Seeing Jenson has put me in a funk. Not necessarily a bad one, but I’m shaken up a bit. It reminded me why I fell so hard for him in the first place. He was this worldly soul, strikingly beautiful in his mystery, and he offered me a place to hide away for a while. I guess it was his career that stripped some of his ambiguity, exposed him and me for the world to scrutinize. We weren’t a safe little secret for long. In a way, the alcohol kind of makes sense now. If I were him, maybe I’d want to find something else to get lost in, too.

When the last dregs of Jenson wear off, I decide to get out of the house. There’s too much nervous energy wound up inside me to stay confined. Fortunately, Lynn needs my help with this weekend’s spring carnival. She tells me it’s an annual thing and that she always sponsors a booth of some sort to advertise her business. This year she’s chosen face painting, and she volunteered my services and notified me after the fact. Of course, I agreed. It will be nice to focus on something other than the trials and tribulations of my relationships.

I take a half day on Friday, giving myself time to stop by Lynn’s to help her pack up her booth and all the other necessary supplies. When I arrive, I find her frazzled and sweaty, impatiently shoving things into the back of her truck.

“Hey, what pissed you off?” I joke, and when she turns to me, her face crumples. She wipes sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, leaning back against the truck and turning her face up toward the sky.

Huffing out a breath, she says, “I need to rethink my business strategy or go get a day job or something.” When my puzzled expression remains, she throws her hands up in the air. “I need to sell more shit! This good-for-nothing town is good for nothing! I swear. And I know it doesn’t help that I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, with no way for passersby to even catch wind of my little fucking barn of furniture.” She kicks her foot back and it bounces off the tire.

I’m not used to this side of Lynn, so I’m not sure how to approach this. Does she want empathy or a solution? I decide to go for both. “I get it. This place is a black hole for businesses. I don’t know how any of you do it. So, are you looking for a place closer to town to rent? Maybe off the square, for visibility?”

“I could never afford that. I’m doing okay, but not well enough, and Adam’s on the road enough as it is. We’re stretched to the limit already.”

“Okay, so we’ll do some advertising. Make up some new business cards, and maybe posters we can put up in the windows of businesses in nearby towns to route traffic here. It’s not hopeless. You’ve got some options.”

“I’m fucking pregnant,” she says, so matter-of-factly that I do a double take.

“Like, you’re ‘missed your period’ pregnant? Or ‘have a sonogram picture’ pregnant?” There’s a bold distinction between the two. A lot can happen between the pee-stick and the photos.

“I’m twelve weeks along. I was already irregular, so I didn’t think anything of it. Other than that, I had no symptoms.” Her grimness makes my heart hurt.

“But, Lynn, that’s . . . amazing! Aren’t you excited?”

“I wish I could be, but this is just not the time, you know? I just wish we had planned it better. And I know that makes me sound like a selfish, ungrateful bitch. I do. But Adam’s been working so hard . . .” She begins to cry, and I take her by the shoulders and hug her. I cannot imagine the war of emotions raging inside her head right now. To be told you’re expecting this little bundle of hope, but to have so much fear and anxiety about it . . . it’s heartbreaking.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise you. You’ll make it work, even it means giving up mushroom-and-swiss burgers and beers at The Pit. And I can babysit for you, all right?” Grief stabs at my heart, but I fend it off with the empathy I feel for my friend. “We’ll go kick ass at the fair, and then we’ll plan what to do next. But don’t let this news be a burden. Please? For me?” Lynn rolls her lips between her teeth, trying to stave off the next wave of tears, and I use my sleeve to clean up her smeared makeup. “Besides, I’m not used to seeing this much emotion out of you. Cut it out. You’re making my heart hurt.”

Finally, she laughs. It’s just a few short exhalations, but it’s something.

“Now let’s go sell some fucking furniture,” I tell her, guiding her toward the front seat of the truck.

We drive through town and turn into the fairgrounds, which are now teeming with vehicles and trailers and people who are raising a carnival seemingly from nothing. Every time I pass this place, it’s a ghost town—the bleachers and arenas and animal pens garnering no attention other than abuse from the elements. In less than a week, it’s been transformed. New banners lining the panels of the arena sway in the breeze, the bleachers have been swept, vendors have righted their stalls and begun filling them with their wares, and the barren pasture has become a child’s paradise. Brightly-colored carnival rides I wouldn’t get ten feet away from fill the void that’s soon to be awash with the light from their fluorescent bulbs. At sunset, there will be magic in Heronwood.

