Marianne's Marriage Of Convenience. Lynna Banning

      “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.”

      Another flip-flop. “What are you nervous about, Marianne?”

      “About tomorrow. Getting married. I’ve never been married before.”

      He released the breath he’d been holding. Bridal jitters. What made her think a man didn’t get the jitters, too?

      “Marianne, I’ve never been married before, either. What exactly are you nervous about?”

      “The next forty years,” she said in a subdued voice.

      “Oh.” Relief made his voice sound strained. He’d thought maybe it was him she was nervous about. Or maybe their—he swallowed hard—wedding night. Oh, God, she had to be a virgin. Funny, he’d never thought about it before. He’d just assumed...

      “Could you be more specific?” he ventured. “What about the next forty years makes you nervous?”

      She dropped her forehead on to her palm. “The forty years part. Marriage is such a, well, a permanent thing. Do you think we will like each other for the next forty years?”

      “There’s no way to know that now,” he said with a smile. “Ask me again in forty years.”

      She lifted her head and tried to smile at him. Her mouth wasn’t working quite right because it looked like something halfway between a lopsided grimace and a shaky O.

      “I’m also worried about my wedding dress,” she said.

      “Huh? You mean whether it’ll be ready in time?”

      She shook her head. “No. I mean whether you will like it.”

      All at once he felt warm all over. She cares about whether I will like her wedding dress? He started to smile, and then another thought popped into his brain. Maybe that meant she was worried about how she would look in her wedding dress? Maybe she really cared about how she would look to him?

      Or maybe he wasn’t the least bit important in this business. She needed him only because she needed to marry somebody, and he was the handiest somebody around.

      The waitress reappeared. “Two fried chicken dinners and two coffees, right?” She plopped down both plates and the coffee cups. “Gonna have to wait on the peach pie. It’s not out of the oven yet.”

      An uneasy silence fell. Marianne picked up her fork to stab a slice of fried potato, then set it back down on the table. She’d lost her appetite. An entire afternoon spent answering dressmaker Verena Forester’s questions and trying to calm the butterflies careening around her stomach was taking its toll. The last thing she needed to do was add a fried potato to the battle going on inside of her.

      “Marianne? You look like a ghost just up and poked you in the chest. What’s wrong?”

      “N-nothing.” She hadn’t the foggiest notion what was wrong.

      His blue eyes held hers in an extra-penetrating look. “Yeah? Nothing is wrong?”

      “Of course not,” she said shakily.

       Of course something is wrong! In exactly twenty-four hours I am going to promise to spend the rest of my life with someone I scarcely know. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence and a lick of good sense would be frightened half to death.

      He reached over and lifted the salt shaker out of her hand. “Then how come you just salted your coffee?”

      She bit her lip. “Oh. Well, perhaps I am a bit unnerved. Actually—” she lowered her voice “—I am, um, well, I am getting downright scared.”

      “Thank God,” he muttered. “I was beginning to think getting married didn’t matter enough to you to ruffle even one feather.”

      A choked laugh burst out of her mouth. “Oh, I have a feather ruffled, all right,” she said in a shaky voice. “It isn’t every day a woman gets married.”

      Lance quickly switched their coffee cups and signaled the waitress. “Could you bring me another cup of coffee?”

      The woman studied the full cup of coffee at his elbow. “Something wrong with this one?”

      “I...um...I accidentally added too much...sugar,” he said. “Wedding jitters, I guess.”

      The waitress grinned at him and whisked the cup away.

      “Thank you,” Marianne murmured.

      Lance