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