Hearts of Fire Read online

  I gasped, and my stomach dropped like someone had just dumped a tonne of bricks there. “That’s horrific.”

  Lola grimaced. “Pretty much. They never caught who did it. Most people think it was someone from the town we’d been in. Or a passing traveller. But you know, it could always have been one of us.”

  “Don’t say that!” Violet complained. “I won’t sleep a wink tonight now.”

  Lola only gave her a big toothy smile in response, causing Violet to scowl. My mind was racing, heart beating fast, my skin goose-pimpling. I didn’t like Lola’s insinuation that Jack might be a murderer. Not because I had any sort of affection for him, aside from thinking he was hot, but because I’d been alone with him the other night on a dark, empty street. If he was capable of doing something like that, then I’d been in a terrible amount of danger and hadn’t even realised it. I mean, I craved an adventure, the unknown, but I’d rather the adventure be full of fun and excitement than fear and terror.

  It didn’t take us long to polish off the rest of the wine, and then we hit the sack. Tomorrow was my first day as a proper circus worker. I didn’t like the word “carnie,” so I refused to call myself one. I made sure I’d brought my face painting kit with me and then settled into bed. I was tired, so I thought I’d sleep right away, but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about Vera and what had happened to her.

  The following morning, I awoke to the sound of voices arguing loudly. Violet was complaining that Lola had used up all the hot water for her shower. I winced at her high-pitched screeching. Obviously, showering in the camper wasn’t going to happen right now, and I needed to wash. So I gathered my things and made my way to the communal showers on site. Even though I wasn’t overjoyed by the idea, I felt a sense of satisfaction to know my mother would be horrified by me using anything that had the word “communal” in front of it.

  Take that, Mother, I mused, giving her an imaginary middle finger.

  Yes, I was a dork.

  The weather was warm, so it wasn’t such a hardship to shower in what was essentially the outdoors. There were individual wooden cubicles, one side designated for men and the other for women. I slipped off my shorts and T-shirt quickly, then stepped under the spray, yelping when it hit me because it was freezing cold. Thankfully, though, it heated up after a moment.

  I took my time making sure I was squeaky clean, because if I was going to have to shower outdoors for the next week, I wanted this one to last. I was nothing if not economical. When I was done, I reached out and grabbed my towel, wrapping it tightly around my body. It was then that I realised just how many things I’d neglected to bring with me. I’d only brought one towel and no flip-flops. I dried my feet as best I could and then slipped on my Converse.

  I was coming out of the showers at an opportune moment, and when I say “opportune,” I mean the worst possible moment, because I tripped and fell over somebody’s feet. My towel slipped off a little, and I had to fumble to secure it back in place before I ended up flashing the entire campsite. And conveniently, Jack’s camper van was parked only a couple of yards away from the showers. He was standing outside, smoking and rubbing a hand across his stubbled jaw, casually watching the whole encounter.

  “What the hell,” I grumbled, and looked down to see who I’d tripped over. A dishevelled-looking man sat passed out against the wall, an almost empty bottle of whiskey clutched in his dirty hand. He was also snoring loudly. I thought I heard a low, quiet chuckle coming from somewhere close by, and I knew it had to be Jack. I was still looking at the sleeping man, wondering who on earth he was. His clothes were in dire need of cleaning, and his long hair was so thick with dirt and grease that I couldn’t tell what colour it was. He also had a beard that covered most of his face.

  All of a sudden, he shifted, and his eyes began to blink open. I was startled to be met with eyes so icy blue they almost made him beautiful, despite everything else. And God, did those eyes tell a story. They possessed so many layers I felt like I could have spent a lifetime painting the horrors and wonders in each one and still never get to the bottom.

  “The fuck are you looking at?” he asked, accent posh London, those icy blues shooting daggers. I noted his accent was completely at odds with his appearance as I swallowed and stepped away, because there was something about this man that was positively chilling. As I did, my back hit something hard and unyielding. I didn’t even need to turn around to know it was Jack, because I could smell him. It surprised me that I remembered what he smelled like: smoke, kerosene, and clove oil.

