Marriage by Mistake

there."
    "Fishing," Dean said again. He didn't know why he was finding this so incredible. It was exactly the kind of thing Kelly would do. She'd probably go about it by tying string to a pair of sticks and baiting them with kitchen cheese. Then she'd probably believe she was actually going to catch something. And make Robby believe it, too.
    "Were you going to join them?" Maggie asked.
    Dean gave her a sidelong glance. "I came home to fetch a staff report." He closed the back door of the car. "I'll go inside and get it. Only be a minute."
    Maggie smiled. Beside the car, Jackson nodded.
    Dean went into the house. The staff report he wanted was in the study. Dean was on his way to get it. He really was. He had not come home to see Kelly. It was a plain, provable fact that he suddenly, urgently needed the report that he'd left here at home in his study.
    As Dean made for the study, he saw Troy trotting down the stairs. Dressed for tennis, he was probably emerging from his room for the first time that day. Troy stopped and dropped his jaw when he saw Dean.
    Really, Dean thought, mentally shaking his head. His cousin didn't have nearly enough to do if such a banal sight as himself at home during a weekday was going to shock him. Dean walked right past Troy staring after him—and past the study door.
    Fishing, he thought. Kelly was sitting out there in the sun with Robby in some kind of Huckleberry Finn imitation. She presumed she was teaching his little brother how to 'have fun.' She thought Dean didn't know how.
    Like hell he didn't.
    With a snort, Dean went all the way down the hall to the game room. Around the other side of a covered, competition-size billiard table he opened the cabinet that held his fly-fishing gear.
    He had to wipe a layer of dust off the tackle box. It must have been six years since he'd gone on that fly-fishing weekend with old man Harris. Being able to cast properly for trout had sealed the deal on acquiring Harris' R&D company. Dean blew a cobweb off the rod case.
    All right, so he hadn't picked up the fishing gear in six years. That didn't mean he didn't know how to have fun. It didn't mean his life wasn't full enough, well-rounded enough. And he certainly didn't need to be 'released.'
    Carrying the fishing gear, Dean opened the French doors that led outside.
    He would show her.
    ~~~
    Fishing. It seemed an appropriate activity to Kelly, considering that's what she'd been doing for the past four days with Dean. Casting her line and hoping. Now she leaned on the grassy bank, a baseball cap tipped over her face, and sighed.
    She was having no more luck with Dean than she was with the jerry-rigged stick rod and cheddar cheese bait. Not so much as a nibble.
    Lazing around on this warm, idyllic afternoon, she had to wonder if she'd made a terrible mistake.
    After the challenge thrown down in the morning room on Sunday morning, Kelly had thought hard about her next move. In the end she'd decided to go with her original impulse, which was to leave the hunting to her quarry. She figured Dean's own secret desire for self-liberation would drive him to seek her out. She thought it would be better for him to face and acknowledge for himself that he wanted something different in his life.
    That's what she'd thought.
    Now she didn't know what to think. He'd passed her that morning on the stairs as if she were a piece of furniture.
    Kelly bit her lower lip. All right, fine. She'd known success wouldn't happen right away. Dean would resist. He'd think he knew better than to go after the freedom he truly wanted. He'd think it was wise to avoid such a goal, using every ounce of self-sacrificing discipline he owned.
    But Kelly'd been sure he'd have broken by now, or at least bent.
    A few feet down from Kelly, Robby sat hunched over his own homemade rod. He stared fixedly into the stream. The fishing that had started as a whim on Kelly's part had gone over big with Robby. The sun beat down with a pleasant warmth. Even though her scheme hadn't panned out—yet—she could at least be enjoying the day. But as Kelly rested on her elbows, she felt grumpy and unsettled.
    She missed Dean.
    Kelly stared at the sparkling stream. She missed him? How could she miss him? He was grim, remote, unappreciative. They'd never had a conversation in which they'd actually agreed on anything.
    But as Kelly half sat, half lay there, gazing at the stream, she felt an emptiness, a mild but unignorable yearning inside. She missed Dean's