By Proxy (12 page)

“Who’s this with you, Jen?”

“Paul, this is Sam. Sam, this is our principal, Paul.”

Your Principal is your Pal, indeed.
A sick feeling started fanning out from Sam’s gut. It got incrementally worse when he turned to Jenny, who was smiling at the attractive, young principal with an easy grin.

“Good to know you.” Paul’s tone, however, suggested it was anything but good. He offered his hand.

“You too.” Sam’s voice was similarly cool. He returned the strength of Paul’s grip easily and pumped his hand twice before dropping it.

Paul turned to Jenny with a full-faced grin, hands on his hips. “How’re you today, Jenny? Always good to see my favorite science teacher!”

His
favorite
science teacher? Come on. Are principals even supposed to have favorites?
Sam found it hard to believe there was more than one science teacher in such a small school anyway, which made it a corny joke, too.

“Oh, you!” she said, shaking her finger at the principal like she’d heard that one before, but her smile wasn’t going anywhere. Sam felt a sheen of sweat break out on his forehead.

“Warm in here, right?” he asked.

Jenny turned to him. “N-Not really.”

Paul pushed his preppy tortoise-shell glasses up on his nose to stare at Sam intently.

He looks like a J. Crew model
, Sam thought with derision.
What principal is thirty years old and looks like a J. Crew model? And what’s he doing in Gardiner, Montana, when he should be sailing regattas in Connecticut?

“So, Sam…you visiting family? Passing through?”

Sam smiled at him tightly.

“Sam’s cousin is marrying my best friend Ing,” Jenny offered.

Paul nodded. “In town for the wedding then?”

“Something like that,” Jenny replied. She turned her eyes to Sam and her expression, caught between tenderness and laughter, like she was holding on to an inside joke that only they knew, made his heart skip a beat.

Paul’s eyes widened with what looked like worry, but he smirked. “Where’s home?”

“Chicago.”

Sam noticed his shoulders relax perceptibly then and the next smile he offered Sam was a hell of a lot more genuine. That’s when Sam’s suspicions were confirmed. Paul’s interest in Jenny was not just professional. Sam’s nostrils flared, but he forced himself to smile smoothly back at Paul. “Spending some time with Jenny today, though.”

Paul turned to Jenny, eyebrows raised in question.

“The booth,” she confirmed. “For the stroll tonight. Sam’s going to help me bring the pieces up from the basement. The boys said they’d come pick them up later.”

Paul thumped his forehead with the heel of his palm then nodded at her, smiling. “What would I do without you, Jen? I totally forgot that needed to be done.”

Jenny grinned, winking at him. “Can’t forget the Christmas Stroll booth!”

“Well, let me help you two get the basement unlocked and we’ll find those pieces.”

Paul rushed to the door and put his hand on the small of Jenny’s back, ushering her through the office and placing himself between her and Sam as they walked the short distance down the hall to the basement door where the booth was stored. Sam’s stomach churned, watching them walk along in front of him.

“Why aren’t the boys giving you a hand?” Paul asked, keeping his shoulder next to hers as they strolled down the hallway with Sam following behind.

“Sam said he’d help. Boys bartend ’til late anyway. May as well let them sleep. Sam and I can bring up the pieces and they can pick them up later and put them together.”

They descended the stairs and Paul led them to the caged room that held the twenty large, unwieldy, plywood pieces. Stepping up some concrete stairs on the opposite side of the sloped basement, he unlocked an exterior door that opened with a view of the bison still grazing on the football field.

Sam turned to Jenny, ignoring Paul. “So we’ll just bring them out here? Stack them against the wall?”

She nodded. “Perfect.”

“Can I help you two?” Paul stood tense beside Jenny, watching Sam with cool, irritated eyes.

No thanks, chum. You scurry back upstairs to your office and leave us alone now.

Sam shook his head, smirking. “I think I can handle it from here.”

“Sam!” Paul clapped him on the back. “That is so terrific, because I could sure use Jenny’s help in my office collating the newsletters in time for tonight.”

Jenny flicked her glance to Sam. “Oh, well…I feel like I should stay and help Sam. Are you
sure
you’ve got it covered?”

“Sure he does!” Paul chirped, putting his hand on the small of her back again and shepherding her toward the stairs.