  The man on the ground began to get up, but he was wobbly on his feet and fell over again. His whiskey bottle dropped to the ground, the glass shattering.

  “Fuck’s sake!” he grunted, and looked at me angrily again, like it was my fault he was so drunk he couldn’t stand on his own two feet. I felt the weight of a warm hand land on my shoulder just before Jack murmured in my ear, “This is King. He’s Marina’s brother. He’s also a raging alcoholic. You should try to avoid him if possible.”

  “What did you say about me, you bastard!?”

  “Call me a bastard again, and I’ll throw you in those showers. We all know you could do with a wash,” said Jack, his voice firm and unwavering. It shut King right up. He mumbled a few choice words that didn’t bear repeating and then stumbled away.

  I still hadn’t turned around, and Jack was still standing behind me, hand on my shoulder. “Where does he sleep?” I asked quietly.

  “Outside, mostly. Marina only lets him stay in her camper when we’re on the road.”

  “Oh,” I said, and tightened the towel around me again. When I turned, Jack’s gaze wandered from my wet temples, along the side of my cheek, and down my neck before finally settling in the region of my chest. I felt touched. Hot and flushed. I looked up at him from under my lashes, and he met my eyes then. There was something intense about the way he looked at me, but again, it could have all been my active and fatally hopeful imagination.

  “Got a nice little look at you earlier,” he said, and I seriously thought I might die of mortification. My skin prickled with awareness.

  “What?” I replied, my voice so, so quiet.

  He didn’t say anything for a second, just hummed low in his throat, and it was the sexiest sound I’d heard, possibly ever. Then he took my hand in his. I’d taken the bandage off, but I still had a red burn mark down the centre of my palm. Holding it up, he seemed fascinated as he ran a finger down it gently. It only stung a tiny bit, and the combination of him touching me and the sting caused a strange tingling between my legs. Yep, my vagina was definitely on Team McCabe, even if my brain was waving around big red BEWARE signs like a maniac.

  His mouth moved, and there was something intrigued in his expression, like he’d just figured out he’d aroused me, and it both interested and surprised him. He moved closer, eating up my space…and just stared at me.

  And man, could he stare. I felt like he was telling me a silent story, and it was captivating.

  “Could I get by you, please? I need to go get dressed,” I said, breaking the quiet. It could have been minutes or hours that I was standing there, but I’d never know. Time moved in strange patterns when I was around this man.

  He said nothing, just dropped my hand and stepped out of the way. I hurried off at an unnecessarily speedy pace and practically raced back to the camper. When I reached it, I slammed the door shut behind me and breathed out a long sigh. It took me a second to realise I wasn’t alone. Violet and Lola sat in the living area, Violet painting her toenails violet and Lola eating a packet of potato chips.

  “You okay, Lille?” Lola asked as she munched, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, just uh….”

  “Oh, no, what happened?”

  “Jack McCabe.”

  “Shit,” she said, glancing away before looking to me again with mischief. “Did you like it?”

  “Well, not much happened for me to like, but, God, I can’t tell whether
he’s indifferent towards me or hates my guts, you know.”

  Violet let out a little laugh, still concentrating on her toenails.

  “Oh, in that case, he probably just wants to fuck you,” Lola teased.

  Now I was getting manic. “How reassuring. Last night you insinuated he might be a murder rapist, and now you tell me this! Can you see how wrong that is?”

  “Is it pretty wrong,” Violet put in, agreeing with me.

  “Hey, I just say it how I see it,” Lola said, raising her hands in surrender.

  I pursed my lips and went into our room to get dressed. I’d just finished pulling on my jeans and a top when my phone started ringing. And, as though I’d been blessed with a sixth sense, I knew it was Mum. I still wasn’t ready to talk to her, but I figured I should get the agony over and done with.

  I picked it up and brought it to my ear, answering, “Hello?”

  “Lille! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been driving myself mad with worry.”

