God knew, he had, until he’d grown too hardened to allow himself such painful indulgences.
For a moment, he allowed himself to sink into the mire of self-pity, a luxury he rarely afforded himself. For a split second, he was that abandoned child again, firmly believing that his mother would return, not understanding why she hadn’t. For a split second, he knew intimately that little girl wandering down the midway, looking for her fantasy family.
Turning the page, he read through the rest of his notes. There was much he hadn’t written down yet. He hadn’t recorded the part about her escape from her old life and how she had come to Serenity. But he had it all in his head. Her in-laws, two people who loved her as if she were their own, had told him, almost in apology, everything else he needed to know.
Carny, at age seventeen, had met Abe Sullivan when the carnival came through Serenity. He was good-looking and seemed soft-spoken, clean-cut, the apple-pie-and-mom type. After a week-long romance, she had slipped out in the night with him and eloped, and the next morning when it was time for the carnival to tear down, she informed her parents that she was staying behind.
She had been just a child, according to Abe’s parents, but Logan knew better. You never got to be a child in that kind of environment. He suspected that she’d behaved in ways much older than her years, and that the marriage had had as much to do with her fascination for the sweet little town itself as it had with the man she’d married. She had probably believed that, in the quiet little town of Serenity, she could have the kind of home she’d only dreamed of before. She was old enough to know what she wanted out of life, and young enough to fool herself into believing such things existed.
He suspected that now, nine years later, she was much more savvy about the goodness that existed — or failed to exist — in the world. According to Abe’s father — who’d seemed disgusted even to recount the tale, but had been compelled to explain Carny’s “rudeness” — Abe had taught Carny her first lesson about the grass being greener on the other side. Abe wasn’t the sweet husband material Carny thought she was getting. He drank most of the time, had trouble holding a job, and stayed out too late. It amazed Logan that two such sweet, kind people could have raised such a son. But as Bev Sullivan had said with a tear in her eye, “There’s such a thing as loving too much. We had him in church every time the doors were open, and tried to instill our Christian values in him. But he chose a different path. We spoiled him rotten. We blame ourselves. That’s why we took Carny in when he ran out on her. We felt so responsible.”
When Abe left her and her baby, then drank himself dead, Carny stayed with the Sullivans. Logan suspected that they’d given her the first nurturing love she’d ever known. The town, which had that Western quality of prizing rugged individualism, had rallied around her, something he found unusual for a community with relatively few newcomers. But the people he’d asked about her today had all voiced a deep love for the young woman, tinged with amusement.
She had a wild, unconventional streak, they said, and a free spirit that made them all smile, but since coming to Serenity she had turned into a God-fearing disciple of Jesus. She was a little of what everyone in town wished they could be. She hadn’t meant to be rude at the bingo hall, they’d all said. She was just overly suspicious because of her past, and overly protective of the people she loved.
He envied their love for her. Carny had truly made herself a home here, while Logan was still running, looking for that pot of gold at the end of a self-made rainbow. Someday he’d come to the end of that rainbow.
But he doubted that there was a Serenity waiting at the end of his.
seven
The Sullivans were waiting on the front porch when Carny pulled her motorcycle up her gravel driveway. She rode to her front steps and cut the engine off. “Y’all are making a terrible mistake.”
“Carny, honey, you don’t have to worry,” her mother-in-law said. “We’re not giving him more than we can afford.”
J.R. stood up from the rocker. “But the folks in town who have already invested are afraid that you’ll talk Logan out of building the park here, and we’ll lose out. You’ve got to stop it, Carny. We need this park in Serenity.”
Groaning, she got off her bike and went up the porch steps. Sitting down on the top one, she leaned back against the post and looked up at them. “You aren’t hearing me. He’s got all the earmarks of a pigeon dropper. Why can’t you listen?”
“What’s a pigeon dropper?” J.R. asked.
“A huckster. A shyster. A con man. J.R., if some big organization was considering building a park here the size of Disneyland, don’t you think we’d have heard from the governor, the legislature, the bankers? Don’t you think there would be some kind of public competition among the towns? Don’t you think there would be some sort of legal process involved?”
“We’re in on the ground floor,” J.R. said. “All that will come later. But all Logan’s doing is scouting around for the best place to build it. He’s recommending us, and then I expect the governor will get involved. If he chooses to put it somewhere else, we can either get a full refund or still invest in the park wherever he does put it.”
Carny closed her eyes. “Come on in, and I’ll call Jason home.”
As they went in, J.R. asked, “You still have a class tonight, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said. “I won’t quit teaching just because there’s a criminal wreaking havoc on my town.”
J.R. shook his head. “Lands, how you do exaggerate.” He walked to the television, grabbed the remote control, and plopped into his favorite chair, which she had bought just for him since he spent so much time at her house spoiling his grandson.
She paused for a moment and regarded J.R., who was already switching from Ultimate Fighting Championship to Dateline, then back again. Bev made herself at home in the adjoining kitchen, putting a pot of coffee on.
