Allie Pleiter - Yukon Wedding

They’d spent the full day yesterday buying things. Cloth and linens, not just one but three new tablecloths and curtains—real curtains, not just make-do ones like she had back in her cabin. New shoes and pants for Georgie, and a little wooden train set Mack had picked out himself. And books. Nearly a dozen books sat in the corner of her hotel room now. Two novels, two cookery books and a whole set of sample schoolbooks Mack had ordered crates of for the schoolhouse back home. The real surprise had come when she’d stopped to admire a pair of pearl earrings in a store window and Mack had taken her inside and bought them for her. Then he’d deposited her at a dressmaker’s while he went off to do “some business,” telling her to get any dress she wanted to wear today. And any shoes and any hat to match.

Lana Bristow, you are too easily bought, she chided herself, her thoughts snagging on the truth that she would only bear that name for perhaps another hour, if that. Of course, she could never let Mack see how easily her head had been turned by a trinket here and a new dress there, but it had been ages since she’d had a hot, scented bath like she’d had this morning.

Mrs. Smithton, proprietress of the mostly quiet, mostly respectable Smithton’s Shining Harbor Hotel, came into the room again. Skaguay didn’t see many weddings, and Mrs. Smithton had joyously intruded into all the proceedings. So much so that even Lana, who usually loved being fussed over, was reaching the end of her patience.

She could only imagine the state of Mack’s nerves under such enthusiastic scrutiny. After all, she had been through this before. Mack had never been a groom. She flinched at the still-absurd thought that she was going to marry Mack Turner. In a matter of minutes.

Lana blanched and clenched her fists. “Oh, dearie,” said Mrs. Smithton, “every bride gets the fits just before. Never you worry. You’ve kept one glove off, like I told you?” Lana found Mrs. Smithton’s concern over “good luck” wedding traditions ironic. Mack never believed in “luck,” and given all the tragedy they’d been though, the thought of her marriage being endangered by looking into the mirror fully dressed seemed silly.

The round older woman fussed with the netting on the smart, feathered hat that sat on Lana’s piled-high hair. “Besides,” Mrs. Smithton whispered with a wink, “he’s a far sight worse off’n you, if you ask me. Looks as pale as a fish, he does. Fright looks funny on a big feller like him. Been up since dawn and barely eaten a thing.” So he was nervous. Even in his fluster, Mack had seen to it that tea, toast and peach jam—her very favorite—were sent up this morning. He seemed to know so many little things about her, and yet she still felt like, even after several years, she’d barely paid enough attention to know the color of his eyes. They were blue, weren’t they? She knew so little of him.

He’d been clear on the type of marriage he proposed. Even yesterday he had assured her theirs would be an arrangement of “mutual convenience,” not “emotional entanglements.” Still, tangle was as close to describing whatever it was she felt toward Mack Tanner. It no longer mattered, did it? This had never been about sentiment, only survival. Lana shut her eyes tight. Too late to worry about the consequences of survival now. Whatever it takes, she told herself. He’s not a horrible man.

She said it over and over to herself silently, as Mrs. Smithton led her down the hall to stand at the top of the stairs and view her groom. He’s not a horrible man.

Mack’s eyes were indeed blue. Very, very blue. They stared up at her as she came down the hotel stairs, a fair bit of panic showing in their depths. Decidedly un-horrible, Mack looked elegant in a dark suit and a gray vest. The black tie knotted under his starched white collar made the blue of his eyes stand out all the more. His hair, mostly a tumultuous mass of unruly dark waves, had been neatly slicked back in the style of the day. She had the odd thought that she hadn’t seen him so clean in months, and the equally odd thought that it suited him. He looked exactly like the well-to-do man she remembered from their Seattle days. This Mack Tanner was as much the man Jed admired as Mack Tanner the rugged adventurer.

Mack Tanner her husband-to-be. Lana grabbed the rail for support as she nearly tripped down the last stair.

It seemed as if the entire hotel staff and guests had turned out for the occasion—the parlor was filled with peering eyes. Men elbowed each other, making whispered remarks about the “poor feller” while the room’s few women oohed and ahhed. Lana felt very much on display, even here among strangers. Mack was right—she’d never have survived this charade if this were Mavis Goodge’s boardinghouse in the middle of Treasure Creek.

“You’re a fine sight,” he said as she stepped onto the parlor rug. His voice was tight and unsteady.

“You cut a fine figure yourself,” she managed, then gulped at how foolish the words sounded. He really had surprised her, however. In all the muddy making-do of Treasure Creek, she’d completely forgotten the way he could command a room when formally dressed. Half her bridesmaids had swooned over him at her wedding. Her first wedding.

Stop that. You can’t think about that now. This is a new life. That old Lana is long gone.

Lana made herself smile as Mack tipped his hat to Mrs. Smithton and held out an elbow. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Smithton, we’ve an appointment to keep.”

Lana’s stomach tumbled like a windstorm as they walked down the street. The Good Lord had never seen a wedding day like this, she was sure. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, what the Good Lord thought of this whole business. He’d pretty much left her on her own, as far as she was concerned.

Mack wouldn’t take to such thinking. It was easy to see the strength of that man’s faith. Even in the darkest of times, faith was like a constant compass for him. The man had built the town’s church before his own dwelling had solid walls. He preached on Sundays, doing an admirable job filling in, until someone took the pulpit permanently. Jed had admired that, too.

She’d lost any sense of that “true north” compass needle of faith, her inner compass spinning aimlessly since the day the avalanche took Jed. Her husband’s spirituality had been mostly sputtering sparks of faith fed by Mack’s constant flame. Intense but inconsistent. Jed aspired to, but never quite achieved, a lot of Mack’s traits. Stop comparing them. Stop it.

“You all right?” Mack’s voice was saying. He’d stilled and she hadn’t even noticed. “You look a bit—”

“Well, so do you!” she shot back, not wanting him to finish that sentence, then bit her lip. The man was simply trying to be nice, and here she was, biting his head off.

Mack gave out a nervous laugh. “Well, good to see you’ve still got some fight in you. And here I thought maybe I’d left the old Lana back on the dock at Treasure Creek.” He pushed out a breath, closing his eyes for a second or two. “It’ll be all right,” he said quietly when he opened them again. “It’ll be…just fine.”

“Of course it will,” she lied emphatically. He knew it, too. Without a word of retort, Mack merely crinkled up the corner of his eyes and tucked her hand deeper into the crook of his arm, and they walked on.

“That’s a fine dress. Look at the way folks are staring at us,” he said, keeping a tight grip on her arm. Whether the gesture was meant to be reassuring or constraining, she couldn’t say. “You always did like to be the center of attention. I’d say you’ve got it here, surely.”

“I like being the center of attention? This from the man who makes himself the center of Treasure Creek? We are a pair, you and I.” She could almost chuckle about that, and it made her feel just a bit better.