Marriage by Mistake

handsome, forbidding face. She missed the cool intelligence in his eyes. She missed his dry wit, his intensity, and the unfailing good manners with which he treated her.
    Kelly blinked at the sunbeams shooting off the water.
    This was crazy. Was she starting to like him? That is, was she starting to like 'this' Dean, unliberated, without any of the qualities of the man she'd married in Las Vegas?
    "Hey, you're swishing the water." Robby gave Kelly an irritated look. "You told me we had to keep still."
    "Still. Oh yeah, right." Kelly made an effort to calm the rod she held. "Sorry about that."
    "It's okay." Robby went back to staring at his line. "Just don't do it again."
    Kelly gripped her rod tightly. No, she wouldn't swish the water again. