Page 59 of A Convenient Heart
The father put the boy in the seat where he had been sitting. The little girl had moved out into the aisle and was dancing in place.
“Stay in this seat,” the man said sternly. “You understand?”
The boy nodded, eyes wide with sincerity.
Jack snapped his paper, blinking his eyes into focus.
He didn’t care about a little family traveling on the train. Why should he?
The ache from the bruise in his side seemed to pulse.
It was far too easy to imagine Merritt holding a toddler on her hip or comforting a child with a skinned knee.
She’d be such a good mother.
His head ached when he pictured another man in that scene with Merritt. Imagined her looking at someone else the way she’d looked at him, like he was some kind of hero. Like he’d hung the moon. Bitterness coated his tongue.
The little boy across the aisle hadn’t sat still after all. He was standing on the seat his father had left him in, facing backward. He seemed to be looking for his father, and Jack found himself craning his neck to try to see the man too.
There were several people crowded at the end of the car. None of them was the boy’s father.
The rack above the family’s row of seats was stuffed with passengers’ bags and parcels. Some soul had left their bag with a long leather strap hanging down. It swung slightly with the sway of the train’s movement and seemed to tempt the boy, even though it was at least a foot out of his reach overhead.
Jack could see that the bag was wedged behind another, larger suitcase.
The boy stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration and scrambled to climb on the back of the seat, craning his head to keep the strap in view.
Jack sent another glance over his shoulder. No father in sight. None of the other passengers seated around them seemed to notice or care that the boy might fall from his precarious position or that if he did tug on that leather strap, something from the overstuffed rack might fall on top of him.
Jack sighed.
It wasn’t his business.
But—
“Kid, your pa told you to sit down.”
The child pretended not to hear him, still completely focused on the strap. He couldn’t reach it. There were still several inches of empty air above his hand.
But then he pushed off the seat back and flung himself into the air.
Jack reacted without thinking, standing to brace one hand on the luggage overhead while his other arm came around the boy, who’d managed to pull on the strap but had lost his grip and was tumbling toward the aisle.
“Hey!”
Jack quickly set the boy on his feet in the seat, aware of the father’s presence behind him. He stepped back into the crowded space in front of his own seat, bracing for angry words or a physical confrontation.
But the man nudged his daughter into her seat and slumped into his own, putting the boy on the ground between his knees.
“I told you to sit still,” the father told his son and then nodded toward Jack. “Thank you for catching him. He might’ve been crushed if he’d knocked all that luggage down.”
Jack nodded.
“You got kids of your own?”
The image of Merritt holding a baby of her own jumped into Jack’s mind. He shook his head.
“No? I thought I recognized that long face. I’ve seen it in the mirror enough lately. You missin’ your family?”