Lynn parks beside the staked-out area designated for “Shanalynn’s Designs,” and we set to work unpacking. It’s laborious in the late-April heat, but Lynn keeps me entertained with a constant stream of chatter, as per usual. She points out a few other vendors, giving another furniture-restorer a dirty look for “encroaching on her territory three years in a row.”

“I’ve come to learn that you have to cater to the kids. After all, reel them in and their parents are forced to come along and listen to your entire spiel, too. And kids are cake. Rent a clown who knows how to make balloon animals, or buy a few tubes of paint, and you’ve got ’em where you want ’em.”

“Why didn’t you mention that renting a clown was an option? I can’t paint worth a crap.” I slap the last tube of paint down on the table she’s made from a whiskey barrel and a wagon wheel, feigning disdain. I don’t really mind, as long as she’s not expecting da Vinci.

“You’re cheaper.” She winks, bumping me with her hip.

I giggle and pretend to toast her with my perspiring water bottle. “You’re right.”

I’m relieved her spirits have lifted since this afternoon. I still feel a hollowness in my belly at the news, a longing ache that I’d almost gotten over now flaring back up. But I’m happy for her, truly, and I won’t let my sadness infringe on the joy I’m trying to provoke in her.

The heat has me dreading summer, but thankfully, we’re just about finished setting up. In good time, too—there’s already traffic in the parking lot. Probably parents who want to get their kids’ cotton candy fix in time to get home and fire up the DVR alongside a bottle of wine. I wipe my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand for the umpteenth time, and Lynn thrusts a swatch of fabric in my direction.

“What’s this?”

“To keep the sweat out of your eyes.” She gestures up toward the bandana that’s tied around her head like a headband.

“You carry extras?”

“I may not act like a real grown-up the majority of the time, but you can’t say I’m not always prepared.”

I accept the bandana, wrapping it around my head in an imitation of hers. “Thanks. Not that this is going to help with my painting skills.”

“At least you won’t be blind and unartistic. Just google whatever the kid wants. It won’t be that hard.”

“Until someone asks me for Hulk and walks away looking like Shrek.”

She rolls her eyes at me and leaves to drop her truck off in the lot. When I grab my phone out of my purse to check it, any annoyance I felt about the heat and my non-existent artistic skills is forgotten when I see a text waiting from Dane.

 

Dane: Carnival?

 

Butterflies take flight in my stomach. Is he here? I scan the area to make sure he’s not hiding somewhere, but he’s nowhere in sight. And I would notice. He doesn’t blend in well.

 

Me: Yes. Face painting.

 

When Lynn returns a few minutes later, I haven’t yet received a response. I tuck my phone away before she can see that I’m waiting for an answer. I haven’t told anyone about Dane and I, even her. She’s trustworthy, but still. You never know who will talk when they don’t understand the severity of the situation. Until I can find a clear path out of this mess, I don’t think I can trust mentioning it to anybody.

After putting the final touches on her stall, we park ourselves at a table in front, paints and brushes and cups of water spread out before us. All promotional materials, along with a banner across the booth, announce her business in brash, pink letters. It’s in-your-face and loud; a little bit like Lynn. I make a note to research some rebranding strategies later. It probably wouldn’t hurt to give her marketing materials a fresh look. We chat and take in the sights, people-watching and joking around until our first customer arrives.

“Hello, little sir. Who would you like to be today?”

I have to do a double take to make sure the girl sitting beside me is still Lynn. She’s gone from foul-mouthed to kid-whisperer in zero-point-five seconds. Yep, still here, and she’s looking down at what I estimate to be a five-year-old boy with affection.

The boy growls menacingly, or what he means to be menacing. “A dinosaur!”

“All right. Let’s give you some sharp, sharp teeth,” Lynn says, settling him into an empty chair. She’s a natural—other than the money situation, I don’t understand why she’s so worried. The boy’s mother hands me two tickets, and I give her a gift bag filled with pens and koozies and other Shanalynn Designs-related swag in exchange.

I watch carefully as Lynn uses her pinky to stabilize her hand as she moves the paint brush across the boy’s face, coating it in green paint first. I’ll have to absorb all the art experience I can before the next kid arrives and asks me to transform her into a fairy princess or something. How does one become a fairy princess with paint?

