“Concisely explained. At the risk of sounding less than manly, I’m getting a cramp in my calf.”
Maggie lifted an eyebrow at him. “Men don’t get cramps?”
“Only after marathons or strenuous gym workouts; it’s considered wimpy to get one simply by kneeling on the ground. Can we get up now?”
“We probably should. The natives are getting restless.”
Gideon glanced toward the wagons and tents and encountered a number of curious stares. “True. I forgot about them.”
“They didn’t forget about you—ouch!”
He looked at her, then quickly reached out to take her hand. “Here, let me.”
“It’s just a thorn—”
“I know. Hold still.”
Maggie did, allowing him to gently extract the thorn from her index finger. As she gazed at his bent head she began to feel curiously breathless. Despite being the center of all eyes, they seemed to be alone, isolated. Sunlight filtered by the trees wove a pattern of light and shadow over them, and a warm breeze whispered as it touched the grass and trees. And them.
All of Maggie’s senses came vividly alive in a way she’d never known before. Her sight and hearing were acute, and the feeling of his cool hands touching hers was so intense it felt almost shatteringly intimate. And then he lifted her hand, his lips closing over her index finger, and she felt a totally alien explosion of heat somewhere deep inside her.
Her thoughts scattered like autumn leaves, fluttering unconnected through her mind. He shouldn’t be doing this, her hands were dirty…he had a cramp in his leg…and people were watching…why did she suddenly feel naked?
“Don’t,” she murmured huskily.
Gideon raised his head, looking at her with darkened eyes. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and his hands were still holding hers, caressing it. His strong features held the stamp of that fierce thing she had seen before and heard in his voice, that unconsciously relentless…need? Determination? Whatever it was, it triggered instincts far deeper and more complex than those of a chameleon.
“Don’t what?” His voice was soft, uneven.
She couldn’t look away, couldn’t reclaim her hand. His eyes were like storms in his taut face, holding a violence of emotion contained only by fragile barriers. She couldn’t answer his question aloud, but she thought he must have found some kind of answer in her face.
“Maggie,” he whispered, and bent his head again, pressing his lips into her palm.
It was as if some softly playing music inside Maggie suddenly reached a crescendo, a tense, breathless moment when her heart thudded wildly. Her response to him was physical, emotional, on every level of herself; she had never in her life been so completely attuned to another human being.
The strength of that feeling was brief, reaching a peak and then ebbing slowly until it was only a pulsing warmth inside her, but it left behind a confused excitement that made her retreat cautiously, as if from the edge of something not quite stable. Very gently, she withdrew her hand from his grasp.
“I thought I’d put the rosebush beside my steps,” she said conversationally, looking at the shrub in question. “It’ll probably bloom at least once more before fall.”
“I’m getting there, Maggie.” His voice was still roughly uneven, low. “I’m finding the answers. You can pull away now, but what happens when there aren’t any more questions? How will you pull away from me then?”
“Maybe that’s the last question.” She rose to her feet, watching as he did as well. “Maybe by then—we’ll both know the answer.”
Gideon looked at her for a moment, not angry but intent, searching. Then he bent to pick up his gift for Lamont and Maggie’s potted rosebush. Straightening, he said, “I’ve always considered myself a patient man. We’ll find out, won’t we?”
They began walking toward Maggie’s wagon, and she felt a dim spurt of amusement at the way everyone immediately became very busy, very active; until then, they’d all resembled waxwork figures. Gideon had noticed as well.
“I suppose we should tell everyone about the carnival’s future, before they explode from curiosity,” he said dryly.
“It might be best,” she agreed.
Gideon looked down at her. “Who’s Jasper?”
His voice had been casual, but Maggie knew he had been alerted that something was going on. She kept her own voice matter-of-fact. “Three of us take care of the animals—Farley, Jasper, and me. Jasper’s been with Wonderland since the beginning. He’s great with the animals.”
“So where is he?”
“He goes off on his own sometimes. Probably in town now. I expect he’ll turn up before dark.” She hoped he would. She really hoped he would.
“And if he doesn’t?”
They had reached her wagon. Gideon set the rosebush down beside the steps and then straightened, looking at her as he waited for her response.
She hesitated, then said, “Wonderland seems to be perpetual, but the people change. It isn’t unusual to find one carny more or less from one day to the next. To some people, the carnival is a stopover for days. Or years.” Something in what she’d said rang a bell in her mind. She had overlooked something, hadn’t considered a possibility that should have been obvious. And something Gideon had said earlier…
Sanctuary.
“What are you telling me?” Gideon asked bluntly, frowning a bit.
Maggie forced herself to keep her mind on what she was saying. “I’m telling you that we don’t ask a lot of questions here. If somebody goes away, we assume he wanted to.”
“You don’t expect him to come back, do you?”
“I hope he does.”
After a moment Gideon appeared to accept that. He nodded and said, “Why don’t we take the noses to Lamont, and then you can finish introducing me.”
—
The carnies took the news of their future cooperative ownership of Wonderland with their usual aplomb: an argument broke out as to whether there should be equal or differing shares. Maggie made no effort to settle the dispute, merely leaving them to it and telling Gideon she’d help him pitch his new tent if he liked. She took down the old tent while he got the new one out of his car, and they worked together.
