To Win Her Heart (11 page)

For the first time since she began hosting the reading hour over a year ago, Eden had to fight the urge to cut the session short. She’d been keenly aware of Levi’s presence as she settled the children and found her place in the story, but when she glanced up and found him looking at her with such . . . well . . . pining, she nearly dropped the book from her lap.

Never could she recall a man looking at her in such a manner. Warmth spread through her as if she’d just climbed into a steaming tub, yet her mouth was bone dry. Rattled by her reaction, she’d done the only thing she could think to do—return to her reading. Unfortunately, vocalizing the words on the page did little to regulate her quivering pulse. Even after Levi left, her attention wavered from
Black Beauty
to the book she had stashed in her desk. Levi’s book.

Had he responded to her questions? Eden found her eyes wandering to the desk whenever she looked up to smile at the children. With each minute that passed, the urgency to examine that book swelled until she began stumbling over her words. A few of the children looked at her oddly, but she managed to muddle through. The minute the last child scampered down the front steps, however, she locked her door and flew to her desk.

To prove to herself that she did still harbor at least a modicum of self-control, she first tidied her work area by returning all her dried flowers to their appropriate paper packets and storing them in the hatbox she had stashed beneath her desk. Then she folded the sketchpad closed and recorded Levi’s latest selection in her lending log before finally granting herself permission to open
the drawer
.

There it sat—a mahogany-red cover, the title embossed in gold. She traced the lettering with a finger, suddenly nervous. Would she find what she’d hoped for within the pages?

Eden bit the edge of her tongue as she lifted the book from the drawer and placed it on her lap. Propping the spine in the dip between her knees, she fanned the pages until they fell open of their own accord, revealing folded sheets of writing paper. Her heart pounded and her hand shook as she reached for them. She’d grown so accustomed to disappointment, she’d almost forgotten how to react when it didn’t occur.

She had just laid hold of Levi’s letter when the door to the kitchen swung open. “Supper’s on, Eden. Quit your dallying.”

Slamming the book closed, Eden felt a ridiculous heat climb up her neck and into her cheeks. “Be right there. I . . . um . . . need to take something up to my room first.” Grabbing her hatbox by the strap and hoping her housekeeper would pay more heed to it than the book she covertly tucked under her arm, Eden dashed toward the stairs. Levi’s letter would have to wait a while longer.

Once dinner had been consumed and the dishes washed, Eden bid Verna and Harvey a good-night, ignoring the raised eyebrows her early departure garnered. She climbed the stairs with purposeful restraint, not wanting the echo of hastening footsteps to feed their curiosity. After her earlier conversation with Verna, Eden preferred keeping the subject of Levi Grant closed to further discussion. At least for now. She needed time and privacy to sort out her feelings on the matter before venturing into those waters with anyone else.

Eden quietly clicked her door shut and leaned her back against it as she drew in a deep breath. Her gaze fell unerringly upon the dark red book on her writing desk. Anticipation sizzled along her nerves, leaving her a bit lightheaded.

“Pull yourself together, girl,” she murmured as she pushed away from the door. “It’s just a note, for heaven’s sake.”

A note that could contain anything. It could be filled with insightful literary discourse or unintelligent ramblings. For all she knew, the pages might be nothing more than her own note returned with a single page from Levi stating his desire not to participate in her little experiment. He was busy establishing his business, after all. Just because he took time out of his day to read didn’t mean he’d sacrifice more time to indulge her bookish whim.

Angry at herself for getting all worked up over a few scraps of paper, Eden marched to her burled walnut French writing desk, threw open the book cover, and yanked out the folded pages. Eden separated the sheets and counted. Four—and none of them looked familiar. Levi had written her
four
pages. Her legs began to quiver, suddenly too insubstantial to hold her upright. She grabbed the back of her chair for support and lowered herself upon the needlepoint seat.

She smoothed out the paper crease with her finger and pushed Verne’s book out of the way to make room for more important reading.

His handwriting didn’t have the elegant quality of a refined gentleman, but his strokes were strong and definitive, making his penmanship easy to decipher. If only the man himself were so easily read.