Luckily, traffic is slow early on, and I have time to relax and observe before a short line forms and I’m forced to take on my first miniature customer.

“I want to be a princess!” the little girl proclaims, folding her hands primly in her lap. I stifle a groan.

“Think rosy cheeks and glitter,” Lynn says from the corner of her mouth, and I dip my brush into some of the pink paint to begin.

The final result is more reminiscent of a clown, but the girl squeals in delight when I show her with a handheld mirror. “Beautiful,” I say persuasively, and the girl claps her hands and nods her head, making her wheaten curls bob.

“I hope all of them are as enthusiastic.”

“Don’t count on it,” Lynn says with a laugh.

I receive requests for a cat, then a wolf, and the animal transformations prove to be easier than anything else. All they need is a black nose and some colored fur. I add angry eyebrows to the wolf and whiskers to the cat, just to make it more believable, then send the kids on their merry way.

The task at hand doesn’t stop me from observing the streams of people that pass by, casually keeping a lookout for a familiar blond head. I’m beginning to recognize more and more of the population with each passing day, and almost all of them have something to say to Lynn. My spine tenses as I spot a couple of the Town Moms parading by with their brood, disseminating giant pretzels, juggling tickets and game prizes, and cleaning powdered sugar off faces with baby wipes.

“No, baby. I told you a hundred times. If you win something, you’ve got to carry it yourself. I’m not haulin’ that thing around. Uh-uh. I got enough to take care of as it is. You’ve got funnel cake in your hair, for heaven’s sake,” one of them—Josie?—is saying to a sticky-fingered girl.

I stifle a giggle in response to the commentary, grabbing Lynn’s arm to steady myself. There really is no place like Heronwood. Lynn gives me an absconding look before fighting her own smile. I don’t relax until the women pass by without stopping, giving us little polite waves and gesturing to their kids like they have too much on their hands to stop.

I’m just about to refill the stack of business cards when the man Lynn pointed out as Dane’s father on our coffee date rounds the basketball-shooting stall with another well-dressed gentleman. The unfamiliar one has an austere air about him. Around here, that kind of well-bred authority is pretty rare. It’s hard to take my eyes off the pair so blatantly out of place amongst the screaming kids. Snippets of my conversation with Dane resurface, and panic darts through my chest. I was wary of the other Crosses before, but now, knowing the threat they pose to both of us, that wariness tiptoes into fear. Before the men notice me staring, I squat down to organize the paints for the hundredth time.

Thinking I’ve succeeded at avoiding confrontation, I look up with a start when a pair of light-up sneakers appears right in front of me. “Will you make me Spiderman?” a little boy, about six years old, asks, wringing his hands.

I give him a tight smile, standing up from the bag of supplies. “Um. Okay. Lynn might be a better option for that one.” When I gesture toward Lynn with my shoulder, a man speaks up.

“We’re actually in a time crunch. Have to drop him back off at my son’s place. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” The words are delivered in a clipped, slightly harassed tone by the man I’d just seen walking with the eldest Cross. And just over his shoulder, I spot Ben Cross himself. He meets my eyes and gives me the barest nod of acknowledgement, and a chill runs down my spine.

“Right. Okay, then. Have a seat.” I pat the chair across from me, giving the child an encouraging smile despite the lump in my throat.

“If it isn’t the Mayor of Heronwood, come to mingle with the commoners! How’ve you been, Mayor Michaels?” Lynn’s voice is buttery smooth, but I detect the condescension.

The mayor? I wasn’t expecting that title to come up anytime soon. I glance up casually to gauge his reaction, though it’s strange to be making eye contact with the man Dane supposedly turned into ground beef. He’s not a bad-looking guy, with that square jaw that women pine over and the perfect amount of salt in his pepper hair. But his wide, gray eyes give him that permanently mistrusting look, and his gaze flits between Lynn and I so rapidly it makes me uneasy. Is it just my imagination or is his nose a little off-center?

“The carnival is a great opportunity to get out amongst the people and see our policies at work,” he replies smoothly. I wonder if similar words are printed on campaign pamphlets somewhere.

“No better place to observe the effectiveness of our education system and law enforcement, that’s for sure.” Lynn looks pointedly at two officers as they lean against one of the striped food stands, both stuffing their faces with corndogs.

