Tempting the Ringmaster (A Big Top Romance)

by Aleah Barley

  It had been so freaking hard, and it had only gotten worse.

  Graham had been recovering in the hospital when he’d heard the news: his team wasn’t the only unit that had been hit that night.

  His brother was dead.

  It had been eight years since that night, almost a decade spent caring for his nephew and putting up with his father, almost a decade stuck in Buck Falls rescuing lost cats and eating casserole six nights a week.

  He just wanted to sit down and rest.

  “Damn it, Graham Tyler,” Belle’s voice crackled with emotion, energizing him with its urgency.

  He glanced up, meeting her green eyes through the smoke. She was so damn beautiful; a fairy, just like he’d thought when he first saw her, capable of creating magic with a smile and a laugh.

  What if it was arson? The thought kept coming, over and over again in his mind. What if someone had set fire to the big top in an attempt to bring the entire circus crashing down around their ears? What if they came back for Belle-Anne? What if he wasn’t there to protect her?

  Adrenaline surged through him as he staggered up onto his feet. He took one step forward, two.

  He didn’t think he’d ever been in so much pain.

  And he’d been shot.

  Twice.

  There was no way he was going to let a little smoke and fire beat him now.

  He lumbered forward across the small space, ducking to get through the hole, and stumbled out onto the ground. He could hear sirens in the background. Flashing lights flooded the air.

  The fire trucks had arrived. Good.

  He hoped they’d brought an ambulance with him.

  For the second time in less than a week, the world shrank until all he could see was Belle’s face.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  This time the hospital was unavoidable. Belle would have stuffed Graham in her truck and taken him to the emergency room herself, but the arriving ambulances made that unnecessary. She threw on a pair of pants and followed the ambulance to the hospital to pace the waiting room while the doctors worked on Graham’s wounds. No one would tell her anything, but she couldn’t leave until she knew that he was safe.

  After a while, Kelly and Trevor showed up.

  That was good. Graham’s sister-in-law was a petite blonde with a button nose and a sweet smile. She picked apples. She was always calm. She’d figure out what was going on.

  “What the fuck is happening?” Kelly demanded cheeks red. Her pajamas were pink with cartoon sheep on them. Her hands stuck to her hips, defiant, as she laid into the nearest nurse. When no one would give her the answers she wanted, she went after a man in a white coat like a demonic imp in white fluffy slippers.

  Belle’s jaw fell open in surprise.

  Trevor slipped into the seat beside her, dressed neatly in crisply ironed pants and a blue polo shirt. His jacket was buttoned up all the way, and he was wearing real shoes. His hair had been brushed.

  “Your mom’s pretty intense, isn’t she?”

  “You’re right about that.” Trevor’s gaze darted around the room. “She’s worried about my uncle.”

  “Right.” Belle shifted uncomfortably. The in-laws were close. “What about your dad?”

  “He’s dead.” The kid crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Everybody says it’s a crying shame, but I never met him. He died before I was born.” He paused for a moment to think. “Is Uncle Graham going to die?”

  Oh, god. The question slammed into Belle like a sledgehammer. Her heart threw itself against her chest. “He better not.”

  “Come on.” Kelly said. Her son darted up, following instructions. The blonde tapped a slipper clad foot impatiently on the green flooring. “You too.”

  Belle glanced around, confused. There was no one else in the waiting room. “They said I couldn’t go back. It’s family only.”

  “I was born in this hospital,” The formerly mild mannered librarian snapped. “I gave birth to my son in this hospital. God willing, I’ll die in this hospital.” Her back was ramrod straight in her pink-sheep pajamas. Her cheeks were pale with anger. Her eyes practically glowed. “We’re going to see Graham, now. You’re coming with us.”

  Kelly’s tone would brook no contradictions, not that Belle wanted to contradict her. Belle had been trying to talk her way into the hospital’s back hallways since she’d arrived. The hospital staff hadn’t been accommodating.