Eden,

I cannot tell you how happy I was to discover your note. I look forward to deepening our acquaintance through this correspondence.

A little thrill shot through Eden. Her instincts had been correct. The man was educated. His writing bore witness to the fact. The scripted words spreading across his page were penned with simple eloquence, nothing at all like his broken speech. She swiveled her knees to fit more directly under the top of the desk and leaned forward over the letter.

I know that I appear to be tight-lipped at times. However, this is more by necessity than choice. It shames me to admit this to you, but I want you to understand that my lack of words in no way indicates a lack of desire to communicate. There are certain types of words that I physically cannot say correctly. Therefore I avoid them, even when silence is the only way to do so.

Her eyes reached the end of the first page. Eden lifted her head and stared thoughtfully at the framed pressed-flower garden that hung on the wall above her desk. It made perfect sense. Was it a stutter? Slurred speech? A lisp?

It was hard to imagine a man of such physical strength being unable to control something as small as his tongue. Yet his strength of mind must be equal to that of his body. Constantly editing his speech to mask a deficiency? Eden couldn’t imagine such a feat. Levi might feel shame, but she felt nothing but admiration for his adaptability and self-control. And a bit of self-condemnation for her earlier misjudgment of his intelligence.

Eden shifted the top page to the bottom of the stack and continued reading. Levi spent the next three pages answering her question about Verne’s fictional professor and citing examples from the book. His arguments were well formed, but it was the personal insight he gave at the close of the letter that most spoke to her heart.

I understand that Professor Von Hardwigg’s irrational obsession is necessary to propel the action of the story. After all, the tale would be dreadfully dull if the fellow took sufficient precautions to eliminate all danger. However, I cannot condone his choices, even if things did end well. Selfishly putting one’s own desires above the welfare of a family member is unconscionable. It is an act of betrayal that destroys relationships. I know. I made a similar mistake once and have seen the heartache spawned by such a choice. Perhaps in time the Lord will mend the rift in my family that my actions created. I pray so. Until that day, I live to become the man I should have been.

Levi

Eden let the pages fall to the desk and fell back in her chair. What could he have possibly done to cause such regret? She could feel his sorrow, his contrition, and she ached for him. Yet the cynic within her rang warning bells that were impossible to ignore. He betrayed those he cared about once. Who was to say he wouldn’t do so again?

On the other hand, the fact that he accepted the blame for his past choices and strove to rectify them spoke to his integrity. Stephen never demonstrated such honor. He took her father’s money and disappeared without a word of apology or even explanation.

But if she let herself care for Levi and he broke her heart . . . Perhaps this peek into the blacksmith’s past was the Lord’s way of directing her onto a different path.

Or maybe it was a challenge to trust her future to her Lord’s keeping despite her fear. How was she to know?

Releasing a sigh, Eden refolded the letter and crossed to her bureau. She opened the carved jewelry box that sat in the center by the mirror and pulled out a hair ribbon—a silver one to match Levi’s eyes. She wrapped it loosely around the pages and tied the ends into a bow. Then she opened the top bureau drawer and secreted the letter beneath her unmentionables.

What would you have me do, Lord?

Eden removed the pins from her hair and dragged her brush through the strands.

My head tells me one thing. My heart another. Which voice is yours?

As she switched the brush to her other hand a snippet of a verse drifted into her awareness. Something about love casting out fear.

She paused midstroke and set the brush down, not caring that her hair was only half groomed. She needed to find that verse. Eden retrieved her Bible from the bedside table and sat on the edge of the mattress, flipping pages. She scanned 1 Corinthians 13, but it wasn’t there. She found several verses in Romans that dealt with love, yet not the one she sought. Growing frustrated, she fingered a thick section of pages and flopped them over. To 1 John. A sense of rightness resonated inside her. She began skimming the chapters, and finally, in chapter 4, she found what she’d been looking for.

