Lyndsi Warner stared down at the titanium band on her ring finger, lost in a moment of pain and contemplation as a group of three women lugging matching suitcases shuffled past.

Two weeks had gone by quickly. Too quickly. She hadn't even had time to get used to the idea of being married. Now, her husband of just days had disappeared into a crowd of passengers at the airport security gates, headed back to Iraq for another six months of military duty in the northern city of Mosul.

"OK," she said, wiping a tear from her cheek, and then another. "I'm ready to go home now."

But her room at her parents' house in West Jordan feels less like home. Now, it's just a reminder of a young marriage aged daily by war. The burden of long and recurring deployments have made casualties of thousands of military marriages since the war in Iraq began, just over three years ago.

Yet there is another story - as old as warfare, as old as love. Absence, some still are finding, makes the heart grow fonder.

Unexpected proposal: They'd met through friends and dated on and off for a year. But it wasn't until Dan Warner went away, prior to his second tour of duty in Iraq, that he and Lyndsi Leikam learned how strong their bond had become.

The couple spent each night together on the phone, as Warner trained with his Army Reserve unit in Texas. In the days before the soldier returned - for one final week of leave before going back to the war - Leikam's friends predicted a proposal.

Carrie Jensen was the first to suggest it.

"He's going to come home and ask you," she told her friend.

"Please," Leikam pleaded, "please don't tell me that because I'm going to get excited, and if it doesn't happen, I'm going to be upset."

"Well go ahead and get excited," Jensen teased, "because that's what he's going to do."

Leikam and Jensen argued over the matter until the day Warner came home.

That evening, Warner asked Leikam to come with him to visit a friend. Instead, he drove her to a jeweler in Murray.

"Let's pick something out," he told her.

Long-distance engagement: The next week he was gone.

Warner's second tour in Iraq hardly resembled his first, when he had fallen in with a small group of soldiers manning a rough desert outpost, providing maintenance for passing convoys en route to Baghdad. The insurgency was in its infancy then.

This time, Warner would find himself on a large forward operating base - in a city famed for its violent battles.

The 23-year-old soldier's duties now routinely placed him behind the wheel or in the gunner's turret of a Humvee, part of a convoy that would head north, from the base in Mosul, to the Turkish border town of Habur Gate.

He fell quickly into a pattern. The days began to run together. Only the occasional breakdown of a truck or roadside bomb explosion along the route would break the monotony.

That, and calls to his 21-year-old fiancee on the mobile phone he bought from a homebound soldier when he arrived in Iraq.

At the end of a convoy in October, as he did nearly every day, Warner climbed to the roof of his Humvee and lifted the phone to his ear. Comrades dozed off or stood about their trucks smoking away their stresses.

"There goes lover boy again," one sergeant said, motioning with the butt of his rifle toward Warner. "I'll bet he spends more time with her here in Iraq than he did when he was home in Utah."

Shaky wedding plans: Planning a wedding without knowing whether the groom will be able to make the date can be stressful, but Leikam was more than happy to have something other than the war to occupy her time and thoughts.

The promise of a mid-tour leave made March 4 a good day to work toward, but it would be months before they would know for sure whether Warner would be there.

Dale Leikam took a leap of faith for his daughter, placing a down payment on the rental of an old church in Holladay for the ceremony and reception.

Warner, meanwhile, began jockeying for a leave period that would reward his future father-in-law's confidence.

Everything looked promising. But at war, plans are easily discarded.

With weeks to go, Lyndsi Leikam busied herself with final preparations - making decisions on cakes, food and decorations while preparing her dress, ordering a formal "Dress Blue" Army uniform for Warner and arranging photographs in frames to be scattered about the reception hall.

"So long as I keep busy," she said, "I don't worry."

Warner was not so fortunate.

A series of accidents prompted battalion officials to call for a 72-hour "safety stand down," calling soldiers into meetings to discuss ways to avoid such problems.

