He’s handsome, which I find annoying. And he’s interested in me, which is a red flag all by itself. Men are only interested in me for one thing. It’s a lesson I learned early and often. “Is behind the scenes code for you taking me back to some bunk bed in a trailer? Because no.”
“No trailers. No beds. No enclosed spaces. Just a walk out in the open.”
I should say no, but I can’t deny the pull. It’s the same thing that drew everyone within a fifty-mile radius to the circus tonight. Something new. A breath of fresh air in the dusty sauna of small-town America. “For a little while.”
He nods his assent and starts walking. I have to put a little skip in my step to catch up. My throat still feels kind of raw from Asshole #2’s grip, but I appreciate Logan not making a big deal out of it. Knowing my skin it’s probably red if not already bruising blue. It’s a little mutual charade of normalcy in the strangest place on earth.
The last thing I want to do is sit with some ice pack around my throat.
Or worse, to go home.
There’s another tent back here, smaller than the huge one up front, but still pretty massive. The size of a grocery store. The walls on this one are pure white instead of striped with red. The blank canvas highlights the dust that’s been kicked up all around it.
I nod toward it. “Is that where the animals are kept?”
A quirk of his lips. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Elephants? Lions? Bears who wear tutus and balance freshly baked pies on their paws?”
“I can only imagine your perception of circus acts comes from 1950s black-and-white movies. We don’t have animals now. Activists ended that years ago.”
“You seem like someone who’d tell them to fuck right off.”
“Sometimes that isn’t enough. Especially when it comes to getting permits from city councils and mayors. Cash doesn’t always grease palms the way it used to.”
“Except in backward podunk nowhere.”
“Yes, except here.”
“So what happened to the lions and bears? Were they sent to be slaughtered?”
He makes a tsk sound. “So jaded for someone so young.”
“I’m a realist.”
“The circus owns a farm in Nebraska. Forty acres devoted to circus animal senior living. That’s where the last of them live out their days getting pampered.”
I grimace. “That sounds like something a parent tells a small child. Where did my old dog go? Oh, we just sent them to a farm so they could live out their days in paradise.”
“Believe what you like.” He nods toward the tent. “It houses operations, mostly. They handle setup and tear down. And when we’re in the middle of the circus, they keep the machinery running smoothly. There’s also security and a small area for administration. Payroll and all that.”
Operations. That’s the kind of thing they have at the logging company. I never thought about operations when it comes to something as playful as a circus. “So you’re… What? Security?”
A faint smile. “I put out fires. That’s my job.”
“And I qualify as a fire?”
That earns me a long, dark look. He takes me in from the roots of my black hair to my feet in worn sandals, the purple nail polish on my toes long scraped off, leaving only the reminder in pop-art shards. “You qualify as a goddamn emergency.”
It comes out as a drawl, though from what part of the country I have no idea. There’s resignation in his tone. Interest, too. As though he’s given up resisting…for now. “Prepare to be disappointed. People usually are.”
“You seem like someone who’d tell them to fuck right off.”
The approval in his tone makes my cheeks heat. “It doesn’t always work.”
Though I’m not talking about city council permits or cash bribes.
My hand goes to my neck, which still feels hot from Asshole #2’s grip. And dirty. I need a shower, but I know that’s not going to make the feeling go away. “Sometimes I think I should leave and never come back.”
“Bullies are everywhere.”
“Put that on a motivational poster.”
“Why do you think people work in the circus? Always traveling. Never staying put. Bullies are in every city we visit, but we don’t stick around. The circus is a safe haven for a lot of people.”
I glance at him, with the muscles pushing against the T-shirt and long legs. And his no-bullshit expression. There wasn’t any fear when he faced down three pissed-off guys. “You don’t seem like someone who’d need a safe haven.”
Another one of those faint smiles. They would seem almost mocking if it weren’t for the self-directed derision in his eyes, as if he’s admitting something personal with the slightest lift of his lips. “We all need to feel safe.”
“Bullshit.”
He stops walking and faces me. His voice goes soft. “Excuse me?”
“You say a lot of words that mean nothing. Bullies are everywhere. Everyone needs safety. Your job is to put out fires. You speak in generalities because they make you feel… What? Wise? Better than everyone? Like some kind of sideshow prophet?”
“Is that what you want me to do? Tell you your future?”
Now he’s pissing me off. He has as many red flags as the tents in this circus, with his vague words and his evasive answers and his frustrating, beautiful, charming smile. “No, I want you to tell me something real. Something specific.”
“Fine.” He runs a hand through dark hair, making it spill over his forehead. I didn’t realize it was held in check by so little, by the tilt of his head, by the lack of his frustration. “You want something real? Something specific? Well, specifically, it pisses me off that the circus can’t have animals when they got sirloin steaks for walking in a few circles and better health care than most people get. Now we have people working through injuries to feed their kids, and that’s supposed to be more fucking humane? Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes,” I breathe, because it’s horrifying, all of it, but it’s real. And I crave something real.
He steps close—close enough that I can see a starburst scar on his left cheek and the gold striations in his green eyes.
Before he’d been like a marble statue of handsomeness, Photoshopped by the sun into the abstract. Now he’s close enough that I can see dark stubble, close enough that I can smell a faint masculine musk.
“Specifically,” he says, his voice lower now, “the dark peach of your lips makes me want to kiss you. Even though that should be the last thing on my mind after seeing those fuckers hurt you.”
Shock holds my feet to the earth. If some guy at the coffee shop threatened to kiss me I’d probably slap him. But I have no idea how to react when this man speaks to me this way. My mouth suddenly feels awake, as if it wants his lips.
I asked for something real. Something specific. He’s giving it to me.
“Specifically,” he says, touching a hand to my sternum—above my breasts, below my neck, a place both innocuous and impossibly intimate. “The bruises on your neck make me want to track down those assholes, beat them to shit, and drown them in a fucking swamp. I’m sure you have swamps around here somewhere, right? Most small towns do.”