Page 70 of A Convenient Heart
“Scholarships. Of course.”
Daniel cocked his head. “Y’all are gonna get married, aren’t ya?”
Jack’s heart kicked and his mouth went dry. What an impertinent question! He’d been careful not to bring it up these past two days since he’d come back to Calvin. It was too soon, and he knew it.
But apparently the boy had no compunction asking about it.
Merritt glanced at Jack, and when he saw the quiet, steady happiness in her expression, the roaring of his pulse in his ears receded.
“Someday,” she told Daniel—and Paul, who’d perked up for the answer too.
Someday.
Same way it did in unexpected moments every day, the love filling up his heart overflowed. Merritt was something special. And by some miracle of God’s grace, she was his.
Daniel moved toward the door. “I might wanna be a doctor too. Gotta talk to my folks. Come on, Paul. Seems Mr. Jack’s got a Christmas trip planned.”
The boys trooped out the door with grins and waves.
“They seem to have worked things out between them,” he murmured as Merritt closed the door and turned to face the room, beaming quietly.
“Partly because of you,” she said. “They worked together to keep the children out of harm’s way during the scuffle.”
He shook his head. If she wanted to think something good had happened because of Morris’s threat, that was her business.
“Are you ready for your Christmas trip?” she asked with a laugh.
“It’s not my trip,” he protested, but he couldn’t keep up the facade of being perturbed when she giggled.
“Never say you’re nervous,” she teased him.
“I’m terrified.”
Now she burst out in peals of laughter. “Tillie will be devastated if we don’t go.”
“I know.”
He’d known that things would be different between them now. There was no pretend engagement, only a commitment to see where things led. Which was why he’d been shocked when she’d asked him to come with her to spend Christmas with the McGraws on the family homestead, a half-day’s ride out of town.
Merritt turned toward the kitchen.
“I’ll get that brick I’ve got warming in the coals,” he said, trailing her.
“All right. There’s one more thing…”
But she’d stopped short, right where he’d hung his coat over the back of one of her kitchen chairs. Bent down to pick up something off the floor. “What’s this?”
He recognized the folded piece of paper even as she glanced curiously at him.
He stepped toward her, stretched out his hand. “It’s nothing?—”
But she was already unfolding the paper, her eyes scanning its contents.
He turned away, let his hand come up to run through the hair at the back of his neck. Let out a gusty sigh.
Pride had kept him hoping she’d never see that piece of paper. Why had he put it in his coat pocket? It must’ve fallen out when he’d taken off his coat earlier. He’d been too careless.
“Jack?”
