“Okay, I’m going to count to three and then say pull. When I say pull, you pull the rip cord, Divine,” Kathy Walters instructed, drawing her attention. “When I say pull, you pull. Got it?”
“Yes, but—” Divine let her words die as they started to rise, pulled back and up by the cord the girls had attached to their connected harnesses. She glanced to Marcus uncertainly. “I could slip into her head and have her bring us down. I can do this alone.”
Marcus just smiled and shook his head, reaching out with his left hand to rub her left arm where it was linked with his right arm. “Nah. I’m with you. If you go down, I do too.”
“Hold on to your wrists,” Kathy yelled from below. “Don’t break the hold.”
Marcus smiled wryly and returned to clasping his wrists with his hands as Divine was doing before muttering, “Let’s just hope we land safely.”
“I’m sure we will,” Divine said. “They’ve never had an accident yet since I joined two years ago.”
“So what you’re saying is, they’re due for an accident.”
“No,” Divine laughed. “I—”
“One!” Kathy shouted from below.
“Oh, are we up all the way already?” Divine asked with surprise, glancing around. Yep, they were up, pretty damned high too.
“Two!”
“Oh, look I can see Vincent at the Tilt-A-Whirl,” she said brightly.
“Three!”
“Yeah, he looks like a bug from here. Just how far up are we?”
“Pull!”
Rather than answer, Divine released her wrist long enough to pull the cord and then quickly caught her wrist again as they suddenly plummeted downward. Despite his claim that he didn’t like heights, Marcus laughed his head off as they dropped, but Divine didn’t join him at first. For those first five seconds it felt like they were going to plummet to the earth. It wasn’t until their cord pulled tight and they suddenly swung forward, swinging on their stomachs in their harnesses, that she began to smile and then laugh. This was madness, crazy, awesome!
They were allowed three swings that took them out over the midway and then back above the back lot, before Kathy shouted at them to grab a rope she was holding up on a pole.
“Is she kidding?” Marcus asked with disbelief. “We’ll pull her right off that stand she’s on.”
Divine shrugged and—trusting that the girl knew what she was doing—grabbed for the looped rope as they flew past. Marcus caught it first. It didn’t jerk them to a halt or drag Kathy off the stand, instead the loop pulled out, showing that it was attached to a chain. It came out more slowly than they would have gone had they not held it and slowed them to a stop after thirty or forty feet, then began to pull them back toward the takeoff pad.
“Well,” Marcus said and then grinned at her. “That was fun. Want to do it again?”
Divine laughed at him. “I thought you were afraid of heights?”
“Not afraid. I just don’t like them,” he corrected. “But I find with you there are a lot of things I didn’t used to like or didn’t care about that are suddenly interesting and fun.”
“Same here,” she acknowledged, her voice husky as she thought of some of those things.
Marcus’s arm tightened on hers where they were linked at the elbows and he tugged her closer, his face moving in. She knew he was going to kiss her and closed her eyes as her body began to tingle at the very idea and then she blinked them open again in surprise as they suddenly jerked to a halt.
“How was that?” Kathy asked by her ear, and Divine tore her eyes from Marcus’s and glanced around to see that Kathy and the greenie working with her had caught and positioned them over the landing pad. Even as she noted that, the back of their harness was released and they both swung to a standing position again.
“It was great,” Divine said with a grin as the girls worked to unhook them.
“Want to do it again?” Kathy asked, pausing in unhooking them.
“It’s up to you,” Marcus said when she glanced his way. “I’m game if you are.”
Divine hesitated, but then glanced to the line-up the girls had. “No. Thanks, Kathy, but you have a heck of a line-up there. Besides, I’m kind of hungry.”
“Yeah, so am I,” Marcus announced as the girls continued unhooking them. “We can always do this again later if you want.”
“Come by at closing,” Kathy suggested. “Lots of us take turns at it after the carnival closes.”
“Sounds good,” Marcus said, stepping out of his harness. He then turned to hold Divine’s hands as she stepped out of hers and slid his arm around her waist to lead her away. “What do you feel like eating?”
“I’m not sure,” Divine said with amusement. “That omelet this morning and last night’s casserole are the only things I’ve eaten in ages.”
“Me too,” he acknowledged, and then let his hand drop from her waist to catch her fingers and said, “Come on. I have an idea.”
She followed, surprised when he led them back to the trailers. He released her hand, then said, “Wait here,” and slipped inside.
Divine stared at the trailer for a moment before it suddenly occurred to her that this was her chance. She was alone. She could slip away and make her escape now, go somewhere and start her new life . . . alone. Again.
She let that thought settle in her head and didn’t have to wonder why that wasn’t at all appealing. She’d been having fun with Marcus. They hadn’t talked much or had long, deep conversations, mostly they’d run from ride to ride, laughing like children and basically just having fun. They had cracked the occasional joke, or commented on things they saw. A mother shrieking at a weeping child for dropping his ice cream had angered them both. Children dropped things, accidents happened. The child was already upset by it and the mother standing there yelling at the little boy that he was stupid and clumsy and useless hadn’t impressed either of them. Marcus slipping into the mother’s head and giving her an attitude adjustment had made Divine smile. She knew it wouldn’t last long, but the boy’s smile as the mother had suddenly hugged him and told him she loved him, that accidents happened and he was a good boy and she would buy him a new ice cream . . . well, at least he’d have one good night at the carnival to remember when he grew up.
They’d both grinned when they’d spotted a couple of plump teenagers making out on the Ferris wheel as they passed. The pair had been pretty into it and it was Marcus who noticed that Carl let their car swing by without making them get out.
“Our Carl’s an old romantic,” Divine had told him with amusement when he’d commented. “He’ll let them go around two or three times before ending their ride.”
They’d smiled and laughed over several things since coming out for their play evening three hours ago, and Divine had enjoyed every moment of it. She had gathered memories she could pull out and look at over the years ahead, she told herself. But now playtime was over. She had to go.
Sighing, she turned away and started around the RV, intending to slip up the opposite side of it to reach the back lot rather than risk Marcus coming out and spotting her slipping away between the two vehicles. She was about to turn down the far side and head for the back lot when Marcus suddenly said, “You aren’t trying to escape me, are you?”
Divine turned quickly to see him jogging toward her, a smile on his face that looked a little concerned and even forced. Managing a smile of her own, she shook her head. “I just thought I’d—” She glanced around for an excuse, and finished, “—try my hand at the balloon game while I waited.”
Marcus glanced to the game a few stalls ahead and then took her hand. “We’ll both try it before we go.”