All That Magic

Three

Blazen and I had hot dogs for dinner and believe it or not, the hot-dog seller gave us the food for free.

That's right. And I was still wondering if Blazen was such a VIP person that he was getting food as well as rides free of charge.

Maybe he was in some kind of gang that threatened people and he had these employees under his thumb?

I had a mental image of Blazen wearing a thug outfit, all down to holding a baseball bat over his shoulder, a bandana wrapped around his head, threatening to tear down the park if he didn't get free rides.

My imagination was wild. My friends told me that too.

  Later we rode on the giant wheel and after the ride, was the merry-go-round. I sat on the white horse and Blazen was inside the pumpkin. He spotted me and quickly came running and sat on the brown horse beside me. We were laughing over a joke he'd cracked.

When I looked at him, he was smiling. Later, Blazen won a little teddy bear in a shooting game.

My holiday was going better than I'd expected. I had landed in the middle of nowhere but so what? I hadn't had this much fun in a long time.

The worst part was that the fun was over for the day, and now I had to find a place to crash for the night and figure out how I was going to get money to travel to the airport in time for my next flight early morning the day after.

We walked out of the amusement park together. Blazen was beside me, neither of us saying a word.

He cleared his throat. "Do you have a place to sleep?"

I shook my head. "I was thinking of just finding a safe place somewhere. It's just a matter of one night. I think I'll manage being homeless for a day."

He chuckled. "Guess you don't have a choice. You can crash at my villa. It's close."

"Really?" I caught his hand in mine, it was reflex. He looked down at our joined hands. Mine a Mocha coffee color and his as white as the damn icing on my first birthday cake. I pulled my hand back immediately. "I can't thank you enough. If you have a tiny room, sort of like a basement or something, that would do too."

He grinned devilishly and my heart skipped a beat. "Follow me."

Follow him, I did. What came after that was something that left me appalled.

We stopped under a bridge. There on the floor was a shabby tent, a blanket, sleeping bag with a small hand bag.

I stared at him incredulously. He passed me a small smile. "Welcome to my home, Penny."