“Do you really think a co-op is a good idea?” he asked her, driving a stake into the ground.
Sorting through the tent poles, she said absently, “Of course it is. Don’t worry—they’ll work everything out.”
“You know them better than I do.” Gideon sat back on his heels as he looked at her, wondering again just exactly what it was that she was hiding from him. There was something going on, he knew that. It was partly Jasper’s disappearance, but he’d felt the undercurrents before that.
Outsider or not, Maggie understood these people, but to him they were maddeningly elusive. However unusual or absurd this place seemed to be on the surface, there was an underlying tension that made him apprehensive. He had assumed at first it was because he held the carnival’s fate in his hands, so the anxiety the others felt about their future had touched him. Despite his announcement about the decision he and Maggie had reached, the level of strain was still high. He had a feeling that was why everyone was arguing now, and he thought Maggie knew it as well.
“Leo likes his collar,” she noted, still in the absent tone he was beginning to believe hid something she didn’t want him to understand.
Gideon glanced toward the steps of her wagon, where the peculiar-looking cat sprawled with his chin raised and a ridiculous Cheshire-cat grin on his face. Around his mottled-brown neck was a fancy red collar complete with rhinestones and a dangling silver tag that proclaimed his name and where he belonged. His dubious attitude toward Gideon had vanished the instant the collar had been buckled around his neck, and he had since shown a fawning tendency to remain near his new idol.
“That cat is…” Gideon’s voice trailed off.
“Hard to define, isn’t he? I can’t fasten these lines until the stakes are in.”
T
urning his gaze somewhat balefully to the canvas spread out on the ground, Gideon said, “This is not exactly my idea of a courtship.”
Maggie watched him finish driving the stakes into the ground, deciding not to question his choice of nouns. “I must admit, I’m a little surprised myself. Do investment bankers usually vacation in tents? Or is this a vacation?”
“It is now. While I was in town today, I called the bank and took a leave of absence. As for the tent, I haven’t heard a better offer.”
Ignoring his remark, she asked curiously, “Tell me something. Do you always abandon your job and preferred lifestyle when you meet a woman you’re interested in?”
“No, I usually just send flowers.” Gideon tossed the mallet aside, regarding her with a wry expression. “If the response is favorable, after that usually comes dinner and maybe the theater. Conversation. Normal stuff.”
“You could always wait until fall,” she said. “I’ll be back in Richmond then. Plenty of restaurants and theaters there. And florists.”
He looked at her thoughtfully. “Do you happen to be aware of the fact that I live in San Francisco?”
“Balthasar’s attorney mentioned it.”
“That puts three thousand miles between my home and your home base.”
“Nasty commute,” she observed. “But we don’t need to worry about that now, do we? Or are your intentions totally honorable?”
“My intentions,” Gideon said, “include figuring you out and getting this damned tent up. I haven’t thought beyond that.”
“Haven’t you?”
He wished her eyes weren’t green. It was unfair for any woman to have eyes like that. “Dammit, Maggie, you know what I want. I want to be your lover.”
A small voice suddenly piped up, “What’s a lover? An’ you’ve got the lines all tangled.”
Maggie got to her feet, saying easily, “Sean knows all about tents, don’t you, Sean?”
“Course I do,” the boy said scornfully.
“Then you can help Gideon.” She looked from the boy to the man—who didn’t appear exactly thrilled by his prospective helper. Hiding her amusement, she said, “I think they’ve argued over there long enough. I should get things settled down.”
“Sure,” Gideon said, wondering what on earth had possessed him to think he could conduct any kind of courtship in the middle of a lunatic carnival. He watched Maggie stroll off toward the fractious group on the other side of the encampment, wishing she wore clothes a little less threatening to his blood pressure. Today, she was wearing jeans and some kind of a halter top, her long hair hanging down her back in a single braid. From certain angles she looked about sixteen; from other angles, she definitely didn’t.
“What’s a lover?” Sean persisted.
Gideon looked at the boy and sighed. “Someone who loves,” he said, and only then heard what he was saying. Somewhat hastily, he added, “You’re the tent expert, Sean, so show me how it’s done.”
—
Maggie settled the argument simply by reminding everyone that it would be months before a final decision would have to be made, and that they had plenty of time to work out a fair division of shares. As the group broke up, she walked with Tina back toward the older woman’s wagon.
“Told you he’d be back,” Tina murmured. “That little scene between you two looked pretty intense.”
“It felt that way, too.”
“So why’s he with my son right now instead of you?”
“Don’t rush me, Tina. Isn’t a woman allowed a little time to make up her mind?”
“Sure. But you’ve already made up your mind.”
“Well, a little time to make up his mind, then. I’m not really in the market for a scrapbook full of memories.”
“Like I said, he looks like being long-term to me.”
Maggie smiled a little, but said, “We’ll see. Anyway, since he’s going to deed the carnival over, the lawyers will need a complete accounting for all the paperwork. Didn’t I leave the books in your wagon last week?”
