Page 16 of A Convenient Heart
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Merritt heard the husky laugh, and she couldn’t help the way her head turned toward Jack.
He was poking through the debris at the edge of what had been the schoolhouse. Daniel and Paul stood nearby, both now leaning on their shovels while they talked to Jack. Each boy watched him with rapt attention, and then Daniel said something as he waved his hands in an animated way.
Jack responded. She couldn’t hear what he said, but it was clear that he had made an instant connection with the two boys.
Here was another unexpected side of Jack. She had thought that perhaps it would take a while for him to warm up to her students, or that he might only be casually interested in connecting with them socially.
For a moment, his gaze floated over the crowd, and then it crashed with hers. Her stomach pitched, and she raised one hand to wave at him.
He nodded, unsmiling.
She couldn’t help but notice the distance between them. Ever since she had burst into tears in his arms hours ago, he’d been closed off. Had carefully avoided being close to her.
He’d put walls up.
It would be all right, she told herself. Everyone was exhausted after a sleepless night.
The crowd was dispersing slowly as families returned to their homes.
“I want a full investigation.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the familiar voice and slightly hunched shoulders beneath a tailored coat. It was Mr. Polk, one of the school board members. He was a young father with a child not yet old enough for the classroom, but he had connections to prominent businessmen in town, including Billy Burns, who owned two of the saloons.
Polk’s dark eyes cut to Merritt and then away. He was speaking to a woman in trousers, who had a badge pinned to the vest beneath her coat. Danna O’Grady was town marshal and one of Merritt’s close friends.
“The school board will need to be informed immediately if there are any signs of willful negligence that caused the fire.”
Merritt’s shoulders tensed as her tired brain took a moment to process his words.
He thought Merritt had somehow caused the fire.
They had butted heads more than once over her teaching methods, her classroom discipline, and over this year’s Christmas pageant. But for him to make such a terrible assumption…
She had half a mind to march up to him and set him straight. Only her own exhaustion and a check in her spirit—the echo of her thoughts from last night—kept her feet unmoving.
As tired as she was, her temper would have a short fuse. She didn’t want to say something that couldn’t be taken back. The man, along with two others, was responsible for overseeing her job.
“Don’t let that blustering fool rile you up.” The low voice from her side reminded Merritt that she wasn’t alone. Mrs. Quinn, Daniel’s mother, linked her arm with Merritt’s so that their backs were to Danna and Mr. Polk.
“I closed up the school just the same as every other day,” Merritt muttered to herself.
Mrs. Quinn patted her hand. “I know, dear. There’s not an irresponsible bone in your body.”
Mrs. Stoll was distributing blankets, and Merritt noticed that Jack had one around his shoulders. The woman offered one to Merritt, who declined with a shake of her head. She should go home. Try to sleep.
Looking at the empty lot, now littered with ashes and clumps of wood, just made her sad.
“It’s a pity. But we’ll rebuild,” Mrs. Stoll said, following her gaze.
“Not soon enough,” Merritt said. She had been worrying over the problem all night. They would need a place for lessons in the interim, before the building could be rebuilt. “And the children had worked so hard on the pageant…”
“There is no reason we couldn’t hold the pageant at the church,” Mrs. Quinn said.
“Or even the dance hall,” Mrs. Stoll piped in.
She appreciated their enthusiasm to help find a solution, but the tradition in Calvin had long been to hold the pageant in the schoolhouse. There was no easy solution for the sadness that engulfed her. Even when a new schoolhouse was built, nothing would ever be the same. Of course, next Christmas she wouldn’t be coordinating the pageant at all. In his letters, Jack had promised they would remain in Calvin until her teaching contract was up, but there had been no mention of whether he would want to live in her hometown permanently.
