Mail Order Bride Mishap (Into the West #3)

Chapter 14

One week after Cookie generously gave her her lifelong dream on a handshake, Fiona stood with hands on hips, surveying the indoor expanse of Miss O’Toole’s Unique Hat Emporium. Everything appeared to be in place, from the material-swathed, gleaming front window, to the newly scrubbed plank floor, to all the hats she’d fashioned with her two hands displayed on busts created in the Lawson smithy. She’d worked on her shop late into the evening every day, after serving during the breakfast and lunch breaks at Cookie’s. And at last the emporium was ready to unlock its doors for its grand opening.

She’d displayed her most intricate designs in the bay window, and once more congratulated herself on weaving the beads, feathers and veiling she’d carried all the way from Boston into those particular hats. Although more apt to be worn in the big city, Fiona knew that even the women in the frontier town of St. Helens would fall in love with all the glittery accessories adorning these particular headpieces. Women couldn’t pass up glittery gee-gaws, no matter where they resided, and she hoped to capitalize on that fact.

The door that connected Fiona’s hat store to Cookie’s restaurant wrenched open just then. “Whew, I thought I’d have to kick ole farmer Seaton out on his arse in order to get here on time to help you,” Muriel bustled in, untying her stained apron and blowing wisps of hair off her forehead. She paused and looked around the room, nodding approval.

Muriel had been one of Fiona’s staunchest supporters of her store, after Cookie, of course, coming over and helping clean up the neglected space after she finished waitressing, often bringing her eldest children to help sweep and wipe and move furniture.

She’d had plenty to say about a woman being able to work outside the home, take care of said home, and raise children. “You just have to have a willing mate,” she’d concluded, shaking her head at the evidence of Edward Townsend’s very unwillingness.

Cookie had been there this past week also, usually in the background, bringing tables and chairs from his own home, oiling the money till so that it would open without a shriek of its parts, and cleaning windows where the women couldn’t reach. He did it all with his signature gruffness, but both women simply ignored his growls and thanked him with a gentle squeeze or pat on the arm. He’d grumble more.

The one person conspicuously absent was Emmie, although her husband Noah willingly volunteered to have the blacksmith he employed fashion head forms out of  leftover horse shoe iron in order to display Fiona’s hats on them. He’d told Fiona Emmaline hadn’t been feeling well, but insisted she would be at the shop for the grand opening. She hadn’t appeared yet.

“Cookie’s not irritated that you’re over here, is he?” Fiona asked Muriel now, straightening an already straight row of hats on one of the shelves lining the side walls. At this moment she only had perhaps three to four hats per shelf on display, but soon she would have stacks and stacks, if this grand opening went the way she hoped.

Glancing around with a critical eye, she noted that the wine colored floor runner Cookie had provided from his own home led from the front door straight to the cash register table, bisecting the wood paneled shop exactly in half. At the very rear, under a row of kerosene wall lamps, sat her sewing tables, placed end to end by Muriel’s two oldest boys and containing her bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and all the other hat making materials she’d need while still watching over her domain.

She’d already spent long evenings in here with the front shades drawn, readying the store and adding to her inventory. And if Edward’s prediction of her whiling away long hours sewing and pricking her fingertips crossed her mind, she shoved his words right out of her thoughts. This was all just natural when starting up a business. Soon it would run like a well-kept machine, and she would have more time to herself like before.