By Proxy (7 page)

“Whew! Twenty-four hours!”

“Yeah. With two older sisters heckling me in the backseat.”

“You’re the baby, too.” She smiled at him, seeming fascinated to find they had a bit of common ground when their lives seemed worlds away. “You celebrate
Midsommardagen
?”

“Of course! My mother’s Swedish. Anyone with a drop of Swedish blood celebrates
Midsommardagen
!”

She smiled. “My father’s Swedish. My mother was Norwegian. She used to say that Midsummer was just an excuse for drunken fools to stay drunk all weekend. But I know she loved everything else about it. She used to braid my hair with flowers on Midsummer morning every year…hers too.” She paused then added quietly, “She…she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jenny nodded wordlessly, looking at the river below, while he stood beside her in silence.
Where did that come from?
She didn’t generally share her private business with strangers. Then again, Sam didn’t feel like a stranger to her, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since she had just met him.

“You still have kin? In Choteau?” She was anxious to change the subject.

“Mmm,” he murmured, his breath coming out of his nose like smoke. “Kristian’s family. My aunt. She’s alone now. My uncle passed away a few years ago. My cousin Katrin still lives up there somewhere, too, but I haven’t seen her in years. Kristian and I were really close, more like brothers than cousins. Anyway, I am sure there are other cousins up there too; I just don’t know any of them anymore.”

“It’s not
so
far from here,” Jenny observed. “Five hours, I guess. More if there’s snow.”

“I won’t see them this trip.”

“Do you wish you were? Seeing them?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I loved them, you know, when I was a kid. But, my life is very far away from here, Jenny. A whole other world.”

She held his eyes for an extra beat before dropping them and nodding that she understood. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t there, and she bit her lip with a fleeting, inexplicable melancholy as they started walking again.

***

Jenny was glad to be home, but it felt odd to have Sam accompany her to her small apartment, which hadn’t hosted many single men. She was acutely aware of him—of how his tall body took up most of her entryway, how his muscular forearms were freckled and corded when he pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt after handing her his coat. She could feel herself staring at him, so she spun abruptly, hanging his coat in the small hallway closet by the front door.

She needed a distraction.
Coffee. I’ll make some coffee.
She turned and he followed her into the kitchen. Casey wiggled her bottom back and forth wildly in her playpen, whining for attention.

“Oh, wow!” Sam walked right over to her and picked her up from her nest of shredded newspaper. She licked his nose and whimpered excitedly. “She’s beautiful.”

Then, to Casey, “Who’s a good pup? Who’s a good puppy?”

Jenny watched Sam with amusement, surprised by him yet again. Puppies were unpredictable and nippy, liable to piddle down your middle or bite your fingers with razor-sharp puppy teeth, but he had picked her up easily, gently, and now stood in her kitchen with Casey Mae cradled in the nook of his elbow, rubbing her bald puppy belly.
Hmm. There’s more to you than meets the eye, Sam… Sam what?
She still didn’t even know his last name!

“Sam, I don’t know your last name.” She looked at him, put four scoops of grounds into the coffee maker and pressed the ‘on’ button.

He grinned, still rubbing Casey’s tummy. “Kelley. Sam Kelley. Can you believe this broad? She’s going to marry me and she doesn’t even know my name!”

Jenny instantly gasped in victory and couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her as she turned to him, smiling with glee.

He snapped his head up from Casey and the look on his face said it all, but she couldn’t resist declaring a winner.

“You just broke our deal, Mr. Kelley.”

Chapter 4

Damn! She was right. He had slipped up and teased her.

“Oh, come on!” His face was a play in indignation. “I was talking to Casey, not you!”

“Fair’s fair,” Jenny responded in a sing-song voice, moving from the kitchen into the living room where her laptop sat on a coffee table in front of a cheery floral loveseat.

“Okay. Uncle. What’s my punishment?” Following her tempting body into the living room, Sam briefly fantasized about having his “punishment” in her bedroom. He’d let her do just about whatever she wanted with him. His heart kicked into a gallop at the fleeting fantasy and he shook his head, turning his glance back down to Casey.

