Shadow in Serenity

by Terri Blackstock

  When the service ended, the crowd spilled from the church and headed to the small cemetery next door, where all the members of the congregation were buried when they died.

  Carny saw Logan slip out of the crowd and hang on the outskirts, waiting for everyone to go by. Something about his forlorn posture moved her, and quietly, she went toward him. “You okay, Brisco?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Are you coming?”

  Logan turned as the church’s side door opened and the pallbearers brought out the coffin. Jack followed them.

  “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  Jason reached up for his hand, and Logan hesitated, then took it. Together, the three of them walked to the grave site.

  Logan kept his eyes on Jack as he followed the casket to the tent set up over the freshly dug grave.

  Jack whimpered as the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave. He lay with his chin on the dirt, his eyes trained on the coffin, until the closing prayer came to an end and the crowd broke up. Logan couldn’t have said why that sight touched him so, but an unspeakable despair, rooted deep in his heart, came over him. Struggling with the tears that were so foreign to him, Logan let go of Jason’s hand and went to the dog.

  Stooping, he said, “It’ll be all right, boy.” He scratched behind the dog’s floppy ear, and Jack looked up at him with moist, soulful eyes. Logan stayed there, stroking Jack and talking softly to him, until the last of the guests had offered condolences to Betsy and her family and only a few stragglers remained behind. Among them were Jason and Carny, who offered to take Betsy’s children for the night so she could rest.

  “No, I think it would be better if they were home,” Betsy was saying. “But I appreciate it, Carny. I really do.” Wiping her eyes, she turned to Logan, sitting beside the dog.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to get him away from here,” she said. “He almost bit me earlier. And we can’t keep him. John’s allergic to dogs.”

  Logan didn’t stop his reassuring stroking as he asked, “What are your options?”

  “Honestly,” Betsy said, “we’re considering having him put to sleep. He’s old, and he was so attached to Daddy …”

  Logan stood up. “He’s not that old. He’s just confused right now, Betsy. He doesn’t understand.”

  “I realize that,” she said, “but we can’t just let him hang around in the graveyard. I honestly don’t know what else to do.”

  Logan looked down at the dog, who still gazed down at the coffin. “I’ll take him,” he said.

  “What?” Betsy’s eyes lit up. “You would do that?”

  He glanced from Betsy to Carny, who looked even more confused than she had when he’d given back the money. “Yes,” he said. “Jack seems to like me. And I’ve always wanted a dog.”

  Carny’s eyes narrowed. “Logan, are you sure? You’re not exactly set up for a dog.”

  And what’ll you do with Jack when you skip town? Logan asked himself. But that didn’t seem to matter right now. There were times in a person’s life when logic had to be overruled. This was one of them.

  “Jack’s easy to take care of,” he said. “He’s housebroken, polite, and he’ll just go with me everywhere I go. Like he did with Slade.”

  But that dog will undermine everything you need to do, young man! he could almost hear Montague shouting. How can you run, blend into the background, change identities? The authorities will catch you just by identifying the dog!

  None of that mattered as he reached down and scooped Jack up in his arms. Jack whimpered and looked back at the grave, but he didn’t struggle as Logan carried him to his car.

  seventeen

  Carny pulled her motorcycle into Logan’s motel parking lot, pulled off her helmet, and straightened her hair.

  She didn’t like being confused. It disturbed her, and it blurred the lines and grayed all the colors. It made her feel unbearably vulnerable.

  But these new developments with Logan had thrown her. How could a con artist give back a hundred thousand dollars that no one even knew he had? How could he take up the care of a grieving dog, when he had to stay on the run?

  In the hours since the funeral, the remote possibility that Carny could have been wrong about Logan had tiptoed through her mind, then finally taken center stage, forcing her to come face-to-face with it. No matter what else he was, Logan Brisco was a man with a heart, as well as a conscience.

  He didn’t answer immediately after she knocked. Just when she was about to give up, the door opened.

  The room was dark, lit only by a small lamp in one corner. She felt like an intruder. “Carny,” he said, clearly surprised.

  “Did I wake you up?” she asked.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “No. I was just reading. Jack was asleep in my lap, and it took me a minute to move him.”

  She came into the room and saw Jack, curled up on the bed, looking up at her with sad, sleepy eyes. “Is he all right?”

  “He will be. We’ve kind of been bonding.”

  She smiled and turned back to him. With his face half in shadow, half in light, he looked almost compassionate, and almost as vulnerable as she felt. “You know, you’re blowing all my theories about you. I hate it when that happens.”

  He breathed a laugh. “Well, I guess something good came out of all this.” He went to clear the books off a chair so she could sit down. “Where’s Jason?”

  “He’s at Nathan’s. I had to go over to Betsy’s to take her some casseroles I made. She’s going to have a lot of company for the next few days.”

  “That was sweet.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what you do in Serenity when there’s a death in the family. You don’t know what to say, so you bring them food. Anyway, she asked me to send all this stuff over to you.”

  She handed him the bag, and he reached into it.

  “It’s just Jack’s food and the blanket he likes to sleep on, and his bowl. Familiar things … to make the transition a little easier.”

