Levi ran one hand through his hair and heaved a sigh of frustration. “Mrs. Goodloe, please be reasonable. I have a business to run, several hundred employees who depend upon me, not to mention the hundreds of customers waiting along the way because they have purchased tickets for a performance tonight or tomorrow or the following day.”
She said nothing but kept her eyes—a startling and unexpected shade of forget-me-not blue, he realized—focused squarely on him.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said without the slightest idea of how he might extricate himself from the situation. He stalled for time by pulling out his pocket watch, glancing at the time and then snapping the embossed silver cover shut and slipping it back into the pocket of his vest. “I am leaving at seven this evening for my home and summer headquarters in Wisconsin. Tomorrow, I will meet up with the circus train and make the remainder of the journey with them. If your boy is on that train I will find him.”
“Thank you,” she said, her head slightly bowed so that for one moment he was unclear whether or not her gratitude was directed at him or to God. She lifted her gaze to his and touched the sleeve of his suit jacket. “You are a good man, Mr. Harmon.”
“There’s one thing more, Mrs. Goodloe.”
Anything, her eyes exclaimed.
“I expect you to come with me.”
Chapter Two
“You can’t…that is…why…I could not possibly.…”
“Those are my terms, Mrs. Goodloe. Assuming you are correct and your son is traveling with my circus, then it is my duty to find the boy and return him to you. However, as I mentioned, I have a business to run and other people who must be considered. Once the boy is found it would only be right for you to take charge of him from that point forward.”
Without her being aware of moving, Hannah suddenly realized that Levi Harmon had escorted her back into the foyer where his servant stood by the door. “Hans, please make sure that Mrs. Goodloe has all of the information she needs to meet us at the railway station tonight.” He turned back to Hannah then and took her hand between both of his. “I wouldn’t worry, Mrs. Goodloe. The likelihood is that by the time you are reunited with your son he will be more than happy to come home, and any concerns you might have about his wanderlust will have been cured.”
“Shall I call for your car to take Mrs. Goodloe home?” Hans asked.
“I…” Hannah searched for her voice which seemed to have been permanently silenced by her shock at the recent turn of events.
“Mrs. Goodloe and her people do not travel by motorized vehicle,” Levi explained. “Unless, of course, the situation is an unusual one.” His eyes met hers just before he entered the room off the foyer and closed the door.
The man called Hans seemed every bit as nonplussed as Hannah was. “I believe we have a bicycle,” he said. “Would that be all right?”
“Thank you, Mr. Hans, but I walked here and I can walk back.” Squaring her shoulders and forcing herself not to so much as glance at the closed door where Levi Harmon was, she marched to the open front door.
Hans scurried to open the iron gate for her. “It’s simply Hans, ma’am,” he said.
Hannah paused and looked at him. “You have no last name?”
“Winters,” he managed, “but…”
“Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Winters.”
“Mr. Harmon’s private car will be attached to the train leaving for Atlanta at 7:02 this evening, ma’am. You really only need to pack a single valise. Everything you may need will be provided. Mr. Harmon is extraordinarily good to his guests.” His voice was almost pleading for her to not think too badly of his employer.
“Thank you, Mr. Winters.” She shook his hand. “It was my pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She started down the drive and, although she refused to look back, she was suddenly certain that Hans Winters was not the only one watching her go.
By the time she reached the edge of the celery fields with their cottages in the background, it was midafternoon. The five-mile walk had given her ample time to consider the possibilities before her—and to pray for guidance in choosing correctly.
Instead of stopping at her small bungalow, she went straight to her father-in-law’s bakery. As she had suspected, he was still there—as was his eldest daughter Pleasant, who had helped him run the business since the death of her mother. Hannah frowned. She had hoped to find Gunther Goodloe alone. Pleasant was the anti thesis of her name. A spinster, she seemed always to look on the dark side of any situation. Hannah could only imagine how she might react to the idea that Hannah needed to travel—by train—to find Caleb.
Hannah took a deep, steadying breath, closed her eyes for a moment to gather her wits, then opened the door to the bakery.
“We’re closed,” Pleasant barked without looking up from her sweeping.
“Hello, Pleasant. Is Gunther in the back?”
“Where else would he be?”
Hannah saw this for the rhetorical question it was and inched past her sister-in-law. Her father-in-law was a short and stocky man with a full gray beard that only highlighted his lack of hair. “Good day to you,” Hannah called out over the clang of pans that Gunther was scrubbing. She took a towel from a peg near the back door of the shop, and began drying one of the pans he’d left to drain on the sideboard.
“The boy took off, did he?”
Hannah nodded.
“Any idea where he went?”
“Yes.” She inhaled deeply and then told her father-in-law her suspicions.
“The circus? Well, he wouldn’t be the first.” He shook the water from his large hands and then wiped them on a towel that had once been a flour sack. “Do you want me to go down there and fetch him home?”
“You can’t. The circus company left before dawn.”
Gunther raised his bushy eyebrows but said nothing.
“I went to see Mr. Levi Harmon,” she admitted.
“Why would you do such a thing on your own, Hannah? Why wouldn’t you have come to me—or the bishop—right away and let us handle this?”
“Because Caleb is my son.”
“Nevertheless…”
“It’s done,” she interrupted, “and now we must decide what to do next.”
“What did Harmon have to say? He can’t have been any too pleased to have you accusing him of harboring a runaway.”
“I didn’t accuse him of anything. I simply asked for his help in bringing Caleb home. He leaves this evening and plans to meet up with the company tomorrow and travel the rest of the way back to Wisconsin with them.”
“So
