Sinful Suspense Box Set (21 page)

Chapter 1

Charli

Virginia Piedmont, May 1921

“They don’t look
blue to me,” Rose said emphatically. “If they’re going to call something blue then it should at least be blue and not gray.”

I gazed out the window at the Blue Ridge Mountains as they rolled silently and majestically along next to us. “Think it depends on when you’re looking at them, Rose. They look sort of blue to me.”

The steering wheel of the box truck wobbled wildly in Buck’s thick hands as we traveled over a roughly cut swath of dirt. His big red beard twitched, which meant he was thinking. My stepfather, Buck Starfield, owner of the Starfield Traveling Show, was always thinking. Unfortunately, a lot of times he was thinking about a bottle of whiskey, or the gaming tables or food, or anything else that satisfied his huge hunger for life. But plenty of that beard twitching thought time went into planning how to make more money.

He drummed his fingers to a silent tune in his head. “Should be plenty of profit out here. Those meddling ole women of the Christian Temperance Union have unwittingly showered this area with gold. There isn’t a boy or man living along the base of these mountains who isn’t making moonshine or running it across the bridges to the District. Poor as field mice they were until those self-righteous dames pushed their agenda through the government. Thing is, this area was
dry
even before prohibition, so they already had their backyard stills bubbling long before the whole country went dry. They were ahead of the game. Now the government’s loss, is the moonshiner’s gain. And their pockets will be bursting with plenty of cash to spend at our show.”

I  unwrapped a biscuit I’d saved from breakfast and broke off a piece. “Especially now that we sold off most of the animals.” I took a bite. “They were eating up too much profit.”

“Along with an animal tamer or two,” Rose quipped, but it really wasn’t something to be made light of. Nathan, our last lion tamer, had lost a hand during feeding time.

“Yes, I don’t think any of us want to relive that nightmare.” Suddenly, the biscuit lost its appeal. I tossed it out the window for the birds. “Sometimes common sense wins the day.”

Buck’s laugh was the kind that sounded like a bass drum, and it rocked the cab of the truck. “My god, Charli, you sound just like your ma. It was her
common sense
that insisted we lose the oddities sideshow too. ‘Buck Starfield, it just isn’t right to profit from the plight of others’, she’d croon in that honey-sweet voice I couldn’t say
no
to. That woman could say ‘Buck, eat your boots’ and I’d be slipping my boot off with one hand and reaching for the salt shaker with the other. But it nearly sank the whole damn show getting rid of those sideshow freaks.”

It always made me smile when he talked lovingly about my mother. As long as we talked about her life, and not her death, then everything was fine. Her death was another matter all together. For the most part, I’d walled that horrid memory up so securely it rarely surfaced. When it did manage to break through, the entire horrifying event would solidify and sit like a cannon ball in my gut. Then I’d push it back out of reach again. “But the stunt show was her idea, and it’s been far more profitable than any of the poor, pathetic creatures you were dragging along for display.”

“No argument from me on that, Charli. Economy, that’s what we’re practicing now.”

I looked over at him. “You just remember that when you’re leaning half-cocked over the green felt of a gaming table. If this place is crawling with rum runners—”

“Like ants climbing a mound of sugar,” he added.

“Right. Then that means there’ll be temptation and a speakeasy on every empty corner. You’re going to have to practice some self-control, Buck, or it’ll be the end for us all.”

“Speaking of temptation,” Rose chimed in. “Buck, you need to remind Carl not to put the cotton candy cart right next to the burlesque tent. At the last show, every time I turned around, some young kid was hiding behind his pillow of cotton candy, ogling me through the tent flaps.”

Still clutching tightly to the steering wheel, Buck leaned forward to get a better view of the road ahead. “Don’t remember this strip when I drove out here to secure the lot and hang posters.”

“Don’t tell me you’re lost again,” I said. “The other drivers are going to spit fire if they have to turn their hauls around.”

Buck tilted his head to glance in the side mirror. “Charli, roll down that window and pull yourself out on the ledge to count the trucks to make sure everyone has caught up.”

“On this bumpy road?” I sighed, and pushed Emma’s head over to Rose’s shoulder. She’d stayed asleep, and we were all grateful for her nap. Emma had a tendency to fall in love at every stop, even knowing full well that after eight weeks, we’d pack up everything, the tents, the ticket wagons, the mechanical rides and the main attraction, the Death Sphere, and move on to the next venue. But every time, she’d meet and fall head over heels with some man. Then we’d suffer her moaning and crying for the first five hours of the journey until she cried herself dry and dropped off to sleep. What I couldn’t figure was how she managed to find so many men to fall for. I’d yet to find one man who I’d be willing to spend one hour crying over. Let alone five.

