Whitehorse (47 page)
Val's laughter erupted from the house, bringing a smile to Leah's face.
Anderson
shook his head and with a muttered curse headed for his car. Watching him go, Leah yelled, "Robert, I take it you don't have kids."
"No!" he shouted back.
"I didn't think so," she replied, then said to herself, "Lucky kids."
Johnny met her in the foyer, pushing Val in his wheelchair. Shamika followed, the ex-Bronco football player at her side. He peeled away from the others and said, "I'll bring the car up."
"Are we going someplace?" Leah asked.
"Johnny has surprise for Val," Val announced very clearly, looking up at Johnny and grinning.
"Oh?" She kissed Val on the cheek and smiled at Johnny. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"
"Definitely," Johnny replied.
"Bigger than … a twenty-one-inch television?"
"Absolutely."
"A … six stack of hay bales?"
"Much bigger."
She feigned a frown and narrowed her eyes. Val's grin grew wider and Shamika shrugged as Leah glanced at her for a hint. "Is it on the premises?" she asked.
"Nope," Johnny said.
The ear stopped at the foot of the steps and Johnny eased Val's chair down each stair as the driver opened the car doors, then hurried over to help put Val in the backseat.
"Am I invited?" Leah asked.
Johnny turned and lifted his hand to her. "Would I go anywhere without you?"
"I don't know. Would you?"
"Not unless I felt it would be detrimental to your life and happiness."
"You are such a smooth talker, Johnny."
"And you love it."
"Oh, yes." She took his hand. "I most definitely love it."
The lights of the Big Top Carnival and Circus lit up the night sky in a bloom of red, green, gold, and blue twinklers. The glowing marquee out front read:
WELCOME VALENTINO STARR!
There was a scattering of cars and vans in the parking lot, each showing handicapped license plates. As the driver parked the limo among them, Leah looked at Johnny, then Shamika, who had begun to grin. "What's going on?"
"Johnny rented the carnival for tonight, for Val and his friends."
Leah sank back in the seat, glad for the darkness that hid the look of raw emotion she was certain was etched in her face. She couldn't speak. She did not dare look at Johnny or she would burst out in tears.
Johnny took her hand. "I trust you remember this place."
She nodded and swallowed. "You brought me here on our first real date. I got a stomachache eating corn dogs and cotton candy. You won a giant walrus playing Skee-Ball. I still have it, by the way. And at closing time you got your friend who operated the Ferris wheel to stop us at the top so we could watch the fireworks exploding all around us. I think we ended up making out more than we watched the fireworks."
"We made our own fireworks." Johnny wiggled his eyebrows, making Shamika laugh and Leah blush.
Both children and adults rode the rides; played the games—all of which had obviously been rigged to allow the children to win—ate cotton candy, popcorn, and ice cream; and watched the circus of trained elephants, tigers, and horses, not to mention the lithe trapeze artists flying through the air with the greatest of ease.
Val rode the merry-go-round twelve times, Johnny and Leah at his side, coaxing him to hold fast to the rising and falling steed with arched neck and flaring nostrils. By the eighth ride he was gripping the pole with his own hands, his legs locked around the animal's body, whooping and laughing and shouting to Shamika, who waved each time they flew by her: "Val flying now, Mika!"
Just before
everyone climbed aboard the Ferris wheel. It slowly rotated high into the night sky, allowing them to look out over the grounds of bright, vibrant lights the color of rainbows. With Val sitting between her and Johnny, Leah held her son's hand and pointed to the distant glow of downtown Ruidoso; then they counted the stars overhead and watched a meteorite streak across the universe in a burst of fiery light.
At straight-up
, the Ferris wheel stopped, leaving Leah, Johnny, and Val swinging at the very top. Then the first streaks of fireworks whirred into the sky above their heads and exploded, sending red and green sparks mushrooming to what seemed to be forever. Then more, popping, banging, inundating the night with light, until the shapes of words formed before Leah's eyes.
MARRY ME
Smiling, laughing, acknowledging the applause and whistles of approval from Val's guests, Leah turned her tear-filled eyes to Johnny's and nodded. "Of course I'll marry you. Of course."
The phone rang at
fumbled for it, glancing at Leah to see if it had disturbed her.
"Johnny? Johnny, it's Savanah. Are you alone?"
He sat up, shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind of its grogginess, then leaned slightly over Leah to see if she was really asleep. "Good as," he finally replied in a slightly slurred voice.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"Leah is there, isn't she?"
"So what?"
"Tell me the rumors aren't true. Are you marrying her or not?"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Everything, considering what I'm holding in my hand."
He glanced back at Leah and partially covered the phone with one hand. "You got them."
"Those and more. Seems I'm not the only one who sneaks the occasional forbidden photo."
There came a muffled voice, then a loud, "Hello?"
Johnny jerked the phone from his ear.
"Hello? Hello? I don't think there's anyone there. Hello? Mr. Whitehorse? Is that really you?"
Lowering his voice even more, Johnny whispered, "Who the hell is this?"
"Maude Elliot, Mr. Whitehorse. This is really Mr. Whitehorse, isn't it? The guy on
Fifth Avenue
? The one with his jeans unzipped?"
He rolled his eyes and left the bed, tucked the phone under one arm and walked to the bathroom, closed the door, eased the lid down on the toilet and sat down in the dark.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Maude Elliot seemed to scream.
"Obviously Savanah has a good reason for this," he finally replied, more to himself than to Maude Elliot.
"I'm a photographer, Mr. Whitehorse. I've worked for Formation Media for oh, golly, five years or so. Well, I really don't work for FM. I'm freelance. I move around a lot. Sometimes the resorts contract me to, you know, take pictures of their guests or do promotional shots for brochures or ads or postcards. I work mostly with the island resorts:
Barbados
,
Aruba
—"
"What are you telling me, Ms. Elliot?"
"Oh please, call me Maude."
He nodded and took a deep breath.
"I met Savanah last year when I came up to
Toronto
for the opening of the
Crystal
Casino
. We sort of hit it off. She's a darn good photographer—"
"Get to the point … Maude."
"Oh. Sure. I guess you're wanting to get back to bed, huh? Heck, I'm used to these kind of hours—"
"Maude."
"Oh. Ah … Savanah has filled me in with what's going on, you're trying to nail that senator? Good for you. They're all a lot of sleazebuckets you know, would sell their blind grannies if they thought it would buy them a few votes. Anyway, what she's got here, the photos, they're good, a little grainy, but … what I've got are better."
Johnny frowned. "Are you saying you have photographs of Foster—"
"
Aruba
, three years ago. You see, Formation never holds their meetings in the same place; for obvious reasons they wish to keep their anonymity. Just so happens I was there doing a shoot for one of their competitors, the Hilton I think, or maybe it was Holiday Inn. I wandered over to the Rama Rio Resort with the thought of knocking on a few doors, handing out a few business cards, drum up a little business. The place was swarming with bigwigs; I mean these cats were dripping the dinero, know what I mean? Major big shots we're talkin', and pretty damn creepy lookin' if you ask me. I thought I'd fallen into a friggin' United Nations powwow. Japanese, Mexicans, Middle Easterners. And right there among them was these familiar faces."
"Foster."
"Among others. Ever heard of Gary Taylor?"
"Elected governor of
Nevada
the last election."
"Bingo. How about Mark Schwin?"
