Chapter 7

T he sun was barely up when Drew found Jack at the site of the fire.

"Want to tell me what you're doin'?" Drew asked.

"Not particularly." Jack sliced the shovel into the debris with a snick .

He'd shed his coat a half hour ago. He had a borrowed shovel in hand, and a borrowed lamp sat conspicuously on a two-foot-high stump of wood, though Jack had doused it when the morning light had become bright enough to see. It had taken a good two hours, but he'd managed to scrape one corner free of charred chunks of wood and debris all the way down to the dirt.

It was grubby work. Ash stuck to his clothes and face where he'd worked up a sweat. He felt gross compared to Drew's clean clothes, though the rancher's were worn with age.

"Went lookin' for you at the boardinghouse," Drew said. He had a coffee tin in hand, and Jack's nose twitched at the scent of coffee. It was a welcome relief after the acrid soot he'd been breathing in.

"Mrs. Stoll was surprised you weren't in your room. She did say you came in at a reasonable hour last night."

Jack grimaced. What did Merritt's cousin want? He could only hope that the gossip mill left it alone, didn't believe he'd snuck out to go to Merritt.

"You look thirsty," Drew said when Jack stuck the shovel into the ground to lift a chunk of burnt log into the empty wagon a few steps away. He'd already nearly filled it up, planning to move the debris away from the site.

Jack slapped the dust off his hands and looked at Drew. "What do you want?"

Drew shrugged. "Just lookin' for you."

Jack stared at him. The other man didn't have an obvious tell—he'd noticed that last night—but looked a little worn around the edges. "I figured you'd have brought both your brothers if you meant to run me off."

Drew sipped his coffee, his hand steady. "Who said anything about runnin' you off?"

It became a stalemate as they stared at each other.

Finally, Drew relented, a small smile pulling at one side of his lips. "Here."

He held out the tin cup from his other side. Jack accepted it warily. He was thirsty. His mouth tasted of grit and ash, and he gulped the liquid. The coffee must've grown cold while Drew had been looking for him, but the drink was still welcome.

"Want to tell me why you're sneaking around for this cleanup?" Drew asked, surveying what Jack had already done. "Folks'll look more kindly on you if they actually see you doing the work."

Jack took another drink. "I don't care about that."

Drew glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "You don't."

His words weren't a clear question, but Jack shrugged. It was true. Merritt had told him last night that the local preacher expected to meet with him later. He had no plans to attend that meeting and figured that working out here was as good an excuse as any to skip the meeting. No doubt the man would preach fire and brimstone at him, like Mr. Farr had. No thanks.

In the distance, the train whistle blew. Jack knew the schedule, knew it was pulling into town soon.

Jack kept assessing Drew as he swigged the last of the coffee. Merritt's cousin was an upstanding man. It was there in the quiet questions he'd asked last night when he'd thought no one else would hear. Checking on her, asking what she needed after the fire. It was obvious he loved Merritt and was protective of her.

Jack lowered the coffee tin to his side. "Do you know Ernie Duff?"

Drew's brow wrinkled. "From the land office? I know of him. Why?"

Jack worked alone. Had ever since Bybee had been killed. But he didn't know the people in town like Drew did, and instinct told him that Drew was just as upstanding as Merritt.

He gulped the last of the coffee and put the tin on the corner of the wagon seat nearby. "The other night, I heard a coupla men talking about the schoolhouse and Merritt's job."

Drew's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"One of them was a school board member. Another one seemed like he owned the saloon."

"Billy Burns." Drew squinted even harder, and Jack wanted to quail under his direct attention but he showed nothing. "He's friendly with Polk—one of the school board members. How'd you have occasion to overhear a conversation between them?"

What were you doing in that saloon? That's what he meant.

But Jack didn't have to answer that.

"Seems like Burns wants this chunk of land." Jack jerked his thumb toward the mess of ash and debris. "Something about getting revenge on the church ladies? Merritt especially."

Drew rolled his eyes. "There's a couple of busybodies in town that would love to close down every saloon. I've told Merritt to stay clear of it, but…" He shrugged.

Jack had guessed right.

"Burns and his accomplice were cooking up a plan that, if rebuilding the school took long enough, maybe this Duff character could lose the deed that says the school belongs to the town."

"And Burns could buy it," Drew said grimly. He tipped his head to the site. "That's why you're out here?"

Jack didn't answer him directly. "Burns said he'd help make sure the schoolmarm didn't keep her job."

Something kept Jack from saying the rest—that Jack's presence in that saloon and in town was damaging her reputation.

He'd done his duty. He'd told Drew. Drew would help. He lifted the shovel and trudged back into the ash.

But Drew followed him, the sound of his steps quiet where everything had been trampled down. "Wait a minute."

Jack felt a line of tension stretch across his shoulders. He dug the shovel into the ash and began to move it aside, clearing down to the pure dirt underneath.