The days droned on and on.

"Death by Powerpoint," Warner lamented between meetings. "Time is going by . . . but it isn't going fast enough."

Four days later, Lyndsi got the call she had been praying for.

"I'm coming home for sure," Warner told her. "I'll be there Sunday."

Anticipated reunion: Complete strangers stopped to stare, a few dropped their suitcases to applaud.

They didn't need to know the whole story: The sight of a man in a desert camouflage uniform embracing a sobbing, shaking woman said enough.

The wait was over. He was home.

And a wedding was at hand.

Dale Leikam couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. "Everything should go smoothly now," he chuckled.

Warner had always found ample time to sleep - even at war, where he'd been on 61 missions and logged nearly 10,000 miles on Iraq's roads. But back in Utah, with just a few weeks to share with family, friends and his fiancee, he stretched his waking hours as long as he could.

And nearly every night, they shared the same fantasy.

"I wish you could stay," Leikam told her fiance. "I wish you didn't have to go back."

"I want to stay as bad as you want it," Warner told her. "But you know I will have to go."

As the wedding players gathered the day before the ceremony for a rehearsal, Leikam's mother worried about her son-in-law. He had been running a fever the night before and now was running late.

"He's been looking so tired, lately," Jody Leikam said. "Lyndsi too. They've been out until 3 a.m. every night. I keep telling her she's going to fall asleep at her own wedding."

Moments later, Warner stepped into the old church, two days worth of beard on his face.

With no time for formal greeting, Lyndsi Leikam grabbed her fiance and pulled him toward the altar.

"Um, I guess we're going to go rehearse now," Warner laughed.

Emotional ceremony: With less than an hour to go before he was to be at the altar, Warner fought for space with his father, brothers and other groomsmen in a small changing room at the church.

"This is easier than Iraq, isn't it?" someone called out from the tangle of men stumbling over pant legs and ducking under each other's arms.

Warner stared down at the rows of ribbons on his dress coat and sighed.

"I don't know," he said. "At least over there I know what to expect."

In a room across the hallway, Leikam's friends helped her adjust her dress. Dale Leikam knocked softly on the door of his daughter's changing room, stepping gingerly into the room and turning to face the woman in the long white gown.

"You look so beautiful," he said. "Are you ready for this?"

Lyndsi Leikam smiled up at her father as he practiced lifting her veil and gently kissed her cheek.

"I'm ready," she whispered.

The bishop went on and on - commitment, sacrifice, love, respect and even a few words on financial security - but neither Leikam nor Warner was paying much attention.

Time seemed to stop, they would later say.

No wedding. No war. No worry. They stared into each other's eyes.

Leikam giggled. Warner beamed. Both said "I do." The bishop introduced "Mr. and Mrs. Warner." Everyone applauded.

They rushed into a back hallway for a moment alone.

And only then did the clock start once again.

Brief honeymoon: Lyndsi Warner had hoped to obtain a pass from the airline that would allow her to go through security with her soldier husband. But the night before, he asked her to say goodbye at the security gate.

"It will just be easier that way," he said.

Now, once again standing in his desert camouflage uniform, just meters from where they'd embraced two weeks earlier, Dan Warner steeled himself for the departure.

A flight delay gave them 75 minutes they hadn't had before, but it only prolonged the inevitable. The line for security was getting longer and longer. They stepped into the column of passengers together, intent on holding each other as long as possible.

The kiss held up the line, but no one behind them seemed to mind.

This time, no one applauded the sight of a man in a desert camouflage uniform embracing a sobbing, shaking woman. One woman, standing a few passengers back, sadly shook her head.

They released their grip on each other.

As the soldier disappeared into the crowd of passengers, his wife stumbled backward, into the arms of her father.

She stared down at the titanium band on her ring finger.

"OK," she said, wiping a tear from her cheek, and then another. "I'm ready to go home now."

mlaplante@sltrib.com