Stop thinking about her like that!

Jenny sat down on the loveseat and pulled up her legs, crossing them Indian-style and shifting the laptop onto her thighs. Sam stared at her for a moment before telling his mind to quit looking at her lap

Quit looking at her altogether. Look somewhere else, damn it!

“Did you notice the big sign hanging over town as we strolled home?” she asked him with a grin.

Cute
. “Yeah. Something about a Christmas Stroll? Want me to take you?” he asked hopefully, leaning against the kitchen doorway, cradling Casey.

“Why, Sam! That would hardly be a
punishment
,” she said, baiting him, dancing eyes daring him to contradict her. “I want you to help me set up the booth for my school tomorrow.”

“Does this require waking up early?”

“I’m afraid so,” she responded, grinning wickedly. “And some heavy lifting too. I asked my brothers, but they all work nights, so none of them was very excited to volunteer.”

“Wow. You really take a pound of flesh!” He segued quickly from sexy to playful in his head, finding he enjoyed the banter between them.

“You said you wouldn’t tease me, and you did.” She opened her laptop and let it warm up for a moment. She seemed to stare at a spot on the opposite wall for a second, lost in thought. “It bothers me.”

He placed Casey back in her playpen and sighed, crossing the room to sit down next to her. “Hey…I can’t help it. I tease. That’s just how I—”

“Oh! Not that.” She turned to him with serious eyes, and as her shoulder brushed his he realized how close they were sitting next to each other. “I mean, I don’t
love
your teasing, but I’m the youngest of four. I can handle it whether I like it or not.” She paused, furrowing her brows in thought, then continued softly. “What bothers me is the vows.”

“Saying the vows for Ingrid and Kris?”

“Yes and no. I mean, I want to help Ingrid. I’ve known her since we were little girls and I love her. It’s just…saying those words. You know. For the first time with…”

“With me,” he supplied, searching her face to understand her better. Looking at her eyes he realized that what she was saying stung a little, which made no sense at all.

“Yes. But, not because you’re not perfectly nice—”

“Oh, I’m perfectly nice?”

“No. I mean,
yes
. You’re…well, you’re fine. That’s not the—”

“Jenny?”

“What?”

“Take a breath and just say what you’re trying to say.”

She did as he suggested, then faced him and met his eyes without blushing for the first time he could remember. “This has nothing to do with you, Sam. I mean, except you
happen
to be the person Kristian asked to be his proxy. Here’s what it is: it bothers me to say the words.” She stopped and looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes again. “I know
I’m
not actually taking the vows. I know
we’re
not getting married, no matter how much you tease. It’s just, I always thought that I would only say those words once.

“Once,” she repeated wistfully. “One time that would last forever, you know? At Grace Church with Pappa and my brothers…and a man I love standing next to me…in front of God and the whole world…with my Mom looking down, smiling.” She looked back down, blinking, and he realized that she was trying not to cry. “Oh, gosh, I’m being silly. I’ll still have that moment. I mean, I
hope
I will. Someday. Anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Sam replied quietly, affected by her words and feelings. “It matters to you.”

She typed in her username and password. Her voice was strong when she responded, brooking no contradiction. “No. It
doesn’
t matter, and there’s nothing I can do about it now anyway. I promised Ingrid.”

There had to be another way.
“Hey, maybe we could find someone else to stand in for you? That old bat at the courthouse has to know someone…”

“A proxy for a proxy?” She chuckled ruefully. “No. A promise is a promise. Ingrid’s so far away in Germany and Kristian’s in Afghanistan…this is the
least
I can do, Sam.” She looked up from her computer, and gave him another one of those
real
smiles that made his insides run riot. “It’s okay. It really is. I feel much better now that I’ve told you.”

That took his breath away.

“Do you want coffee? I’m having a cup.” She put her laptop to the side and headed into the kitchen. She turned when she got to the doorway and looked at him quizzically. “Sam? Coffee?”

