Davey squealed with delight and tugged at Josie’s hand. “Me pet. Me pet.”

  “No, Davey,” Meg said. “We can’t pet the elephant.”

  Amanda jostled little Jerrod in her arms and pointed at the enormous animal.

  Josie had seen pictures of elephants, of course, but never had she seen one up close. It was truly a spectacular sight.

  The moment the last of the circus boxcars was emptied, the brass band struck up a lively tune, and a parade wound its way along Main Street. The colorful procession offered an exciting preview of what would later be found under the big top. A crew of what seemed like hundreds of roustabouts had already set up the enormous tent outside of town.

  Main Street was closed to traffic, allowing entertainers and animals to pass freely. Cheers rose from spectators stationed along the parade route. Children ran alongside the colored wagons, squealing with delight at the antics of the clowns. Dogs barked. Chickens flew out of the way, leaving a flutter of feathers behind. Never had the town seen anything so spectacular.

  Davey dragged Josie along the boardwalk, shouting, “Come on, Aun’ Cozy. Hurry!”

  Holding up the hem of her skirt with her free hand, Josie laughed. It was all she could do to keep up with him. “I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying.”

  Bareback riders in dazzling costumes rode by on prancing horses, waving to the crowd. Tumblers, jugglers, and clowns, including one who stood barely three feet tall, followed. Their greased white faces sported bulbous red noses, including one that squeaked when pressed.

  Robinson’s celebrated twenty-piece military band marched down Main to the sound of blaring trumpets and rat-a-tat of drums. The musicians were followed by a calliope in a bright-red circus wagon, the bell chimes and steam organ filling the air with musical sounds.

  Finally, Jumbo the elephant marched down the street. Lifting his trunk upward, he let out a bellow to the crowd’s loud cheers.

  Davey’s eyes grew wide as saucers as the animal passed. He insisted they follow him up Main. “Hurry, hurry.”

  While Josie struggled to keep up with him, Meg and Amanda followed behind, Meg pushing the carriage. Davey laughed at the camels walking a distance behind the elephant.

  “Horses funny,” he said.

  “Those aren’t horses. They’re camels,” Josie explained.

  The parade marched past the Gazette tent. Surprised to see Hank still fighting with the old printer, as he had been when she left him earlier, Josie waved to him.

  “Take a break,” she called gaily. “It’s circus day.”

  “Give me a minute.” He picked up a hammer and whacked the printer with all his might.

  A loud metal clang rang out, startling one of the camels. With an earsplitting squeal, the animal reared back, straining against its harness. Cries of alarm rose from onlookers, and parents frantically reached for their young children. Josie jerked Davey away from the street, and his mother lifted him into her arms.

  The trainer fought to control the panicked camel. Another trainer, running to help, cracked his whip. This only made matters worse. The camel clamped his mouth around the newcomer’s head and tossed him aside like no more than a sack of potatoes. The man hit the ground hard.

  Pandemonium erupted. Amid screams of terror, spectators scrambled out of the way. Josie whirled about looking for her sisters, but they were lost in the frenzied crowd. She turned around just in time to see the animal jerk back with a high-pitched growl and break free from its nose line.

  Staring with horror-filled eyes, Josie’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Young Haley stood motionless in the camel’s path.

  Chapter 16

  Circus animal trainer Mr. Adams was testing his newly purchased pistol with terrible effect. He hopes to regain full use of his left leg in due time. —The Two-Time Gazette

  Josie ran toward the terrified girl. “Haley!” she screamed, her voice shrill. “Someone help!”

  Brandon Wade reached Haley first, seeming to appear out of nowhere. He scooped her in his arms and moved her out of the camel’s path in the nick of time. Josie followed, but lost them in the pandemonium that ensued. The circus people quickly led the rest of the animals away, leaving only a small, stunned crowd and a somewhat dazed animal trainer behind.

  She finally spotted Wade on his knees, rocking Haley in his arms. With a face drained of color, he looked shaken. The sobbing girl clung to him as if to never let go, her face buried against his broad chest.

  Josie dropped down beside them and ran her hand along Haley’s back. “It’s okay, dear heart. You’re safe now.”

  Instead of comforting the child, her touch only seemed to upset Haley more. Her young body tensed, and a look of horror or maybe even fear crossed her pale face.

  “It’s only me,” Josie said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” When her soothing words failed to console the child, she pulled her hand away. Poor thing. Who could blame her for being scared out of her wits?

  “I thought that camel was gonna hurt me,” Haley sobbed. Her tears spilled onto Wade’s shirt in a widening wet circle.

  “It’s all right, muffin,” Wade said, running his hand up and down her back. “The camel’s gone now and I won’t let anything hurt you.”

  “I- I-” Haley could hardly get the words out between her sobs. “W-want to go home, Papa.”

  Startled, Josie met Wade’s gaze. “You’re . . . her father?” She’d heard something about his wife dying and leaving him with a child, but she’d discounted it along with all the other rumors, including his being an offspring of British royalty.

  He answered her question with a nod. “Why so surprised?”

  “I just never thought of you as a family man.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Does that change your opinion of me?”

