Proxy Bride (The Lindstroms Book 1) Read online

  “So I just wanted to wish you luck, Jenny-girl. You’re my family, and I’m sorry to see you go far away, but I sure do understand.” He stood up, placing Casey on the floor, cocked his head to the side, and gave her a stern look. “And one last thing. You got your heart back. Good. Now don’t get it broken, lillesøster.”

  Jenny launched herself across the room and into her brother’s arms, resting her head on his shoulder and loving the sturdy strength of him so close to her. When she leaned back, Erik swiped at his eyes and cleared his throat.

  “Got to go to work.”

  Jenny nodded. “Thanks for this, Erik.”

  He nodded back at her and headed for the door, then turned back before he twisted the knob to leave. “Heya, Jen? Wherever you end up? Let me know. Might be looking for a fresh start too.”

  “Wherever I am, Erik, there will always be room for you. Elsker deg.” Love you.

  “Elsker deg også, Jen,” he whispered, holding her eyes before closing the door behind him.

  ***

  With her father and Erik on her side, Jenny knew Nils and Lars would come around. She smiled to herself, wondering what Erik wanted for his life, wondering how long he had felt quietly dissatisfied with Gardiner, as she had. What a lot of wasted time. She wished they had been able to share their feelings and find strength in one another’s longing for more than Gardiner had to offer.

  She sighed, and Erik’s words replayed in her head: All that heart suddenly come back to you, and I got to thinking…well, I think Sam woke you up.

  Sam woke me up.

  She knew that Erik, who was generally so wary of love, was right. The part of her that found love, the part of her that knew the mesmerizing sweetness of passion, the part of her that finally found the courage to leave Gardiner—that part of her was asleep until she met him, until loving him and being loved by him awakened her.

  She clasped her hands together and closed her eyes, her heart overwhelmed with gratitude and joy to know love’s transforming power in her life. Now please don’t let me be too late. Please don’t let him have moved on. Please, please let us still have a chance to be together.

  She settled on the loveseat, typed in her email address and password, and felt tingles of nervous energy in her belly. She was about to open a second browser to search for airline tickets when she noticed an email from Ingrid in her in-box, sent six hours ago. Surprised and curious, she decided to read Ingrid’s email before buying her tickets.

  Dear Jenny,

  Merry Christmas to my best friend. I am guessing you had a traditional Svenska Christmas Eve with your dad and the boys, and I imagine you reading this the day after Christmas. How was Bozeman? Did your crazy, weird uncle try to kiss you under the mistletoe again? I hope you had your running shoes on!

  Kristian had a message from Sam that mentioned you two had an intense weekend together. Kristian says that it’s not our place to get involved, and I think he’d be mad I was writing to you. (Then again, he knows me so well, part of me wonders if that’s why he forwarded Sam’s message to me in the first place.) We don’t know exactly what happened between you two, and I don’t even know if you want to see him.

  But I know you, Jenny-girl. You’ve never given your heart away. I am wondering if you gave it to Sam. Based on what he told us, I am thinking you did. And on that suspicion, I need to tell you something:

  Sam’s in Great Falls. Right now. He’s spending the rest of the week there, at the Triple Peak Lodge. Kristian’s grandparents used to own it. It’s somewhere between Great Falls and Choteau. He heads back to Chicago on New Year’s Day.

  What you do with this information is up to you. If whatever was between you two is over, I guess you delete this email and get on with your life. If it’s not, stop reading, get off your ass, and drive north, girl.

  Here’s what I know, Jen…being away from Kris is awful. Being apart has made me realize how precious a gift it is when we are together. Don’t let this slip away if it’s the real deal. I can’t be with the man I love. But there is no good reason you can’t.

  Drive safely.

  We love you,

  Ingrid, Kristian, and Baby S.

  Chapter 12

  Sam stared at the roaring fire sitting on the edge of an easy chair, his elbows on his knees and his hands folded. It was good to be back at the Triple Peak after so long.

