by Abby Gaines
Bored with waiting, Casey turned on her own cell phone. Almost immediately, it beeped with a text message from the answering service to say she had twenty-one new messages.
She dialed the service and scrolled through the worried communications from her father (five messages), her sister (six) and her brother (one). There was also one from Brodie-Ann, and several from people who were concerned her wedding might make Casey unavailable to help them. People like the church choir director (did the wedding mean she wouldn’t be singing her solo this Sunday?) and the head of the Parkvale Children’s Trust (Casey was still okay to bake two cakes and a batch of cookies for next week’s open day, wasn’t she?).
No and no. She couldn’t help smiling. She’d figured getting married would give her the perfect out, but not like this. Still, she wouldn’t call anyone back just yet. Not until she and Adam had talked. His phone rang again, and she sighed. Whenever that might be. She realized she hadn’t touched her food yet, and took a mouthful of yogurt-smothered melon.
Then her own phone rang, chirping “You Are My Sunshine.” By the time she’d convinced the Parkvale librarian she wasn’t available to fill in during children’s story hour that afternoon, Adam was off the phone and regarding her quizzically.
“Did your phone just play ‘You Are My Sunshine’?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. It’s a personalized ring tone. It’s affirming.”
He laughed, until the dignified raising of her eyebrows told him she was serious.
“Affirmations are good for your self-esteem,” she told him. “Every time my phone tells me I’m its sunshine, it makes me feel good.” Though at this precise moment it didn’t seem to be working. Still, she gave Adam a sunny smile as she popped another piece of melon into her mouth.
“You really believe that?”
She nodded. “You have to find an affirmation that works for you, of course. ‘You Are My Sunshine’ gives me confidence.” Casey thought about that furrow that had made a permanent home in Adam’s brow. “Whereas you might want to look in your mirror each morning and tell yourself you won’t get stressed today.”
He frowned, and the furrow deepened. “I hope you didn’t pay good money to learn that psychobabble.”
“That comes direct from my community college lecturer,” she protested.
“I’ll bet he didn’t tell you to get affirmation from your cell phone.”
“No, she didn’t. I’m extrapolating.”
Adam tackled his bacon and eggs, which must surely be cold after all those phone calls, with renewed energy. “So why are you studying psychology? To overcome childhood trauma?”
“I’m not in therapy,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I study psychology because it helps with characterization in my writing.” Her phone warbled again and she looked at the display. “It’s my dad.”
Her father took a moment to remind her he loved her, then launched into a monologue about how much her family needed her and how she’d better sort out this confusion and get back home as soon as possible. He ended with a plaintive query: “How am I supposed to get to physical therapy on Tuesday?”
Call a cab. Don’t you think I have more on my mind right now? But she’d taught her father she would always be there when he needed her, so how could she blame him? She was saved from answering by a beep on the line.
“Just a moment, Dad, I have another call.” She switched to the other line.
Her sister. Casey straightened in her seat. “Yes, Karen, I did just get married. No, I’m not crazy—” she hoped that wasn’t a lie “—and no, I’m not coming back to Parkvale.” She hoped that wasn’t a lie, either. “I’d like you and Dad to— Hello?”
When she got back to the other line, her father wasn’t there.
“Bad connection,” she explained to Adam. She put her phone on the gilded, glass-topped table between them and looked hard at her plate so he wouldn’t see the hurt she knew must show in her face. “Now that we’re both free—”
“Free being a relative term,” he interrupted. “We’re still married.”
“—let’s have that chat you mentioned.” Her phone rang again, but after a glance at the display she ignored it.
“You could always turn that thing off,” Adam said. His own phone rang, and he answered it. Which at least gave Casey a chance to regain her fighting spirit.
“You were saying?” she asked sweetly, when he’d finished.
He frowned. “I’m expecting a call from Sam. I don’t want to miss it.”
“And I need to talk to my family,” she said. “Even though I don’t know what to tell them.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Casey’s phone chirped “You Are My Sunshine” again.
“Karen, please, honey, don’t cry.” Casey’s voice wobbled. “I’m sorry, I know you wanted me there, but this is for your own good, sweetie.”
Adam realized Casey was blinking in an effort to hold back tears. Rising hysteria emanated from her cell phone, audible even to him, several feet away.
He checked his watch. If she was going to spend the whole morning arguing with her family, they’d never get this mess sorted out. From what he could see, her folks were as bad as his own relatives. There was only one way to deal with people like that. Get tough.
One look at Casey told him that wasn’t going to happen. In two seconds, Adam had moved around the table and slipped the phone from her grasp—easily done, since she wasn’t expecting it.
“Karen? I don’t know who you are, but you’re not helping Casey right now.” He crossed the room, aware of Casey’s startled expression. Karen sputtered on the other end of the phone.
“My wife and I—” damn, that sounded weird “—need some time alone.” He reached the huge vase filled with an elaborate display of flowers, delivered last night compliments of the Peabody management. Casey, following right behind, bumped into him. “So goodbye.”
With Karen still squawking, he dropped the phone—right into the vase.
