Sifting subtler scents from the overwhelming stench of smoldering ash, Morgan found his way to Harry.
The old man was not alone. Caitlin and Ulysses stood with him. Firelight picked out the grief on each upturned face. All the progress the troupe had made since Morgan’s coming had been undone in an hour.
“Harry,” he said.
The old man turned, his eyes wells of misery. “Morgan?”
“You’ve come back?” Caitlin asked. Her face broke into a broad grin. “You couldn’t abandon us, not now. Not ever.” She flung herself at him and embraced him tightly. Morgan endured the touch in stoic silence.
Harry’s eyes met his over Caitlin’s head. “You are a good man, Morgan Holt.”
Caitlin stepped back and wiped at her face with her coatsleeve. “What do we do next, Harry?”
He looked at the billows of smoke that rose from the dying fire. “We continue, as we always have. We find a way to go on, even if we must perform through the winter.”
“We go on,” Caitlin agreed. “And we stay together.”
Ulysses moved to Morgan’s side. “I hope that Caitlin does not suffer a grave disappointment,” he said softly. “It is much worse than Harry admits.”
“I know.”
“You are remaining with us?”
“I will stay. I have no choice, do I?”
“I sometimes wonder,” Ulysses said, “if Caitlin is not right, and there is a reason for such events—one beyond our understanding.”
“Then whoever makes such reasons has no love for me—or you.”
” ‘The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.'”
“You are a fraud, Professor,” Morgan said. “You still listen to your heart.”
“And you do not?”
Morgan turned on his heel and walked away.
Chapter 4
The fire had drawn Niall, though he might have missed it had he not left his hotel for a late-night stroll. Colorado Springs was not so great a town to ignore a good-sized conflagration, especially when it was burning up a visiting circus.
So Niall followed the crowds to the outskirts of town, where most of the blaze had already been extinguished. He had not seen the circus perform, preoccupied as he had been with the business he had recently completed in New Mexico, but he recognized disaster when he saw it. He watched with detached curiosity as the circus people ran to and fro, gesticulating and crying out as some new loss was discovered.
He could almost pity them. His father had suffered such setbacks in his early years of business in Denver, but he had persevered and overcome them. He had been daring and ruthless as well as shrewd, as one had to be in these times. Niall had carried on in his footsteps. The Munroe fortune had doubled in the seven years since Niall had taken control.
But he had started with an advantage. These people, vagrants and mountebanks, lived on the edge of ruin. He doubted any of them would accept a decent, steady job in place of the life they lived.
Once he had considered the wandering life himself. Once he’d had no thought of the future beyond the next five minutes. Athena had paid for his folly. Now he spent every day trying to make it right. And failing.
He pushed his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat and remembered his last conversation with Athena. “Where did you get your hard heart, Niall?”
She simply could not understand. How could she, sheltered as she was? And he intended to keep her that way. She had no conception of the dangers of the world, the cruelties it held for a young woman foolish enough to believe she could change it.
Niall sighed and looked at the stars, visible now that the smoke had begun to clear. When was the last time he had glanced up to notice the constellations, or walked for the sake of walking? He took for granted what Athena was unable to do, because of him.
Well, now he had an opportunity to prove Athena wrong about the nature of his heart, if he chose to take it.
He dropped his gaze and followed a lone figure as it crossed the lot with a purposeful stride. One of the performers. A woman—by no means curvaceous, almost childlike—but graceful nonetheless. In fact, the way she moved was arresting, and he found himself staring after her when she disappeared into one of the undamaged tents.