  He’d arrived the day before yesterday, and if he wasn’t positive then, he was more and more certain that his life was finally on the right track. Being back in Montana was soothing and exciting at once, and as Sam strenuously considered a permanent move to the state he had always loved, his heart felt lighter than it had in weeks.

  His job interview today at Davis Financial had gone predictably well.

  Sam knew his education and experience overqualified him for the open position, but surprisingly, they wanted to venture into some really interesting, cutting-edge financial solutions and were willing to give him some latitude in hiring talent for his own team and rolling out the program at his own pace and discretion. It would have been another five or six years before MTA would have offered him anything close, and even then, his ideas would have been bogged down in the bureaucracy of a large company.

  No, there weren’t going to be many posh client dinners here in Great Falls, but his subtle understanding of the office culture—mostly based on watching a mass exodus of people at 5:01 p.m. while he was still being interviewed in a glass conference room—indicated quitting time was quitting time, and the employees of Davis were encouraged to get home to their families in lieu of late nights at the office. It was exactly what Sam was looking for. They asked him for an answer by January 2, and Sam was ninety percent sure of his answer.

  The outstanding ten percent rested on Jenny’s unaware shoulders.

  He planned to go see her tomorrow, and he hoped and prayed that her heart would still be open to him. But he would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried. He was. She hadn’t reached out to him in any way since she had run out of the courthouse in tears. He wasn’t certain she would welcome him back into her life.

  That’s okay. As long as there’s even the slightest sliver of hope, I will take the job in Great Falls, and I will court her properly, driving down to Gardiner every weekend until she softens. I will do anything to have her in my life. I love her.

  He had taken a walk around Great Falls after his interview, trying to see the city through new eyes. It wasn’t a bad little city: shopping areas and restaurants, big stores, small boutiques, and the university. He meandered through the unfamiliar paths of the university, dusting the snow off a bench to sit for a few minutes and imagine Jenny going to school here. He had visited Kristian once in his senior year, but it was a short weekend that had included a visit up in Choteau, so he didn’t have vivid memories of the campus.

  He began his walk back to his hotel, passing a store called Montana Sapphire. As he walked by, the brilliant gold of the setting sun bounced off something in the window so brightly, it blinded Sam for a moment in his walk. He backed up and took a look in the window, noting the offender was a light-blue gem cut into a star shape, mounted on a platinum band. He stared at it for a while, knowing full and well his unexpected impulse to buy it was ridiculous. He didn’t even know if she would speak to him and he was looking at engagement rings? Keep moving, Sam.

  He walked down two more blocks before turning around, walking back briskly, and entering the store.

  “The light-blue ring in the window?” he asked, gesturing to it.

  “Oh, yes. The North Star model. It’s not a sapphire, sir. It’s a star-cut diamond. Unusual, right? For a special lady. It has eighty-six facets, and this particular ring is one-point-five carats and has a color rating of H. Do you want me to price it for you, sir?”

  He ended up buying it. Truth be told, he’d been sold by the words North Star and couldn’t seem to leave the store without it. He didn’t have a finger to put it on yet, but he hoped maybe o
ne day—someday—once Jenny had forgiven him, he might have the chance to give it to her.

  Back at the hotel, he had stuffed the small box in his suitcase, feeling foolish. He didn’t even know where the impulse to make such an impractical purchase had come from.

  It’s just that life felt so possible in the last day or two. Leaving Chicago. Moving to Great Falls. The hope that he could win Jenny back and have her in his life. Possible.

  The fire was warm against his skin, so he leaned back into the comfortable softness of the easy chair, closing his eyes, enjoying the din of conversation in the lobby of the lodge, the smell of the crackling fire, the soft classical music being piped into the room.

  “What a surprise! Are you staying here too?”

