At the end of a bloody trail, Johnny Redd finds an incredible secret. While struggling with a bullet in his chest, he crawls along the ground until he finds himself surrounded by a maze of quaint carnival tarps. Inside is a world of color, costumes, false hair, nails, eyelashes -- and a man who dresses like a woman. It’s a world of trickery, deception, and lies. Johnny makes it just inside the tent when his strength fails and he faints dead away. When he awakes, he’s reminded of the bizarre reality that surrounds him. It’s that he learns he has been taken care of by a man – er. woman -- by the name of Frenchy Starr. The name rolls from the tongue of this fallen angel, this princess of darkness, this twilight queen. She’s a mystery, a dangerously beautiful mystery, and Johnny slowly becomes ensnared in the trap which she sets. After one night of incredible love, a jealous fan shoots Frenchy. Thinking her dead, Johnny’s heart is broken and he leaves in search of something to fill the hole she left in his heart. Enter Kit Dalton.

Carnival Cowboy

“All right, who started this?” he growled, looking around at the crowd that had gathered. He got several versions, but when he had it all figured out, he grabbed the troublemaker and hauled him off to jail.


While the other cowboy dusted himself off, smoothed down his hair, and put his hat back on, Johnny turned away and was tying his horse up to the hitching post when he heard a familiar voice.


“That damned bastard needs to go somewhere and sleep it off.”


Johnny froze. There was something about the sound of his voice. Where had he heard it before?


The strange echo whirled around in his head as Johnny turned and looked closely at the cowboy. Right away he noticed his sexy swagger, his dark, swarthy looks and wild dark hair that complimented a pair of roguish green eyes.


Green eyes. Something about green eyes—and the voice. When you put both of them together, why did it trigger something in him that reminded him of—a carnival.


Chapter 6