“Yeah, on the shelf above my bed. You go ahead. I promised Lamont I’d watch him model his new noses.”
Leaving her friend, Maggie went on to the wagon, finding the carnival’s account books easily enough. She debated returning the books to her own wagon, but decided against it. Sitting down on Tina’s bed, she tore a blank page from the most recent account book, found a pencil on the bedside table, and began going through the oldest accounts.
She had looked over the accounts before, but without any specific purpose; this time, she had one. With so little to go on in the matter of her cousin’s death, Maggie had been more or less hamstrung. She had watched and listened, getting to know the individuals of the carnival, but that hadn’t helped. As far as she’d been able to determine, Merlin had made no enemies and had been well liked. In fact, he had been a very nice old man, almost impossible to anger and quite kind to others.
Since she hadn’t found a clue as to who would have killed him, she had turned her attention to the question of why. And there again she’d been stymied. What possible reason would anyone have for killing a sweet old man? If she’d been given to doubting her aunt Julia’s pronouncements, she would have begun believing the police’s verdict of accidental death, but Maggie had known her aunt too long to consider that.
It was only when Gideon’s remark about Wonderland’s being a sanctuary had connected with her own words about the place’s being a stopover for some people that a possible motive had occurred to her. A sanctuary was a safe place; in historical times even criminals had taken advantage of that fact.
So what if, she asked herself, one of the people here had something to hide—and to protect? A dangerous secret, maybe? Merlin could have found out somehow, and he’d been, above all else, an honest and scrupulous man; he might well have threatened to expose his killer. He certainly wouldn’t have been the first man murdered to protect a secret.
Which left Maggie with a very big question.
The account books of Wonderland were so stuffed with details they were beautifully complete—and absolutely chaotic. From its beginnings more than thirty years before to the present, every aspect of the carnival had been written down. The acquisition, birth, or death of every animal; totals from gate receipts, food bills, supplies, repairs, and equipment; yearly inventories of all equipment, livestock, and so on.
There was also a complete record of every stop Wonderland had made in its journeys, noted by date and place, as well as dated notations of the arrival and departure of every carny who had ever been a part of the carnival.
Those notations interested Maggie. She needed to narrow her list of suspects, and arbitrarily she decided to look no further back than seven years—simply because of the statute of limitations. She reasoned that Merlin would have had to have found some evidence of dishonesty, something concrete, and to Maggie’s mind that indicated the possibility of robbery.
It made sense to her. If someone had committed a robbery of some kind and needed to lie low until the statute of limitations had expired, what better place than a carnival? They were almost always on the move, traveling back roads and staying only briefly in towns, mostly small towns at that.
She knew these people well by now, and she knew that none of them was a cold-blooded killer. But she was less sure that several wouldn’t kill to protect themselves or some secret wealth. This was a perfect place to hide—and to hide something valuable; unless they were unusually bulky, any number of items could be hidden away in the big, ornate antique wagons.
It was a long shot, and Maggie knew it. But she was running out of time. The carnies themselves didn’t believe Merlin’s death had been an accident, and an unsolved murder was far harder on the innocent than the guilty; they were all tense and jumpy. Now Jasper had vanished, and Maggie had a hollow feeling he wouldn’t be coming back.
She wasn’t yet ready to confide in Gideon, because she was certain he would insist they call the police.
And though Maggie doubted the police would be interested without some kind of evidence, the killer undoubtedly would.
So all she had to go on a few minutes later as she closed the account books and replaced them on the shelf was a list containing only two names. Beside the names of the two most recent additions to Wonderland, she had noted down the date and location of the carnival at those times.
Lamont had joined three years ago while Wonderland had been in Texas; specifically, some miles outside Dallas.
Farley had joined four years ago when the carnival passed through Little Rock, Arkansas.
After staring at her notes for a moment, Maggie folded up the page and tucked it into her pocket. Now came the hard part. Somehow, she had to find out what currently unsolved robberies had been committed in the right areas during those two periods.
Great.
There were a number of problems. Access to information, for one. Uncle Cyrus could find out what she needed to know, and he was probably the only one who could—if she could get word to him, that is. Gideon was, as he’d been from the beginning, another of the problems. She couldn’t hold him off much longer when it wasn’t what she wanted to do, and she had the unnerving feeling that it would be pretty much impossible to hide anything from him once he was in her bed.
They were sitting on a powder keg here. There was a killer among them, everyone was unusually tense and secretive, and Jasper had come up missing.
Jasper…where did he fit in? Maggie wondered. Another victim who had accidentally found something he shouldn’t have? He’d been with Wonderland for more than twenty years. Did that mean anything? She had checked his wagon earlier, discovering that all his belongings were accounted for; there was no indication that he’d decided to leave on his own. And though he’d often wandered off, he’d been gone too long this time.
Far too long.
“Are you still here?” Tina came into her wagon looking faintly surprised. “A problem with the books?”
“No, I was just…thinking. Where’s Gideon?”
“Looking for you. Having a hard time, too. Everyone keeps asking him how we should portion out shares, and he’s obviously not about to offer an opinion.”