Carny loved them, and because she did, she couldn’t just sit still and let Logan deceive them this way. Overcome by a sense of helplessness, she stood for a moment, wishing for the right thing to say to make them proceed more cautiously. But for them, it was already too late.
“What will happen if you find out I’m right?” she asked them softly. “I don’t know how much you gave, but what’ll happen to the town if none of it works out?”
They both looked at her. Finally, J.R. said, “Honey, it’ll be all right.”
Sighing, she slipped the keys to the pickup into her pocket and started for the door. “It took me seventeen years to find this place, and now that I’m here, I’m a little protective of it. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost it.” Her voice broke, and she looked down at her feet. “Maybe I’m fighting him out of selfishness. I want to keep things safe for me … and for Jason.”
“Oh, honey.” Bev came across the room and embraced her, the way her own mother had rarely done. “We know why you’re doing it. And we don’t blame you. But that doesn’t mean we agree with you about Logan.”
“I’ll have to prove it to you, I guess,” she said. “Call Jason to come home, will you? The number’s on the fridge. I’ll be back around eight.” Feeling herself losing control of her emotions, she hurried to the truck.
She drove two miles before the tears came to her eyes, but quickly, she wiped them away. Somehow, she would stop Logan before he hurt these people too much. She just hoped he wouldn’t skip town tomorrow with the money.
She turned onto the road to her private airport, just on the outskirts of Serenity. Serenity Airport and Aviation School were her stake in this community. It was how she made her living, how she contributed to the town, and one of the ways she satisfied the wild streak she’d been born with. It hadn’t been easy to settle into this tight little town, to become a part of it, to be trusted and loved.
In fact, there had been a lot of head-shaking when Abe Sullivan brought her home as his wife. Part of it had been that she was just seventeen, and they all knew Abe wasn’t
cut out to be a husband. But the other part, the part she had never quite forgotten, was that she had a checkered past. She knew she had something to prove to Serenity, so she made it her business to get to know everyone in town, from Jed who cleaned the factory after hours to Mayor Norman, who said she looked like his daughter who had moved to California.
At first she’d struggled with the dichotomy between her strong desire to settle down and her hungry spirit that craved adventure. Rather than moving on to satisfy that yearning, she opted to take flying lessons. That way, she reasoned, she could feed the gypsy lust bred into her and still have a hometown.
To support herself and finance her flight lessons, she took a job as teller in the only bank in town. As her pregnancy progressed, she got to know the towns people and felt more a part of the town. The moment she got her pilot’s license, Wendell Trellis, owner of the aviation school, the airport, and the air service that carried crucial deliveries from Serenity to wherever they needed to go, offered her a flying job. It paid considerably more than she had made at the bank, allowing her, three years later, to venture away from the Sullivans’ home and get a place of her own for Jason and herself. She would never forget the lump in her throat the day she brought Jason to the old house she’d bought for them, the first real home she’d ever known. It had two bedrooms, a huge open kitchen that adjoined the den, a garage, and a white picket fence around the backyard.
Jason was mostly thrilled that there was a tire swing in the yard — he was far too young to grasp how much this home meant to Carny. Her unsavory childhood didn’t matter anymore. What mattered now was that she was a good mother, making a good life for her son.
She’d been weepy that first day in her new house, ever aware that God had wiped her slate clean and turned the ashes of her life into beauty. She wanted the same transformation for her parents and those she’d left behind in the carnival. Instead, they all thought she’d been brainwashed by her Bible-thumping neighbors. Only one responded to the grace she saw in Carny’s changed life. Ruth, the carnival’s fat lady, followed Carny’s immersion into Christianity. Though she stayed with the carnival to keep teaching the children, her newfound love of God led her to resign from the freak show. A child of God was never meant to be gawked at and mocked, especially not for money. Carny considered Ruth’s changed life a fruit of her own.
And it was no small feat that Carny went from answering the phone for Wendell and making an occasional jaunt across the state, to actually buying the airport when he retired, and running the three related businesses herself. She was proud that the bank where she’d worked had approved her loan as a vote of confidence in her character. Her aviation classes were always full, and her freight schedule was always busy. She gave people free flights to Dallas or Houston for doctor’s appointments and other crucial business, and had endeared herself to everyone in town. People needed her here, and they enjoyed her. She had never felt so good about herself.
Now, she pulled up to her hangar, threw the truck into park, and grabbed her bag full of papers. Already there was a car here, a dark Lincoln Navigator with blackened windows. Had Jess Stevens traded in his twenty-year-old Plymouth? She chuckled at the picture of the retired farmer letting go of a nickel he didn’t absolutely have to. Or the Navigator might belong to Cass or Jacob Jordan, but they were both more the sports-car types. And it couldn’t be either Brad Gillian’s or Wayne Cash’s, since they wouldn’t be caught dead driving anything but pickup trucks. Since that ruled out all five of her students, she got out of the truck with a feeling of apprehension.
The SUV door opened, and Logan Brisco got out.
Her mouth dropped open. “What are you doing here?”
Logan’s grin riled her as he stepped closer. “I wanted to see your facilities. I thought I might need your services for emergency deliveries.”
