Page 40 of A Convenient Heart
The girl immediately started shivering in the night air, and he shucked his coat to wrap it around her shoulders.
He could hear raised voices through the swinging doors.
“We can’t stay here,” he told her. He was already moving down the boardwalk, and she followed him, though hesitantly. The one clear thought in his mind was,Merritt…bring her to Merritt’s.
“Who are you?” There was still the hiccup of a sob in her voice, a wariness he was thankful for. She’d gotten herself into trouble in that saloon and wasn’t sure she was out of it yet. “Why’d you help me?”
“Because it was the right thing to do.” Even though it’d ruined his chances of easily digging up dirt on Burns. “I’m Jack. A friend of Merritt Harding.”
At his words, a bit of tension seeped out of her. She knew Merritt, if only by reputation. A cold wind bit through Jack’s shirt as he urged her to hurry past the next alleyway and keep walking down the boardwalk.
“You got somewhere to go?” he asked. “Maybe some family you can stay with?” She wouldn’t be able to go back to the bar now.
Her sniffles turned into full-blown sobs. “I’ve got a room—a rented room—but I’m getting thrown out. I was working at the café until the fire, and I—I?—”
She was so worked up she could barely speak.
“It’s all right,” he told her. “I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
His adrenaline was fading now, leaving him exhausted. But the clarity that had hit him as they’d run out of the saloon hadn’t faded.
His one thought in that moment had been to go to Merritt. That’s where he wanted to be.
But the girl—he realized he didn’t even know her name—turned worried eyes on him. “I have to go get him—my son.”
* * *
Merritt was rousted from bed at the pounding on her door.
She’d been up late, copying more scripts, and it felt as if she’d barely slept at all. She was confused, discombobulated as she pushed up on her elbow. The room was dark around her. Dawn hadn’t broken yet. What time was it?
Had she dreamed the knock?
But it came again,thud, thud, thudon her front door.
And Jack’s voice, muffled and muted through the two doors between them, “Merritt, I need you.”
Jack!
Her sluggish thoughts cleared as she got out of bed, shivering when her bare feet hit the plank floor. She grabbed her wrapper from the foot of the bed and then thought better of it.
If Jack was outside at this hour, she’d better get dressed. She pulled on her dress and frantically buttoned it.
“I’m coming!” she called out before he could barrage the door again. What if her neighbors heard? What was he thinking?
Was he in trouble?
She imagined she heard a baby’s cry. What in the world was going on?
She was overly aware of her bare feet and the fact that her hair must be in disarray as she rushed to the front door and opened it.
Jack was there, but standing back from the door as if he was concerned he might scare her. His face was in shadow.
“What—”
There was movement behind him. A shuffling of feet. And Merritt realized there was a young woman standing in his shadow. She was holding a baby wrapped in a blanket.
“Come inside.” Merritt opened the door and scooted backward into the room as the chill from outside wafted over her bare feet. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
