Page 48 of Carnival’s Playground

I dig my knee deeper into his thigh. "So you decided to drop an innocent girl from forty feet in the air? You jammed the turnstiles so families would get crushed in the exit rush? That's your revenge?"

"I wanted Dutch ruined! I wanted him to watch everything he built turn to ash!"

Avery steps into his face. "And Rourke? You planted his name on the sign-in sheet. You left that Vesper Crow patch to frame a man who wasn't even in the county."

A twisted, ugly sneer pulls at Grady's bloody mouth. "Rourke was an easy mark. Everybody on the circuit knows he had a grudge against traveling shows. Figured his name would keep you idiots chasing your tails while I finished tearing the power grid apart."

"Looks like your plan ran out of track," I tell him.

Heavy footsteps crunch rapidly on the gravel, and Deputy Renn drops to her knees beside us, snapping her steel cuffs onto Grady's wrists with loud, satisfying clicks.

"I've got him, Wyatt," Renn says. "Let him up."

I ease my weight off, rising slowly while Renn and her partner haul Grady to his feet. Grady doesn't fight the iron. The fire has completely died out of him, leaving behind nothing but a pathetic, bitter shadow of a man glaring at the circus lights he used to maintain.

Sheriff Dwayne Caffey steps out of the darkness with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt, his face carved from weathered stone. "Nice work, son." Sheriff Caffey glances down at the scattered tools and the smashed equipment case. "We'll need formal depositions from both of you down at the station once the grounds are cleared."

"We've got physical evidence, photos, tool marks, and four weeks of logs ready for you, Sheriff," Avery says.

Caffey nods, gesturing for his deputies to walk Grady toward the squad cars parked along the perimeter. "We'll put this bastard away for attempted murder and domestic sabotage."

Dutch walks into the staging area, his shoulders sagging, looking older than I've ever seen him. He stares at Grady's retreating back, a look of profound sorrow and disgust etched deep into his face, before turning toward the generator bank.

"How bad's the main panel, Dutch?"

Dutch sighs, wiping grease from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Petey caught it in time. Grady pulled the secondary relay fuse, but he didn't get the chance to short the coils. Big top never lost a single watt. The finale's running right on schedule."

A massive wave of relief crashes over my chest, loosening muscles I didn't even realize were locked tight. Dutch looks between Avery and me with quiet, profound respect. "Crowd's already heading for the main gates. Nobody got hurt. The show survived. You two go get out of these work clothes and breathe for a minute. You've more than earned it."

Dutch turns and heads back toward the midway, leaving Avery and me alone in the dim staging area. The distant applause from the big top rolls across the lot like thunder, fading slowly into the crisp night air. The crisis is over. The saboteur is in chains.

I turn to look at Avery. Her face is pale, smudged with black grease and dirt, her tousled hair falling wild around her shoulders. She stands there with her arms wrapped around her ribs, staring at the empty space where Grady had been pinned.

"You okay, spitfire?"

"Ask me something harder, Wyatt." Her voice lacks its usual sharp bite, sounding fragile and worn down to the bone.

I step closer until our boots touch. "Avery."

She looks up at me, and the tough, sarcastic shield she carries everywhere completely cracks wide open.

"Four weeks, Wyatt." Her green eyes fill with tears she refuses to let fall. "Four weeks of waiting for a cable to snap, waiting for a fire to start, wondering who was watching me in the dark. And now it's just over."

I reach out, gently wiping a streak of dirt from her cheek with my thumb. "It's over. You were brilliant tonight, spitfire. You didn't flinch once."

She leans her cheek into my calloused palm. "Neither did you, biker. You fought like a madman."

"I had something worth protecting." My voice drops into that dark, a possessive timbre that belongs only to her.

Her breath catches in her throat. "Wyatt."

I slide my hand down to cradle her jaw, my eyes locking onto hers. "I told you before, Avery. When this circus packs up, I'm not riding away. I'm done drifting. Wherever you are, that's where my boots stay planted."

A breathtaking, radiant smile breaks through her exhaustion, lighting up the dim shadows. She grips the front of my leather cut. "Good. Because if you tried to leave, I'd hunt you across forty-eight states and make your life an absolute living hell."

"I'm counting on it." I bend my head and crash my mouth down onto hers.

The kiss is fierce, deep, and heavy with four weeks of swallowed fear, turning instantly into raw, unbridled heat. She presses up onto her toes, her fingers tangling hard into the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling me closer until there's no air left between our bodies.