin, but she wasn’t that far from it. She could honestly say it had taken far longer for Hank to come out of her during childbirth than his loser father had ever spent going in.

  “I could help you with your addiction,” he said, the words almost cajoling.