  The hairs on the backs of his arm stood up because the woman’s voice sounded so much like Jenny’s, but this was his mind playing a trick on him, just as it had at those nightclubs in Chicago when his eyes had seen Jenny in every blonde woman he beheld. He kept his eyes closed. It wasn’t her voice. It was merely another woman whose voice sounded like hers.

  “Sam?”

  His eyes flew open at the sound of his name, and he jolted forward like he had been shocked.

  There she was…standing before him:

  Jenny.

  A massive lump formed in his throat as he stared up at her, willing her to be real, desperate that she was really here.

  “Jen?”

  Her wide blue eyes were bright with tears. She nodded at him.

  “It’s me.”

  “Jenny!”

  He leapt up and grabbed her around the waist without permission, pulling her against his chest roughly. Closing his arms around her, his fingers curled into fists on her lower back, handfuls of her sweater bunched in the clawlike grip of his fingers. He rested his cheek against her head, working his jaw, feeling a tear slip from his eye and trail down his face into her hair. Her arms looped around his neck, and he closed his eyes with a sigh.

  After weeks of aching longing, suddenly, miraculously, he was holding her again.

  Say something! Say something, Sam!

  But the lump in his throat wouldn’t allow it.

  Anyhow, words would have just been in the way.

  ***

  Jenny closed her eyes, resting her cheek against his chest, hearing the frantic thumping of his heart and the ragged unevenness of his breathing.

  His arms were around her so tightly, she couldn’t even lean back to look at him. He had looked at her almost like she was an apparition, like it was impossible for her to suddenly appear before him. And then he’d grabbed her and held her, and nothing—nothing in her entire life—had ever felt so right.

  In that moment, Jenny knew she would never willingly live another day of her life away from Sam. Almost losing him once was enough to prove to her that—like father, like daughter—she would follow him to China, she would follow him to hell, she would rather die than be without him. It didn’t matter where she was, as long as she was with him.

  He finally leaned back, his eyes were glistening.

  His beautiful eyes, his beloved face.

  He held her face with a stark intensity in his eyes that almost frightened her. He must have seen her swallow nervously, because he tilted his head to the side, and his face softened, searching her eyes, then dipping his head to kiss her.

  When his lips brushed against hers, her eyes filled with tears again and fluttered closed. Her fingers caressed the skin on the back of his neck as he moved his lips softly over hers, and that heavenly heat bubbled up from the depths of her body, radiating out from her middle until a wave of requited love fell over her, and the terrible, aching loneliness of the past few weeks faded away like the darkness of a nightmare when you wake up in the bright light of a brand-new day.

  He leaned back, breathless, like he was still in the throes of a dream, then leaned his forehead against hers.

  “How did this happen?” he murmured.

  “Ingrid.”

  He loosened his grip around her body but found her hand, clasping it in his as he pulled her down onto a small loveseat in front of the fire.

  “Tell me.” He seemed to drink in her face, searching her eyes, using his knuckle to brush away her last errant tear.

  “She wrote to me two days ago. She knew something had ‘happened’ between us and told me you were going to be up here for New Year’s.” She tilted her head to the side, smiling at him as another wave of love made her cheeks warm. “I was already packing for Chicago, so—”

  “Chicago? Are you going to Chicago?”

  She nodded at him, taking a deep breath.

  “I’m going wherever you are, Sam.” She released his hand and opened her palms, gesturing to the lodge. “Isn’t that obvious?”

  He breathed in, biting his lower lip and stroking his chin with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. “Hmmm. Chicago, huh? Well, that’s too bad…”

  This was too forward. He’s back with Pepper, or he’s moved on, or—

  “…because I’m moving to Great Falls.”

  It was her turn to be shocked. “Wh-what? What are you talking about?”

  “I figure if the woman I love needs to be in Montana, then I need to be in Montana too.” He smiled at her, shaking his head slowly as his eyes brightened again. “Jenny, I love you so much.”