“Watch the holes,” I reminded Buck. “I don’t want to be pitched out.” I pulled myself up and clutched the top edge of the truck as I perched on the door. Verdant green hills stretched poetically across the Piedmont landscape, punctuated occasionally by a jagged outcropping of silver-gray granite. To say the land was lush with foliage would have been an understatement. The smell of grass was nearly strong enough to overcome the tangy smelling engine oil of the truck.

Like a parade of plodding gray elephants, the Starfield trucks rumbled along behind us. I lowered my head into the cab. “Fifteen. Looks like everyone made it.” I stayed up on the window ledge, deciding the crisp May breeze was worth the risk of being tossed out.

“See that Model T parked in that field over there, Charli?” Buck called from inside. “See if someone’s in it. I want to make sure we’re heading the right way.”

“Are we almost there?” Emma asked groggily. Buck’s baritone voice, the voice that announced all the big top shows, had woken her. “I need to take a wee real bad,” she yawned.

I shaded my eyes with my hand. The shabby, tattered top of a worn looking Model T sat perfectly still amidst the shrubs, trees and rocks as if it was a natural part of the landscape. The back window was hazy, but I saw movement.

I leaned down. “I see someone inside. Maybe the car broke down.”

Buck stopped the truck, and the squeak of fifteen brakes sounded behind us. “Yell to him, will ya, Charli? We’re looking for the Muskee corn fields. That’s where we’re setting up.”

I cupped my hands. “Excuse me! You there, in the Tin Lizzy.”

A man’s face popped up in the backseat window. A long pair of naked legs swung around. A few seconds later, the back door opened.

I slid off the edge of the door and plunked hard onto the front seat. “Shit. He wasn’t alone, and I think we just stopped him in the middle of something he probably didn’t want to be stopped from.” I could hear his feet crunching the grass as he headed toward the truck. I stared down at my lap, wishing I wasn’t the one sitting at the passenger window.

Rose and Emma stared unabashedly at the approaching figure. “Oh my,” Emma said enthusiastically. “Looks like they breed them tall and fine out here.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Christ, Emma, you make him sound like a horse. Still, he is awfully damn pretty for a back country boy.”

I finally found the nerve to look out the window. He’d pulled the gun holster and black suspenders over his shoulders but hadn’t taken the time to button his shirt. His long legs carried him purposefully across the field.

“At least he took the time to pull on his pants,” I mumbled to myself, but Emma heard.

She huffed in disappointment. “And I was thinking just the opposite.”

The muscular build of the man’s chest was enough to cause Emma to suck in a long breath. “I haven’t seen a man like that since—” She giggled. “Hell, I’ve never seen a man like that . . . except in my dreams.”

The man didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look pleased either. His blue eyes flashed with caution as he pushed the black fedora low on his head. It wasn’t as if we’d crept up on him with our fifteen truck parade. And our motives were painted on the side of each truck, making it pretty obvious why we were traveling through.

He still hadn’t bothered to button up his shirt when he stopped at the truck window. I leaned back on the seat so he could talk to Buck, and I could be invisible. Of course, the direct sight line to Buck was blocked by Rose and Emma, who gazed openly at the man as if a six foot two stick of rock sugar candy had just walked up to the truck.

“Are you lost?” he asked in a deep, clear voice that sounded like smooth bourbon whiskey, if whiskey could be heard instead of tasted.

“Not sure,” Buck said.

“I’m guessing you’re that traveling show I saw advertised in the window of Belle’s restaurant. If you’re looking for the abandoned corn fields, just keep heading down this road three miles or so. When you see a never ending patch of barren land, you’re there.”

I snuck a peek at him. Aside from an inch long scar running down from his dark eyebrow, his profile was chiseled perfection.

“Now that’s blue,” Rose blurted, and then seemed a little embarrassed about it once she’d gotten everyone’s attention. “Forgive me, I was just saying how those Blue Ridge Mountains didn’t look all that blue, but those eyes of yours, well . . .” She sat back and sealed her lips shut. I’d never seen Rose taken with anyone, and being an exotic dancer, she’d had plenty of admirers. But Rose had lost her beloved husband, Paul, in the war, and she’d had little interest in any men since. She’d joined up with our show after becoming so destitute, she was living on the streets in New York.

