pressed tightly to his and tingling from head to toe. Then he let her go, so quickly she stumbled before she found her feet again.
He bowed to the audience and stalked off, leaving the fire to tend itself—the one inside the enclosure and the one outside, most of which seemed to have moved up into Rae’s face.
Shutting out the giggles and whispers of the crowd, Rae turned on the heel of one Italian leather pump and strode off in the opposite direction, to find her parents. She needed to solve whatever problem they were having and get back to work, in that order. But it was going to be hell concentrating on numbers.
chapter 2
IT TOOK ANOTHER HOUR AND A LOT OF AIMLESS wandering, but Rae finally spied her father working at his loom in the shade of a huge, spreading oak next to a small wooden building crammed with wench dresses and jester tights.
“That’s different,” she said, bending to take a closer look at the cloth on his loom, so finely woven she couldn’t see the individual threads.
Nelson Bliss shot to his feet and gathered her close, laughing slightly as he rocked her from side to side, so happy to see her it brought tears to her eyes. She’d never intended to leave her parents behind when she’d run away from the lifestyle. She had, though, and it was moments like this when she understood the price she’d paid for her so-called normalcy.
They broke the hug, Nelson looking down while Rae blinked furiously, both of them avoiding the emotion. Rae might have inherited her mother’s looks, but she’d ended up with her father’s reserve. The nomad gene had bypassed her completely.
“The color’s amazing, Dad,” she said, using the stiff cloth as a tension breaker, then taking a closer look when it really caught her eye, the off-white covered in places by shimmering copper swirls that transformed to a pretty spring green depending on the angle. The colors had been applied more than dyed, she saw before Nelson flipped a piece of rough linen over the loom. “What are you going to make out of it?” she asked him.
“Um . . . It’s a surprise for your mother. Don’t say anything, you know how these people love to gossip.”
“Sure. Is everything okay? You look tired.” He looked more than tired. He looked . . . sick, was her first reaction, followed by a thumping heart and an urge to dial 9-1-1.
He waved her off and turned away. “I’m fine.”
He clearly wasn’t, but when she got past that instant of panic that her father, one of the pillars of her life no matter how far apart they were, was ill, she could tell it wasn’t physical. Something was preying on him, though. New lines of stress wrinkled his forehead and bracketed his mouth, and he looked unhappy and closed off—more than usual.
“Something’s wrong,” Rae said.
Nelson took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his way of calming his nerves. Those nerves wouldn’t have anything to do with her mother. Rae had never known two people so like-minded and so devoted to one another that nothing short of death . . .
Her heart thumped again. “Mom—”
“Your mother’s fine, too. C’mon.” He nipped next door and asked the woman at the dragon candle shop to watch his place, then led Rae a little way down a narrow path running behind the maze of stalls, to a small gate leading back to the twenty-first century, or as close as it got for the hard-core re-enacters and craftspeople who followed the faires from one town to another.
Civilization consisted of a labyrinth of potholed dirt lanes along which RVs, pop-up trailers, campers towed by an assortment of aging vehicles, and various other so-called living quarters rubbed shoulders with each other in an amicable mishmash of a mobile neighborhood. Rae followed her father along the road, picking her way carefully around puddles and large rocks, finally giving up any attempt to spare herself when he went cross-country, taking her through knee-high weeds between a state-of-the-art RV
He bowed to the audience and stalked off, leaving the fire to tend itself—the one inside the enclosure and the one outside, most of which seemed to have moved up into Rae’s face.
Shutting out the giggles and whispers of the crowd, Rae turned on the heel of one Italian leather pump and strode off in the opposite direction, to find her parents. She needed to solve whatever problem they were having and get back to work, in that order. But it was going to be hell concentrating on numbers.
chapter 2
IT TOOK ANOTHER HOUR AND A LOT OF AIMLESS wandering, but Rae finally spied her father working at his loom in the shade of a huge, spreading oak next to a small wooden building crammed with wench dresses and jester tights.
“That’s different,” she said, bending to take a closer look at the cloth on his loom, so finely woven she couldn’t see the individual threads.
Nelson Bliss shot to his feet and gathered her close, laughing slightly as he rocked her from side to side, so happy to see her it brought tears to her eyes. She’d never intended to leave her parents behind when she’d run away from the lifestyle. She had, though, and it was moments like this when she understood the price she’d paid for her so-called normalcy.
They broke the hug, Nelson looking down while Rae blinked furiously, both of them avoiding the emotion. Rae might have inherited her mother’s looks, but she’d ended up with her father’s reserve. The nomad gene had bypassed her completely.
“The color’s amazing, Dad,” she said, using the stiff cloth as a tension breaker, then taking a closer look when it really caught her eye, the off-white covered in places by shimmering copper swirls that transformed to a pretty spring green depending on the angle. The colors had been applied more than dyed, she saw before Nelson flipped a piece of rough linen over the loom. “What are you going to make out of it?” she asked him.
“Um . . . It’s a surprise for your mother. Don’t say anything, you know how these people love to gossip.”
“Sure. Is everything okay? You look tired.” He looked more than tired. He looked . . . sick, was her first reaction, followed by a thumping heart and an urge to dial 9-1-1.
He waved her off and turned away. “I’m fine.”
He clearly wasn’t, but when she got past that instant of panic that her father, one of the pillars of her life no matter how far apart they were, was ill, she could tell it wasn’t physical. Something was preying on him, though. New lines of stress wrinkled his forehead and bracketed his mouth, and he looked unhappy and closed off—more than usual.
“Something’s wrong,” Rae said.
Nelson took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his way of calming his nerves. Those nerves wouldn’t have anything to do with her mother. Rae had never known two people so like-minded and so devoted to one another that nothing short of death . . .
Her heart thumped again. “Mom—”
“Your mother’s fine, too. C’mon.” He nipped next door and asked the woman at the dragon candle shop to watch his place, then led Rae a little way down a narrow path running behind the maze of stalls, to a small gate leading back to the twenty-first century, or as close as it got for the hard-core re-enacters and craftspeople who followed the faires from one town to another.
Civilization consisted of a labyrinth of potholed dirt lanes along which RVs, pop-up trailers, campers towed by an assortment of aging vehicles, and various other so-called living quarters rubbed shoulders with each other in an amicable mishmash of a mobile neighborhood. Rae followed her father along the road, picking her way carefully around puddles and large rocks, finally giving up any attempt to spare herself when he went cross-country, taking her through knee-high weeds between a state-of-the-art RV
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