  Logan took the bag and set it down on the table. “I fed him a hamburger for supper. He ate some of it, but he didn’t have much appetite.” Dropping into his chair, he rubbed his face.

  “A lot of responsibility, isn’t it?” she said softly. “I mean, after being alone for so long, suddenly having to worry about someone else.”

  She could see that he was in a reflective mood, and his guard was down. Why that fascinated and attracted her, she wasn’t sure.

  “A few years ago, I knew a fourteen-year-old kid who had no home, no place to go, and no money except what he could make hustling pool,” he said softly. “And someone came along, at just the right moment, someone who had every reason to keep going and not look back. But he stopped and took that fourteen-year-old kid in, made him his partner, and taught him to believe he was somebody. You know who that kid was?”

  “You,” she said without a doubt.

  “Yeah. And if Montague Shelton could encumber himself with a fourteen-year-old runaway, then I can take care of an orphaned dog.”

  For a moment, Carny couldn’t think of a reply. His eyes were weary and defeated.

  “Tell me about your parents,” he said suddenly.

  She couldn’t tell if he was changing the subject, or if it was connected. “What do you want to know?”

  “Are they still living? Do you see them? Talk to them?”

  “Yes, on all three,” she said. “I may have wanted to escape their lifestyle, but they’re still my parents.”

  “Do they approve of your becoming an upstanding citizen?”

  “I’m not sure they believe I have,” she said with a rueful smile. “I think they’re a little doubtful that things will work out for me.”

  “Do they love you?”

  Her smile faded. “Of course they do. I’m their daughter.”

  “Lots of parents don’t love their children.”

  “Well, mine do. I’m their only child. There was never any question
that they loved me.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  Sighing, she got up and walked across the room, then turned back to him. “We came to Serenity, and set up next to this little church. It was really cold one Sunday morning, so I went in to get warm. And what I heard there changed my life.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “That to Jesus, I’m not just the inconvenient daughter of petty thieves. I could be the child of a king. They told me I could be forgiven for everything I’d ever done. That I could have peace.” She blew out a laugh. “That’s when I started to dream … that I could have a real home, and real friends, that I could stay in one place, and belong there, and raise my children to belong. When Abe came along, he said all the right things. He seemed like a man who cared about the same things, and could give me those things. So I married him and stayed in Serenity. The marriage turned out to be a bad idea, but staying in Serenity was just right.”

  “I envy you,” he said.

  “Why? You can do the same thing.”

  “Not really. I’ll always be an outsider.”

  “It doesn’t take a lot to be an insider in Serenity,” she said. “They’re very accepting people. You’ve already seen that.”

  Sliding down in his seat, he leaned his head back. “Do you ever miss it, Carny? Traveling, I mean? Do you ever miss the gypsy life?”

  “Never. I spent too many years wishing for a backyard where I could plant a tree and watch it grow. The first year I had my house, I planted three trees in the yard. In a few years, they’ll be big enough to climb.”

  “But what about your husband? Being a widow wasn’t part of your plan.”

  She sighed. “No, it wasn’t. But you know how it goes. You make lemonade.”

  Again, that contemplative silence filled the room, and she wondered what he was thinking. Her eyes roved around the room and landed on the books he had stacked on the table. She scanned the titles; they all had to do with amusement parks.

  “Why all the reading?” she asked.

  “Just trying to anticipate any problems that might come up,” he said. “It’s kind of like comparing notes with others. I was particularly interested in seeing how other parks have affected the communities around them.”

  Again, she was at a loss. His interest indicated that he was sincere, that he wasn’t a fraud, that he had every intention of building a park.

  But her instincts said otherwise.

  As if he could read her conflicting thoughts in her expression, he asked, “What are you thinking?”

  She sat back down. “Oh … I was just thinking that my parents have good hearts. My father used to have a miniature horse he exhibited in a freak show, and he sometimes let it in our trailer when it was cold out. And lots of times I’ve seen him give a kid a free teddy bear for his girlfriend, just to help him earn points with her.”

  “What’s your point?” he asked, as if he knew that it somehow related to him.

  “My point, Brisco, is that compassion doesn’t necessarily preclude fraudulent behavior. A con artist can save a cat from a burning building one minute, then turn around and rob someone blind in the next minute, without one stirring of conscience. That you may have a good heart doesn’t mean that you’re a good person.”

  “It doesn’t mean I’m a bad one, either.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she said. “And there’s the problem. I’m having trouble deciding which you are.”

  “Maybe you just need more data,” he suggested quietly.

  “Maybe so,” she said with a smile. She stood up. “Well, I have to go now. I have to get Jason to bed.”

  He got up and walked her to the door and paused a moment before opening it for her. “I like you like this,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Sweet, soft, gentle … even if you are still suspicious.”

  She didn’t like the warmth burning on her face. “I’ve got to go now. You are coming to the lesson tomorrow, aren’t you? It’ll be the first one in the cockpit.”

  “Jack and I will be there,” he said.

