Lost Lady Read online

  “Could I? Please?”

  “I’ll take care of her,” the woman said. “And Travis is on the grounds.”

  Reluctantly, Regan relinquished her daughter and watched as the woman lifted the child into the saddle. From the side of the pony, the woman took a vest completely covered in pink roses and slipped Jennifer’s arms through it.

  “Roses for me!” Jennifer yelled. “Daddy sent roses for me too.”

  Regan noticed she seemed to be looking for someone, and a quick glance showed Timmie Watts hiding behind his mother’s skirts. Feeling rotten as she did it, Regan pulled the boy into Jennifer’s sight, where the child promptly stuck her tongue out at him and pelted him with a rose. To clear her guilty conscience, Regan asked if Timmie would like to walk beside Jennifer’s pony in the parade, which he accepted gladly.

  Waving gaily and somewhat regally, Jennifer rode down the street toward the south end of Scarlet Springs. More men and women followed her, some walking, some on horses, all dressed outlandishly and garishly, followed by a seven-piece brass band. At the end of the parade, more clowns came, bearing signs announcing that a free performance of the circus, courtesy of Miss Jennifer Stanford, would be given in two hours.

  As the last person disappeared around the curve of the road past the church, the townspeople stood silently for a few moments.

  “I guess I better get on with my chores,” said one man finally.

  “I wonder what a person wears to a circus?” asked a woman.

  “Regan,” someone else began. “I’m sure this town’s gonna lay down and die from boredom when you leave.”

  A hastily stifled giggle that could only be Brandy’s made Regan turn.

  “What do you think Travis is planning now?”

  “To get to me through Jennifer,” Regan replied. “At least I hope that’s all he plans. Come in, we’ve got to get busy. We’ll close the inn, put signs on the door, ‘Gone to the circus,’ and everyone can go.”

  “Great idea. I’ll pack food for us and half the town, and we’ll be ready in as little time as Travis has given us.”

  The two hours passed too quickly, and it seemed minutes before Regan was driving a wagon loaded with food to the circus grounds. A large enclosure had been made by stretching canvas walls around trees and posts. Long wooden benches had been set up, the ones in back taller than those in front, and already most of them were filled with townspeople. In one center section was a large space set apart by pink and orange ribbons blowing in the breeze.

  “Wonder where you’re to sit?” Brandy laughed at Regan’s look of embarrassment. “Come on, it can’t be as bad as you imagine.”

  The young woman in the pink tights directed both Regan and Brandy to the ribboned section and left them. Within minutes two horses, at full gallop, came tearing through the enclosure with one man on top, one leg on one horse, the other on the other horse. As he reached the end of the field, he jumped to one horse, turned both of them around, and, again at a gallop, leaped from one horse to the next.

  “Oh my!” Brandy breathed.

  After that, they had no time to think as the field filled with more and more horses. The horses did tricks; the men did tricks atop the horses. Two men stood on two horses, and a third man stood on the men’s shoulders as the horses ran round and round the ring.

  After the equestrians left, Jennifer rode into the ring, her pony led by the lady in pink, and Jennifer was wearing an identical costume of pink bits of gold glitter here and there. As Regan watched, her stomach in her throat, the woman took the little girl’s hand and Jennifer stood in the saddle and slowly rode the pony once around the circle.

  “Sit down!” Brandy commanded as Regan started after her daughter. “She can’t fall very far, and the woman’s holding her.”

  At that the circus woman let go of Jennifer’s hand, and she cried, “Look at me, Mommie!” to which Regan nearly fainted, especially when Jennifer gave a jump and the lady caught her.

  Jennifer took several bows as she’d obviously been taught, and all of Scarlet Springs applauded explosively. She ran to her mother, and Regan caught the child tightly.

  “Was I good? Did I do it right?”

  “You were splendid. You nearly scared me to death.”

  Jennifer seemed pleased at that. “Wait till you see Daddy.”

  It took Regan a while to calm her racing heart, and when she could speak again there was no time to ask after Travis as the elephant was once again paraded before them. The clowns did more tricks, making everyone laugh, and the little bear danced. But all the while Regan was looking for Travis.

  The band had been playing constantly, and now it struck up some eerie music that made everyone quieten.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” bellowed a good-looking man in a red coat and shiny black boots, “we bring you a death-defying act. Our next performer will walk a tightrope—without a net. If he falls…well, you can use your own imaginations.”

  “I don’t think I like this part,” Regan said, looking upward at the rope strung between two poles high above the ground. “Perhaps I should take Jennifer and leave.”

  The look on Brandy’s face changed. “Maybe you should stay, Regan,” she said in a funny voice.

  Following Brandy’s stare, Regan wasn’t sure of what she saw.

  Travis walked into the ring, one arm raised, as if he’d always worked in a circus. The costume he wore, of black cotton, fit him like a second skin, showing the big muscles in his thighs, his small tight buttocks, and his broad, hard chest. A black cape lined in scarlet satin hung from his shoulders. With a flourish, he tossed it to a beautiful woman wearing a tiny bit of green satin. “No wonder the man drives you crazy,” Brandy said.

  “What in the world is he doing out there?” Regan gasped. “Surely even Travis wouldn’t do anything so foolish as….”

  She couldn’t continue as the horns blared and Travis calmly began to climb the swaying rope ladder to the tiny platform high over their heads.

  “That’s my Daddy! That’s my Daddy!” Jennifer yelled, bouncing up and down on the hard wooden seat.

  Regan couldn’t move. Her eyes didn’t blink, her lungs didn’t function, even her heart stopped beating as she stared at Travis on the platform above them.

  At the top he again raised his arm to the crowd below, and everyone clapped loudly. There was complete silence as Travis began his slow, careful journey across the taut rope, a long pole in his hand, and it seemed an eternity before he made it to the other side.

  The applause made the benches rattle, and Regan buried her face in her hands, tears of relief coming quickly. “Tell me when he’s on the ground again,” she said to Brandy.

  Brandy was unusually quiet.

  “Brandy?” Regan said, peeking out through her fingers. Her friend’s expression made her head swivel to look up at Travis again. He was standing on the platform, calmly looking down at her, seeming to be waiting for something. When she looked up at him, he hooked something onto the platform pole and another thing onto the wide black leather belt he wore.

  “He’s going to walk it again,” Brandy whispered. “But at least he’s using a safety cable this time.”

  Travis was several feet across the rope before everyone began to realize just what his “safety cable” really was. Slowly the banner began to unfold. “Regan” was the first word they saw, and after having seen the sentence hundreds of times in the last two days, they needed no one to read it for them.

  “Regan!” they read as one. “Will” came next, then “You.” Each word got louder and louder, and finally, when Travis stood at the opposite platform, they reread all of it together. If they’d worked for weeks they couldn’t have orchestrated it better. “Regan, will you marry me?”

  Regan’s body turned red from her toes to her hair roots and possibly spread to the tips of her hair; it certainly felt as if it did.

  “What does it say, Mommie?” Jennifer demanded as everyone around her began to laugh.