  Yes, yes, it did change her opinion of him, but in which way she couldn’t say.

  Haley stirred in Wade’s arms. He blew a strand of his daughter’s hair away from his face. “Come on,” he said. Lifting her off the ground, he tenderly cradled her in his arms. “Let’s get you home.”

  ***

  The following morning, Josie found Hank slumped over his desk. He was beside himself, and nothing Josie said or did could console him.

  “Someone could have keen billed,” he lamented. “And all because of me.” He said more, but his words became so scrambled it was as if he were talking a foreign language.

  “Listen to me, Hank.” She made him raise his head off the desk and look at her. “No one was killed or seriously injured. The doctor said that the animal trainer was just a bit shaken up and has no broken bones.”

  “But that gittle . . . little girl was scared out of her wits.” Hank shuddered.

  “Haley is fine.” Josie still couldn’t believe the child was Brandon Wade’s daughter. Though now that she thought about it, there was a slight family resemblance, especially around the eyes. “Hank, it was an accident. You had no way of knowing how that camel would react. No one blames you.”

  She had just about managed to get Hank to calm down, or at least stop thinking what could have happened had the camel not been restrained, when Becky-Sue rushed into the tent, all pink cheeked and breathless.

  “That was so exciting,” she squealed, waving her notepad over her head. “I wrote everything down. I even interviewed the man who almost got his head bitten off. He said if he ever got his hands on the son of a—”

  “That’s wonderful, Becky-Sue,” Josie said quickly with an anxious glance at Hank. She had forgotten that she had assigned the girl to report on the circus. Grabbing the notebook from Becky-Sue’s flailing hands, she tossed a meaningful nod in Hank’s direction.

  Becky-Sue’s eyes widened, and her mouth formed a perfect O. In her excitement, she’d evidently failed to notice Hank’s presence.

  “I-I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.

  Feeling sorry for her, Josie walked her outside. “Thank you. Your article will run in next week’s edition.”

  Becky-Sue looked like she was about to cry. “I didn’t see Hank,” she whispered.

  Josie sighed. “I know.”

  Becky Sue’s forehead creased. “If you don’t run the article, I won’t feel bad.”

  “It’s news, Becky-Sue. I have to run it. When newspapers start choosing the news it reports, we’ll all be in trouble.”

  ***

  Brandon sat on the edge of Haley’s bed, rocking her in his arms. This was the third consecutive night she’d woken from a deep sleep, sobbing her little heart out, her trembling body soaked with sweat.

  How he hated seeing her so unhappy. She’d refused to have anything to do with the Fourth of July celebration and had complained of a stomachache. It was only because he’d put his foot down that the two of them had gone to see the arrival of the circus. He hadn’t wanted her to miss out on that. Big mistake.

  The camel episode had turned her completely against Two-Time, and all she’d talked about since was wanting to leave. Nothing he said or did could make her change her mind.

  Not that he blamed her. The mere memory of seeing Haley cower in the path of that crazed animal made his blood run cold. The thought of losing his daughter was like a knife slicing through him. Mingled with the horror was the memory of Mrs. Johnson’s surprised expression upon learning he was Haley’s pa. If she had that much trouble believing he was a father, she mustn’t have a very good opinion of him.

  Before he could decide how he felt about that, Haley stirred in his arms, pulling him away from his thoughts. Staring up at him with tear-filled orbs, she asked, “Why can’t we go back to San Antone?”

  He brushed a strand of blond hair away from her damp cheek. “I told you, Haley. This is our home now.”

  “But I hate it here!”

  Brandon inhaled. Reasoning with a nine-year-old was challenging enough, but at two in the morning it was downright impossible.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll go to San Antone for a visit.” Encouraged by the hopeful look on his daughter’s face, he continued, “You’d like that, right? We’ll see your friends and have a picnic by the river. Just like we used to. What do you say?”

  Haley knuckled the tears away from her eyes. “Can we stay there forever? Please, Papa, please!”

  He envied his daughter for thinking there was such a thing as forever. “We’ll talk about this again in the morning. Right now, we both need to get some sleep.”

  Much to his relief, that seemed to satisfy her, but he knew the reprieve was only temporary. Tomorrow she’d be at him again. Once Haley got something in her head, she was like a dog with a bone.

  Her eyelids closed the moment she laid her head back on her pillow. Dark lashes fanned her tear-stained cheeks. He watched her sleep, his heart filled with gratitude. What would he have done had he lost her?

  He dropped a tender kiss on her forehead.

  At times, it seemed like she was growing up too quickly. Tonight, however, she looked small and vulnerable, and his heart swelled with a need to protect her from the harshness of the world. If only he could. Saving her from the camel had been pure luck. They had gotten separated in the crowd. It was only by chance that he’d happened to spot her in time. But what if he hadn’t? The thought sent cold chills racing down his spine.

  Pulling the covers over her, he waited to make sure she didn’t stir before dousing the flame in the oil lamp. He stood in the dark listening to his daughter’s soft breaths and felt very much alone.

  ***

  “Got a filler?” Hank called from his desk early that Monday morning. “I have two inches left.”

