“I’m not leaving. I told Mama I wasn’t teasing when I said I wanted a house and a cowboy for Christmas. Every time we go into a new town, I wonder what it would be like to live in one of the houses we pass on the streets. Now, I get to find out.”

Hooter rolled his big, soulful eyes up at her as if asking what she was talking about. She reached down and scratched the dog’s ears as she walked past him and out into the night. She had two more suitcases, a worn old fiddle case, and two boxes to unload. It wasn’t much to show for twenty-five years, but when two people share a small travel trailer, there’s not room to collect junk. Only the very precious items could be saved, and they were in the boxes. She carried in the suitcases and set them inside the door and went back for the boxes.

She looked north but couldn’t see anything but the moon and one star hanging in the sky. Raylen lived over there. She’d never seen the house, but Uncle Haskell said that his nearest neighbor lived a mile to the north. Was he over there with his wife and a house full of kids? Were they loading up in his truck or van or whatever his wife drove to go to town for fast food and a movie? Would Liz get bored by the end of the winter season and be ready to go back on the road with the carnival?

She sighed and carried her fiddle case inside, then the two small boxes. She was now officially moved in, and it was exhilarating. The dog and cat looked up with soulful eyes and she told them, “Work first. Play later.”

When she’d finished putting her crystal ball on the vanity, a snapshot of her mother and Tressa in full costume on the dresser, and her deck of worn Tarot cards on the bedside table, she felt more at home in the big room. She popped open the suitcases and hung jeans, flowing skirts, a few shirts, and a denim jacket in the closet, arranged underwear, pajamas, and three bright-colored costumes in dresser drawers, and set several pairs of high-heeled shoes, a pair of Nikes, and a pair of scuffed-up cowboy boots on the closet floor.

Work is done. Now I can play, she thought.

She headed up the hallway. Blister opened one eye but didn’t budge from the recliner. Hooter raised his head and looked toward the door.

“Already wanting to go back outside, are you?” The words were barely out of her mouth when someone knocked hard on the door.

She hadn’t heard a vehicle and the dog hadn’t stirred. Some watchdog Hooter was. She opened the door to find Raylen leaning on the jamb.

“Evenin’,” he said in a deep Texas drawl.

“Good evenin’,” she said.

“You goin’ to invite me in?” he asked.

In carnival life, few people came inside the trailer. When they knocked on the door, it usually came with an invitation to come outside, to eat supper at the community potluck, to take a walk around the grounds, or to pet the horses. It had to be serious between two people for them to spend time inside a trailer together. Her mother had never brought a man, carnival worker or any other, inside the trailer. Tressa was the only person Liz could remember ever sitting at the small kitchen table with them.