Page 42 of A Convenient Heart
The baby’s cries grew louder, and he tipped his head toward the sitting room. “I’m gonna see if I can help.”
Merritt’s fork scraped the pan as she stirred the scrambled eggs. She had a little savings put away. Less now that she’d spent some money trying to resupply the classroom. How else might she help the young widow?
For one wild moment, she pictured sending the young woman to her cousins. The McGraw brothers desperately needed a woman’s touch at the ranch. Tillie and Jo were running wild, and David hadn’t had as much schooling as he needed. Drew hadn’t been the same since Amanda had left him. The men were a little rough around the edges, but they were good stock.
But she knew Drew would kill her if she made the suggestion.
She’d enlist the help of her friend Penny’s mother. Mrs. Castlerock’s husband was a wealthy banker known for his stingy ways, but the older couple had plenty of room in their mansion and could possibly spare some funds to get Velora on her feet again.
The eggs done, she realized the baby had quieted. She put the eggs on a plate and crept to the doorway.
Jack stood at the window, staring outside with the baby at his shoulder. He was patting the babe’s back while the one-year-old chewed on his fist.
Velora had fallen asleep on the sofa, one arm tucked beneath her head.
There was something about seeing the man holding a baby that twisted Merritt’s insides in a way that was both pleasurable and painful. Jack was a natural with children. She’d seen it in the classroom.
She turned back to the kitchen, not so dark now with the sun coming over the horizon.
Jack might be good with children, but he’d been keeping secrets from her.
Did she want to live with a man she couldn’t entirely trust? It felt so easy to succumb to his charm.
But if she married him, would she regret it?
An hour later, both baby and Velora had eaten and retired to Merritt’s bedroom to rest with the door closed. Merritt would take them to visit Mrs. Castlerock later and see what could be done.
And Merritt was left with Jack in the sitting room. He’d moved to sit on a sofa and had his elbows on his knees with his head in his hands as she entered the room.
He looked up, dropped his hands as she set a mug of coffee in front of him on the low table.
He looked tired. Or haunted.
She stood against the bookcase, her hands behind her back. “Talk to me,” she said.
Her stomach was twisted in knots. This moment felt fraught with tension, like she was standing on the edge of a cliff. One step, one shift, could change everything.
He sighed but held her gaze. “On my first night here—I suppose it was the second, after the night of the fire—I overheard a couple of men talking. About the school. About you.”
She couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t saywherehe’d overheard the men.
But that detail was quickly forgotten as he explained what he’d heard and what he’d discovered since. That he’d enlisted Drew’s help.
“Is that why you’ve been spending all your spare moments cleaning up the building site?”
He seemed surprised that she knew about that. Small-town gossip spread like wildfire.
“I can handle Mr. Polk,” she told Jack, though it hurt to think about being replaced in the classroom before she was ready. She would think about that later. “You told Drew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He stood from the sofa, moving across the room toward the kitchen and then spinning back to face her. “I was trying to protect you, I guess.” His hand had come up to rub the back of his neck.
He wanted to protect her. Even though she couldn’t agree with keeping secrets or how he’d gone about parts of it, the thought warmed her.
This was the moment. The cliff’s edge.
“There’s a lot we’re still discovering about each other,” she said, “but I’m coming to know you.”
He looked almost battered by her words.
