Mail Order Bride Mishap (Into the West #3)

Chapter 15

The grand opening of Miss O’Toole’s Unique Hat Emporium had been a smashing success, Fiona thought that evening as she cleaned up the shop. So much so that it looked like she’d seriously depleted her on-hand stock. She’d have to get crackin’ on putting together more inventory, as Cookie called her leftover hats.

She paused beside a shelf and glanced toward the connecting door between her store and Cookie’s restaurant. Stared at its knob unseeingly. Cookie had been right when he’d predicted she would sell out that first day, that she’d better consider more merchandise than just hats.

“The women in this here town will come out in droves the first few days, Missy, no doubt about it. But none o’ them is rich. Once they buy a hat or two, they won’t be back for months. Then how you gonna feed yoreself? I can’t take care of you all yore life,” the old cook had growled at her early this morning. His expression had belied his tough words. Fiona knew without a doubt Cookie would be there for her no matter what. It was that bond of theirs.

But he was right. She needed to consider alternative accessories in order to make her store a continued success.

She moved to her worktables and decided to begin the baby bonnet Emmie had mentioned the day of their wedding dress sewing bee. It would be fun to work on, and wouldn’t take much concentration. Lord knew she couldn’t get her mind past the amount of money she had stacked neatly in the register, more money than she’d seen in months. It would buy supplies for new orders, and still leave her with excess. Her heart tripped in her chest at the thought.

She was too excited to go upstairs and sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she envisioned was her crowded shop that morning, with all the women chattering and trying on hats, prancing and preening before the oval mirror Muriel had had her sons drag over from her house. She’d told Fiona not to worry about returning the looking glass anytime soon. “I look the same everyday: tired and worn-out. Don’t need any mirror reflecting that fact back at me.” Fiona still planned to buy herself one and return Muriel’s property the first chance she got.

Realizing that she didn’t need to burn all those lamps along the walls with their costly oil, Fiona blew out all the extras save for the one over her chair and plopped down with a contented sigh. She looked out over her space (her space!) and couldn’t contain the smile that turned her lips upward. It was her dream come true.

Dragging some suitable material across the table, she absently began pulling the pins from her hair, scattering them to the side as she sank into her work like a pearl diver into the sea, eager to design what she visualized for Emmie’s baby. With deft fingers she began chalking out an outline for a roomy bonnet, forgetting that she’d been up since dawn and by all rights should be falling into bed exhausted.

She worked diligently in the quiet of her shop, paying no mind to the occasional sounds of laughter seeping through the wooden connecting door between hers and Cookie’s establishments. Her oil burned on as she chalked and cut and baste-stitched, until silence at last permeated her self-made cocoon of satisfaction and accomplishment.

So deep into her creativity had she submerged that when her front door unexpectedly opened her heart jumped into her throat, her stomach clenched in alarm, and the half-formed hat dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers.

Edward Townsend had entered her hallowed sanctuary. Her haven.

Her haven no more.

##

It was supposed to be locked, he thought as he swung the door to Fiona O’Toole’s hat shop inward on a whisper of sound. He wasn’t supposed to gain entrance into their last and fierce battleground. But here he was, committed to the action like the most stalwart Army general.