Marianne's Marriage Of Convenience

Lance chose a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt with white pearl buttons on the cuffs and added a tan leather vest with two pockets and a secret one on the inside. When Lance reached the counter, Mr. Ness had another question for him.

“You got a wedding ring?”

He stared at the paunchy man behind the cash register. A wedding ring? Heck, no, he didn’t have a wedding ring. Until four days ago he’d never had a single thought about a wedding, or a wedding ring. Ever since the prospect of marrying Marianne had presented itself, he’d been on a train chugging its way across the prairie toward Smoke River. But... He gulped. No doubt about it, he was getting married tomorrow, so maybe a wedding ring was a good idea.

“Uh, I don’t suppose you have a jewelry store in town, do you?”

“Nope. Got a tray of gold rings, though. You want to see ’em?”

Lance hesitated. He had exactly seven dollars in his pocket, and that had to cover their hotel room and all their meals until Marianne took over her business and they would have a steady income. “Um...”

Before he could come up with a coherent answer, the proprietor slid a velvet case of shiny gold rings on to the counter. Lance studied them and frowned. What kind of ring would Marianne like? A plain band or one with curlicues engraved all over it? She had never struck him as being a curlicue type of woman, so he moved his gaze over to the plain gold rings on the tray.

“Take yer time, son,” Ness said. “A man only gets married once. If he’s lucky, that is.”

“You married, Mr. Ness?”

The proprietor rolled his eyes. “Huh! You see the front of my store? That’s the most god-awful pink I’ve ever laid eyes on. Last week it was apple-green, and the week before that it was purple.”

“Does your wife paint your storefront?”

“Nope. My daughter does. For years my wife’s been tellin’ my Edith that she’s artistic and that her father’s a mean old fuddy-duddy with no sense of adventure. I’m so married I can’t look my wife in the face and tell her she’s crazy.”

“Yeah, I see your problem, Mr. Ness. I couldn’t tell my fiancée she’s crazy, either.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, a man’s gotta think real careful about gettin’ himself tied down to a woman. It’s kinda like Russian roulette, if you know what I mean.”

Lance bit back a chuckle. “Seems to me if you’re married you could say that to your wife, couldn’t you? You know, just be honest with her?”

“Oh, well, maybe I could. And maybe I’d sleep in the barn for the next twenty years. You got a lot to learn about women, son.”

Lance sighed. What did he know about Marianne, apart from her tendency to give orders and never say thank-you? But he liked what he did know about her. She was sensible and hardworking and generally fair-minded. And darn good-looking.

He continued to mull carefully over the tray of rings until his eye fell on a medium-wide gold band with some design carved on the surface, some kind of flowers, roses, maybe. He bent to look at it close up. “How much is that one?”

“Four dollars.”

He hesitated.

“I got cheaper rings, son.”

Still he hesitated. But for some reason he wanted the one with the roses engraved on it. Something about it just felt like Marianne. He spilled four silver dollars on to the counter and slipped the ring into his pocket. No matter what her middle name was, he liked Marianne, and he wanted her to have a pretty wedding ring.

* * *

Marianne was late to supper, so Lance took a seat in the dining room and gave the waitress a grin.

“Where’s your girl tonight?” the woman asked.

“Still over at the dressmaker’s, I guess.”

The woman laughed softly. “Is she ordering a dress to be made up?”

“Yeah. A wedding dress.”

She snorted. “If I know Verena Forester, that could take most of the night. You probably won’t see your girl ’til morning, so you might as well have some supper.” She slapped down a menu.

But before he could study it, Marianne appeared. She was out of breath, and her face looked kinda shiny, like she was lit up from the inside. His heart gave a horse-sized kick.

Before he could stand up even halfway, she plopped on to the chair across from him. “I have had the most trying afternoon!”

“Me, too,” he admitted.

“I’ve just spent three hours at the dressmaker’s.” She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Lance, I’ve never even been inside a dressmaker’s shop before. I had no idea about... Anyway, Verena Forester, she’s the dressmaker, helped me choose a dress pattern and took my measurements and everything. I felt like Cinderella.”

Lance chuckled. “Well, Cinderella, I found out there’s only one church in town. Not Lutheran and not Catholic, just a plain old church. Smoke River Community Church.” He didn’t mention the two hours he’d spent at Ness’s Mercantile, poring over the tray of wedding rings.

The waitress tapped her pencil on her order pad. “We have chicken tonight. Fried, baked or stewed.”

“Fried,” they said together.

“Potatoes?”

“Fried,” they chorused again.

The waitress laughed. “Is there anything you two disagree about?”

“Not so far,” Lance said.

“Wait,” Marianne countered. “We do disagree on something, Lance. My ginger-poached pears, remember?”

“Got peach pie tonight,” the waitress said. “You agree on that?”

“Sure,” Lance said.

“With ice cream,” Marianne added.

“Yeah. Chocolate ice cream,” he said.

“Chocolate!” Marianne blurted out. “Ick!”

The waitress grinned and headed for the kitchen. When she had disappeared, Marianne reached over and caught his sleeve.

“Lance, I... I have a confession to make.”

His belly flip-flopped. “What about? You don’t like chocolate ice cream?”

“It’s not about ice cream. It’s about...well, I’m getting nervous.”