  Josie reached for a file where she kept interesting tidbits collected from other newspapers to use where needed. Fillers included little oddities about animals, the weather, and people. “Borrowing” from other newspapers was common practice, and most editors didn’t bother giving credit. Josie always did.

  One short article told about art thief Peter Osborne, who’d tried claiming the reward on his own wanted poster. Another news bit was about a stagecoach robber who turned himself in after imagining he saw his own initials in a cloud.

  The article reminded her of the conversation with Scooter. “What do you think it will take for someone to come forward with information on Miss Ruby?”

  Hank plucked a lead letter out of the type case before answering. “If a thousand-dollar reward doesn’t do it, I sure in tarnation don’t think anything will.”

  Josie sighed. He could be right. “Do you think running Miss Bubbles’ advertisement in the paper had anything to do with the fire?”

  Hank swung his chair around to face her. “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know. The timing, maybe.”

  He shrugged and turned back to his desk. “Maybe it was one of the ladies I turned down.”

  She laughed. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  She stopped to read a small clipping about the great camel experiment in Texas. The project had been a failure because of the disagreeable nature of the beasts. She tossed the clipping back into the file. A filler about camels was probably not a good idea right now.

  She was still rummaging through the clippings when a shadow fell across her desk. She looked up to find Pepper staring down at her.

  His glance bounced off the canvas walls and ceiling. “I see that things have taken, shall we say, a turn for the worse since we last spoke.”

  Sitting back in her chair, she folded her arms across her chest. “What do you want, Pepper?”

  “I thought perhaps you might wish to reconsider my offer.”

  It took a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in. The fire and all that had happened since had commanded her attention. So much so that she had forgotten all about the riverside property. She now realized the deed had gone up in smoke along with everything else.

  Pepper tapped his foot, waiting for her response, and when none came asked, “Well?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “My answer still stands.”

  Pepper’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Evidently, he had expected her to change her mind. “That seems rather foolish. This isn’t exactly what you would call home sweet home.”

  “To me it is,” she said.

  ‘If you change your mind—”

  “I won’t.”

  “If you do, you know where to find me.” He spun around and ducked out of the tent.

  “What was that all about?” Hank asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

  “I don’t really know,” Josie said. Pepper sure did want that lot. Not that she blamed him. It was a beautiful piece of land. Still, his persistence suggested his interest went beyond the normal desire for riverfront property.

  The thought led to a most disconcerting question. Her office had burned down shortly after he’d made his first offer. Was it possible that Pepper had set her office on fire to force her to sell?

  Her body stiffened as the thought took hold. Oh, dear heaven . . .

  Chapter 17

  The train arrived late Monday after several of its cars had been temporarily pulled from service. A group of hoboes reportedly stole the rubber airbrake hoses to make soles for their shoes.

  —Two-Time Gazette

  The thought that Pepper had something to do with the fire sent Josie scurrying along the boardwalk, heels pounding the wooden sidewalk planks like two frenzied woodpeckers. By the time she swooped into the sheriff’s office she had convinced herself she was right about Pepper.

  The manner by which she burst through the door seemed to startle Scooter, and he half rose from his desk. “Josie. I was just about to pay you a visit.”

  “I think I know who started the fire,” she blurted out.

  Eyebrows raised, he lowered himself into his chair. Giving him no chance to speak, she paced back and forth in front of his desk and outlined the case against Pepper. When she finished, she stopped and faced him. “What do you think?”

  Scooter tapped the edge of his desk with the end of a pencil. “Just because he wants that property don’t mean nothin’. Lots of people have an eye on that lot.”

  “But not everyone tried to buy it from me.” Still not convinced Pepper hadn’t purposely run her off the road during the race, she gave her head an indignant shake. “At half of what it’s worth, I might add. And I can tell you, he wasn’t happy when I turned his offer down.”

  Scooter shrugged. “That don’t make him guilty of arson.”

  “No, but it does suggest a motive, and that makes him the closest thing to a suspect we’ve got.”

  Scooter shook his head. “We might have ourselves another suspect.”

  She stared at him, heart thumping. “Who?”

  For answer, he pulled a sheet of parchment paper from a drawer and slid it across the desk.

  Frowning, she leaned over for a closer look. It was an old wanted poster. An award of five hundred dollars had been offered for the capture and conviction of a man named Jack Casey, wanted for arson. The poster included a sketch of a man whose face looked vaguely familiar.

  She lifted her gaze. “Who is he?”

  Scooter folded his arms across his chest. “You now know him as Hank.”

  “My Hank?” she gasped.

  Scooter answered her question with a nod. Speechless, she stared at him in disbelief before turning her attention back to the poster, this time picking it up to study more closely. There was no denying that the man in the picture did resemble Hank—a much younger Hank—especially around the eyes and mouth.

  “Hank is an arsonist?” she whispered through wooden lips.

  “He served two years in the state pen for settin’ fire to a school.”

  She dropped the poster on his desk as if it had suddenly burned her fingers. “I . . . I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true.” He reached for a telegram and planted it on the desk next to the poster. “That there is what they call confirmation.”

  Josie shook her head. She couldn’t imagine gentle Hank doing something so awful. “Was . . . was anyone hurt at the school?”