Casey yelped. “Have you gone crazy?”
“You’re not prepared to turn that thing off, and it’s upsetting you. I’m dealing with the problem.” He dusted his hands together. “Doesn’t that feel better?”
“No! How could you...” She stopped. “Actually,” she said slowly, “it does.” She ventured a small smile.
From across the room they heard the sound of his phone.
“Allow me to deal with that.” Casey moved toward it.
“It’s okay.” He followed her. “I’ll take it.”
She’d picked it up already and was reading the display. “It’s Eloise.”
“My stepmother again.” He rolled his eyes. “Pass it here.”
“I said I’d deal with it,” Casey reminded him. She stepped back and moved around the other side of the sofa.
Adam wasn’t quite sure what happened next. But somehow, he went one way and she went the other, toward the open window.
“Casey, don’t—”
Too late.
She dropped the phone just as he reached her.
Adam looked so shocked, Casey wondered if she’d gone too far. She held her breath as he stuck his head out the window. When he turned back into the room, his face was grave. “You just killed an Elvis impersonator.”
Casey clapped a hand to her mouth. “No! I looked, there was no one—” Then she caught the grin he was trying to hide.
And they were laughing, clinging to each other in helpless hilarity that for a moment made the whole mess go away.
Adam looked into Casey’s eyes, where tears of merriment glistened. On automatic pilot, he wiped the corner of her eye with his thumb. And found himself robbed of all sensation except the pressing desire to feel her mouth beneath his.
CHAPTER FOUR
THAT TOUCH OF HIS THUMB seemed to wipe away Casey’s mirth. Her gray eyes widened and her teeth caught her bottom lip. After the tiniest of hesitations she swayed against him.
This time, there was
no tentative overture on his part—and no audience to inhibit the eager parting of her lips to admit him.
Kissing her, Adam told himself as he claimed her mouth, was a reaction to the stress of the past twenty-four hours.
Then her tongue met his with a fervor that matched his own, she wound her arms around his neck and he gave up trying to justify his actions. Gave himself up to the sensual pleasure of kissing Casey, to the press of her body against his, to his own undeniable physical reaction. He cupped her firm derriere, pulling her closer. With a murmur of surprise, she arched into him.
If he didn’t stop now, they’d be in danger of complicating this disaster beyond repair.
Tearing his mouth from hers took a degree of willpower he didn’t ever recall needing with a woman. When at last they stood apart, Adam ran a hand through his hair as if that might erase the memory of her touch there. He made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. Casey’s cheeks were flushed, her lips still parted in what looked to him like invitation.
“Adam.” Breathlessness made her breasts rise and fall, her voice husky. “You have got to stop doing that.”
Okay, maybe not invitation.
She turned away, gazed with studied casualness at a framed photograph on the wall, a shot of downtown Memphis at night. “Not that it wasn’t nice,” she said. “But...you know.”
Yes, he knew it was a dumb idea to get distracted from fixing this catastrophe. But she’d enjoyed that kiss as much as he had, so he was damned if he was going to apologize.
At the sound of rustling, they turned to the door. A piece of paper had been slid underneath.
Adam picked it up and scanned it. “It’s a message from Sam. He’s at home and ready to take my call.” He’d instructed the hotel reception not to put any calls through to their suite. He reached for the phone on the sideboard next to the dining table and started dialing.
Casey took the opportunity to move as far away from him as she could. She plunked herself on the blue-and-gold-striped couch, grabbed up the room service menu from the coffee table and held it open so Adam couldn’t see her face. Her red face.
Good grief, she’d acted like a sex-starved wanton, wrapping herself around him that way. She’d be the first to admit that her sex life with Joe had been rather lackluster the past few years—and nonexistent for nearly a year—but that was no excuse to throw herself at the first man she met. Even if he was her husband.
From behind the menu, she listened shamelessly to Adam’s side of the conversation with Sam. Which didn’t tell her much; he was a man of few words. When he’d finished, he dropped the receiver back into its cradle. He muttered something under his breath that Casey didn’t quite hear, but it didn’t sound like, “Yippee, we got our annulment.”
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
He came to the couch, stood over her with his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, his eyebrows drawn together. “Getting an annulment will be difficult.”
Casey gulped. “How difficult?”
“They’re something of a rarity in Tennessee. There’s no statutory basis for annulment here. Each case has to be argued on common law principles.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he said, “there’s no official annulment process. My lawyer will put a case together and argue it before a judge. If the judge agrees, we get our annulment.”
“And if the judge doesn’t agree?”
“We get a divorce.”
“But I don’t want to be divorced,” Casey protested.
“Right now, I’d rather be divorced than married,” he said, with a flat finality that prickled the back of her neck. He sat down on the couch opposite, saving her the strain of looking up at him. “Sam tells me he can make a good case for annulment. Nonconsummation of the marriage is a definite plus. Even stronger is the fact we didn’t know it was a real wedding. Still, some of those old judges take marriage pretty seriously.” Cynicism twisted his mouth. “Sam wants to make sure he gets a sympathetic judge, and that might take up to a month.”
