By Proxy(63)

“I will.”

His voice was breathy and emotional, and Jenny couldn’t help but look up. He must have been staring intently at her bowed head because her lifted eyes slammed into his. He swallowed and his shoulders relaxed in relief, his eyes devouring hers, not letting her leave him again to look away.

“Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her both in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others keep you only unto her, so long as you both shall live?”

As Sam nodded slowly at Jenny with a heartbreaking tenderness, his lips tilted up in a sad, tender smile.

“I will,” he answered, eyes only for Jenny.

“By the virtue of the authority vested in me by the state of Montana, I now pronounce Ingrid Nordstrom and Kristian Svenson husband and wife by double proxy marriage.”

The judge scribbled on his notes as the witnesses filed out of the room. If Jenny or Sam had looked up, they would have noticed him pause at the door, looking back and forth between the young couple before smiling knowingly and closing the door silently behind him.

They stared at each other across the table until Jenny finally stood up slowly, unable to look away from Sam, holding his eyes wildly, as though she might die if she let them go. He stood up, too, moving around the head of the table with urgent purpose to stand before her. Reaching out to cup her face in his hands, his lips came down on hers in a possessive, hungry kiss. Tears flooded Jenny’s eyes, and they fluttered closed as she surrendered to him for the last time.

***

Jenny’s heart was breaking. Sam held her to him like she was about to be ripped away by some evil force, beseeching her.

“Please come to Chicago.”

She rested her cheek on his shoulder, her lips raw from kissing him, her hands flattened against his back. “I can’t, Sam. I’m just Jenny in western boots teaching kids, helping out at church, spending time with my Dad and my brothers. I can’t just leave them and move 1,500 miles away. There’s no use in me visiting.” She leaned back and looked into his face, shaking her head back and forth. The words rushed out of her mouth: “Why do you have to be in Chicago?”

“Jenny, my life is there. My job, my contacts, my clients, my apartment—everything. You can’t possibly think I could actually live in Gardiner?” His face was hard and angry. Incredulous, even.

Her face flushed hot, and she pulled back from his arms abruptly, crossing hers over her chest protectively. “I’d never dream of it, Sam. I’d never want you to lower yourself to living somewhere as beneath you as Gardiner.”

“That’s not true—”

“True? You want truth? Your life in Chicago is about as deep as a puddle. Your money, your schmoozing, your parties, your plastic Christmas trees, your bimbos—”

“That’s not fair, Jenny.”

“Surrounded by shallow, selfish people who couldn’t care less if you died in a car crash, but you’d choose them over—”

“Oh, wow! How about you, Jenny, all Miss High-and-Mighty-Know-It-All? Want some truth? How about you giving up on your dream in Great Falls and coming home to Gardiner to hide your head in the sand?”

“How dare you! I came back to take care of my mother, and—”

“And you stayed. This wasn’t your dream for yourself and it sure as hell wasn’t her dream for you. This wasn’t where you wanted to be. This is where you gave up. Where you sold out. Don’t lecture me about the life I have.”

Her chest rose and fell with the painful force of her breathing, and she stared at him like she didn’t know him. Shivering, she took in the hard anger of his face. She whispered more to herself than to him. “This never would have worked out.”

“Clearly,” he fumed. His voice was angry but ragged and out of control, like she imagined it would be before tears.

“Well, then, it’s good it didn’t,” she whispered, still looking down.

He struggled into his coat, punching his hands down through the sleeves. “Know what, Jen? You can always go running to Principal Paul and make sure all of your dreams don’t come true.”

Her face snapped up to meet his, an ocean of unshed tears brightening her furious eyes. She grabbed her coat and slapped her bag over her shoulder in a hurried, angry motion. “And I am sure you can find another beautiful, self-centered Pepper Pettway and never have anything close to the marriage your parents had. So, bully for you!”

“GREAT!” he shouted, face red and furious. “I guess we’ll both be very happy.”

“I guess so!” Her heart was racing, and she knew she was on the brink of violent, relentless tears. She couldn’t hold them back much longer.