Page 39 of A Convenient Heart
She wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met before. And when he was with her, he started to forget that he wasn’t worthy.
Jack lost the next game and realized he’d missed a tell from the man at his side. Frustrated, he tried to tear his thoughts from the woman he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.
Voices rose from the staircase at the back of the room, tucked behind one edge of the bar. Jack’s gaze flicked that direction.
“I’m not doing this!” A young woman in the skimpy dress he associated with a saloon girl was blocked in between the bar and the room by an older man who was beefy and had a gut hanging over the edge of his pants.
The man said something Jack couldn’t make out. He reached for the girl’s arm, but she jerked it away.
“I won’t?—”
The bartender moved that direction, having just served a pint to a man sitting at this end of the bar, and Jack felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. The barkeep would take care of it.
But instead of freeing the girl from the drunken patron, the bartender gestured toward the staircase. Jack only had a glimpse over the man’s shoulder, but he saw the girl shake her head.
The drunken man said an expletive loud enough for Jack to hear. A glass mug was knocked off the back shelf and crashed to the ground, shattering.
The noise drew the attention of the other two men at Jack’s table—but only for a second, and then they glanced back at their cards.
Didn’t anyone else care that the girl might be in trouble?
“I said no!” she shouted now, struggling with the bartender, who had one of her arms in his grip.
The office door had come open about halfway. Jack sensed more than saw Burns’s shadow listening behind the door.
Jack had laid low, stayed anonymous all evening while at the card table. Right now, he was just a face in the crowd.
If he intervened in the scuffle, he’d be visible. The barkeep would associate his face with this moment. Wouldn’t share information he otherwise might. Jack would lose his chance at digging up leverage on Burns, lose his chance to help Merritt keep the school land.
But the woman was crying now, a wobble in her voice as she said, “Stop!”
And Jack heard a memory-echo of his thirteen-year-old voice saying the very same thing.Stop! Don’t hurt him!
He was out of his chair, his winnings quickly scooped up and stuffed into his pocket, before he could think.
“’Scuse me!” He strode across the room, hailing the bartender, who turned toward him, still behind the bar.
Jack had a clear view of the lecherous, drunken man with one arm clasped around the young woman, holding her against his side. She was struggling against him, but she was slight and obviously didn’t know how to fight someone so large.
“Why don’t you leave her alone?” Jack asked. “She don’t seem to want your company.”
“I paid for hers,” the man growled. “Stay out of it.”
Hand still in his pocket, Jack closed his fist around the coins he’d just put there. “I’ll refund your money.” Quick as a rattlesnake strike, he ripped his hand out of his pocket and flung the coins at the man. Two struck him in the face, and he cried out, his hold on the girl loosening.
It was the opening Jack needed. He landed a right-handed jab on the man’s nose, heard a satisfying crunch.
The bartender shouted something, but Jack wasn’t waiting around for the man to jump over the bar.
Jack grabbed the girl’s wrist and tugged her away from the paunchy man, pulling her toward the exit.
She was right on his heels.
He threw a look over his shoulder in time to see Burns in the doorway of his office, eyes narrowed on Jack as he made the exit.
Jack went out into the darkness, still clutching the girl’s wrist.
He’d been seen. He’d known it would happen but still felt the beat of disappointment.
