by Sharon Ihle
Gant went cold inside. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, Hans? Sam? What do you think?”
Sam hesitated a minute, again scrutinizing the wound. Then he said, “I’m not much of a doctor, Gant, but that does look pretty deep. I don’t see how we can sew it up either. Cauterizing might be the only way. What do you think, Mollie?”
She shrugged as she studied Gant’s back. “I don‘t know a lot about this sort of thing either, but Hans might be right. I don’t think it’ll heal right if we don’t. You might even get a terrible infection.”
Gant let out a long sigh, a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Then let’s get it over with, Sam”
Throughout the conversation, Rayna had glanced between Gant, Sam, Mollie, and even Hans, reading their expressions and making up her own mind. Cauterization, she knew, horrible as it might be, was the only way. Reaching into her apron, she withdrew her dagger.
“Here,” she said, handing it to Sam. “Use this.”
With only a hint of his former grin, Gant quietly said, “You just can’t resist sticking that knife into me, can you?”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Rayna laughed. “Maybe if you behaved it wouldn’t be necessary so often. Just how did Zoltaire’s get hold of you?”
Trying to ignore the frantic movements behind him and the smell burning tallow, Gant said, “Like the idiot Hans says I am, I leaned back against the cage to watch Sam put up the rigging for your Cleopatra act. I practically served myself on a platter to that lion.”
Her heart in her throat as she saw the tip of her knife glowing in the candle’s flame, Rayna distracted Gant. “Do you remember last night and the lovely walk we took in the trees?”
As she’d hoped, the tension drained from Gant’s expression and he gave her a lusty grin. Then Sam spoiled it all.
“We’re about ready, Gant,” he said. “Want that whiskey now?”
Although his hands were shaking, his brow dotted with beads of sweat, Gant shook his head. “Just be sure to make it quick.”
He leaned forward then, bracing himself against Rayna’s knees, and angled his head until he was a whisker from her lips.
“I’m still thinking about us in the trees last night,” he whispered softly. “Problem is, I don’t remember doing much walking. Maybe if you kiss me, I can recall it a little better.”
Startled by the request, Rayna glanced at the dagger again, and then beyond to the onlookers. “We’re not exactly alone.”
“I don’t care,” he said as another measure of whiskey splashed across his back. “I need you right now. Please kiss me.”
Rayna’s lips met Gant’s at the same moment fiery steel sank against the fissure in his back. Gant stiffened, his hands crushing her knees, and for one long, awful moment, Rayna shared his pain.
Afterwards Gant leaned back, eyes glazed, temples raining sweat, and then he spoke in a husky voice. “You’re some kisser, Gypsy. For a minute there, I thought I’d been struck by lightening.”
Rayna laughed, but her attention was on Sam, who looked puzzled, and Hans, who’d moved up to examine the wound again.
“See that spot?” Hans said to Sam, pointing with his one good hand. “You missed it. You must burn him again.”
Sam glanced over Gant’s shoulder and gave Rayna a look that reeked of pity. “I’m afraid Hans is right.”
Rayna glanced at Gant. “Can you take more?”
“If I have to,” Gant muttered taking another, deeper breath. “Get it over with, Sam.”
“Just as soon as I heat the blade again.”
As Gant waited for the second assault on his back, he kept his gaze locked in Rayna’s. When the next splash of whiskey hit, he gave her a quick nod. “Again. Kiss me again.”
She quickly covered his mouth with hers. This time when the blinding pain eased, instead of pushing Rayna away, Gant continued to hold her close, still kissing her.
Sam coughed loudly. “It’s all done now.”
Mollie began to whistle the tune to “The Old Gray Mare.”
And Hans, thoroughly disgusted, stomped off toward the lion’s cage muttering to himself in German.
Aware that all eyes were upon her and Gant, and that some were not particularly amused, Rayna laughed against Gant’s mouth and sat back on her legs.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked lightly.
”Not with you here. Thanks for helping out.”
Looking up at Sam, Rayna said, “How does it look?”
“The bleeding has stopped. Raise your arm for me, Gant. I’ll try and get you bandaged up while you’re still under that gypsy spell.”
With a wink, Mollie shooed everyone else away. “Go on,” she said. “The show’s over. We got work to do.”
Then she turned to Sam, nodding toward her partner. “Is he going to need anything else? Got enough bandages and all?”
Busy wrapping Gant in strips of white cotton, Sam said, “We’ve got plenty.”
Satisfied, Mollie then turned and called to Hans, who was scratching Zoltaire’s big head through the bars of his cage.
“I think it’d be best if you put that lion away,” she suggested. “I’ll get J.R. to help you as soon as I can get his poor ole body up off of the floor.”
At the sound of his name, J.R.’s eyes popped open.
“Coming Pa,” he cried as he jackknifed up off of the ground.
