Mail Order Bride Mishap (Into the West #3)

Chapter 8

Edward had always enjoyed the first hours after daybreak; that time when the sun rose fresh and eager to bathe its subjects in its warming glow. He liked the clarity of a summer morning especially, when the dew clung to leaves and flowers, glinting in the sun’s rays like scattered diamonds. He even appreciated the cheerful birdsong bursting forth from the trees above and from the verdant overgrowth crowding either side of the road he traveled upon on this particular morning.

These musings of his might have sounded fanciful, even feminine, to other people, so Edward kept them locked deep within, only mulling them over on days such as this, when he had a lot on his mind and the time to ponder those very same whimsical reflections.

 Jack moseyed along the haul road, carrying Edward closer to Noah and Emmie’s cabin in the woods, with the Columbia River coursing alongside them as company reflecting the deep blue of the vibrant summer sky. Edward left aside his admiration of nature and began the self-examination he’d begun last night after Noah’s well-placed question that, instead of vacillating over whether Miss O’Toole was right for him, he should be pondering whether he, Edward Townsend, was what Miss Fiona O’Toole wanted!

 The question his good friend had posed was preposterous at its first perusal. Of course she would want him, Edward Townsend. He knew he was a good catch, and that wasn’t even being smug. After all, he knew he was beyond passably good-looking, with lots of hair, good teeth, and a pleasing image. The women in college had certainly thrown their caps after him.

 Even the matrons here in St. Helens, whenever they came into the bank to see their husbands or do their banking, managed to flutter their lashes at him and sway their skirts when approaching or leaving his window! Harmless flirting was his stock in trade; Edward brought a lot of business to the bank, new and repeat, and he was smart enough to realize it wasn’t only because of his ability with numbers. He knew he was pleasing to look at.

Edward also recognized when a woman liked him, and Miss O’Toole definitely did. The way that pale face of hers infused with color whenever she was around him told the whole story. The young girl already found him attractive, and was too inexperienced and naïve to hide it. So Noah’s comment of the night before really held little merit. If he, Edward, were to pop the question today, he felt ninety percent sure little Miss O’Toole would say yes without hesitation.

But, to give Noah his due, Edward decided to play Devil’s Advocate and asked himself: was he right for her? Was a man ten years her senior, with the relative experience in love and life ten years brought to a man, the right mate for a virginal girl of twenty-three? Would he complement her innocence? Or would he crush her spirit; make her doubtful of her own accomplishments?

Edward drew Jack up, pausing in the middle of the haul road as he studied the flowing Columbia through the trees along its border, questioning the rightness of a marriage between him and Miss Fiona O’Toole. He hated to think he could ever stifle someone’s spirit. He preferred to see himself as a forward-thinking, modern man; not someone who would suck the life out of an ingénue.

 Shifting in the saddle, not liking his self-drawn portrait, Edward wrinkled his nose and decided then and there that he would make an effort to find the woman that had sparked his interest in her letters. That spunky, joking woman who had made all his other correspondences pale by comparison. But to do so he needed to talk with Fiona; really talk, and not get hung up on how her looks didn’t fit the image that he’d painted in his mind. He would actually have to do some bona fide courting; the kind that if done right, would go a long way in telling him what he wanted to know: whether yoking themselves to each other would result in a lasting, loving relationship, or would only serve to bring out the worst in each other.