Page 19 of A Convenient Heart
Warmth tickled her neck and cheeks. “I thought of telling you so many times…”
Danna’s sharp gaze made her flush intensify.
Why hadn’t she? “I suppose…I suppose there was a part of me that didn’t think he would go through with it.”
Now Danna’s brows drew tight with confusion. “Whyever not?”
“I am not exactly prime marriage material.” She said it with a self-deprecating laugh so that the words would hurt less. “I’m not a young woman fresh from the schoolroom, dewy-eyed and naive.”
One of Danna’s brows rose in gentle humor. “Were you ever dewy-eyed?”
The marshal knew better.
“I’m independent and I know what I want. I speak my mind far too often and I’m—” She’d been going to say that she wasn’t attractive enough to catch a husband in the traditional way.
But a memory popped into her mind. The way Jack had looked at her last night in the shadows and flickering light thrown by the fire. Like he’d wanted nothing more than to hold her close.
She hadn’t felt average then. Or overlooked.
She’d felt…seen.
“Pssh.” Danna made a dismissive sound, and Merritt blinked out of the memory as she stepped across a broken board.
Danna saw too much. “But he did show up. And he certainly seems interested in following through with the marriage.”
Merritt thought of the way he’d strided beside her away from the wreckage—distance between them, hands dangling by their sides, not touching.
Of course, he must’ve been exhausted.
But she didn’t think she was imagining the distance he’d put between them since he’d embraced her last night.
Had it felt as frightening to him as it had to her? The feeling of knowing someone so intimately while not really knowing them at all?
“You must be thinking I’m a fool to marry someone I barely know,” Merritt said.
All the misgivings she’d felt building last night at supper writhed inside her like a coil of live snakes.
“If he’s someone you could grow to love, what does it matter what I think? Or anyone else?”
Danna’s matter-of-fact words hit with the force of a bludgeon.
Grow to love.
Merritt had been hoping for a friendly affection for Jack. Something calm and warm that would last years. A safe companion. The family she’d always wanted.
But when he’d held her last night, she’d felt the start of something so much bigger.
That felt more dangerous than anything else. What was she doing?
The cold wind bit into the skin of Merritt’s exposed face, and she wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. And thought of Jack’s hat. He’d given it away so easily.
“You overheard Mr. Polk this morning?” Danna asked.
Merritt nodded. “He wanted to be heard.”
Danna frowned. “It didn’t take much to discover where the fire started. The café had a fire in their kitchen last night. It was contained—Mrs. Steele thought it was out. But the wind was blowing straight toward the school, and some sparks must’ve carried over.”
They’d had such a dry winter. The dusting of snow yesterday had been the first hint of moisture in weeks. It probably hadn’t taken much for the wooden structure to catch fire.
