Hidden Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,4

what he was.

A man. They frightened me.

"I guess you can stay," Grace allowed. "But you'll need to keep your people under wraps."

Cartwright's eyes narrowed. "What exactly is your meaning, Sheriff?"

"My meaning is this - everyone in Lake Bluff has a gun and no one is afraid to use it. Sneaking around after dark where you don't belong is an invitation to get shot."

"You think we'll be stealin' then, perhaps kidnapping a few of your wee ones?"

Cartwright let his gaze scan Grace from top to bottom. His perusal was not complimentary - probably the first time in the history of Grace.

"You should know better than to believe everything you hear. All Gypsies aren't thieves and baby stealers any more than all Indians are lazy drunks."

Grace's cheeks darkened. "Point taken. I apologize."

My eyes widened. Another first.

"But the warning still stands. Others in Lake Bluff might not be as enlightened as I am."

Cartwright's mouth twitched. "Of course not."

He said something to his people in their language, and they shuffled and murmured and stared.

"What did you tell them?" I asked.

"To stay in camp after dark."

"Does anyone else speak English?"

"Some. But we prefer to speak Romani, the language of the Rom. The Gypsies," he clarified. "We don't want to lose our heritage."

"Understandable," Grace murmured.

When we were kids, Grace had spent a lot of time studying the old ways with her Cherokee medicine woman great-grandmother who'd insisted the ancient knowledge should not be lost.

Now that Grace was a public servant, I wondered how much of her background she flaunted. The Lake Bluff sheriff was elected, and while the residents were used to seeing Native American descendants in their town, that didn't mean they wanted their head cop performing a rain dance beneath the light of the moon. If the Cherokee even had a rain dance.

I turned to Cartwright. "What type of entertainment are we talking about?"

For all I knew, they might have come here to do naked rain dances, which would not be the kind of show we wanted for our family festival.

"Human sacrifice and the like."

I gaped; so did Grace. A few of the Gypsies began to laugh.

"Sorry." Cartwright spread his hands. "I couldn't resist."

When neither Grace nor I cracked a smile, he said a few short words in their language and his people dispersed, then he returned his attention to us.

"We perform like our ancestors did. As you can see" - Cartwright swept an arm out to indicate the wagons, the animals, the gaily dressed people - "we endeavor to bring the flavor of the Old World to the new one. The Rom have long been travelers."

"Why is that?" Grace asked.

"The easier to avoid arrest for our stealing and kidnapping."

Beginning to get his humor, I laughed; Grace didn't.

"Seriously," she said. "What's up with your blast-of-the-past show?"

"People enjoy it." He shrugged. "We're different, and that'll keep you workin' week after week."

"When you say different - "

"Fortune-telling, animal acts, trinkets."

"Big whoop," Grace muttered. "Been there, done that, a hundred times before."

"Not like this." He turned to me as if I'd been the one questioning him. "If you'd like to come by another time, Mayor Kennedy, I'd enjoy showing you just what makes us so special."
Chapter 3
"He's got the hots for you," Grace said as we drove away.

I glanced back. Malachi Cartwright stared after us, his dark gaze boring into mine. I quickly faced forward. "No, he doesn't."

" 'Come on by, Mayor Kennedy,'" she mocked, sounding like the love child of Scarlett O'Hara and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. " 'Preferably alone. Without that nasty old sheriff. I'll show you my etchings. I keep them in my pants.'"

"Grace," I protested, barely able to speak past the laughter. "He was just trying to be friendly, and since you were doing your Godzilla-stomps-on-all-the-little-people act - "

"He couldn't keep his eyes off you," she interrupted. "Barely looked in my direction the entire time we were there."

"And I bet you aren't used to that."

"No," she agreed. "But I didn't really want him to look at me. His eyes are..." Her voice faded.

"What?"

"Pure black. Like a demon or something."

"A demon? Have you been hitting the peace pipe again?"

"No one's eyes are pure black," she insisted.

"And neither were his. They were dark brown. It was just a trick of the light."

"Sure it was," she muttered.

I didn't bother to argue with her. Arguing with Grace was never worth the headache that followed.

We reached the town hall, and she let the car idle out front. "You're not coming in?" I asked.

"Nope. Places to go, people to