Mail Order Bride Mishap (Into the West #3)

Chapter 5

A/N: Okay, here is the new and improved version of this chapter. I was unhappy with the first rendition, so I've drastically changed it. The first portion has only been somewhat tweaked, but the whole second half is different, so please, read again, vote, follow, and comment. I hope this reads better. Dedication is changed as well, to my unpaid editor and hero, Wakesurfer, who keeps me honest and true to my craft! (Readmorebooks, you get the next chapter, for your contribution to this story!).

"Edward! Watch your tongue!" Emmaline admonished, turning to face her brother and then asking, "You think that's Miss O'Toole? Really?" Swiveling back to study the waif-like woman more closely, she saw what her brother saw: a very young, sickly-looking girl in a dress that might have fit her at one time, but that now hung on her like an empty feedbag around a horse's head. But, unlike Edward, Emmie simply chalked up her unappealing appearance to the ten-day journey by train and ship. Anyone would look the worse for wear after that sort of ordeal, and so Emmie thought no more about it.

"I'm afraid so, Em," Edward hazarded, not bothering to apologize for his earlier rude comment. This woman was so far removed from what he'd imagined she'd be like, he couldn't hide his dismay.

"Well, she has great taste in hats, that's all I've got to say!" Emmaline enthused, dismissing her brother's morose tone as so much nonsense. And then she elbowed him, instructing, "Go on, Eddie. Help her with her trunk. It looks heavier than she is."

Edward roused from his childish disappointment and moved forward to where the ramp met the dock. As the young woman approached, eyes leveled on the back of the person's head in front of her, he called out, "Miss O' Toole? Miss Fiona O'Toole?"

Immediately Fiona's green eyes snapped to his face, widening in shocked appreciation. This was Edward Townsend? The Adonis she'd admired while they docked was her future husband? Glory be to God, was all Fiona could think. He'd heard her prayer and delivered to Fiona O'Toole the finest specimen of mankind she could ever imagine! Never in her wildest dreams had Fiona envisioned such a man belonging to her, yet the proof stood there, calling her name.

Closing the distance between them, Fiona noticed that the man was even more handsome up close. His head of hair, unprotected and glinting a rich, dark brown in the milky sunlight, covered his head thickly like an umber halo. High cheekbones bladed either side of a straight nose that cut his face in half symmetrically. The lips that called her name also beckoned her to run forward and crash her mouth against them, their firm appearance promising heaven with just one taste. And his eyes! Fiona stumbled over that last step onto terra firma when their gazes finally locked. Brown was such a banal description for what amounted to liquid fire fringed by the thickest, longest lashes a man should never possess.

"Miss O'Toole? It's me, Edward Townsend. Welcome to St. Helens, Oregon."

The voice came as if from beneath the sea, muted and far away while Fiona struggled to surface from the hypnosis of the man's lethal attraction. Blinking several times to break the trance she found herself under, Fiona still couldn't help but notice the straight set of his shoulders, the erect stance that only enhanced his trim form in the tailored suit he wore to perfection.

At last breaking through the barrier of intense magnetism, Fiona realized that Mr. Townsend waited expectantly for her response. Feeling as if she stood in the face of royalty, Fiona curtsied without thinking, dropping low before her would-be suitor.

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Had she really just curtsied? To him, a lowly banker in a western town at the back of beyond? He thought only the pompous British still practiced that greeting, given their separate class distinctions. Why ever Miss O'Toole had done it, it said one of two things about her: one, that she felt at a disadvantage around them and was acquiescing to their superiority; or two, she just wasn't long in this country. Edward wondered which it was.