by Katy Paige
“If you drink to excess.”
“Which so many do.”
“Well, no need to be worried on my account. I just enjoy a glass now and then.”
She mumbled something under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Men will have their vices.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just something my mother used to say. ‘A woman chops and dices; still a man will have his vices.’”
Sam thought for a minute and then looked up at her, perplexed. “What in the heck does that mean?”
“Actually?” Jenny looked up, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she giggled. “I have no idea! She always said it, and I never understood it! But I didn’t want her to think I didn’t get it!”
Her face was transformed by her merriment, and he chuckled with her, leaning closer. “Is it, like…a woman cooks while a man carouses?”
“Or a woman criticizes while a man indulges?” countered Sam.
“Or a woman works so hard making dinner and then a man doesn’t show up for it?” asked Jenny.
“Or a woman threatens the man with violence, but he drinks anyway?”
Jenny was snorting quietly between giggles. “S-Stop. Please. I’m going to ch-choke.”
Sam sat back and watched her, his cheeks starting to ache from smiling so much. He pushed her Coke closer to her, and she took a big sip, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“People are always saying things like that around here. Half the time, I have no idea what they’re talking about.”
He shook his head at her. “Why don’t you ask?”
“I should! No, I can’t. I mean, I grew up here. I’m supposed to know what these things mean. Heck, I’ve even used that expression before, and other women have nodded at me like I’m very wise.” This confession made her start giggling again, and she looked down at the table, shoulders trembling, trying to compose herself, but Sam heard tiny snorting sounds and knew she was losing the battle.
Sam couldn’t quite figure her out. She seemed kind of stuck-up sometimes, but someone who was truly haughty wouldn’t be able to laugh at herself like this. Frankly, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had dinner with a woman who just laughed—really laughed with genuine amusement—at something funny and self-deprecating.
He couldn’t imagine Pepper laughing at anything until tears slipped out of her eyes. Her eyes were always perfectly made up; she wouldn’t dare mess them up with a stray tear. Anyway, Pepper didn’t find things funny; she found them amusing. She took life—her life, especially—so seriously. Laughing at herself would be unthinkable.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” She sniffled and chortled once more, still trying to compose herself. Her eyes were bright and shiny and still full of mirth, and he knew she was on the verge of giggling again, just holding herself back. “You must think I’m crazy.”
Actually, I think that under those prickles, you’re completely genuine and absolutely adorable.
“Nah, it’s okay.” He leaned back in his seat, watching her until she sobered under his perusal. “It’s nice to hear someone really laugh.”
“Oh, I love a good laugh.” She cocked her head to the side. “Your friends don’t laugh?”
He considered this. Yes, they laughed: at a well-constructed barb at someone else’s expense, the shared delight in someone else’s misfortune, or a droll observation with a sophisticated, witty delivery. They laughed. But it was different. It was night and day from Jenny’s good-natured giggling.
He shrugged noncommittally, turning his attention back to the pizza.
“It’s good, right?” She smiled at him shyly, biting into her third piece.
“Yeah,” he agreed, smiling at her. “It sure is.”
***
It only took fifteen minutes to walk home from the restaurant, but Jenny pointed out various Gardiner points of interest on the way: the restaurant where one of her brothers worked, the road that led across the river to the Roosevelt Arch, and the high school where she worked. They walked over to the bridge, and she paused, holding onto the railing, looking up at the sky.
“I love Montana,” he whispered.
“What? You do?”
“You never see this many stars in Chicago,” said Sam. “Never see this many stars anywhere.”
Jenny sighed, nodding in agreement. “When I see a sky like tonight, I always think of early ship navigators, you know? Looking at the sky, trying to figure out where they were headed.” She leaned her elbows on the railing, putting her hood up, grateful for the thick down between her arms and the icy, cold iron. “It must have taken such courage, such faith to set sail, relying only on the stars to see them home.” She smiled at him, then turned her glance back up to the sky, pointing. “There’s the North Star. Polaris. See it? The brightest one that way. If you can find that, you can always find your way.”
“Always find my way, huh?”
“Uh-huh. It’s a fixed point. If you prefer Shakespeare, it’s an ‘ever-fixed mark.’ It doesn’t move. It doesn’t change. If you can find north, you can find your way.”
“Shakespeare?”
“It’s from one of his sonnets.”
“One that you know well, I’m guessing. Go ahead…” His smile encouraged her.
She chuckled nervously and shook her head but spoke the words quietly, staring out at the black river before her. “‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. O, no. It is an ever-fixed mark.’”
He leaned beside her. “So I’m guessing you teach English.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Science.”
When he chuckled, she gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“Suits you.”
“Are you laughing at me? Teasing me?”
“No! Not at all! Just…stars, navigation…you threw me with the Shakespeare. I had figured science, but then…” He looked back up at the sky. “Sure is pretty.”
