Page 66 of A Forgotten Heart
“Oh!” Tillie scratched a newdon her page. Then another. And another.
Nick felt a tiny prick of pride that he’d helped. “Good work.”
“How come you aren’t a teacher like Miss Elsie, Uncle Nick?”
A hot ache expanded in his stomach at the innocent question.
Elsie looked up from across the table to watch him.
“I don’t know.” The words fell like stones from his mouth.
Isaac had asked him the very same thing. The answer had felt wrong when he’d said it to his brother, and it felt wrong now.
Tillie didn’t seem to realize she’d stirred up a hornet’s nest in his thoughts. “You’re a good teacher, Uncle Nick,” she said absently, already working again.
Five years ago, when he’d been expelled, he’d thought his dream was over. Thought it was a sign his pa had been right, that schooling was a waste of time.
But what if he’d been wrong?
Chapter 13
Nick went on patrol not long after Tillie’s question had flipped him topsy-turvy.
After trudging a wide circle through the snow-covered brush on the McGraw property for the last hour, Nick hadn’t spotted anything out of the ordinary.
He couldn’t tell whether the vague feeling of wrongness haunting him was because they still hadn’t had word from his brothers or something else.
The snowscape expanded over the horizon, making him acutely aware of the miles between them and their closest neighbors. Patch walked by his side.
The barn loomed not far ahead. Bunkhouse a bit beyond that. Everything was still and quiet. Nick’s head pounded.
He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to bring some feeling back to his fingers.
Suddenly, Patch stopped short, hackles up, his nose pointed toward the southern horizon.
Nick looked to see what had alerted Patch. In the distance, a light flickered. Faint, but there. He blinked and it was gone.
He took his spyglass from his inside coat pocket and scanned the area until his eyes began to water.
He’d seen something. Where was it? What was it?
A rustling sounded in the snowy ground behind him. He lowered his spyglass and whipped around, reaching for the revolver at his hip.
Two silhouettes approached, too short to be a threat. “Uncle Nick,” David whispered. Eli was right behind him.
Nick’s heart thudded in his chest as he lowered his hand. What were his nephews doing out here?
He looked back to where he’d seen the light. It was still dark. Was someone out there?
Nick walked toward them. “What are you two doing? I thought you were in bed.”
David dragged his toe through the snow. His words showed in the puff of moist air. “We couldn’t sleep. We wanted to help you scout.”
“You snuck out?”
David looked guilty, but Eli’s chin jutted out. “We been cooped up in the house all day. We wanna help.”
Kaitlyn and Clare would be furious to know the boys had snuck out.