“Deliveries of what?” she asked. “Large bundles of cash going to a Swiss bank?”
He laughed. “No. My company in Dallas will be spearheading the operation and sending contracts, payroll, that kind of thing.”
“Save it, Brisco.” She went inside, aware that he followed, and dropped her papers on her desk. “You’re wasting your breath. How did you know where I work?”
“Everybody knows,” he said. “I must have gotten ten different versions of your life story today.”
“Good,” she said. “Then you know I don’t give up.”
“I’d suspected.” He turned a chair around backward and sat down. “Tell me something, Carny. What would it take for us to call a truce?”
“For you to be on the next train out of town.”
He laughed. “No, I mean what would it take for you to give me some peace while I’m here?”
Crossing her arms, she cocked her head and faked a thoughtful expression. “Well, let’s see … Atlantis rising from the ocean floor, Amelia Earhart landing on my runway, Jimmy Hoffa being discovered on an island paradise with Elvis …”
“Okay, I get the point,” he said, still amused. “Maybe you and I just need to get to know each other a little better. How long’s it been since you’ve been in a relationship?”
It was her turn to laugh. “I’ve had lots of relationships. But the odds of my ever having one with you are pretty much as likely as all the scenarios I just mentioned.”
He tried to look wounded, but she wasn’t buying. “Carny, I could have walked into town in a priest’s collar waving a Bible and you still wouldn’t have trusted me.”
“You’re right,” she said. “My father posed as a priest once and made three thousand dollars a night ‘healing’ people. I was the little crippled girl he made walk. My mother was blind, until he mumbled a really loud prayer and made her see. I’m a tough sell, Brisco.”
Logan seemed genuinely appalled. “And you think I’m a fraud? Your father sounds like a real prince, and if that’s the kind of thing you grew up watching, I don’t blame you for being paranoid now.”
“What’s your point? That you’re better than my father because your scams are cleaner?”
She’d hit a nerve, and for a moment Logan only looked at her. “Carny, I realize that nothing short of my own miracle is going to persuade you to trust me,” he said in a soft, almost convincing tone, “but I really want to do this for your town, because I think Serenity needs what I’m bringing it. And I think you need it. You’re a woman who needs something she can trust … something to believe in.”
“If that’s what you think, then your conversations about me today weren’t very productive. I happen to believe in a lot. I believe in God’s ability to change people, and I believe in the goodness and purity that I’ve found here. And I believe in that kick in the gut that the Holy Spirit gives me when something isn’t right.”
“I call that instinct.” He walked toward her, his face serious, and said, “Do some research on me, Carny. Check me out. Write for my college transcript. Talk to my teachers. I have a degree in marketing from Virginia State. Call A&R Marketing in Marietta, Georgia. Check out my employment records.”
Doubt altered her expression. Con artists didn’t often have college degrees, and they rarely had job histories. She whipped out a pad and pen, jotted down the two places, then looked up at him. “I’ll call them tomorrow,” she said. “And your company. What did you say it’s called?”
“King Enterprises.” He handed her his card. “You can call this number and verify my employment.”
She wondered if she’d get a busy signal or if he’d gotten a cohort to answer the calls. “And what about Dallas banks that’ll be financing this? Can you give me their names?”
He smiled calmly and shook his head. “I can’t do that. It’s still in the initial stages. If you were to start calling them and drilling them about the park, they’d get scared and pull out. It’s my job to make everybody feel confident that this is going to work. Including my investors.”
Smiling, she dropped her pen. “What else did I expect?”
He sig
hed and ran a hand through his dark hair, leaving it ruffled. “Look, I’m just curious. If you did trust me, if you had known me all your life and knew I had a sterling character, would you still be fighting me on this?”
“I sure would,” she said.
“I thought so. Why?”
“I told you. I don’t want my town ruined by a flow of tourists, criminals, and carnies.”
“Tourists, I can understand. But what makes you think either criminals or carnies will come here?”
“Because they will.” She heard a car drive up and glanced out the window. Her students, Cass and Jacob, were getting out of their car. “The criminals will come to rip off the tourists, and who do you think you’ll get to run the park? Carnies, that’s who!”
“Then work with me on this,” he said. “Help me plan it so that we can avoid that. At Disney, they put a police station on the grounds. Hotels and malls can go way outside of town, near the park. Carny, if this works, your airport would benefit. We’d need to enlarge it for bigger planes. My investors could finance the expansion.”
She lowered her voice as Cass and Jacob came closer. “Is that how you usually manage to pull off the gaff, Brisco? By making it personal? Telling each person in Serenity how they’ll wake up rich one day, if they just give you all their money now? You’re wasted in this line of work. With those talents you could run for president.”
He stared at her as though it truly hurt.
She looked out as another of her students drove up. “Well, I’ve enjoyed this little conversation, Brisco, but I have a ground school class to teach.”
He made no move to leave.
“Did you hear me? Time to go.”
“Where do I sign up?” he asked suddenly.
She gaped at him. “Sign up for what?”
“For the class,” he said. “I want to learn to fly.”
She laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”