  Apparently, she just hadn’t been scary enough.

  She stood up quickly and followed the Tyler’s through the waiting room’s double doors.

  A doctor escorted them up a flight of stairs and into a hallway with several private rooms leading off of it. He opened one of the doors. “You really shouldn’t be back here. He’s not ready for guests.”

  “Shove it, Carlton,” Kelly hissed. “Unless you want Stephanie to find out how you spend your Thursday nights?”

  The man spun and disappeared.

  “How does he spend his Thursday nights?” Belle asked. “Strippers? Hookers?”

  “Steak night with the guys,” Kelly snorted. “His wife is a vegan.”

  Funny, but no one was laughing. They were all too worried about Graham. Belle straightened her shoulders and walked through the door.

  Graham was on the other side of the door, sitting up in bed and eating a chocolate pudding cup. His feet were bare and covered in bandages. There was a bandage on his chest too, peaking up through the throat of his blue-green hospital gown.

  “Little dude,” Graham greeted his nephew with a grin.

  “Want some pudding?” His question was for Trevor, but his gaze never left Belle. Was he happy to see her? Was he upset? “I thought you’d be at the fairgrounds. Making sure everyone was okay.”

  “I’ve been checking on them over my cell phone,” she said. “Turtle’s somewhere around here. Flirting with the nurses.” There was a short pause. She didn’t know what to say next. “What you did was amazing. How did you know that he was in the trailer?”

  “The girl.” Graham leaned over to hand his nephew the rest of the pudding cup. “Willow told me.”

  “Willow?” Belle frowned. “Really?”

  He had no reason to lie.

  “She doesn’t usually talk to strangers.” The Gates family had joined the circus while Belle was away. She didn’t know their entire story, but she knew that Willow had been hurt. “She didn’t talk to me for three months.”

  “It was an extraordinary circumstance.”

  “I guess.” Belle shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t know what to say.

  Luckily, Kelly didn’t have that problem. The little redhead lit into her brother-in-law. How dare he risk his life like that? He had people who depended on him, damn it. After a while, Belle tuned the other woman out. It wasn’t easy.

  Graham didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his sister-in-law. He listened carefully, back straight, eyes focused, drinking in every single word. When it was over, he nodded. “I’m sorry, Kelly.”

  “He saved someone’s life,” Belle said.

  “Exactly.” Kelly glared. “He’s always saving someone else’s life. Sometimes, he needs to think about himself,” her voice cracked with emotion and tears began to trail down her face. “He needs to think about the people who depend on him. What would happen to us if he were gone?” She grabbed her son’s arm. “Come on, Trevor, we’re going. Your uncle needs some sleep.”

  She stormed out of the room, a force of nature in pink pajamas, fluffy white slippers, and a halo of pale hair.

  Belle waited a beat, just in case Kelly decided to come back. Nothing happened. “She’s impressive when she’s angry.”

  “She worries. When my brother died—” Graham shrugged. “She worries.”

  There were no chairs in the small room, so Belle perched carefully on the end of the bed. “What happened?”

  “After college—” Graham took a deep breath. “When I was a kid, I was a mess. I drank
more, fucked harder, and raised more hell than any other guy in town. After college, I joined the Navy. No more dicking around. If I messed up, it was the guy standing next to me who got hurt. I was good at it. I became a SEAL. I was really good at that. You ever shoot a gun?”

  “There was a sharpshooter who worked with the circus for a couple months when I was twelve. He taught me a trick or two. He could shoot the center out of an ace of spades at fifty paces.”

  “I was better. I won awards. When I came back to town to visit, I was all cleaned up and ship shape. Some of the other guys around town decided that it looked like fun. If I could succeed in the Navy, anyone could. My brother joined up. David—” Graham took a deep breath. “David was smarter than me, better than me, everybody’s favorite son. He had a girlfriend. Kelly. They found out she was pregnant the day before he shipped out to Iraq and had a quickie wedding down at the courthouse. My father officiated,” his voice cracked, “six months later, he was dead.”

