By Proxy(37)

Since Jenny had left with a promise to return—a promise Sam was frankly clinging to—the Lindstrom brothers effectively sat in judgment of Sam across a table of flimsy plywood, with interest in him anchored somewhere between curiosity and whoop-ass. Protective actually seemed a hopelessly weak word as he smiled engagingly at them across the table. He tried the smile he used with especially truculent clients, but they weren’t a real smiley bunch in return.

“So, Sam,” Nils began, putting his menu down and his paws flat on the table. “What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t Jenny tell you?” He knew she felt awkward about saying the vows and didn’t want to betray her confidence if she hadn’t shared the details of Ingrid’s request with her family.

“She said he’s giving some kind of legal help to Ingrid,” Lars piped up, speaking to Erik.

“We like Ingrid,” Erik offered.

“Well, there you go. Ingrid and Kristian needed some help with some legal work and asked me and Jenny to lend a hand.”

“Where you from? Up north? Billings? Missoula?” Nils again, naming the two largest cities in Montana.

“Chicago,” Sam answered.

Lars’s brow furrowed much like Jenny’s. “Chicago!”

Now Erik again. “Awful long way to come for legal work. Hard to get here from there.”

“That’s true,” Sam agreed. “Two flights to get to Billings and a long drive after that.”

Nils nodded. “Must have been something serious to make a trip like that.”

Sam was getting sick and tired of the cat-and-mouse style questions and comments. He folded his hands in front of him on the table and spoke directly, some steel in his tone. “You know what, guys? It’s this simple. Kristian’s my cousin. He’s like a brother to me. If he asked me to jump out of a plane, I probably wouldn’t ask too many questions before jumping. That’s just how it is. So, yes, when he and his fiancée asked for my help, I flew here from Chicago, and I’m going to handle his business for him because he’s in Afghanistan and he can’t handle it for himself. Any more questions about Kristian?” His brown eyes checked off each set of blue eyes one at a time, ending with Nils.

Nils eyed him back, then nodded in approval, suddenly showing a mouthful of the whitest teeth Sam had ever seen. “You sure you’re not from Montana?”

Sam smiled back and chuckled, grateful they’d settled things. “Spent a good bit of time north of Great Falls growing up.”

“Jenny-girl loved it up there in Great Falls,” Erik stated.

This was new information to Sam and it surprised him. “I knew she had gone to college there…”

“Oh, we had a time of it to get her to come home. Remember, Lars? Couldn’t get her to come back until…”

Lars nodded to his older brother. “Me and Nils didn’t like her so far away up there after she graduated the college, but she loved it. We tried to get her to come home, but she wouldn’t budge. Took that job and everything.”

“What job?” Sam asked, fascinated that small-town Jenny had once set her sights on Great Falls, a small city with more than 50,000 residents.

“At one of the schools there. Private one.” Erik now. “Teaching science to the little kids. Jenny always loved the little ones. She didn’t really want to work with the teenagers.”

“But the little kids didn’t need a science teacher here,” Lars finished.

“Why didn’t it work out? What made her—”

“Come home?” Nils cocked his head to the side as Sam had seen Jenny do many times. “Because our Mamma got sick.”

“Jenny came home to tend to her.”

Sam didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until it came out in a sudden rush of sympathy. “Sh-she came home to take care of your mother? I’m sorry. Jenny hasn’t mentioned her more than once, and I—”

“Mamma got sick three years back and it went quick after. Jenny came home to be with Mamma and then she stayed on even after she passed. To be near Pappa. And us, I think.” Nils finished and folded his hands on the table.

“Had to be hard for her to come back here after liking it so much up there in Great Falls,” Erik said, frowning. “Maybe you should have left things alone like Mamma wanted.”

Nils elbowed his younger brother in the side. “What’s right is right. Jenny would agree with me and Lars if you asked her, little brother. She needed to come home.”

Erik pursed his lips but said no more.

“I’m sorry about your mother.”