"What does it matter if Merritt loses her job? I thought y'all getting married meant she'd be finished in the classroom."

Jack kept shoveling, but Drew grabbed his shoulder and hauled Jack around to face him. Jack dropped the shovel with a thunk. He straightened, chest puffing out, hands curling into fists at his sides.

The train whistle tooted two short blasts. Pulling out now. Jack should've been on it. He knew it.

"You planning on marrying my cousin or not?" Drew demanded.

She won't have me!

Jack's mind shouted the words, even as his lips were clamped shut.

His memory played scenes from last night—Merritt working in the kitchen with Tillie, the two of them with heads bent over the counter workspace, whispering. Merritt's smile that had glanced off him when she'd looked up.

For the first time in decades, Jack wanted something more than his solitary existence.

But Merritt wasn't for him. She hadn't chosen him. He was playacting, trying to help her.

He was a fool for mollycoddling any emotions that felt real.

Drew scanned the ground that Jack had cleared. When he glanced up at Jack again, his eyes narrowed, like he didn't fully trust him.

Jack didn't trust himself.

Drew's hand dropped away from his shoulder at the same moment that Jack caught sight of movement, a body striding down the boardwalk. The gait was familiar…

Morris.

Recognition flashed through Jack in an instant. Morris had his head turned to the side, looking in a store window.

It was the chance Jack needed to turn his back.

"I gotta go," he told Drew.

The other man's brows started to pinch, but Jack couldn't stay here—not with Morris headed this way.

"Hang on?—"

But Jack was already walking away. He cut through the corner of the site and ducked through the alley behind the café. Paused there. Morris should walk past the end of the street in three…two…

Jack hung back behind the edge of the building as Morris passed across the side street between two businesses and moved out of sight.

A beat of relief flowed, followed by a twist in Jack's gut.

Morris had been on that westbound train. Jack had watched long enough while the train had chugged out of the station to know that the hired gun hadn't disembarked.

How had he ended up back in Calvin? He must've been on this morning's train. Must still be hunting Jack.

And Jack's first name was now known all around town, though he'd played fast and loose with the truth about his surname when Merritt had made assumptions.

Jack had never harbored hopes that somehow he'd end up with Merritt at the end of this. But if he had, this sighting of Morris would've been all he needed to set himself straight.

Jack had a past. One that might come looking for him at any moment.

And Morris wasn't even the worst of it. Merritt didn't know about his childhood, about how broken he really was.

Jack would never belong here.

And now he had to figure out a way to skirt Morris's notice while he helped Merritt finish the work for her pageant.

Guess he was going to see that preacher after all.

* * *

Merritt glanced up from where she was scratching ink onto a blank page at one of the tables in the dance hall, copying the pageant script onto one more piece of paper.

Jack was nearby, brushing blue paint onto one of the canvas-and-wood rectangle forms that made up the eight-foot-tall backdrop, a replacement for what had been lost.

Night was falling, and the circle of illumination thrown by the lamp she'd put on the table seemed to have shrunk. Jack's lamp was burning low, and surely his stomach must be in want of supper.

She hadn't meant for him to get this education on what being married to a teacher was bound to be like for the months she'd finish out her contract—working long hours, preparing for the classroom.

Jack had shown up earlier after meeting with Mr. Carson, looking stymied, like one of her older students working a difficult arithmetic problem, and had surprised her by asking whether he could try his hand at painting. The children were gone now, after an abbreviated class time. They had been distracted by their surroundings, and without books, the memorization work was more tedious. For hours, she'd been aware of Jack as he'd worked on one of the large framed canvases stretched out on the floor, mostly sitting next to it but occasionally standing to move around the backdrop or wash out his paintbrush.

It had been his suggestion to keep working when, after the last child had left for the afternoon, she'd looked longingly at the stack of papers she needed to copy.

There was much work to be done and little time. Most of the children knew their lines, but one or two still needed to read from the paper.

Certain that her mind wouldn't stop its worrying, she put down the fountain pen and massaged her right hand in her lap. Jack looked over at the motion.

"Cramp?" he asked, placing his paintbrush in a mason jar of water nearby.

"Just tired muscles after a long day," she replied.

She stood, realizing how tight her muscles had become. The cavernous room had cooled as the evening had waned.

"You should've warned me it was getting dark," she muttered, touching the last page to test if the ink was dry before adding it to the stack of other scripts. "I'm sure you're completely bored after a long day observing my classroom."

He stood up, wiping his hands on a rag he pulled from his back pocket. "Not bored at all." When he glanced at her, she got a hint of the way he'd looked at her the night of the fire. Wanting, but hiding it. Or trying to.

"Drew said you were born to be a teacher," he said, throwing the words toward the floor as he stuffed away the rag and then bent to pick up the mason jar. "I can see what he meant. I think I would've boxed the ears of a couple of those boys, but you held your patience."