  “Didn’t you get my letter?”

  “Oh, I got it all right. I swear, you’re trying to put me in an early grave! I mean, a circus of all things. If you wanted to travel, I would have paid for you to go euro railing. Have you any idea the kind of people who work in circuses? And it’s not even a chain, it’s a flipping independent one, run by some eccentric hippy woman. Bernie from the office told me there was a rape in that circus a couple of years back. A rape, Lillian!”

  I’d only been on the phone to her for thirty seconds, and already I could feel my throat constricting, my lungs filling with anxiety. This was the effect she had on me. I tried to summon some composure. “It was actually a murder rape, and yes, I know about it. But it was years ago, and everyone’s been perfectly nice,” I said, almost telling the truth. King certainly hadn’t been nice to me, but he was drunk at the time. I was still trying to figure out what Jack was.

  “That’s even worse! You need to come home right this minute. Where are you exactly? I’ll arrange a flight for you at the nearest airport.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I was in Caen, but I stopped myself just in time. There was no way in hell I was getting on a flight home, and if I told her where I was, I wouldn’t put it past her to come looking for me. Or worse, pay some sort of professional intervention people to do it for her. My mother was a strange lady, and you never knew the lengths she’d go to.

  “I’m not telling you where I am,” I said, trying to sound as calm and steady as I could.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said I’m not telling you, Mum. I’m not a child, and you can’t dictate my life anymore.”

  “Fine, I’ll just have the GPS tracker activated on your phone,” she replied, like it was perfectly normal.

  My voice raised an unnatural number of octaves. “What?”

  “You heard what I said, Lillian.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “I’m your mother, and I care about you. If that’s insane, then yes, I’ll accept the title,” she replied smoothly.

  My pulse ratcheted up a notch as I stood from the bed, hurrying from the room with my phone in my hand. I could still hear Mum complaining down the line as I ran to a quiet spot just outside the campsite and smashed my extremely expensive smart phone into the gravel. The screen cracked, but it wasn’t good enough. I began stomping on it until it was broken to pieces. There was no way she could track me now. The thing was practically pulverised, but I still kept going. The more broken it got, the more relieved I felt that Mum wouldn’t be able to find me. My chest was moving frantically up and down when I finally stopped, trying to catch my breath, my hands on my hips. My heart stopped when someone started to speak.

  “Should I call the nearest madhouse? Because that was the craziest shit I’ve seen in a long time.”

  It was Jack. Of course it was.

  Four

  And Lille’s heart surely did falter

  He was standing several feet away, an amused smirk on his face as he brought a bottle of water to his mouth and drank. I stomped towards him, grabbed the water from his grip, and returned to the phone, spilling the contents all over the cracked pieces. I felt relatively sure Mum wouldn’t be doing any GPS tracking now.

  “Did you just steal my water?” Jack asked, blinking at me.

  “Yes, but it was for a good cause,” I replied.

  “So what happened? Did the phone call you a bitch or something? Sleep with your boyfriend? Murder your grandmother?”

  I couldn’t help it — I laughed. There was something hilarious about his completely humourless tone, plus, I was slightly manic.

  “No, actually. My mother was going to try to track my location on it.”

  “Is your mother James Bond? And what, you couldn’t just take out the battery and the SIM?”

  “I wasn’t sure if that’s all it takes.”

  Jack shrugged and studied me for a long moment. I felt exposed under his watchful gaze, and I didn’t like it. I wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything at all. Then he finally spoke. “Why don’t you want her to find you?”

  I sighed and walked over to the kerb before sitting down. Jack caught me off guard when he came and sat down next to me, awaiting my answer. There was something very obedient and dog-like about the gesture, which suddenly opened my eyes to another side of him. On the surface he was dark, dangerous, and deeply masculine. But right now, I could see a flicker of an intrigued little boy.

  “Because she’s crazy and controlling, and the whole reason I took Marina up on her offer to come here was because I wanted to get away from my mother. No, not wanted, needed. Living with her was suffocating me.”

