The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

opened the door and turned on the light that hummed from a faulty bulb. In front of her was a pickup truck up on a lift, angled like it was taking off in flight. The truck was painted with a smooth dull-gray primer, as though it had been sculpted out of clay. She gasped.

Lara had a thing for vintage pickup trucks—the kind they made into Christmas ornaments, embroidered onto winter pillows, or put in front of businesses to make them old-timey. When she was a kid, they’d had an old truck just like this among the battered old circus equipment. One day it had been hauled away for scrap in one of Audrey’s reorganizations, the dead-grass outline of it remaining for several years like a scar. “It’s a 1948 Chevy.”

“A 1948 Chevy 3100 five-window,” he said. “Straight-six manual. I know how you like that.” He walked around the truck and pointed past the body. About ten feet from the truck she spied a dusty pile of brown metal that looked like mechanical guts that he’d tossed out. “Wait till you see what’s in store for her. Come with me.” Todd led her around the truck to a wooden work space, rolling up his sleeves and pushing his hair back, completely focused on the plans and notes he’d drawn that were sprawled across the space. He placed his hands down on the bench and scanned the photos and sketches.

After he’d left college, failing out of the engineering program at Virginia Tech, Todd had returned to Kerrigan Falls and, on a whim, started a classic car restoration business with a man named Paul Sherman who’d owned an old garage. Over the past two years, Sherman & Sutton Classic Cars had become one of the most sought-after vintage car restoration specialists along the entire East Coast, mostly due to Todd’s reputation as a muscle car restoration expert—Corvettes, Camaros, GTOs, Chevelles, and Mustangs. Lara would never have thought that an obsession with ripping apart car engines in his teens would turn into a livelihood he loved, let alone one that was so lucrative.

“You see here”—Todd pointed to a photo of the very same Chevy with missing headlights and mismatched paint that resembled patches—“the fenders had rust all over.” Lara saw from the photo that the entire truck had been a dull weathered brown when he’d found it. So engrossed was he in shaping this metal puzzle into a work of art and seemingly unhappy about some detail, he appeared to be lost in his own world, his arms folded and the line of his square jaw pulsing.

While Lara should have been looking at the posted pictures of the truck in various stages of ruin, she studied his face instead. Todd’s long nose could have been a hair too feminine if not for the elegant bump at the top. When he walked into a room, people stopped their conversations and looked up, wondering if he was someone famous, perhaps a film star returning to his hometown for a holiday. That he didn’t care, that he stood here agonizing over a sketch of a 1948 Chevy truck as a gift for her, was what truly made Todd Sutton beautiful to Lara. He never noticed the effect he had on people—or if he did, it never mattered to him.

“Where did you find this?”

“Oh, that’s the special thing.” He smiled devilishly, his hazel eyes shining, and pulled from a file folder a photo of the truck with faded livery painted on the side. “Recognize it?”

Lara took the photo from his hand and inhaled sharply. It was an old black-and-white image, the familiar logo painted on it almost overexposed in the sunlight—she felt a jolt of melancholy. It was her old truck. LE CIRQUE MARGOT.

Decorated in its circus livery, the old truck had once hauled a two-person crew to eighteen towns with the purpose of sticking posters up on every telephone pole, barn, and local business that would post them—the markets and pharmacies being the most likely prospects. This Chevy had sat among the rusted and abandoned circus props and trailers at Lara’s house for years, grass and vines growing up through the floorboards as though the ground were reclaiming it.

“So, I was driving by an old amusement park supply in Culpeper, and I saw it from the road. It was hidden behind some old roller-coaster cars. I didn’t know it was the old truck that sat out in your field until I was scrubbing it and saw the faded sign. Something about the lettering looked familiar, so I went to the historical society to see if there were any old photos of it in Le Cirque Margot memorabilia. And sure enough, I found plenty.”

A blonde was posed leaning against the front bumper. She wore shorts and had legs that would have made Betty Grable envious. Turning back to look at the truck, Lara smoothed its rounded fender. This truck had belonged to the Margot.

“I had hoped to give it to you as a wedding present, but it’s frankly been a bitch to find parts for, so it won’t be ready in time, I’m afraid.” He laughed a little too loudly, and she tilted her head and glanced up at him. Was he jittery? Todd was never nervous. He was searching her face, trying to read her, hoping this offering had meant something to her.

She pulled him toward her and kissed him, hard, then whispered in his ear, “This is the most thoughtful thing that anyone has ever done for me. I love it.”

He looked down and his forehead touched hers. “Lara, we both know that I haven’t always been so thoughtful.”

It was true. Throughout their history, there had been many transgressions, many girls, then—as they got older—women. While she chalked it up to youth, Lara had slammed doors on him, thrown beautiful bunches of roses at him, ripped up apology notes and his poor attempts at poetry. She’d had revenge dates and surprisingly fallen in love with one