Page 13 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“It didn’t go well,” she said, two seconds after she looked up and saw his face.

It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Oh yeah, he was going to ask Kendra to marry him. He’d totally forgot about that.

“I just didn’t have the right gut feeling about her.” He didn’t believe a person should live according to their emotions, be it anger or sadness or whatever the feeling was. It shouldn’t dictate how they acted.

But he did believe in gut feelings. Those feelings that a person got when they just felt something was off or wrong or something was completely right. He felt like that was a person’s consciousness picking up on things that might not even register in their brain, and they might not think about or consciously notice, but those things added up sometimes to be right.

He also thought that was how the Lord spoke to him. Making things feel like they were the right thing to do. It was a feeling, but it wasn’t an emotion.

“So you didn’t ask her?” his aunt said, closing her book and setting it in her lap, with her hands folded carefully over top of it.

“No. But there was a girl there, a woman. Someone I’ve seen at church. I think it was one of the Clybourn women.”

“Those are good girls. But I think almost all of them are married.”

“It was Ada. Is she married?” Ada herself had already told him she wasn’t, but it seemed good to confirm it with his aunt, just so he didn’t misunderstand.

“No,” his aunt said slowly.

He gave her a couple of moments to think, and then he said, “Would she be a good one for me to ask?” He didn’t know why he was holding his breath. Other than he was more invested than what he thought in hoping that she could be the one.

Why?

He’d seen her for all of five minutes, if that, and he certainly couldn’t make any judgments based on that short amount of time.

Of course, he’d seen her in church too. She hadn’t caught his eye the way she had this evening. Maybe knowing he needed to be serious about finding someone if he wanted to take advantage of the offer had changed his perspective.

He didn’t like to think that that might be true though.

“I think if you’re going to do that, you’re going to need to go to her brother. You’re going to need to lay out everything for him. Everything in your past, everything that you’re thinking about. I wouldn’t hide what you were accused of. But I would tell your side of the story. And you need to be honest about where you stand with the Lord.”

His aunt sounded serious. Almost grave.

“Her brother?”

There were a lot of question marks in his head after his aunt had spoken, but that was the biggest one.

“Her parents both died in a car accident years and years ago. Her brother Ezra is the head of the family. I suppose he doesn’t make decisions without input from the other siblings, but he would be the one you would need to talk to. Whether he would make the decision or whether he would bring her siblings in to discuss things, I don’t know. I really haven’t had much interaction with the family, but they’re good, they’re solid, and if Ezra thinks that you are good and solid, and he gives his okay, that would go a lot further than anything else you could do in the next three days.” She paused. “That’s how long you have?”

He nodded. He understood what his aunt was saying. He needed to present his case, get approval, and then talk to Ada. Hopefully she would see something in him that she thought she could spend the rest of her life with, and she would say yes to his crazy proposal.

“Maybe I should just let this go. I can’t imagine what I would do if some woman approached me saying that she would get one billion dollars if she married me. I think I would go running in the opposite direction.”

“Maybe she will. Maybe the whole family will think you’re crazy. It...probably doesn’t help things with the things that you’ve been through.”

He nodded. He hadn’t told anyone here about his past, about the accusations. Because it was Zoe’s word against his, and he was the one who had left rather than stay and fight. But the church had fired him, had not backed him, and...maybe he should have stayed. Maybe he should have tried to clear his name. After all, a person was supposed to be innocent until they were proven guilty. But nowadays, an accusation like that carried more weight than an eyewitness almost.

Again, he had to fight the urge not to be bitter and angry against Zoe and the Lord.

“I have a car to sell in the morning, and I hate to leave the dealership during the day. Do you think if I wait until tomorrow evening, it would be too late?”

“I think if you wait until tomorrow evening, that’s the only time you’ll be sure to get Ezra at home. They’re ranchers with several businesses. They’re out taking care of their animals and farming their fields. I would guess that he doesn’t spend much time standing still during the day.” Her finger pressed along the edge of the spine of her book. “I don’t have his phone number.”

“That would be helpful, but maybe not necessary. I’ll drive out tomorrow as soon as I close the dealership. It’s Tuesday, so it closes at five.”

“I can come and be at the dealership if you’d like to leave a little early.”

“No. I think I’d better do my best to make sure I take care of my responsibilities. I can’t allow this to have me dropping everything and running off, and not doing what I said I would do.”

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