Pleasure flushed through her at the compliment.

"There are days where I do have to mete out punishment," she said. "Right now, we're all out of our element and discombobulated without a classroom to learn in."

She moved to gather her papers into a leather satchel.

"Did you always want to teach?" he asked quietly. He put the mason jar on the other side of the table and moved to the backdrop, grabbing one side of the heavy frame to lift it.

She hurried around the table to lift the other side, remembering the weight of the large wood pieces. He smiled his thanks.

"I wanted to be a writer," she said. "Or a painter. Something romantic." She laughed a little to hide the blush rising into her cheeks. "But my parents…" She trailed off, unsure whether she wanted to think about Maisey, about the past.

"Your parents didn't encourage it?"

Her smile had grown stiff as they dragged the frame to lean against the wall. "After…" She couldn't bring herself to talk about Maisey after all. She swallowed back the sudden knot of tears that surprised her. "I was fifteen when my parents decided to move back east. My father grew up here. My mother was a transplant from Ohio. It was—things were too difficult for them to stay."

He rested the canvas and frame against the wall, dusting off his hands. She let go and hid her fisted hands in her skirt.

"I never wanted to be anywhere else," she said. She looked to the side but didn't see the wall that separated them from the outside. Only the vast prairie beyond, the Laramie Mountains in the distance, the sky that seemed to extend forever…

"So I was given a choice," she finished. "Attend normal college and find a posting for a school, or move back east with my parents."

She'd walked back to the table, but he stood frozen where she'd left him. "That's an awful big decision for a fifteen-year-old. They couldn't stay long enough for you to finish schooling?"

She shook her head. It was easier to look at the two books she'd brought over from her house and lift them to her midsection than to look at him. "They really couldn't. It wasn't hard?—"

"Liar," he said quietly. When had he come to stand beside her?

She lifted her chin slightly. "It isn't a lie."

"Sure it is." He was standing close enough to reach out and brush his thumb against the corner of her mouth. "When you tell an untruth, your mouth pulls. Just here."

His hand dropped away, and she felt the pulse of something just beneath her skin where he'd touched her.

She dipped her eyes. "Fine." Was she grinding her teeth? She couldn't seem to help it. "It was difficult, but only in the very beginning."

She remembered nights lying on a narrow cot in a girls' dormitory, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Meals in a dining hall where everyone except her seemed to know each other.

"I did what seemed most natural and dove into my studies," she explained, her voice only a little uneven. "I loved the learning." That was true and she looked defiantly at him, daring him to challenge it. "And eventually I made friends." Including Darcy, who'd sent her a letter just today. Darcy's younger sister Elsie, who was like a little sister to Merritt, was in need of a teaching job. "Things got better. God provided this job for me, right in Calvin where I'd always wanted to be."

Jack was watching her face. His expression was more closed off now. She couldn't read him.

Books had always been easier. Perhaps she read too many romantic novels, but she'd rather thought he might reach out for her in this moment that seemed charged with…something.

And then he did reach out for her, his hand coming to cup her jaw.

Her pulse thrummed in her ears, her skin felt stretched too tightly over her cheekbones. She felt alive and aware, and she tipped forward on her toes, her hand at her side moving to reach for him.

Only for him to swipe his thumb across her cheek and drop his hand away.

"You had a smudge of ink." His brows had creased, and he looked almost angry as he half turned away. He reached up to where a hat might rest on his head, huffed impatiently, and pushed his hand through his hair. "I miss my hat," he mumbled.

He'd turned away.

She'd thought he was pulling her close after the vulnerable confession, and he'd only been wiping away a smudge of ink.

Disappointment and humiliation warred as her cheeks flamed.

What had she been thinking? She clutched the books to her midsection, and her other hand trembled as she reached for the satchel.

"Here," he said. She didn't understand him until he reached for the books in her arms.

"I can get them," she said.

"I insist."

She didn't want him to insist. Not for this.

And she wasn't some fainting maiden from a silly romance novel. She smacked the books back onto the table. "I thought you were going to kiss me. You haven't kissed me once."

His eyes flared wide and he frowned, though she saw his throat work. "We shouldn't."

Shouldn't?

"Why not?"

He looked at her as if she were a hysterical female instead of one asking a simple question. "Because."

That wasn't an answer.

Before she could argue, he picked up the books and lifted the lampshade to blow out the wick. "We shouldn't be alone in here after dark. People might talk."

He was awfully worried about people talking, about her reputation.

It was endearing, in a way. Even if she didn't need protecting.

Her disappointment remained as she allowed him to escort her out of the dance hall. He glanced both ways down the boardwalk as they exited. Was he looking for someone?

But he'd closed himself off and she didn't dare ask him. Would he ever open up to her?