***

When Jenny looked back Sam was staring at her with intense eyes without any trace of his usual teasing smile. He didn’t seem like himself at all. “It’s fine, Jen.”

She didn’t sense it was fine, but what else could she do? When your boss needed help, you helped; that was all there was to it. Regretfully, she left him and headed back upstairs.

The countertop in the main office was covered with ten piles of paper that needed to be collated and stapled. About fifty newsletters had been put together, so she got started collating the next 150. She walked down the length of the counter grabbing one of each sheet and then handed them to Paul in neat piles. He sat at the end of the counter ready to staple.

“So,” he started. “Sam.”

Jenny nodded and smiled. “He’s nice to help, isn’t he?”

Paul sort of did this soft snicker/snort combination. “‘Nice.’ Mmm. Now, how is it that he’s visiting you again, Jenny?”

“Oh, he’s not really visiting
me.
We’re doing some—er—legal work for Kristian and Ingrid.”

“I thought you said Ingrid was getting married. What kind of legal work?”

Jenny flicked her glance at him without stopping her workflow. She really wasn’t sure what to say. She hadn’t anticipated having to tell anyone about taking vows on Ingrid’s behalf, so she didn’t have some smooth way to explain.
The less said, the better.

She stopped what she was doing and gave him a direct look. “It’s complicated, Paul. Personal.”

He held her eyes for a moment. “Okay.”

Anxious to change the subject, Jenny asked, “Are you and Lars fishing on Sunday?”

Paul was the best friend of Jenny’s middle brother, Lars. In fact, Paul looked so much like Lars, it was almost impossible to tell the two apart from a distance. Many folks in Gardiner called Principal Paul the “Fourth Lindstrom” because he was tall, blond and ice-blue-eyed like her brothers. The only real difference was that Paul wore glasses and none of Jenny’s brothers did. It was comforting to Jenny that he looked so much like her brothers. It made him seem familial to her and eliminated the uneasiness she generally felt around young, single men.

“Good question,” Paul said. “Lower Slide already had six inches of ice last weekend. I heard folks had already gotten started.”

Lower Slide Lake was about twenty minutes from Gardiner and a popular spot for ice fishing. Paul and Lars headed down there almost every Sunday afternoon or evening from December to February.

“Lars got that fourteen-inch cutthroat last year,” she reminded him in a teasing voice. That particular trout had almost been big enough to feed all six of them and had started a wicked rivalry between Lars and Paul that had outlasted the season.

“Listen to you!” Paul exclaimed. “Don’t remind me!”

Jenny found he was smiling at her when she looked up, giggling.

He looked at her thoughtfully, intently, holding her eyes. “You have the best laugh, Jenny.”

Jenny felt heat pour into her cheeks and her eyes widened with sudden awareness.
Something did not feel right.
“Th-thanks.”

“So, how long is Sam staying?”

Back to Sam? Oh, no…
She was starting to understand.
No, Paul.

“Just until Monday,” she mumbled. Her heart started beating faster with a sudden, unwanted realization.
Paul was like another brother, and even if he hadn’t been, he was her boss.

He stopped what he was doing and stood up, closing the short distance between them. She swallowed uncomfortably, dreading what she suspected was coming next. He stood before her, hands by his sides, and spoke plainly.

“I have to admit, I was a little surprised to look up and see you with Sam this morning. Surprised by how it made me feel. Have you ever suspected my feelings for you, Jen? I probably should have spoken sooner, but I’ve…I’ve tried to give you space and time to heal. I know your mother’s passing took a toll and I just always thought the perfect moment would…For a long time, I’ve wanted—”

“Paul, stop! Please stop.”

“Jenny, please let me—” He reached out to touch her arm, his eyes besieging hers.

“Paul! I don’t see you like that!” she blurted out, stepping back from him, her heart about to beat through the wall of her chest. She looked down at her shoes, overwhelmed by the sheer awkwardness of the situation.