When Mollie walked up beside him, J.R. was standing there, dazed and dreamy-eyed. “Are you all right?” she asked, waving a hand before his eyes.
J.R. shook his head to clear it, and then realized what had happened. He’d fainted. Again. Shoulders slumped, he said, “I’m fine, ma’am. How’s Gant?”
“He’s going to be just fine, too. Why don’t you get on over there and help Hans put that lion away. I think we’ve all seen enough of Zoltaire for one morning.”
“Yes, ma’am, whatever you say.” J.R. headed for the cage, hesitating only long enough to catch his brother’s gaze and nodding assurances that he was going to be all right.
After Sam finished, he issued his final medical advice. “You really ought to rest a while, Gant. You don’t want to chance breaking that wound open again.”
“I appreciate your help, Sam. Thanks.”
As Sam headed toward the bow of the ship, Gant swung back around and brushed Rayna’s cheek with his fingertips. “And thank you. For everything.”
Blushing, or something close to it, Rayna awkwardly jabbed her dagger back into its sheath. Instead of sliding smoothly into the cloth pouch, the knife snagged on something. She lifted the apron and inverted it, and then worked her finger up inside the sheath until the obstruction slipped out and fell into her lap. Rayna glanced down to see Anna Mae’s diamond earbobs glittering back at her.
“Oh, my God.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Rayna quickly slapped her own hand against her lips. She shot a fast glance around the arena, relieved to see that Mollie and most of the others had already gone. Hans and J.R. were busy loading Zoltaire into his wagon, and their backs were to her. The only person who could have seen the earrings was Gant. He was staring into her lap.
Reaching across the short distance between them, Gant scooped the baubles into his hand. “Are these what Mollie and Anna Mae have been running around looking for?” he asked.
Rayna raised her chin and held it high. Even though she was as prepared as she could be to defend her mother, the lies she considered telling stuck in her throat. She couldn’t lie to Gant. Never again.
“Yes,” she said, letting the chips fall where they may.
With another glance at the earbobs, he gently asked, “Did you take these?”
Rayna bit her lip. She wanted desperately to protect her mother, but not at the expense of her relationship with Gant. She quietly said, “No.”
He nodded as if he already knew this. “Maria?”
Rayna’s mouth fell opened.
“I think Maria
took the earbobs and hid them in your apron. Am I wrong?”
Again Rayna glanced around the show ring. By now Hans and J.R. were rolling the wagon containing Zoltaire out of the arena, and Sam, who’d returned, was working on the aerial rigging high above the dressing area, out of earshot. Satisfied their conversation would continue to be private, she carefully chose her words.
“Why would you think that?”
He shrugged. “A thief knows a thief, and so on.”
“As a wolf knows a wolf,” she finished softly. “You’re wrong, Gant. Maria is no more a thief than I am, at least, not in this instance.”
Gant dropped the earbobs back into Rayna’s lap.
“I trust and believe in you,” he said. “If you tell me that you or your mother didn’t take the jewelry, I’ll believe that, too.”
Tears sprang into Rayna’s eyes. No one, certainly no man, had ever trusted her so unconditionally, so completely.
“That means a lot,” Rayna said. “I don’t know how the earbobs got in my apron, but I can guess.”
Gant nodded. “I’m listening.”
“When Maria steals, it’s a sickness of some kind. I don’t understand what makes her do these things, but then neither does she. Understand?”
“Not a damn bit,” he had to admit. “Maria gets sick, sneezes, and then goes out and steals something?”
Somehow Rayna managed a small laugh. “Not exactly. When Maria gets upset or worried, she gets into something like a trance. The next thing she knows she’s taken something. Usually it’s a piece of jewelry like Mollie’s brooch or the earbobs, but sometimes it’s coins or the like.”
“I’ll remember that on payday.”
Unable to keep herself from laughing again, Rayna gave herself a moment before approaching a more sober topic. “Please don’t say anything about Maria’s sickness to her or anyone else. I’d rather take the blame for the stolen earbobs myself than have her suffer any more than she already has. Promise?”
Gant could certainly understand Rayna’s desire to keep her mother’s penchant for other folk’s jewelry a secret, but what he could not fathom was how she would be willing to accept culpability for someone else, family member or not. His own parental figure, Luther Gantry, would have turned in all five of his sons if it meant saving his own hide. Gant had never been exposed to the kind of selflessness or love that drove Rayna to do just the opposite. It confused him, and more than that, humbled him.
Taking a page from her book, Gant scooped the earrings out of Rayna’s lap, and then deposited them in the center of her palm and folded her fingers over the top of them.
“Take these to Anna Mae,” he said. “Tell her I’m the one who found them. Say they fell out of my shirt as Sam was working on my back.”
“But you can’t do that. Anna Mae will think you stole them.”
