Page 20 of A Cowboy's Convenient Marriage

“Yes. The Bible says that if I don’t forgive others, God will not forgive me. Matthew 6:15. ‘But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’” He tried to take a quick look into his heart. “I want to forgive. I want to say that it doesn’t matter what they did. I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I know I will be.”

It was the first time he had said that out loud. He wanted it to be true.

Ezra nodded. “I am just an observer, obviously, and I haven’t lived through this. But my perspective is a little bit different than yours, and I don’t know if this will be helpful to you, so take it however you want.”

Ezra stilled for a moment as though gathering his thoughts. “When I look at you, I see a man with untapped potential. Perhaps a man that God wanted to move, and so He allowed the things that happened back in Virginia to move you here. I would be willing to bet that God has a lot of things He wants you to do here, and if Ada agrees to marry you, you are a very blessed man indeed. I don’t know what your previous fiancée was like, but she would have to be a saint in order to compete with Ada. So, God took something from you, and He’s giving you something better. Remember that when you’re thinking about forgiveness.”

Cash was quiet. Ezra’s words had been spoken softly, not with any kind of strife or urgency, just as though he were stating the facts, calmly and rationally. And he had been. He was right. God had taken away from him everything he worked for, but supposedly, he had been saying all his life that he was working for the Lord. If God didn’t want him doing that anymore, He certainly was well within His rights to take it away, wasn’t He?

And if He wanted to give him something better, then it really wasn’t the men around him who were being so unkind, it was God who was allowing the situation so that it would move him from where he had been comfortable into a place where he would never have gone on his own. Was that so that God could use him here? Or was it so that God could bless him beyond his wildest dreams?

Maybe it was a combination of both. And Ezra was right, that did make it a lot easier to think about forgiveness.

He nodded. “You have good points.”

He didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t have anything else to say. He needed to think about it for a while.

“So, I’m going to go out, and I’m going to tell Ada that you are here to offer her marriage, and you only have three days. If it’s okay with you, I might mention the letter, just because she’ll want to know what the rush is. I’m going to tell her that I spoke with you, I’ve called various people who knew you, and that I feel like marrying you would be a good decision on her part.”

Cash didn’t exactly want to jump over the desk and wrap his arms around Ezra, but he was grateful, very grateful, to the man. He had casually, very casually, told Cash that he approved of him and would give Ada a good recommendation.

“I take it I have your permission to ask your sister to marry me?”

“You do. Let me talk to her first.”

Cash couldn’t argue with that, and he nodded, standing, as Ezra stood.

“If you give me a half an hour or so, I’ll talk to her, tell her everything I’ve heard, and then if you’d like to take care of this tonight, I’m sure she’d be willing to talk to you. I am going to guess that she’s going to want to pray about it for a while, so you won’t get an answer tonight, but I will definitely emphasize to her that it’s important that we not take too much time.”

“It’s okay if I wait here?”

“Yeah. You could hang around the house, wait outside on the porch, walk around the ranch. If you give me your number, I’ll text you when we’re done.”

Cash couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, and now, he just needed to wait and see what Ada said.

Chapter 8

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