Oh, she had noticed Paul’s eyes hold hers a beat longer than necessary from time to time. Or that when he came to dinner, he always sat next to her, and always insisted they hold hands for grace, instead of folding their hands as they did when he didn’t join them. She always felt he was glad to see her and knew she was a favorite of his at school. But she had chalked up all of this, naively or not, to the close relationship he shared with her family through his friendship with Lars and the boys. To be careful, though, she had also kept Paul at a brotherly distance to repel any possible romantic expectation, and she assumed whatever rogue feelings he occasionally felt for her weren’t substantial enough for him to pursue. Just a symptom of an available young man in a town without a lot of options; she had figured that the occasional romantic interest she felt from him was fleeting, not fixed, and that was exactly the way she wanted it.

He surprised her by demanding, “You see
him
like that?”

Her head snapped up. “What? I don’t even know him! I met him yesterday.”

He didn’t look embarrassed or flustered, but sad, maybe. A little like a man who just had to cut bait on the biggest potential catch of his life and Jenny felt terrible that she was the cause.
“
Paul, you’re important to me. You’re my boss, my co-worker. You’re my friend. You’re Lars’s…”

“I’m Lars’s friend.” He sat back down and smiled at her ruefully, shaking his head back and forth. “I thought—”

“No.” Jenny was firm and her heart started to slow down. “You’re my boss. And…and like a brother to me, if anything. I just can’t see you that way…”

He winced, and Jenny cringed, desperate not to hurt him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Paul sighed and didn’t look up at her. He stapled the pile in front of him and spoke softly. “You’re special, Jenny. Always have been. Can’t blame a man for trying.”

“Be my friend?”
Please be my friend and don’t turn this into something awkward.

“Sure, Jen.” He looked up and smiled at her but it didn’t reach his eyes, and she could see the sadness lingering on his face.

They worked in silence for several uncomfortable minutes before Paul spoke up again, softly. “But, Jenny…feelings don’t just…disappear. So, if things don’t work out with Sam, I’m still here, okay?”

What in the world was he talking about? There’s nothing spoken between Sam and me!
She was attracted to him, yes. And learning about Pepper had been a blow, just as finding out Sam was single felt like a reprieve, however unsuitable they were for one another. But these were just thoughts in her head, not actual reciprocated thoughts and feelings. This was just a crush, like many she’d had before.
Things weren’t going to work out or not work out. There was nothing to work out, for heaven’s sake.
She felt her pulse speed up again in exasperation.

“There’s nothing between me and Sam.”

He nodded, looking down, loading the stapler and spoke quietly, gently, the way a man speaks to a skittish child. “That’s not what I saw. But I could be wrong, I guess. I’m just saying, I’m here for you, Jenny.”

He returned to straightening and stapling packets.
That’s not what I saw.
The words turned around in her head as they worked in awkward silence. She thought of Sam’s life in Chicago. Hair slicked back in a tuxedo. Cubs games. Pepper. He wasn’t with Pepper anymore, true, but she was someone Sam had chosen for himself.
That’s not what I saw.
She was Jenny Lindstrom. Simple Jenny. A schoolteacher from a tiny town in Nowhere, Montana, with a simple little apartment and a simple uncomplicated life.
That’s not what I saw.

What had Paul seen?
And why did Jenny feel like she needed to protest his observation so strenuously?

***

It had taken fifteen trips back and forth, but Sam had all twenty pieces of the booth in a tidy pile leaning up against the brick wall of the school building so Jenny’s brothers could pick them up later if the building was locked. He was sweaty and dusty when he walked back into the school to find Jenny. He heard voices coming from the office and couldn’t help himself; he tiptoed closer, listening.

“There’s nothing between me and Sam.” Jenny’s voice.

He stopped in his tracks, his heart thumping in his chest at the sound of her voice saying his name.

“That’s not what I saw… I’m here for you, Jenny.” Sam couldn’t hear all of Paul’s comments. His voice was farther away than hers and muffled.

Sam backed up against the wall outside of the office door and stayed as still as he could. He didn’t want them to think he’d been eavesdropping, plus he was bothered by this exchange, especially the last part: “I’m here for you, Jenny.”
Oh, I just
bet
you are, buddy.

Sam tiptoed back down the hallway as quietly as he could and out the front door, finally sitting down on a bench facing the bison on the football field.

He breathed in, savoring the shock of the cold air to his lungs. She was very clear nothing was going on between her and Sam, and her “pal” Paul was very clear he was
there
for her.