Marriage was not something Margaret "Peggy" Carter ever intended to enter into. For one, she wasn't suited to being a meek domestic housewife, and two, she hadn't met a man who would remotely be able to change her mind. Most of them were absolute boors, who didn't believe women should be allowed to think for themselves or do anything that wasn't tending to said men's needs.
She was happy to run her small town all by herself and didn't care what the gossips and old fashioned idiots said.
But when it came time for re-election as mayor, her shady opponent managed to get the town council to revive an old law that would require her to have a husband in order to run for mayor.
Furious, Peggy nearly took Thompson's head off, but all her lectures and wrath would not move the town council, several of whom were vocal opponents of a woman in leadership.
Aggravated beyond all reason, Peggy steamed for a while, but finally decided she'd either have to find a trophy husband somehow or give up and let Thompson run the place into the ground.
She made discreet inquiries with an agency that was known for matching mail order spouses for those in need of one. After filling out their questionnaire, she was put into correspondence with one James Buchanan Barnes, a bachelor from New York, who was interested in making a move West, but lacked the funds.
James handled her long distance interrogation with patience and honesty, both of which Peggy appreciated in a man.
She explained the reasons for her needing a husband and braced herself to be disillusioned once again, but much to her surprise, James' answering letter expressed outrage toward the town council and offered his full support of her run for re-election.
He sounded much too good to be true, but so far the private investigator the agency used to verify their client's character had not been able to find any history of fraud with him. He'd been in trouble for assaulting a man before, but the charges were dropped because James had been defending a woman's honor.
"Can he cook, too?" Peggy's friend Angie asked after Peggy shared the latest letter with her.
"He says he can, albeit nothing fancy. But I don't need fancy. I need edible."
Peggy and Angie shared a chuckle over Peggy's famous kitchen disasters.
"Well. I'd say snatch him up! You're not going to find any better husband candidate in time for the election and he's agreed to your conditions. So if you're gonna go for it, go for it, Peg."
And Peggy did. A couple weeks later, she waited at the train station for her prospective groom. She didn't really know what he'd looked like, beyond his brief description of himself. As the passengers disembarked, Peggy scanned the crowd nervously, wondering which one was James.
A tall bearded man approached her, removing his hat to reveal a head of slightly shaggy dark brown hair.
"Mayor Carter?" He asked, looking hopefully at her with very attractive blue eyes.
Peggy's stomach did a flip as she realized just how very handsome he was. Please let this be James! begged the voice in her head.
"Yes," she managed to reply calmly. "Are you James Barnes?"
"I am. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma'am."
James held out his hand and she returned his firm shake, both seeming to silently be sizing each other up. He was pretty tall and broad shouldered and looked sturdy enough to endure the hard work of the West, but his eyes were kind, not hard, and he looked like he smiled a lot.
All in all, it was a very promising picture and Peggy found herself not nearly so opposed to marriage as she had been.
James, on the other hand, couldn't believe his good fortune. He'd already fallen for the strong spirit of the woman he'd been writing to and now seeing her in person, he was almost struck speechless by her. He hoped she would give him the chance to try and win her heart.
"I trust your journey was uneventful?" She asked, as she drove them out to the ranch she owned. Of course, she couldn't live there herself right now, but it would make a good home once the two of them married.
"It was," James answered. "Unless you call the overly loud snoring of my old roomate to be eventful."
Peggy chuckled. "Well, here you'll have the whole place to yourself, at least for a little while."
"You don't live here?"
"No. Too many headaches for a single woman to live alone out here. I'm rooming in town for now. When we marry, I will move out here with you. I much prefer the space out here."
"How much time do you have to make a decision on marriage before the election?" James questioned.
"About three weeks," Peggy answered. "But I have already made up my mind. I want to give you a chance to get to know this place and see if you could actually endure marriage to me. I tend to scare the men off."
"I don't scare easily," James replied with a small smile.
Sure enough, James was still there three weeks later and he and Peggy went before the judge to be joined in holy matrimony.
"What a lovely ring!" Peggy admired after it was over.
"It was my mother's," James explained, looking down at her left hand with a proud expression. "Father had it specially made for her."
"Oh, James. I'm honored," she said, very touched that he'd given her a family heirloom after such a short time of courtship. "You didn't have to give me this."
"I wanted to," he told her honestly. "My mother would have loved you."
And I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you. He thought.
Peggy trotted out her new husband at her announcement of running for re-election and the town went wild, except for the sulky town council members, who were forced to accept her entry and very unhappy about it.
It didn't take long for James to win the heart of Peggy and the loyalty of the town.
Thompson was soundly defeated and sulked for a long time.