The mayor doesn’t turn to see whom she’s referring to. His wandering eyes have settled on me.

“And you must be . . .”

“Raven. Sutter.” I lean over and offer my hand, which he accepts after a moment’s hesitation.

“Sutter, did you say? Hmm.”

“Yep.” I don’t elaborate on that, though I catch his suggestive tone. I focus back on the red paint I’m applying to his grandson’s face. “Your newest inhabitant.”

He smiles, but his icy expression doesn’t warm. “Well, I hope you’ve found our residents to be welcoming and our city officials accommodating.”  

Mike Branson’s repeated offers to assist me in any way possible come to mind. “Especially so, Mayor.”

When his cellphone chirps to life at his belt, Grant Michaels gives me a look that’s probably meant to be regretful. “Excuse me. Duty calls.” He turns to step away, nodding at Ben, and they both disappear around the corner. An odd feeling that I can’t place twists in my gut.

“Can I have glitter?” A little voice alerts me to the child that’s still waiting patiently in front of me. He doesn’t seem to be fazed by his grandfather’s sudden departure. I wonder how many directions the mayor’s been pulled in tonight and how many boring adult conversations he’s had to bear.

Thinking I may have misheard him, I bend my head closer. “I’m sorry?”

“Glitter. It distracts the bad guys,” he declares, gaining confidence. Somewhere in the middle of his transformation, we’ve become unlikely comrades.

“Right you are, buddy.” I take a deep breath before starting on the black, web-like lines. The bright paint looks garish against his smooth, childish skin, but he asked for Spiderman. Glittery Spiderman. And that’s what he’s going to get.

I’m just perfecting the web on his forehead when a familiar voice distracts me. “I hope I’m not intruding,” someone says, so close to my ear that I drop my paintbrush, leaving a black smear on my bare leg. When I look up, I see that it’s just Dane. The unexpected appearance of the mayor has made me jumpier than I thought.

Dane leans casually against Lynn’s booth, but his eyes are trained on the corndog stand Grant and Trey disappeared behind. His gaze switches back to me, and he smiles without concern. I’m putty in my chair. God, what happened to my spine? As if he didn’t look irresistible enough in a t-shirt and shorts, he’s wearing a plaid button-up that hangs open, revealing a white shirt underneath that’s almost blinding against his tan skin.

“You are, actually,” I say, my heart hammering out a desperate beat in my chest. I pick up my brush and pick stray bits of grass from the bristles. “You’re interrupting something very important. Spiderman, here, has a city to watch over tonight. He needs his disguise.”

“Glitter Spiderman,” the kid pipes up.

“It distracts the bad guys,” I add conspiratorially.

“I also heard that glitter deflects bullets. So there’s that.” Dane grins, his attention focused solely on the boy in front of me, who seems embarrassed, and maybe slightly thrilled, under all the attention.

“Bullet deflectors. Very necessary when you’re protecting Heronwood.” I wipe a stray paint smear from his jaw and sit back to examine my work, all the while conscious of the overwhelming presence behind me.

“Not Heronwood, silly. New York,” the kid corrects me.

“Of course. How could I forget? All right, you’re all set. Say hello to Mary Jane for me.”

“I will!” he announces, hopping out of his seat. He’s about to take off when I call out to him.

“Wait wait wait! Should you be going off alone?”

Giving me a look of admonishment as if I should know better, he says, “It’s okay, I know where my papa is. And anyway, I shouldn’t interrupt him while he’s ‘taking care of business.’ ”

“Okay,” I relent. “Be careful, though. Don’t talk to strangers.”

“This isn’t my first carnival, you know.” He beams and, just like that, disappears in a whirl of red, black, and glitter. 

I relax backward in my seat, taking a long gulp of water. The line has died down and Lynn has our very last customer in her seat, in the middle of transforming her into a butterfly.

“Good work,” Dane says.

“I’m just not sure about that guy. The mayor.”

“I meant the paint. Might as well be Spiderman’s twin.”

“Oh. I thought he looked more like a red-and-black fly swatter,” I say with a wince, pressing a cold water bottle against my neck. Though it’s getting later and the air is cooling, it feels like the immediate atmosphere has heated a few degrees.