He shook his head no, offering a weak smile in response. She cocked her head to the side regarding him, then smiled back briefly before turning into the kitchen. He heard her opening cabinets and talking to Casey. He relaxed into the couch, glad she left the room for a few minutes.

He was incredibly touched by her admission, her candor, the depth of her feelings and her selflessness in light of them. A wave of protectiveness overcame him as he thought about her words,
I feel much better now that I’ve told you
. He felt unworthy to have inadvertently offered her such comfort. Who was
he
to comfort her?

She is like no one.

But, his mother’s face flitted briefly through his head, debunking that thought. Sam’s roots were solid and decent, his upbringing grounded in goodness and respect. Maybe he’d lost his way for a while, dating someone like Pepper. Just thinking of her now—all the nights he’d wasted lying beside her—made Sam flush with shame. Jenny and Pepper didn’t operate in the same stratosphere, one totally consumed with herself at the cost of others, and the other willing to face personal discomfort to help someone she loved.

And it wasn’t just Jenny’s goodness and integrity. In a day and age when divorce was rampant, she was so sure that she would say her wedding vows only once to one man, saying them this extra time by proxy was problematic for her. In a world full of cynicism and doubt, she believed in true love. She believed in happily-ever-after.

Sam’s eyes burned and he massaged them with his fingers, taking a deep breath and swallowing back his confusing feelings, annoyed with his visceral reaction to her. He took another deep breath, collecting himself before she returned.

She sat back down next to him, carefully depositing her coffee on the table before them and pulling her laptop back into her lap. He glanced aside to watch her as she tapped on the keys, a current sweeping up his arm as her body settled beside his.

Her blonde head was bent over her computer, but he could see her skin on the graceful curve of her neck where her hair parted in the back, falling forward over each of her shoulders. He stared at the patch of pale skin for a moment, imaging it would be silky and warm to the touch. He breathed in, willing himself to think about baseball or football or something other than kissing her neck.
Pointless.
He was good and distracted by her now.

It didn’t help that she had been sitting close to him before, but when she sat back down, she had moved closer to him—no doubt unintentionally—by an inch or so. Cross-legged, her bent knee rested lightly on his thigh and drove him crazy. Every time she typed, her elbow would gently graze his side, which was for some insane, inexplicable reason turning him on: he had a sudden mental image of lifting her face to his, and closing the scant distance between their lips. The fantasy was so palpable, he groaned softly.

She looked up at him, brows knitted. “Oh, look at you. You must be tired. Flying to Montana and driving so much today. We can do this tomorrow, Sam.”

He could think of plenty of things he’d rather do, but kept his face carefully neutral. Little did she know she was mistaking sexual frustration for weariness.
More’s the better
, he thought, glad she couldn’t read his mind.

“No, no,” he assured her. “Sounds like you’re going to keep me plenty busy tomorrow. Let’s do this tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what I’m typing and you tell me if you want me to change something, okay?” Sam nodded and leaned his head on the back of the loveseat, closing his eyes.
Stop thinking about her knee on your thigh. Stop thinking about her like that, period!

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she read aloud. “Dear Ingrid and Kristian: Sam and I are here in Gardiner together and are writing to tell you Judge Hanlon was unable to hear the vows today up in Livingston. We are sorry. The good judge had weekend plans and left the courthouse a little earlier than expected.

“I’m leaving out the part about your wallet,” Jenny mumbled. With his eyes still closed, he listened for her fingers to start typing again, but she didn’t make a sound. She hadn’t gotten up. He could still feel her beside him on the small loveseat. Perhaps she was figuring out what to type next. Then he felt her position shift slightly, closer to him.

Sam felt her breath on his cheek and his heart started beating faster. He tried to keep his own breathing easy and calm, but his body was becoming increasingly taut with anticipation.
What was she doing?

He couldn’t stand not to know. He opened one of his eyes slowly, then the other. They widened to find Jenny a hair away from his face, assessing him frankly, and…what was it he read on her face? Tenderness? Wonder? His mind was having trouble processing what was going on.