Hearts on Fire Read Free Page A

her springy black hair swinging from side to side like a cloud of smoke.
    “Not everything,” he said, pointing to the one object still recognizable in the rubble. “Looks like your crystal ball survived.”
    “Oh! I see it!”
    Steve grabbed her arm, stopping her from wading into the ashes. “Wait! You can’t go in there dressed like that.” He waved a hand at her velvet slippers embroidered with gold thread.
    “But I must have my crystal ball,” she cried.
    He’d read the report this morning. There would be no more inquiry into the cause. The old woman admitted to leaving an illegal candle burning inside the tent while she went to a nearby bank of portable toilets. The official cause was negligence, which in his mind proved the booth owner a fraud. If she could tell fortunes, wouldn’t she have foreseen the tragedy and done something, like extinguish the candle, to prevent the fire?
    “Stay here,” he admonished. “I’ll get it for you.”
    The glass orb was covered in soot, but otherwise appeared untouched by the flames. Using a rag from his backpack, he cleaned the object as best he could before handing it to the owner.
    “Thank you, sir.” She held the heavy piece of glass in the palm of one hand while rubbing it reverently with the other. “You are the young man who came to help yesterday.”
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”
    “You tried, and for that, I am extremely grateful. It could have been much worse.”
    “You’re right. You shouldn’t have had a real candle burning, and you really shouldn’t have gone off and left it unattended. The whole faire could have burned to the ground.”
    She had the good sense to appear contrite. “I know, but those flameless candles don’t provide the same atmosphere as real ones. It’s hard enough getting people to believe. Providing the right ambience makes people more receptive.”
    “I just bet it does,” he muttered. What little tolerance he had for the charlatan wore thinner by the minute. He turned, intending to escape before he said something that might get him in trouble if it got back to the department.
    “Wait!” A wrinkled hand on his arm stopped him. “Don’t go. Let me read your fortune—as a way to thank you for what you did yesterday. You weren’t able to save my booth, but you kept the fire from spreading. I owe you a great debt.”
    Silently praying for patience, he faced her again, hoping he would find some polite words to replace the ones running through his head. The pleading expression on the woman’s face made him feel like a jerk for thinking bad thoughts about her. Hell, she was probably someone’s grandmother, looking for a way to supplement her Social Security check. He could afford a few extra minutes to humor her.
    “Okay. You tell me what your crystal ball says about my future, and we’ll call it even.”
    He followed her to a sprawling oak tree behind the row of vendor booths where she’d spread a rug that looked to have been around longer than the century-old tree shading it. She sat, motioning him to join her. When he did, sitting cross-legged in front of her, she placed the glass orb between them.
    “Concentrate. Focus on the center of the crystal ball.” She demonstrated, bending over to peer directly at the heavy object.
    “Don’t you need to know my name or something?”
    “No. You’ve touched the ball. It knows all there is to know about you.”
    “Too bad it didn’t know your tent was going to burn down.”
    “Perhaps it did, sir. Everything happens for a reason.”
    “What’s the reason for a fire that could have caused massive damage and loss of life?”
    “Ahh, but the only damage occurred to my tent,” she reasoned. “Perhaps the fire was necessary to bring you to me. You wouldn’t have come otherwise, would you?”
    And expose Megan to a transient liar and cheat? Hell, no . “No, I wouldn’t have stopped at your tent.”
    “There’s your answer. The message the