And that he would wait as long as it took until she realized she felt the same way.
He took long strides toward the schoolhouse, eager to see her again and hungry with hope that she might finally say the words he wished to hear.
He stepped softly up the stairs and lifted his hand to knock on the door—and paused.
Furrowing his brow, Cole tilted his head to better hear the voices that seemed to come from inside the schoolhouse. But as hard as he tried, all he could make out over the roar of his own blood in his ears was a feminine voice—most likely Marian’s—and the harsher tones of a man.
Cold washed down the back of Cole’s neck. Slowly, he lowered his hand and withdrew the pistol he kept at his side. The man’s voice, angrier now, sounded from within the building. The ice turned to fire that roared up from inside Cole. All he wanted to do was force his way through that door. He would do anything to ensure Marian’s safety.
Think. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to control his initial reaction to the situation. Bursting through the door with his gun drawn might catch the man by surprise—but it might also give him too much warning, particularly if the door were locked.
Cole needed the upper hand.
He moved back, down the stairs, and made his way to the rear of the building. An unused door that led to a closet sat closed up tightly. But beside that, there was a window. Or, thereusedto be a window. It was shattered now, with the shards wiped cleanly away.
Cole’s heart thumped hard as he replaced the revolver and searched the wall for some way to lift himself up. Finding a foothold where the wood had broken off at some point, he hoisted himself up and worked his way carefully through the window.
He landed on silent feet in the closet and drew his pistol again as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the closet.
The voices were clearer from here. Cole narrowed his eyes as the man railed on about the school. It was Hardison. That much was clear from his speech and references to a boy.
Cole listened as he formulated a plan. It was risky, but the risk didn’t bother him—so long as it was his life that hung in the balance, and not Marian’s.
With a deep breath, he reached for the door.
Chapter Twenty-three
Why hadn’t she justgone back to sleep? Or waited for Mama’s breakfast? If she’d done either of those things, Marian wouldn’t be here, trapped in her schoolhouse with Zachary Hardison’s angry father.
He’d already threatened to burn down the school again. He’d even reached for the matches she’d taken out to light the lamp and struck one. His lips had curled into a menacing smile, and just as Marian was certain he would set it to one of the wooden desks, he used it instead to light the lamp.
Since then, she’d tried every tactic she could think of to convince him to leave, but none of them had worked. Mr. Hardison wasn’t afraid of arrest or expulsion from town, and he claimed not to worry at all about his soul. And although he hadn’t taken it from the holster under his torn and stained jacket, the revolver he carried had been one of the first things Marian noticed when he’d walked out of that corner.
“I told you to stop bringing my son to this place,” he said again.
Marian pinched her lips shut, refusing to answer to that charge for a second time. There was no shame in the education she offered to Zachary or any of the children in Last Chance. And it seemed there was no convincing Mr. Hardison that his son’s learning was in his best interest.