“There is no fear in love”—
she mouthed the words as she read them—
“but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

All this time she’d thought it God’s will that she be a spinster. She had grown content with that expectation, taking satisfaction in the wisdom she’d gained through her experience with Stephen. No man would dupe her again. But what if living alone was never part of God’s plan for her? What if she chose that life because it was safe—because she was afraid?

Dear God, I don’t want my fear to be a barrier to the blessings you are trying to bestow. Cast out my fear, and help me to trust in your perfect love. But also grant me a full measure of wisdom. Do not let me be led astray by my own desires. If it is not your will that I pursue a relationship with Levi, I pray that you will stop me. Make your message so clear that I cannot argue it away. Protect me, Lord, and show me the way that I should go.

Eden closed the Bible and clutched it to her breast, as if spiritual discernment could somehow spill through the wall of her chest directly into her heart. However, her uncertainty did not abate.

Levi made a mistake, one he obviously regretted and hoped to rectify. Hadn’t she done the same thing? It was easy to blame Stephen for everything, but she’d played a role in it too. There’d been hints of his weak character that she’d turned a blind eye to and questions she’d purposely left unasked.

This time things would be different. Eden replaced her Bible on the table and strode back to her desk. Opening her stationery box, she removed several sheets, then unscrewed the lid on her inkstand and dipped her pen into its depths. As she inscribed Levi’s name across the top of the first page, she vowed to keep her eyes open and her ears pricked. Maybe—just maybe—this time she would discover a love she could trust.

After she delivered a note to Levi tucked between the pages of
Ivanhoe
on Saturday, she hadn’t really expected to receive another note until he finished reading the book, but he surprised her.

Following the service on Sunday, he managed to slip one under the cover of her hymnal while she chatted with Georgia and Claude Barnes. He stood quietly behind the livery owner and his wife near the edge of Eden’s pew, never saying a word. She tried not to look his way, afraid her growing interest would be apparent to anyone who happened to observe her. Nevertheless, she was aware of every movement he made. She noticed him glance over his shoulder and wave to Alex Carson, the saddler. She noticed him shifting his weight and stretching his neck from side to side as if his clothes had suddenly grown uncomfortable. She noticed the crumpled brim of his hat as he clutched it unnecessarily tight in front of him.

Until he dropped it.

It slid down the back of the dark polished wood of the church pew and landed directly over her hymnal, which was stacked atop her Bible on the bench seat.

She wouldn’t have thought much of it except that when he bent to retrieve the hat, he fumbled several times before finally taking possession of it again. Then, when their eyes met, he pointedly looked at the book and then back to her. Something inside her stomach quivered at the wealth of meaning behind that glance, even though she had no earthly idea what that meaning entailed.

Eden immediately picked up the books and clasped them to her chest. Levi’s eyes crinkled at the corners while his mouth maintained its straight line, and Eden couldn’t stop her foolish heart from imagining that he’d done so in order that she might be the only one privy to his smile.

It was hard to believe nearly a week had passed since then. And Eden and Levi had exchanged letters nearly every day.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to finish
Ivanhoe
before she would be ready to send along another letter, on Monday Eden had taken it upon herself to loan him a second book and deliver it in person. He’d caught on and had exchanged it the following day. They were on the third of a six-volume set of Washington Irving’s essays. Yet this particular volume had sat on her desk unclaimed all day yesterday and again today.

Eden laid her hand atop the volume of essays that was to serve as their next receptacle and gazed out the window. She’d been doing that for hours. Waiting for Levi to appear on her walk. But he hadn’t come.

Had Levi lost interest already?

Eden gritted her teeth and pressed the pad of her finger into the corner of the book cover with increasing strength until the resulting discomfort brought her back to her senses.

Where did this spinelessness come from? This wasn’t who she was—who she wanted to be. So Levi hadn’t come by yesterday. Or today. There could be a hundred reasons to explain his absence that had nothing to do with her.

Levi was not Stephen, and she refused to let her ex-fiancé’s abandonment turn her into a pusillanimous female who sat around wringing her hands while her own insecurities corroded her heart. If Levi couldn’t come to her, then she’d go to him.

