Finally a Bride (9 page)

“It’s Noah, and a pleasure to meet you, too.”

“I guess I’d better carry Half Bit back to her room, although I don’t know if I can manage after eating all that good food.” Luke kissed Ma’s head and winked at Jack. “Maybe you could sit in the parlor for a spell until my food has time to settle.”

Jack bit back a grin. “I could manage that for a while.”

“Oh! You two.” Ma gently swatted Luke’s stomach. “You’re not fooling anyone with that act of yours.” She pushed away from him and grabbed the bowl of beans off the buffet.

“Ma, Alan spilled water on the floor and got my shoe wet.”

Ma rolled her eyes. “I’m coming.”

Luke reached down and hoisted Emmie into his arms. He nibbled her neck, eliciting a giggle from the toddler.

A melancholy smile lifted the parson’s lips. He pushed away from the chair’s back he’d been holding on to. “I reckon I’ll go back upstairs and study my sermon some more.”

Jack jumped up, immediately regretting her quick action as a sharp pain clutched her knee. She tried not to grimace but must have failed because Luke set Emma down and hurried to her side. She gazed back at Noah Jeffers, who stared at her with compassion in his obsidian eyes. “Actually, I was wondering if I could interview you for the town newspaper—the
Lookout Ledger.”

Chapter 6

N
oah followed the marshal as he helped Jack make her way into the parlor. Things would have been a whole lot quicker if Noah had scooped her up in his arms and carried her, but that would hardly seem proper. He paused at the stairway that held his escape and glanced up to the second floor. The last thing he wanted was a newspaper article about him.

“You’re not thinking of running out on me, are you, Reverend?” Jack’s expressive tone alerted him that she’d had her eye on him and wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

He resisted tugging at his collar, which suddenly seemed too tight against his throat. Sighing, he strode into the parlor as the marshal slid a chair toward the couch.

Jack discreetly lifted her injured leg onto the seat and rearranged her skirts. “Would you mind bringing me some paper and a pencil, Papa?”

“I don’t mind, but be nice to him, Half Bit.” The marshal flashed Noah a teasing grin. “We don’t want the parson leaving town before we get to hear him preach.”

Noah thought they all might just be better off if he did leave, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Doubt was something he frequently battled. Pete had told him often to not belittle his efforts, because Noah prayed hard and studied God’s Word before preaching a sermon, and if his message was God-inspired, then disparaging himself was also demeaning the Lord. He perched on the end of a chair across the room from the couch where Jack sat, bouncing one leg.

His gaze ran around the large parlor, but it kept stopping at Jack, no matter how hard he tried to not look at her. She’d matured from a rowdy tomboy who preferred overalls to dresses into a lovely young woman, but the ornery gleam still sparked in her pretty eyes—eyes the color of blueberries. She flipped her waist-long hair, which was tied with a yellow ribbon, over her shoulder. He couldn’t be certain until he saw her in the sunlight, but he thought that it had darkened over the years, looking more brown than red. His fingers moved, as if to reach out and touch her creamy skin, which held the faint hint of the sun. He sighed again and looked out a nearby window. Coming to Lookout had been a bad idea. If only he could convince the Lord of that—then maybe he could hightail it back to Emporia.

Jack’s gaze flitted to his then back to the doorway. She fidgeted with her skirts and tugged at the cuff of each sleeve. “I wonder what’s keeping Luke.”

His brows lifted. “You refer to your father by his first name?”

Jack’s cheeks actually pinked up. “Luke’s been my stepfather for ten years now, but he’s the only father I’ve ever cared for. I guess I sometimes call him Luke because that’s how I referred to him before he married my ma.”

Noah leaned back, his hands holding on to the arms of the chair. He knew that, but she didn’t know he did. Maybe he could get some answers to his own questions. “So, I’m guessing that you didn’t care much for your real father.”

Jack’s eyes flashed, and he recognized the spunk that had often gotten her in trouble in past years. She lifted her nose in the air. “I hardly see what that has to do with anything.”

He offered her a placating smile. “We are who we are because of our past, Miss Ha—uh … Davis.” Sweat beaded on Noah’s forehead at his near-miss. He’d almost called her Miss Hamilton—the name he’d known her by previously. He’d have to watch himself and be extra careful around her.

Jack’s narrowed gaze pierced him, but he forced himself to sit still and return her stare. The marshal strode back into the room, paper in hand. “Here you go.”

Jack took the items without breaking Noah’s gaze. His heart thumped harder. The marshal glanced from her to Noah and back. He scratched his hand, then rested his thumbs in his waistband. “You want me to stay, Half Bit?”

Finally she looked up at her stepfather and offered a cordial smile. “No, thank you. That’s not necessary—that is, unless the parson is afraid to be alone with me.” She wielded her smile like a weapon.

A bead of sweat trickled down Noah’s spine, but he forced himself not to move. He was not without the means of affecting an unabashed female when the occasion warranted. He planted a smile on his face—his best feature next to his dark eyes, so he’d been told—and when the marshal glanced at Jack again, Noah winked at her.

Her mouth opened wide, and the marshal spun back toward him, obviously wondering what he’d missed. Noah resisted chuckling and affected a straight face then rubbed his eye. “Your daughter is safe with me, I promise, Marshal.”

The man stared at him for a long moment then gave a quick nod and spun on his heel, leaving the room.