“The sky or the Shakespeare?”
“Both. Either.” He shrugged and smiled at her. “I can’t remember the last time someone quoted Shakespeare to me. An ‘ever-fixed mark’…”
“Well, maybe there’s a frustrated English teacher in here after all.” She touched her heart with her hand and grinned at him. “Or maybe just cold winters mean lots of time for reading.”
“Reading. Hmmm. I can think of better ways to pass the time—” He cleared his throat. If she didn’t know better, she might wonder if he covered a chuckle by clearing his throat. She could hear the controlled humor in his voice when he asked, “And science?”
“Always loved it. I spent a lot of time in the park growing up, and my pappa was always teaching us something about the hot springs, the geography, the animals. Natural fit, I guess, being from here.”
He looked back up at the sky. “There’s nowhere like here.”
She turned to him, staring at his profile. “I didn’t realize you had such an affection, you know, for here. For Montana. I just assumed—”
He blew into his bare hands, then rubbed them together and stuffed them in his coat pockets. “Sure. I mean, I live in Chicago and my life’s there, but I love it here too. Maybe I wasn’t clear before, but we drove out to Choteau twice a year like clockwork my whole childhood. Spent a lot of time in Montana as a kid. My mom and Kristian’s mom are sisters, and they didn’t think a twenty-four-hour drive was reason enough to keep them apart.”
“Whew! Twenty-four hours!”
“Yeah. With two older sisters heckling me in the backseat.”
“You’re the baby too.” She smiled at him, fascinated to find they had a bit of common ground when their lives seemed worlds away.
“My aunt Lisabet and her family drove out to Chicago for Thanksgiving and Easter. And we drove out here for Midsommardagen and New Year’s. Never missed either my entire childhood. No excuse was good enough for my mother, you know? I may not have always lov
ed the drive, but I always loved being here.”
“You celebrate Midsommardagen?”
“Of course! My mother’s Swedish. Anyone with a drop of Swedish blood celebrates Midsommardagen!”
“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?” she asked, eager to change the subject. “In Choteau?”
“Mmmm,” 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. Maybe 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.
Five minutes later, they were back at her apartment.
She took Sam’s coat and hung it up on a rack by the front door, and he followed her into the kitchen. Casey wiggled her bottom back and forth wildly in her playpen, whining for attention.
“Wow! Look at you!” 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, he asked, “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 their razor-sharp baby teeth, but he had picked her up easily, gently, and now stood in her kitchen with Casey cradled in the nook of his elbow, rubbing her bald puppy belly.
Hmmm. There’s more to you than meets the eye, Sam—Sam what?
Holy cow! She still didn’t even know his last name!
“Sam, I don’t know your last name.” She glanced at him, putting four scoops of grounds into the coffeemaker and pressing the on button.
He grinned, still rubbing Casey’s tummy. “Kelley. Sam Kelley. Can you believe this broad? She’s going to marry me, but 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 singsong 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. Fine. You win. What’s my punishment?”
Eyes dropping to her rounded butt in tight jeans, Sam’s mind briefly fantasized about having his “punishment” in her bedroom, and his heart kicked into a gallop.
Whoa, boy! Whoa. Quit thinking about her that way!
Jenny sat down on the loveseat and curled her legs Indian-style, pulling the laptop onto her lap while Sam told his mind to shut up.
“Did you notice the big sign hanging over town as we strolled home?”
Cute. “Yeah. Something about a Christmas Stroll? Want me to take you?” he asked hopefully, leaning against the kitchen doorway, still cradling an almost-asleep Casey.
“Why, Sam! That would hardly be a punishment,” she said, baited eyes daring him to contradict her. “Nope. 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 take punishment seriously.”
“You said you wouldn’t tease me, and you did. About the wedding.” She opened her laptop and let it warm up for a moment. “It bothers me.”
He placed the sleeping puppy back in her playpen and crossed the room to sit down next to her owner. “Hey…I can’t help it. I tease. That’s just how I—”
“Not that.” She turned to him with serious eyes, and he realized how close they were sitting 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 wedding—specifically, 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 while it dawned on him 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 the deal: it bothers me to say the words with someone I’m not actually marrying.” 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, you know?”
Actually, he hadn’t given it much thought, but he nodded so she’d continue.
“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 blinked rapidly, 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, surprised by how much her words affected him. “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 fo
r them, 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.
In a day and age when divorce was rampant, Jenny 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. It made a lump rise up in his throat, made his eyes burn a little.
In an instant, he was irritated with himself, with his visceral reaction to her. Why should her feelings matter so much to me? He rubbed his jaw between his thumb and forefinger, collecting himself.
She came back into the living room and sat back down next to him, carefully depositing her coffee on the table before them and pulling her laptop back into her lap.
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, imagining 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 it was driving 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.