  “Hell.”

  “It was a roadside bomb. No one could have seen it coming.” There was a slight pause. “I got shot in a firefight the same day.”

  “The scar on your side.”

  “Yeah, the Navy gave me a choice: a promotion or an honorable discharge. I took the discharge. I was a good sailor, I was a great SEAL, but Trevor and Kelly needed me more. They still need me.”

  They weren’t the only ones who needed him. Belle swallowed hard. If anything had happened to Graham in the fire, she would have never forgiven herself.

  Not that she was staying.

  It was impossible.

  The circus was going to move on, and Graham was going to stay behind. No matter how good the sex had been. No matter how much she might want him to come with her, sleeping side by side in the trailer’s bed, rising with the morning sun and working shoulder to shoulder late into the night.

  Graham was the kind of man she could see herself building a future with. She’d had a partner before. Dodge was a good man and a better friend, but she’d never wanted to strip him naked and have her merry way with him.

  Graham was different.

  And, if she couldn’t have him, then it would still be nice to know that he was out there in the world. Making the world a better place in his own small way. Her mind faltered, going back to the night before.

  Not so small after all.

  Maybe he could visit? He could meet up with the circus at some of their regular stops; she could show him some of her favorite parts of America, and he could show her the same tender affection and relentless desire that he’d shown in her bed the night before.

  Her lips curved up into a soft smile.

  Bang. The door slammed open and James Tyler walked in. It was four in the morning, and the mayor was neatly dressed in pressed pants and a button down shirt. His shoes gleamed.

  “You!” His lips pulled back into a snarl when he saw Belle. “What the hell are you doing here? I’ll call security! I’ll have you arrested! I knew you were trouble, the moment I heard a show was setting up at the fairgrounds.”

  “Father,” Graham said. “So nice of you to join us.”

  “I was at Tiffany’s when you called her. I had to help her coordinate activities—”

  “Tiffany could coordinate the invasion of any small South-American country.” Graham’s lips twitched up into a smile. “I called her past midnight. What were you doing there?”

  “It’s none of your concern.” James glared at his son. “Didn’t I tell you? This is what happens when you let strangers hang around all willy-nilly.”

  “Belle didn’t set the fire,” Graham said.

  “Maybe not, but someone like her did. It certainly wasn’t someone from Buck Falls.” The mayor sniffed. “Gypsy trash. Travelers. No roots. No community. No sense of responsibility.”

  Belle had heard it all before—she could probably even add a few more choice insults to the older man’s list—but that didn’t mean she needed to listen to it again. Her gut churned as she felt the extremely proper man’s rejection of everything she held dear.

  “I need to go,” she told Graham. He’d been right. She never should have come to the hospital. She should have stayed at the fairgrounds, where she belonged, not traipsing around after a town boy who would forget her name as soon as she’d left the state.

  She swallowed hard, a pit opening in her stomach.

  “There are things I have to do.” She made a quick mental list: check on all of the circus performers and laborers, see what damage the big top had taken. How much would it cost to fix?

  She’d gotten an email about Tiny the night before from an elephant rescue in California that was run by a retired zookeeper. He’d included pictures of the four elephants that he already cared for. They looked happy enough, well-tended.

  She should draft a response, starting the process necessary to shed the anchor holding the circus to Buck Falls once and for all.

  “Like hell,” Graham said, the ferocity in his voice making her blink. “We still don’t know how the fire started. You could be in danger. You need someone to watch your back—“

  “It’s not your responsibility,” she couldn’t hide the quiver in her voice. What was he talking about? The fire had been an accident. No one would set it on purpose, certainly not one of her people, they all knew the danger that an open flame could do to a tent or a trailer. No one would risk their friends and family by turning to arson.

  The fire had to have been an accident. Right?