“So we’ll be married for a month,” Casey said, “and then it’ll be as if it never happened.”
“Exactly.”
“Everything will be just the same as before.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nothing will have changed. Nothing.”
“Yes,” Adam said impatiently. Didn’t she understand plain English?
“No,” she said.
Adam’s head hurt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not going back to Parkvale. I’m done with that place.”
“You can go wherever you like,” he said. The sooner the better.
“They’ll make me go back.” Her eyes flickered toward the door.
He’d married a paranoiac.
She stood and paced to the window. There was something hunted about the way she put her palms against the glass. Staring out into the distance, she said desperately, “Can’t we—can’t we just stay married?”
A delusional paranoiac.
Keep her calm, Adam told himself. Talk up the joys of a future on her own, then get Sam here fast with some kind of agreement for her to sign, relinquishing all claim on me.
She turned around, perched that derriere he’d enjoyed caressing—that was before I knew she was nuts—on the windowsill. “Stop looking like I’m about to jump you.” She folded her arms under her breasts. “I didn’t mean it about staying married. Even if the past twenty-four hours hadn’t totally turned me off wedded bliss, you’re not my type.”
He didn’t believe that for a second, not after the way she’d kissed him. He started in on the keep-her-calm stuff. “No one can make you go anywhere,” he soothed. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“You don’t know my family,” she said gloomily. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Adam. “Your in-laws.”
His instantaneous recoil made her giggle.
“They’re not that bad,” she said. “I’ve just kind of overdosed on them. I’ve looked after Dad—and Karen and Mike, my sister and brother—since Mom died when I was twelve. I’m the oldest, so I ended up taking care of the house, the cooking, everything.”
“Very commendable,” Adam said politely.
She looked dubious. “It wasn’t like I had a choice. They needed me. Not that I minded,” she said hastily. “I love them to bits.”
“You don’t have to go back just because you didn’t marry Joe.”
“I’m a pushover,” she said with the confessional air of someone about to embark on a twelve-step program. “When I tried to leave home and go to college, Dad convinced me the others needed me while they were still in high school. Then I was all set to leave after Mike graduated, but Dad got injured in an accident at work. He was in the hospital for six months, in a wheelchair for a year. He’s better now, but he needed a lot of help, and I was the logical candidate.”
“You could have left once he was better.”
She leaned her head back against the window. “Like I said, I’m a pushover. Dad’s become dependent on me. For his sake, he needs to learn to look after himself again. If I’d married Joe and moved away like we planned, Dad wouldn’t have a choice. Now he’ll insist I go back, and Karen will be right there with him, putting in her two cents’ worth.”
“Does she still live at home?”
Casey shook her head. “She was a lawyer in Dallas until she had a baby a few months ago. But she just separated from her husband, and she’s moving home to Parkvale. She wants to go back to work and leave Rosie with me. She says she wouldn’t trust a nanny.”
Casey didn’t tell Adam how Karen’s letter had filled her with equal parts longing and dread. Dread because once again her plan to leave home would be thwarted. But even greater, and unexpected, had been Casey’s longing to lavish all her maternal love on her sister’s baby—love that might otherwise go unused.
Adam walked over to the window. He stood so close to her she could have reache
d out and touched him. “Just tell them no.”
“Haven’t you ever said yes to someone when you didn’t want to?” she demanded.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to do,” he said starkly.
She blinked. “Well, that’s nice for you. But I just can’t say no to all that...that—”
“Emotional blackmail?” he suggested.
Casey nodded. Maybe, despite his uncompromising claim, he did understand. Back when Mom died, Casey had been the only one who could do what had to be done. She’d done so without knowing it would become a trap of her own making, a mutual dependence none of them could escape. Because being needed had a seductive appeal all its own. Which made not being needed tantamount to a withdrawal of love.
It was screwy, but somehow she’d fallen into that way of thinking.
Even her relationship with Joe had been built on need and dependence. Joe’s mom had left him when he was a kid. He needed a woman who would stick with him forever. He didn’t mind that Casey might never have a baby of her own, if the doctors were right; Joe would’ve been happy not to share her with a child. Or so she had thought.
“A couple of months ago, I won a writing contest with part of a young adult novel I’m writing,” she told Adam. “The editor who judged it wants to see the whole book. She’s speaking at a conference in Dallas in August. I arranged to meet her there and give her my manuscript.” She sighed. “If I go home, I’ll never finish it. My family sees my writing as a hobby, and every volunteer organization in Parkvale has me down as a soft touch.”
To Adam, writing a book sounded like another girlish fantasy. It ranked right up there with being adored. She needed to stop dreaming and start doing something that would halt the emotional blackmail. Like Adam was. Though in his case, the blackmail was as physical as it was emotional.
And in his case, blackmail wouldn’t work. He’d meant it when he told Casey he didn’t do anything he didn’t want to. That was why his dad had gone to such extreme lengths when he’d made his will, a last-ditch attempt to make Adam do what his father wanted.