Eden surged to her feet, snatched up the book, and marched over to the hall tree. Staring herself down in the small square of mirror between the hat hooks, she jabbed a pin through her favorite straw bonnet and settled her fringed black shawl over her shoulders like a warrior’s chain mail.

“I’m going out, Verna,” she called, pausing by the entrance to the reading room to pull on her gauntlets . . . er . . . gloves.

The kitchen door pushed in, and Verna propped it open with a hip as she dried her hands on her apron. “You want me to wait supper on ya?” She raised her eyebrow in a manner that clearly suggested an affirmative answer would not be welcome.

Tempted to assert her authority just to prove to herself that she did indeed have a spine, Eden shoved her fingers into the holes of her right glove and bit back the rejoinder that jumped to her lips. When she finally composed herself and looked up, Verna stood in the same spot, eyebrow still raised.

The longevity of the expression struck Eden as funny.

She smiled, and as she did, the desperate drive to reestablish a sense of control over her world dissipated. Oh, she had no intention of wilting back into a boneless heap of insecurities again, but seeing Verna in all her crotchety glory reminded her that she wasn’t alone. And that made all the difference.

“I don’t plan to be gone long,” Eden said. The thaw working its way through her spirit lent her voice a warmth she had not felt seconds ago. “But if I’ve not returned by the time you and Harvey are ready to eat, don’t wait on me. I can fend for myself.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Verna straightened and fidgeted with the ruffle on her apron bib. “I’ll put a plate in the warmin’ oven for ya.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.” Eden waved to her housekeeper and slipped out the front door.

No longer feeling militant, she sauntered down the street, enjoying the cool breeze against her cheek and the hum of activity along Main Street as patrons shuffled to and fro in an effort to complete their errands before shopkeepers closed for the day. As she neared the Drug Emporium, the door opened and Bertha Springer and her daughter emerged.

“Hi, Mith ’Penther.” Gussie curled the greeting around the peppermint stick in her mouth, leaving her S’s by the wayside.

Eden frowned a bit. Is that what Levi would sound like if he didn’t guard his words?

“Augusta Jane! You know better than that.” Bertha bent over and yanked the candy out of the girl’s hand. Gussie narrowed her eyes and slowly wiped the stickiness from her mouth with her sleeve, as if intentionally breaking another etiquette rule in retaliation.

Hoping to avoid a scene, Eden tried diverting the girl’s attention. “What story do you think we should read after we finish
Black Beauty
, Gussie? We’ll probably reach the end next Friday.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe
Swiss Family Robinson
or
Treasure Island
. I’ve heard those have pirates. I like pirates.”

Eden could well imagine. Gussie Springer was a bloodthirsty little thing. She loved adventure stories, always asking questions like how deep of a hole an Indian arrowhead would leave in a man’s back or what exactly a person’s face would look like after falling victim to a stampede. Eden had hoped that Black Beauty’s tale would make her and the other children more sensitive to the harm such violence provoked, but apparently Gussie had been immune to her efforts.

“Those are good suggestions.” And they were. Eden had read both and found them entertaining, even with the pirates. “Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote.”

Gussie shrugged again. “All right.”

Bertha smiled an apology for her daughter’s poor manners and bid Eden a good day.

Eden watched them make their way across the street, trying not to listen to the hissed lecture being issued. She shook her head and restrained a grin. Despite the stomach-turning questions the girl was prone to ask, Eden treasured her time with Gussie and the other children. Who knew? Maybe Gussie’s fascination with wounds and death would lead her to a study of medicine. Curiosity needed to be fed, and Eden found purpose in nourishing young minds.

She continued on her way, her bootheels clicking against the planked boardwalk in a rhythm that soon had her humming. The tune persisted even after she moved down to the dirt of the street and waited for an opportunity to cross. A wagon rumbled by, the driver lifting a hand to the brim of his hat. Eden nodded in acknowledgment, then gathered a handful of skirt as she prepared to step forward.

“Miss Spencer!”

Eden turned and stifled a groan, the fabric of her skirt sliding through her gloved fingers in resignation. “Sheriff.”