  “Jack’s already taken the course,” she said. “I taught Slade two years ago. Jack has enough hours in the air to get his own license.” Then, winking, she said, “See you later.”

  As she walked out to her bike, she felt him watching her, and her face warmed again. She didn’t look back until she was on the motorcycle, pulling out of her space.

  Logan was leaning on the rail above her, watching as she drove out of sight.

  eighteen

  The dilemma that plagued Logan was getting harder and harder to resolve. It was time to move on. The problem was, he didn’t want to leave.

  This had never happened to him before. In fact, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Oh, there had been times over the years when he’d grown fond of a woman, enjoyed her company, and regretted leaving her. But this was different.

  Enough of that. His problem was that he hadn’t made enough of a score yet. He just had to refocus. He needed to step up the promotion of the park. Go in for one last sweep of the town, get the money out of any remaining townspeople likely to give it to him. But to do that, he needed something new to tell them. Some new morsel of hope to seal the deal. He needed a gimmick.

  As he thought, his fingers absently flicked the remote control of the television, skipping past channel after channel, until finally he came to the country music video station. Dolly Parton sat in a bar with some of her music cronies, singing “Romeo.” Logan had been to her park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, two years ago, and he’d thought then that someone with more imagination could have done a better job of planning it. But it didn’t matter, since it was her name that drew crowds.

  And suddenly it came to him. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? That was what Serenity needed for its park. A star who could be a partial investor, and whose name would draw millions, not just from Texas but from all over the country.

  He watched the next video flash on the screen, an old one featuring Roland Thunder, the winner of five Country Music Awards last year. This video was made long before he became famous as the country/rock star who was also a NASCAR champion. Forbes had listed him as one of the richest men in America last year.

  Logan doubted he could convince everyone that Thunder had agreed to put his name on the park, not this early in the game. But he could tell them that Roland was considering his involvement. The mere possibility would have people lining up outside Logan’s door to give him more money, and those who already had would dig deeper.

  Logan brainstormed possible names for the park. Roland Land came to mind … No, that wouldn’t work. Roland Park … Thunder Park. Not good enough. But maybe … Thunder Road, like the Springsteen song Roland had covered and put back on the charts. Yes, he could see it now. Would the town buy it?

  As Jack got off the bed and came to lie at his feet, Logan reached down to stroke his coat. The truth was, Logan wasn’t having much fun figuring out new ways to fleece the town. It had become a chore instead of a challenge. A lonely job. A job he’d rather not have, but one he was stuck in, because he’d already dug himself so deep.

  In a job like his, there was no turning back. He’d made his own prison, and no one else could set him free.

  nineteen

  News spread like a forest fire the next day, starting in the diner where Logan and Jack ate breakfast, and making its way through the barbershop and the beauty salon, down through the drugstore and printer’s, across to the hardware store, and up to the post office and florist. Roland Thunder was considering investing in the park and putting his name on it.

  Carny heard it first from Lahoma at the Clippety Doo Dah, when she brought Lahoma the delivery she’d picked up for her in Dallas that morning. “Who told you this?” she asked.

  “Well, Logan. He’s been telling everybody. Roland Thunder is gonna come for the opening and give a special concert for all the investors, and folks are sayin’ he might even buil
d a house here and live here part of the year! Can you imagine it, Carny? Roland Thunder in Serenity?”

  “No, actually,” Carny said. “I can’t imagine it.”

  “Well, it’s gonna happen. And I’ll be a part of it. I’ve got an appointment with Logan this afternoon. I’m gonna get a piece of this action. Have you invested yet?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m still not convinced it’s legitimate.”

  “Oh, Carny,” Tea Ann Campbell said from under the dryer. “When will you stop suspectin’ him? He’s the nicest man I’ve ever met. How can you watch him traipsing around town with that dog and not just know he’s pure as the driven snow?”

  Carny didn’t argue. No one in town would buy her objections anymore. Logan had convinced them. And the truth was, she was starting to wonder herself.

  But Roland Thunder? Something about that didn’t ring true. Where would Logan have gotten a connection like that?

  She left the beauty shop and started up the street to the hardware store to make another delivery while she turned the new information over in her mind. As she passed the barbershop, she saw Logan and Jack chatting with Cecil, to whom Slade had left the shop.

  Slowing her step, she looked at the dog, sitting where he had always sat, though his head was tipped and his ears were cocked, as if he waited for Slade to come in at any moment and take him home.

  The men in the shop looked up when she came in. “Hey, guys.”

  “Hey, Carny,” Cecil said.

  Logan grinned that big, irreverent grin. “Well, look who’s here, Jack.”

  She bent to pet the dog. “How’s he doing?”

  “About as well as you could expect. He’s a little confused. A little sad.”

  “Do you think it was a good idea to bring him here?”

  Logan shrugged. “I don’t know, but I figure a little familiarity never hurt anybody.”

  “Maybe.” She straightened up, and sliding her hands into the pockets of her khaki shorts, said, “So what’s this I hear about Roland Thunder?”

  Logan looked at the others, apparently waiting for someone else to answer, then said, “Well, it’s not a done deal yet. But we’re close.”