Buck nodded. “Much obliged, Mr.—”

“Jarrett. I take it you’re Mr. Starfield, like it says on the side of the truck.”

“That’s me. Buck Starfield. Hope we see you at the show.”

Emma leaned forward with a bright smile. “You like girlie shows, Mr. Jarrett? Me and Rose, here, put on a real fine performance.”

“Don’t know any man out here with a pumping heart and air in his lungs who doesn’t like to watch beautiful women dancing.” His mouth tilted up.

I could actually feel Emma blush next to me.

He turned his face and glanced at me from beneath the brim of his hat. He pulled his gaze away but then his attention snapped back to me. For a long, odd moment he stared at me, openly, as if no one else was sitting in the truck.

A breeze kicked up pushing back the panels of the man’s white shirt, exposing a small chest tattoo. The tattoo was a cross with a doughboy’s helmet hanging over it. I glimpsed an ugly round scar on his side that looked as if someone had taken an awl and drilled a hole in his flesh.

“Were you in France, Mr. Jarrett?” Rose asked.

The cross and helmet vibrated with the movement of his chest muscles as he pulled his shirt together. “Yeah, I was there,” he said quickly as if he wasn’t interested in talking about it.

Rose didn’t take the hint. “My husband died in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.”

His blue eyes that had glittered up until this point, grew darker. “Sorry to hear. That’s where I fought too.” He returned his attention to me. “Are you a dancer too?”

I shook my head. “Two left feet.”

There it was again, that gaze. As if we were completely alone.

“Jackson!” A woman with a cherry red cloche pulled low over her springy blonde curls leaned out the window of his car. “I’ve got to be at work in an hour.”

He looked back toward the Ford. “I’ll be right there.”

“Well, we’ve got to get moving,” Buck said. “Be sure to let all your friends know that we open in two weeks as long as the weather stays on our side. Thanks for your help.”

He tipped his hat. “Ladies.” I had no idea why the sound of his voice stirred me so profoundly, but it was a confident, strong tone that was edged with something deep, like a sorrow that couldn’t be healed. 

Mr. Jarrett looked at me again and tilted his head in a silent gesture of good-bye. He turned around and headed back to his Ford. Buck started the truck. The motors behind us fired up as well. Some of them needing more coaxing than others. We lurched forward. Rose, Emma and I watched the man walk back to the car. The confident set of his broad shoulders made it hard to look away.

“Oh my,” Emma sighed. “I’m in love.”

Rose laughed. “Don’t get yourself all worked up before we even pitch a tent, Em. Besides, didn’t you see the way he was looking at our Charli, here?”

I snorted a laugh. “Oh please, Rose. You’ve been sitting in the cab of this truck inhaling Buck’s aftershave all day. You’re drunk from it all.”

“Not the least bit intoxicated, and I know what I saw. Still, that man’s seen his share of the underworld if he was in France. Did you see that nasty looking scar on his side? Bayonet or a bullet, I’m sure of it. None of those boys came back the same, you know?” She drifted off into one of her long, solemn moments, back to her time with Paul. “They were lucky to come back alive, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t leave a piece of themselves back there on those blood soaked French fields. And not just flesh either. They left their hearts over there. They came back with souls so tattered, they can’t ever be patched.”

“Good lord, Rose,” Buck laughed. The wagon lurched clumsily from side to side, and we gripped the dashboard and each other to keep from slipping off the front seat. “One minute, you’re smearing rouge and gluing pasties on your nipples, and the next, you’re philosophizing about life.”

Rose’s mouth turned down on the edges. Sometimes Buck could say hurtful things without even realizing he’d done it. I reached over and squeezed Rose’s hand. She smiled weakly.

“Did I mention I have to take a wee,” Emma piped up. Even sitting between Rose and me, she was oblivious to Rose’s feelings. And everyone else’s but her own, for that matter.

“I’m not going to stop this whole caravan again just so you can squat in the shrubs, Emma,” Buck said. “Besides, we’re almost there. I’ve got a good feeling about this place, girls. I’ve got a real good feeling.”

I glanced back at the Model T. It was making its way across the field toward the road. Oddly enough, just like Buck, I had a feeling about this place too. I just wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.