“Hmm. I’m suddenly very, very thirsty.” Dane steps up beside my chair, but the distance he keeps between us is noticeable. Maybe not to Lynn, or to anyone else on the grounds, but to me, someone whom he’s shared so many loaded words and moments with. I assume he’s doing it on purpose.

I swivel in my seat to face him, handing him the bottle. He keeps his eyes on mine as he takes a long pull, the ridge in his neck bobbing as he swallows. I chase my wandering thoughts out of my head as the carnival whirs on around us, all flashing lights, peals of laughter, and wails from unhappy, sticky children.

“Did you see your dad?”

Dane licks his lower lip. “I did, but he’ll be occupied tonight. I thought I would keep an eye on things.”

The town drug lord and the mayor. Seems like an unlikely pair. I glance toward Lynn, but she doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. Still, I’d rather be safe than sorry. “Ride any rides yet?”

“Nobody to ride them with, unfortunately.” The contemplative look in his eyes says otherwise. He wants to ride with me.

“They’re all death traps anyways.”

His eyes roam my face, as if he’s drinking me in and committing me to memory, and I flush with pink. When something soft grazes my hand that’s on the chair-back, I quirk my eyebrow questioningly. He nods in reassurance, and my hand searches briefly, brushing his calloused palm before closing around a handful of stems. When I peek over the chair, I see that it’s a bouquet of wildflowers. Violet-colored asters, buttercups, and some pink ones I don’t know the name of. He must have been hiding them behind his back earlier. A grin spreads slowly across my face like warm honey, and he meets it with a charming one of his own.

“For me?”

He touches his finger to his lips, but when I look over at Lynn, her back is still to us. I mouth a “thank you” and crane my neck to smell them as inconspicuously as possible. They smell sweet, like I’ve discovered most wild things of Tennessee to be.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think to pick you some.”

“I’ll be all right,” he says, a multitude of things simmering in his irises. Words he wants to say and can’t, perhaps.

What I really want to ask is when we can see each other again. But I don’t know how to without everyone finding out what we’re doing. Before I say anything, he speaks up again.

“I heard Jenson was in town.”

That statement catches me off guard. There’s no anger or worry, but also no trace of a smile in his expression.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Trey mentioned something.”

That’s odd. I glance at Lynn, but she’s taking photos of her latest victim. “I . . . I’m sorry. I would’ve told you, but it just happened.”

His fingertips graze over my knuckles, and he shrugs. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You were married. I understand there might still be some things to work out.”

I focus on the fingers tracing circles on my hand, but he recoils, stuffing his hands into his front pockets.

“Dane Cross, long time no see!” Lynn has returned to reality. I arrange my expression into something more impassive.

“If you don’t count yesterday at the hardware store.”

Lynn flaps her hand. “Not counting the domestic shit. I mean like socially. Out having a good time. Letting your hair down.”

“I wouldn’t say that, but yeah, it has been a while.”

“Carnival rides and face painting not your thing, Cross?”

His eyes settle on me for a moment before traveling back to her. “It’s a little crowded for me. I kind of prefer time to myself these days.”

My cheeks color just as she scoffs. “I guess hell has frozen over. For someone who supposedly enjoys the quiet so much, you sure have been causing a shit-storm for my friend here.” Her words are spiked with poison, but I recognize the playful tilt of her eyebrows. She’s busting his balls.

“Is that right?” he asks, focusing back on me. “How so?”

“Ah, the usual shit. Girls’ night was a bloodbath. Of course, Raven defending you was like chumming the water.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, lower. “I’ve made my bed, now I’ve got to lie in it.”

“And a hell of a bed it is. Just make sure nobody gets stuck in the sheets, am I right?”

“Lynn!” I scold when I can finally string a word together. I’m afraid that her animation will attract attention.

“Oh, I’m kidding. I don’t care who’s in Dane’s sheets. Could be you, could be a dozen other gals, right? None of my business. None.” She mimics zipping her mouth closed and locking it. Dane watches us amusedly, giving me a subtle shake of his head. I just roll my eyes.

“Anyway, I should get out of here. I only came because it looked like a good place for wildflowers.” He gives me a subtle wink, squeezing my hand behind the cover of the chair-back. Before I can say anything else, he’s turning and striding off, a head taller than most of the crowd.

“That was weird. I hope he’s not doing whatever his brother is selling.”

“Me too,” I say, my mind a million miles away from the carnival.