  Chapter Nine

  It was still dark when Belle got back to the fairgrounds. The world was a purple haze lit only by the stars twinkling overhead and the floodlights that someone had moved into position around the still smoldering big top. The fire trucks had vanished along with the ambulances, and all that remained was the carnage.

  It was like a war zone.

  Fire and water. Soot and ash. Tattered cloth and the crumpled remains of the Gates family trailer—the side pulled open like a tin can.

  The entire place smelled like burning chemicals and terror. Someone had opened up the repurposed trailer that the circus used as a schoolroom and the kids were all inside stretched out on quilts and in sleeping bags. Most of the kids were asleep, but Petra Jarvis was staring out the window. Her pale face glum and sullen; soot streaked her hair. She’d been crying.

  Men and women huddled together in small bunches. They all turned to look at Belle as she passed. Their eyes were wide with fear and uncertainty. They didn’t say a single word… Not until she passed Clown Alley and Keith Aldridge.

  “What’s going to happen next, Belle girl?” the clown king asked, and there was no anger in his voice, just the pain of a man who’d seen his entire world come falling down around his ears. His normally fussy clothes had been ripped and stained in the melee, and he hadn’t bothered to change. His feet were bare and covered in mud. “What are we going to do?”

  “Whatever we have to.” Belle wrapped her arms around the man, squeezing him tight. There was a moment’s pause, and then Keith was hugging her back. Tears ran down his face and fell onto her shoulder.

  “We saved the trailers,” Keith finally said. “Most of them. That Gilly of yours…” There was a short pause. “I don’t like him, much. He’s a little too respectable for my taste, but he was right about turning the hose on the trailers. When the firemen got here, they did the exact same thing.” His face paled slightly. “They told me if I hadn’t done it then the whole place might have gone up.

  That was good to hear.

  Belle took a deep breath, trying not to think about how bad the damage might have been if Graham hadn’t been there to help, if he hadn’t called the fire department, if he hadn’t told Keith what to do, if he hadn’t raced into the burning trailer to haul Turtle Gates from the rubble.

  Then she was crying too. The two old friends stood there for a few minutes, clinging to each other in the darkness. When all the tears were done and Belle couldn’t cry anymore, she cl
eaned her face on the hem of her shirt and finished the short walk back to her classic silver airstream.

  She’d inherited the trailer from her father and it was as much of a home as she’d ever known. When she’d been younger, she’d slept on one of the bench seats around the table. As a teenager, Barnaby had given her the bedroom and laid out his pallet on the floor.

  The trailer was just a bunch of metal and plastic.

  Vintage—but not in a good way—and irreplaceable.

  She stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower, intent on allowing the hot water to beat down against her skin until she felt clean again, but the scent of smoke wouldn’t wash away no matter how cold the water got. When her bones finally shrieked in tired rebellion, she hauled her freezing ass out of the shower and wrapped herself in a fluffy red towel. Wiping the condensation off the trailer’s cracked mirror, she almost didn’t recognize her own reflection.

  There were dark rings under her eyes. Her hair was plastered against her skull. Her lips were blue from the cold, and her entire body was shaking. She felt small.

  She stepped out of the bathroom, unsure of what to do next.

  “Good to see you, finally,” Dorothy said crisply.

  Belle blinked in surprise. She hadn’t expected company, but she never locked the trailer’s door. Not unless they were traveling.

  The older woman was seated at the trailer’s small table. She must have been waiting for a while. She’d made coffee in the old stained percolator and there were two cups waiting at her elbow. The horse mistress looked surprisingly well rested for a woman who’d been through a fire, but she’d always been resilient; a woman who’d raised four kids on the road would have to be.

  “I was beginning to worry about you.” Dorothy poured the coffee. “Thought you might have drowned.”

  “Not yet.” There wasn’t enough water in the world to quench the memory of fire leaping to the big top’s roof; the screams of her people as they watched their home go up in smoke. She cleared her throat. “I should put on some clothes.”

  “Something comfortable,” Dorothy said. “There’s a lot of work to be done today.”