THE NEXT MORNING, LOGAN STOOD OUTSIDE A YELLOW AND
red tent. They’d gotten a new one.
A permanent one, according to the sign on the gate:
The Flying H Family Circus.
Family Circus. The irony wasn’t lost on Logan. “You really lived in a circus?” Michael held onto his
hand, the baseball cap tilted back just far enough that he could look up without it falling off.
“Yes, I really did.” In another lifetime. And one he was now going to subject Michael to.
But he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t about to take him along to find Angel, and Rainbow… well, Rainbow had enough on her plate at the moment if he could even find her—and he didn’t have time to look.
His… parents were the best choice he had. He’d never starved, and Nadia had always been there with a big hug whenever he’d gotten hurt. She’d taken care of him when he’d been sick, asked how his day was. Right now, he’d have to be happy with that for Michael. God willing, this would only be temporary.
“This looks cool. Let’s go in.” Michael was back to bouncing. Logan had missed that.
He hadn’t, however, missed the musty hay smell that greeted them when they opened the tent flap. Nor the Hungarian curses filling the arena where the net held the four fallen flyers while the trapezes
swung madly above them. Good thing Michael didn’t know Hungarian.
“Can I do that?”
“Not right now, Mi—”
“Hey, you!” One of the flyers flipped over the edge of the net, his accent as thick as the sawdust below—and just as familiar. Goran was still at his old tricks. “No audience ’til four. You come back then.”
“Hello, Goran.”
His father was in his seventies, yet he still had the tightly muscled body of an athlete who practiced every day, hour after hour. Logan remembered it well.
“Who are you?” Goran rested a foot on the ring and shoved his hands onto his hips, the same way he had when any of them had put the raising of the big top in jeopardy. “It’s me, Goran. Lacko.” God, that was a name from
the past.
“Lacko?” For once the guy was speechless, and the look of surprise added years to his face. “You came back?” He stepped over the ring and held out his arms. “You brought your child?”
A lump settled in Logan’s throat. Open arms. Just like that, Goran accepted him back with open arms.
He nodded and met the old man halfway in an em-brace that wiped out the years and much of the baggage Logan had carried with him for so long.
“Lacko, your mama, she’s going to be so happy.” The gruff guy who’d demanded a lot from him stood there with damp eyes and a firm grip on Logan’s shoulders. “We’ll go to her, yes? With the little one.”
Goran tilted Michael’s face up, the baseball cap hit-ting the sawdust. For once Michael didn’t complain.
CATCH OF A LIFETIME 319
“Ah, this one. He looks like you. Full of mischief, but good. You were a good son, Lacko, eh? Now you’re a good father, I think.”
The praise did more for Logan’s soul than he would have thought. A good son. When he’d felt anything but, both before he’d left and afterward when he’d faced the world on his own.
He’d been so ashamed of where he’d come from, yet now… This was what it was all about. Family. No matter if they shared the same DNA or not. Goran was welcoming him home.
“Come. Let’s go. These three, pah! They practice without me. They need it.”
With the flip of the hand Logan remembered so well, Goran commanded the others to get back to work, then headed to the rear entrance of the tent where the caravan Logan had called home waited.
Q
Logan let the flap fall in place behind him as he left the big top hours later, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And not about Michael’s safety, though he was confident in that.
“But, Papa, I can climb higher.” Logan smiled at Michael’s plea. How well he remembered saying the same thing at that age.
“You prove to me you do this right, then you go higher. Not before.” Logan mouthed the words as Goran said them, remembering them as well.
His father had finally put down roots. His brothers, now grown men with families, had taken over the man-agement of the family business. Aunts and uncles and
cousins… they were all so entwined Logan couldn’t ask for a better place to leave his son, especially since they’d accepted Michael—and him—unconditionally.
Goran, Nadia, his brothers and sisters, they’d all been glad to see him. Not one had begrudged him taking off when he’d been a teenager, other than for the scare and sorrow he’d put in Nadia’s heart.
Being a parent himself, Logan didn’t think he could ever make it up to her, but he promised them—and himself—that he’d visit often.
With what he was about to do, however, he hoped he’d have the opportunity to make good on that promise.