By Proxy(5)
“Okay,” she said. “It’s not far. You can follow me. I’ll pull up in front. Light blue Rav-4. I’ll take you to the Lone Wolf Lodge on the way home. It’s the…nicest.”
“Sure. And we can meet up after you walk…"
“Casey,” she said.
He was confusing her: She would expect someone from the city to complain about how staying the weekend in Montana was inconvenient or cramped his style. But here he was, asking to take her out to dinner, not raising any objection to following her to Gardiner. Maybe she didn’t have his number, after all. She smiled at him for the first time—really smiled at him like he was worth smiling at—then turned and started down the stairs.
***
Sam’s pulse quickened and he started breathing faster. That was unexpected. He was totally caught off guard by the impact of Jenny’s smile. From the top of the stairs, he watched her bottom sway back and forth gently with each step and suppressed a groan. Come on, man! She’s a prickly, uptight schoolmarm with a puppy. Not your type! But the combination was unexpectedly charming and ridiculously homespun and he grinned.
Her long blond hair fell halfway down her back, and his hands tingled, remembering the silky softness when he lifted it off her neck. Why did I do that? He hadn’t even realized what he was doing until she whipped around. While he freely admitted it was totally inappropriate, it had somehow seemed like the most natural gesture in the world at the time.
He started down the stairs after her, but by the time he stepped outside, she was nowhere to be found. What was with that? How come he always felt twenty paces behind her? Sophisticated she was not, but she sure had a knack for making him feel like a dawdling schoolboy.
Once in his rental car, he made a mental note to call the rental company in Bozeman and extend the contract for another few days, then pulled up behind her in front of the courthouse. She waved to him in the rearview mirror and they started the trip to Gardiner.
He shook his head. The situation certainly had not turned out as he expected. He had expected to meet some meek country gal, stand politely next to her, say whatever words were required of him, shake her hand good-bye, then drive the two hours back to Billings to catch his flight home to Chicago, feeling satisfied about the good deed he had successfully completed for his favorite cousin. Instead, Jenny Lindstrom had literally fallen into his life, and here he was bound for someplace called Gardiner with a woman who was—in her own fresh-faced way that, frankly, made his heart pound—one of the prettiest girls he’d ever met.
Prickly and pretty. Well, it’s only for a weekend. Maybe she’ll chill out a little. Anyway, it’s for Kris. Be nice. Maybe the—what was it?—the Lone Wolf Lodge will have wi-fi.
In vain, he tried to find some music other than country-western but finally had to choose between Carrie Underwood and Patsy Cline. Patsy won the draw with ease. His parents had often played her music on long car trips when he was little, and he loved her husky voice. A local station was having a retrospective on her life, so he’d be covered for the hour-long drive south. While Patsy sang about falling to pieces, he thought about what he would say in his e-mail to Kris.
When he'd received Kristian’s e-mail last week, there was no way he could have said no. He had a ton of vacation time piled up anyway and it was a slower time of year at the investment firm where he had worked since graduating from college seven years before. People rarely made significant financial investments before the holidays, so it was one of the better times to take a day off.
After he read Kristian’s e-mail, he had consulted Wikipedia to confirm “Double Proxy Marriage” actually existed. It sounded like the implausible plot of a bad movie: two people who couldn’t be at the same place at the same time could be married legally if they designated two other people—proxies—to take their vows for them.
Sure enough, all-knowing Wikipedia had confirmed it was true, and Sam re-read the article twice to understand. Apparently it was a completely legitimate, little-known legal loophole that existed only in Montana, almost exclusively utilized by servicemen and women—like Kristian and his fiancée Ingrid—deployed to different parts of the world. With Kristian in active service in Afghanistan and Ingrid serving at an army hospital in Germany, their only option for an expedited marriage would be a double proxy ceremony in Montana.
For the young couple it was a welcome solution to a growing problem: a short, passionate weekend leave two months ago in Germany had resulted in the happy, but unexpected, news that a baby was on the way, which meant a wedding. Immediately. Kristian’s family wasn’t exactly the modern, understanding prototype when it came to matters of propriety: right is right, and if you’re having a baby, then you’d best be married.