Jack leaned forward, her lids lowered halfway, her blue eyes cold as ice. “Are you in the habit of winking at single females, Reverend?” Her snide tone left no doubt that she’d taken offense.

“I beg your pardon.” He rubbed his eye again, and she blinked. Confusion wrinkled her brow, and she stared at her blank paper.

“Um … never mind. I must have misconstrued your actions.” She scribbled something on the paper. “So tell me, Reverend, where do you hail from?”

“Emporia, like I said at the table.”

“And have you always lived there?”

He swallowed hard and stared at the top of her head while she wrote some more. Too soon she glanced up and lifted her brows. His heart flip-flopped at her direct perusal. “Uh … no, not always.”

“Where else have you lived?”

He straightened, knowing he’d have to divert her train of thought if he was going to stay truthful—and he fully intended to as much as possible. “I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”

Her mouth quirked to one side in an enticing manner, and he focused on the bottom of her bare foot, which faced him where it lay on the chair. How could her feet be so small?

“Where did you receive your ministerial training?”

“From the man who took me in after my father died. His name is Pete Jeffers.”

Her gaze darted up from her notes. “You changed your last name?”

He nodded.

“Isn’t that a bit drastic? I mean, was your original last name so awful you couldn’t abide it?”

He lifted his brow at her question and turned the cards on her. They were more alike than she realized. “Was your original surname so awful
you
couldn’t abide it?”

“What?” Her expression blanked out, and he knew the moment she realized what she’d asked. “Oh dear. I suppose that did sound rather crass.” Her pinks grew rosy, and she chuckled. “My birth name was Hamilton, but after Luke married my ma, I chose to use his surname. It wasn’t my name that was awful, Reverend Jeffers, but rather my father.”

He’d remembered hearing scuttlebutt about James Hamilton, but the man had died before Noah first came to Lookout. His fist tightened to think that Jack’s father could have hurt her so badly that she’d still be bitter today. “Have you found it within yourself to forgive your father, Miss Davis?”

She straightened rigid as a newly cut piece of lumber. “I hardly see how that’s any of your concern.”

“I’m your pastor now. It’s my duty to minister to you, and if I notice an area that you need help in, I feel I should do my best to assist you in overcoming it. An unwillingness to forgive eats away at a person, Miss Davis. It does more damage to the one who carries the weight of not forgiving than it does the person who originally committed the deed.”

Her face wrinkled up. “Nevertheless, I’m the one asking questions today.” She scanned her paper then tapped a line with her pencil. “You said you received your training from this Pete Jeffers. Has he had any formal training as a minister?”

Noah shrugged. “You know, I don’t think I ever asked him. Pete lives his life as a witness to those around him. I never doubted that he loved God with all his heart and had dedicated his life to serving others and helping them find peace in the Lord. He knew his Bible from end to end. He taught me as much as I could learn in the years I lived with him. I felt God calling me to minister to His flock. What other training is required?”

Jack heaved a sigh. Was the man being purposefully vague? He had deftly deflected most of her queries like a skilled outlaw evading a judge’s questioning.

“Let me ask you this,” he said. “What college did you graduate from to become a reporter?”

Her mouth opened, but she didn’t know how to respond. Did he know she hadn’t been to college? But how could he? Were her interviewing skills so lacking that he picked up on it?

He smiled. “Ahh … so you didn’t. What gives you the right to drill me on my credentials?”

Jack narrowed her eyes. This man was unlike Reverend Taylor in just about every way. “You have effectively avoided answering most of my questions. Do you have something to hide, Reverend?”

For the briefest of seconds, Jack was certain he blanched, but then he smiled.

“What an imagination you have, Miss Davis. Perhaps you should be writing novels instead of newspaper articles.”

Indeed. She’d worked at the newspaper off and on longer than her ma had been married to Luke. Jenny Evans had taught her well how to interview and to read people and catch deception. But what could a minister have to hide? Maybe she was too suspicious. Or maybe she was imagining things that weren’t there because she wanted so badly to score a big story to offer a Dallas paper.

Jack scanned her list of questions again. She had precious little information for an article. “You never mentioned where you grew up.”

He shrugged again. “Here and there. My folks never stayed in one place for long, and after my ma died, it only got worse.”

Jack wanted to grit her teeth and scream at the evasive answer. She studied the man. His eyes were so dark that she couldn’t tell if they were deep brown or black. Shouldn’t a minister have caring, blue eyes instead of ones so dark and mysterious they threatened to suck you in like a whirlpool?

Yet they weren’t unkind eyes. There was something compelling about them. Compelling her to believe in him. Compelling her to trust him.

Her mind flashed back to another time. Another place. Another set of dark eyes begging her to believe. But just that fast, the memory was gone.

She shook her head. What was that? Who was that?

Reverend Jeffers leaned forward. “Are you all right, Miss Davis? Your mother said you’d recently had an accident. Maybe you are pushing yourself too hard.” He reached his hand out as if to touch her then pulled it back into his lap. “We can continue this interview some other time if you need to rest.”

Her mind swirled as it had right after she first fell off the roof. Maybe she wasn’t ready to be working again. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the sofa, trying with all her might to grasp hold of the memory that had assaulted her. It was too late.

“Do you need a drink, Miss Davis? Should I fetch your mother?” At his concerned voice, she opened her eyes again. His worry seemed real. Maybe she was searching for a story where there wasn’t one. She glanced down at her questions a final time, then a new one popped into her mind. “Have you ever been to Lookout before?”