He approached from the direction of the saloon, and a faint odor of spirits followed him. “You’re looking lovely today. As always.” He winked and made an annoying little clicking sound with his mouth. He probably meant it to be charming, but Eden failed to see the allure in being clucked at in the same manner one would a horse.

“Where’re you headed?”

Eden opened her right arm slightly to allow Sheriff Pratt a glimpse of the book she carried. “I have a delivery to make.”

He raised a brow. “When’d you start making house calls?”

Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, Eden waved her hand in the air as if to dismiss the significance of her outing. “I’m simply helping out a friend who couldn’t make it to the library today.”

Sheriff Pratt glared at her, then seemed to catch himself. A smile suddenly sprouted beneath his well-trimmed mustache. “Well, shoot, Eden. Had I known you’d deliver, I woulda ordered books from you weeks ago.”

Why did that statement make her feel like a worm had just crawled across the back of her hand?

Eden lifted her chin. “It’s not a customary service, as you well know. This was a special circumstance. Now, if you’ll excu—”

“Who’s it for?” His tone remained light, but he shot a glance across the street, targeting the blacksmith shop as if he were sighting down the barrel of a rifle.

“That’s really none of your concern.” Eden picked up her skirts once again and inched toward the street, eager to escape the growing unease the sheriff’s company generated.

“Whoa there, darlin’.” He took her arm and tugged her away from the road. “I’m just asking a question. No need to get all uppity.”

Before she could decide whether or not to apologize, he reached around her back and snatched the volume of essays from her hand. “What do we got here? Some kind of storybook?”

She lunged for the book. He laughed and twisted away, blocking her efforts. Panic coursed through her. What if he discovered the letter?

“Really, Sheriff. Must you act so juvenile?” Eden tried to hide the fear quivering through her with a dose of disdain. “Give me my book, please.” She held out her hand in silent demand, but her tormentor ignored it.

“If it’s for that blacksmith, it probably has lots of pictures.” He snickered and held the volume at a level even with his eyes.

Eden’s chest tightened. “My book?” she said again, a note of pleading working its way into her tone. But it was no use. He’d already started fanning the pages.

“What’s this?” He growled and pulled the folded sheets free. “You’re writing him letters?” Accusation dripped like acid from his tongue as he speared her with a glower and thrust the papers into her face.

She seized the note and tried to yank it free, but he held fast. “Mr. Grant asked my opinion on a literary matter. These are just some of my thoughts. Nothing to concern you.” She pulled again, and this time he let go. Eden quickly hid the letter in the folds of her shawl.

“Everything you do concerns me, Eden.” He spat the words at her out of the side of his mouth as he smiled and tipped his hat to a middle-aged woman several paces away who had turned to gawk. After a final curious look, the woman smiled and moved on.

Eden frowned up at Conrad Pratt. His high-handedness was really getting out of hand. Perhaps it was time to get her father involved. A few well-placed words, maybe a threat or two from the town’s founder, and she’d be safe from any further unwanted advances. But then again, she wasn’t a little girl anymore, running to Daddy instead of solving her own problems. She could handle the sheriff. She just needed to hold her ground until he finally tired of the battle and turned his attentions elsewhere.

“My book, please?”

“I’ll not have you ruining your reputation before we say our vows,” he ground out. “Respectability is everything in my business.” He shoved the book at her chest.

Eden teetered back a step as she secured an arm around the volume. “I thought protecting the citizens of Spencer was your business.”

He glared daggers at her, clenching his jaw so tight she thought she heard a tooth chip. But having the letter and book safely in her possession again freed her to vent some spleen.

“Despite your stubborn insistence, Sheriff, I’ll not be saying vows with you. So do me the honor of staying out of my affairs.” With that, she turned her back and swept out into the street, feeling good about the setdown she’d delivered.

Until she reached the opposite side and glanced back.

Sheriff Pratt leaned menacingly against the wall of the Hang Dog Saloon, his black coat tucked back behind the holster at his hip. As he stroked the handle of his Colt, he stared across the street. But not at Eden. No, the heat burning from his eyes was directed at the man who had just emerged from the smithy.