  She gasped and closed her eyes, bowing her head as her tears burst forth in torrents.

  He pulled her into his arms, and she rested her wet cheek on his shoulder, soft sobs racking her body. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, whispering, “It’s okay, Jenny. It’s going to be okay now, Pretty Girl.”

  She took a deep breath, and her tears ebbed away, leaving her exhausted and happy, processing this news.

  “You’re really moving to Montana?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I interviewed for a job yesterday, and it’s mine if I want it. I was going to drive down to Gardiner tomorrow to see if there’s any way you could forgive me for being so awful to you at the courthouse and see if…see if…”

  She put her palm on his cheek, and he turned slightly to press his lips into her palm.

  “See if what?” she whispered, loving the sight of his bowed head kissing her hand.

  He looked up at her, and his eyes were serious, searching hers, looking for the answer to an unasked question. Finally, he smiled at her and spoke in a gravelly whisper: “Come up to my room?”

  She swallowed, eyes widening. This is it, Jenny. This is the man you love asking you to come up to his hotel room.

  She swallowed again and looked down at her lap, her heart racing with unease: the last vestiges of the discomfort she used to feel around men, worries of maintaining propriety, sheer nerves at the thought of giving herself to him. She closed her eyes and severed those old worries from her current train of thought with a single, unforgiving blow.

  He loves me and I love him. Our future begins now.

  “Okay.”

  He smiled at her with heartbreaking tenderness, seeming to understand, with perfect clarity, everything in her head and in her heart. He took her face between his hands and kissed her lips gently.

  “You take my breath away,” he murmured against her lips, then he kissed her again, this time more deeply. Any lingering unease dissolved as she melted into him, wanting him, needing him, desperate for his hands on her body, for the heavy warmth of his weight pressing against her.

  “Trust me,” he whispered close to her ear. “I promised your dad my intentions were pure.”

  Her breath caught. “So you’re not going to try to seduce me?”

  He leaned back, looking surprised for a moment, then chuckled, nodding. “Actually, I am. But I need to do something else first.”

  First? What is he up to?

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the elevator with him. Lacing his fingers through hers, she could have sworn she felt his tremble before their palms were finally flush. The elevator door
s opened, and he pulled her toward his room. He took a keycard out of his back pocket and slipped it into the reader, which flashed green, then opened the door, letting her precede him into the room.

  It was beautiful, decorated in creams and tans, with a large, log cabin–style bed dominating the room and a small sitting area in front of a fire. The fire must have been recently lit, and it glowed cheerfully behind glass, casting the whole room in a warm, golden, dreamy glow. She noticed a sliding door on the other side of the room that led outside onto a rustic balcony. She gestured to it. “Do you mind if I…”

  “Sure. Go check it out. I have to get something.”

  Jenny crossed the room, taking a deep breath as she passed the big, plush bed. She slid the door open and stepped onto the small balcony. It was ink dark, but she knew there would be snow-covered mountains in the distance in the morning when she woke up next to him: three peaks to be exact. She leaned her arms on the railing and breathed in the cold Montana air, closing her eyes, feeling full, feeling grateful.

  “Jenny.”

  When she turned around, Sam was on one knee before her.

  “Sam!” she gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, fresh tears stinging her eyes.

  In one palm, outstretched to her, was a small open box, and inside the little box was a ring with a light-blue star-shaped gem. She still had her hands over her mouth, but her eyes flicked up, slamming into his.

  “Jenny Lindstrom.” He swallowed nervously but held her eyes with enduring love and tenderness. “Noen elsker deg nå. Og han er velsignet. Someone loves you now, Jen. And he is blessed. I love you. Will you marry me?”

  She dropped her hands and started laughing and crying at the same time, nodding because she couldn’t make words. He took her left hand and held it, staring up at her, his question still waiting for an answer.

  “Yes!” She laughed with wonder as he slipped the ring on the fourth finger and kissed it. “Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you.”