He hushed her with a well-placed finger. “Tell her I found one of the monkeys out this morning and that he was running around with her earbobs in his thieving little hands. Say I didn’t know who they belonged to, so I dropped them in my shirt pocket and forgot about them. That ought to take care of the problem.”
Rayna couldn’t believe that Gant would do this for her mother, a woman who wished that he did not exist. She most certainly couldn’t express those sentiments in words, not without letting him know how much Maria despised him. Instead she rose up on her knees, carefully wrapped her arms around Gant’s neck so she wouldn’t disturb the bandages, and fit her mouth to his. She’d been showing Gant her gratitude for a full minute when J.R. burst out of the stable area, looking for his brother.
“Gant?” he called. “You still out here?”
When he came into the arena and spotted them, Rayna was scrambling to her feet. Gant was still sitting in the sawdust.
J.R. said, “There you are. I just come out to help you back to the cabin. Sam said you was supposed to be resting.”
“As you can see,” Gant replied. “I’m not working too hard.”
“You feel better yet?”
“Lots better, kid, but I guess I’d better go to my cabin now anyway. Help me up.”
With J.R.’s helping hand, Gant rose up from the sawdust, moving slowly, like a creaky old man. Then he turned to Rayna and whispered, “By the way--when you see your mother? Tell her no thanks are necessary if she’ll consider us even for earlier this morning.”
“This morning? What are you talking about?”
“Your mother and I had a little talk to start the day.”
Rayna stifled a groan. “What did she say to you?”
Gant glanced at J.R. out of the corner of his eye. Still keeping his voice low, he said, “I think it would be best if you ask her about that. I’ll be up in my cabin getting on some clean clothes if you need me.”
Then he turned to J.R. and said, “You coming with me?”
“You bet, I am.” He tipped his hat toward Rayna, and then gathered up his brother’s bloodied shirt and scrambled along after him.
Earbobs in hand, Rayna headed straight for the dressing rooms and Maria. She came across Anna Mae just before she reached the main curtain. After returning her property and offering the fabricated story, she proceeded to the last private cubicle. There she found her mother still sewing on the Cleopatra costume.
Rayna took a seat on the edge of the low dressing table, which brought her almost eye to eye with Maria. Aware that others were darting in and out of the area, she spoke in hushed tones.
“Did you hear the news?”
Maria kept on stitching. “Yes. Gant was injured by a lion, but he’s going to be all right.”
“Not that news. I’m talking about Anna Mae’s earbobs. They were found.”
Maria dropped the costume and her sewing supplies. They landed in the sawdust beneath her feet, but she paid them no mind. Her mournful gaze resting on her daughter, she said, “I had another attack.”
Her heart breaking, and still very aware of the activity around them, Rayna hinted at the circumstances behind the discovery. “We should be very grateful that Gant found the earbobs. I certainly hope that you are.”
Maria’s fingers went to her lips. “Gant?”
“Yes. Apparently one of the monkeys stole them from the jewel box. Gant caught him red-handed.”
“He said this?”
“Yes, he did. We—you—owe him a lot, wouldn’t you say?”
She hesitated here, but finally sighed and said, “So it would seem.”
“Then stop whatever it is you’re doing.”
No longer looking at her daughter, but at her lap, Maria whispered, “I do nothing but ensure our good luck. I placed the diamonds in your apron to protect you from evil. I do what a mother must do.”
There was no arguing with Maria on this point, certainly not with the other performers flitting about. “There is one more thing,” she said, hopping down from the dressing table. “Gant said this little favor ought to make you two even for this morning. What does that mean?”
Maria rolled her eyes. “It was nothing.”
“He wouldn’t have mentioned it if it was nothing. What did you say to him?”
Again averting her gaze, Maria shrugged. “I just did what any mother would do.”
“And that was?”
Maria considered her stubborn daughter and knew she’d been right to employ black magic, even if it would take another eight days for the results she sought. She would work harder on the spell in spite of the weakness she felt after only a day and a half of ritualistic fasting.
If the accident with Zoltaire was any indication, and Maria was pretty certain that it was, the talisman she’d given Gant was working and would continue to work. This was imperative, Maria decided, because of the one thing she saw in her daughter’s eyes as she spoke of this man. Rayna and Gant weren’t merely taken with one another any longer. As far as Maria could tell they were definitely falling in love.
An impatient Rayna tapped her toe against Maria’s chair. “I�
��m waiting,” she reminded. “What did you say to Gant?”
Maria offered a sheepish grin. “I asked him to stop making the hanky panky with you and told him to go find his sex with someone else.”
*
Upstairs in his cabin Gant was giving a lot of thought to both Rayna and Maria, considering how much they meant to one another. Gant was contemplating the word ‘family’ in a whole new light. He sat at the edge of his bed and watched as J.R. pulled off his bloody socks and added them to the pile of stained clothing. Family. Could he and J.R. share even a little of what the Gypsies had?