  He seemed interested as he nodded his head and kept on staring. I didn’t understand why I was telling him any of this. Jack McCabe wasn’t confidant material. I didn’t even think he was friend material, and there was a small likelihood that he was dangerous. Still, I kept on talking.

  “She’s the CEO for a very successful tech company. I guess the control she has in her job translates over to her dealings with me, because she dictates my entire life. Tells me what I can and can’t eat, what I can and can’t wear. When I get paid at the end of each week from my waitressing job, she takes eighty percent of the money and leaves me with just enough to get by. If I refuse to give it to her, she threatens to kick me out, and I have nowhere else to go, so I have to follow her crazy rules.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He left when I was a kid. Perhaps he decided to flee just like I did. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

  Jack didn’t comment. I might have been mistaken, but I thought I saw a flicker of empathy in his expression. It was either that or bemusement. There was a quiet between us that suddenly felt awkward, so I dusted my hands off on my jeans and stood.

  “Well, I, uh, have to go finish off Marina’s accounts now. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’m dead weight around here,” I said before I could censor myself, and winced.

  Jack’s expression didn’t waver. It rarely did, which meant I never quite knew what he was thinking. It was incredibly frustrating. He remained sitting there the whole time I walked away.

  Later that day, after I’d borrowed a folding table and two chairs from Winnie and Antonio, I went and set up a face-painting station close to the entrance to the circus. It was a good job I’d studied French at school, because I had decent enough conversational skills in the language to get by. Mostly I just had to ask the kids what they wanted to be. I charged five euros per child and managed to paint ten faces by the time the show began. If I could do the same before every performance, I’d make enough money to see me through the summer.

  Jack strode by at one point as I was painting butterfly wings onto the cheeks of a little red-haired girl. He paused, tilted his head to see what I was painting, then continued on his way. It was disconcerting that I got chills every time I saw him. He had this aura, though, like you couldn’t tell if he was human or a supern
atural being wearing human skin.

  Inspiration hit me, and I hurriedly pulled my sketch pad out of my bag, scribbling down ideas. I’d have to keep this piece a secret, of course, because if Jack found out I wanted to paint him, I imagine he’d frown so hard he’d break his own face. This picture would be darker than my usual works. Normally, I drew hearts floating out of bodies as two lovers embraced, or raindrops falling into puddles reflecting a woman carrying a brightly coloured umbrella. This picture would show Jack onstage inside the Spiegeltent, dexterously weaving his flames through the air, his tanned skin glistening, as a fire demon that was possessing his body could be glimpsed through the flames.

  I had goose bumps all along my arms just imagining it.

  The show had been on for about an hour when I slipped inside the tent. The Ladies of the Sky were just finishing up their act, and again I felt a pang of jealousy at how beautifully they could control their bodies. I’d seen all three earlier today, stretching outside their camper. Lola had told me that they were all sisters, with only one or two years between each of them. Their names were Mary, Julie, and Molly and they came from America. I’d wanted to go over and introduce myself, befriend them, but I didn’t have the courage. Perhaps another day I’d muster it up.

  Their act came to an end, and then Jack was emerging in all his fiery glory. Knocking back a mouthful of fuel, he proceeded to blow an explosive blast of fire from his mouth. I wondered what the chances were of him hurting himself, and if there was any long-term damage caused to his body. Surely putting combustible fluids into your mouth meant you inevitably ingested a small amount over time.

  I had so many questions that I wanted to ask him, and if he were anyone else I would, but when it came to Jack McCabe, I found my brain forgetting all those questions in his strange and heady presence. I’d like to say I went away then, back to my camper for the night, but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop watching until his entire act was over. He did the same knife-throwing bit as before, with Marina selecting a volunteer from the audience. I watched keenly, studying his every move, as he interacted with the woman who’d been selected. I was one-hundred-percent sure I didn’t see him place his hands on her shoulders like he did to me, nor did he touch her stomach to calm her or hold her hand as he led her to the wooden panel.