shiny things—bright lights, big city, loud music, fun. Just one more holdover from an early childhood with her funny, doting father that life with Grandfather hadn’t been able to extinguish.
Which, she supposed, was why she ended the call, dropped her phone in her purse and stepped out of the car. The music and the colors were calling to her.
And her curiosity wasn’t going to let her head back to Trouble without finding out where they were coming from.
CHAPTER TWO
TROUBLE MIGHT be the name of this town, but as far as Max was concerned, a better one would be The Mental Ward. After two weeks in the Pennsylvania community his grandfather called his kingdom, he was ready to run screaming off a bridge. Anything to escape the sounds of people calling him a savior—or a villain, the rattle of cars on their last piston, or—worst of all—the excruciating chirp of dozens of cuckoo clocks, all cuckooing their black little hearts out when the minute hand struck twelve.
The clocks. They were the tormenting fiends who’d convinced him he was one inch from insanity. At least one—usually more—of the vile things decorated every room of Max’s grandfather’s house, where Max was staying. And his grandfather loved them as much as he loved the dusty old furniture that had come with the place.
A lumpy couch he could live with. A few dozen cackling birds he could not. They’d driven him out early this morning, seeking both peace and quiet and a distraction. Any distraction.
Only not a female one, which was the biggest frustration of all. He was here to live down his reputation. Not add to it.
Coming to Trouble had been about more than talking his grandfather into unloading this bottomless pit he’d dumped a mountain of money into. The man did have a thing for lost causes and a sob story—apparently this tiny town being bankrupted by an embezzling crook had tugged at Mortimer’s heartstrings.
Max couldn’t forget his second objective, however—to lay low and stay out of the limelight while his lawyer took care of this Grace Wellington nonsense. Which was why he’d been here for days and had so far not given so much as a second glance to a nicely curved feminine ass.
Not that he’d seen any. Which was probably a good thing, even though it felt like a bad one.
There were only two things Max liked as well—or did as well—as women. Piloting. And tinkering with machinery.
He’d gone flying this morning, and, as always, the freedom and beauty of an endless blue sky had helped. Zipping and soaring between a few fluffy white clouds provided the kind of mindless delight he otherwise only got with sex. But once back on solid ground, the feeling had quickly disappeared. He was still tense…restless.
Which was why he was now cussing and coaxing the rust-covered engine of an ancient carousel back to life. He’d stumbled across the glorious ruin in the falling-down remnants of what had been Pennsylvania Kiddie World during one of his daily get-out-to-stay-sane walks earlier this week. Something about the place had appealed to him, unlike anything else in Trouble. Certainly unlike the moldering, cuckoo-clock-infested ruin in which he was currently residing with his happy-as-a-pig-in-mud grandfather.
He supposed there were benefits to being the grandson of a town owner, because he’d been able to get the power to this park turned on. Not that it seemed to have done any good. The poor carousel motor hadn’t made so much as one long groan of agony in the days he’d been tinkering with it, even if he had managed to get a few wailing notes of the calliope to belt out.
“Come on, sweetheart, I know you’re tired and old, but you must have one more go-round in you, merry or not.”
“Excuse me?”
Jerking his attention from the control panel, which had required a good quart of WD-40 before even allowing itself to be opened, Max swung his head around and stared over his shoulder. A woman had come up behind him in the tiny, weed-encrusted, abandoned amusement park, which had once been the cubic zirconia jewel in Trouble’s dubious crown.
And speaking of jewels…good Christ, was the woman standing in front of him one. A blonde. She was a blonde. His absolute weakness.
She was also tall, curvy and had the kind of lips that’d make a man howl to the night in pure, primal hunger.
No. No howling. No wolfing at all, remember?
Swallowing his libido, he offered her a smile. “Sorry. I guess you caught me talking to myself.” He stood and brushed his hands off on his jeans, leaving a smear of grease on one thigh. Stepping closer, he forced himself to keep this encounter friendly, neighborly.
When what he wanted was sexy and suggestive.
She smiled back, also noncommittal. Cordial but not flirtatious. Unfortunately. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.” Pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, she revealed a pair of bright sky-blue eyes.
Damn. A blue-eyed blonde with a pretty smile and a pair of succulent lips. A smooth-skinned face with soft cheeks and the tiniest jut in her jaw that said she was stubborn. A bright, smiling angel appearing in this private corner of perdition just like the sun coming out on a cloudy, overcast day….
He felt like groaning out loud. Who, he wondered, had he wronged in another life to have such temptation presented to him when he couldn’t—simply could not—give in to it?
She looked him over, head to toe, with that calm, innocent glance women always hid their interest behind. A tiny hint of color appeared in her creamy cheeks and she licked at her lips—those lips—to moisten them.
Just throw a lightning bolt at me and be done with it.
“Talking to yourself—that can be a dangerous thing,” she said, her voice throatier than he’d have expected from such a soft-looking female.
“So can cutting a hand on some of this sharp, rusty metal.” Max grinned. “I feel like I ought to sweet-talk her to make sure she doesn’t scratch me.” Hmm…had that sounded suggestive? He hadn’t meant it to.
Like hell. Knock it off, Taylor.
Her full lips twitching, she gazed at his hands. “Are you hurt?”
“Not yet. But I have the feeling I will be by the time I coax this old sweetheart into action.”
The blonde glanced toward the carousel, one fine brow lifting as she studied the decrepit wreck. The only intact portion was the mini-carousel perched on the top, its mirror-tiled roof still sending out flashes of light when the sun hit it the right way. As for the rest…the once brightly colored circus animals were now mostly a uniform gray, with spots of red or green occasionally showing through. The zebra was missing its front legs, and two jagged shards were all that remained of the lion’s mane. Behind each animal, old-fashioned mirrors—dingy and cracked—provided a distorted, fun-house reflection of the washed-out menagerie, duplicating and emphasizing the sadness of each pitiful creature
He had no doubt what the stranger was looking at—but did she see? He couldn’t help wondering if the blonde saw the same aching, sad beauty that had captivated him the first time he’d spotted this place, set back off the road in a tangled, forgotten clearing.
“I can’t believe this thing hasn’t been torn down.” She kept her words in close, as if talking to herself.
“Me, either,” he admitted. “From the service records on it, I’d say it’s been closed since seventy-eight.” Which meant it was probably almost as old as this woman. Just the right age.
For ignoring. He forced himself to focus on the book. And remember he was here as the boy next door. Not the wolf beneath the porch.
“I caught the sparkle of it out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t resist exploring. I bet a lot of kids around here have had the same impulse.”
“I would have when I was a kid.”
As she met his gaze, her blue eyes sparkled. Her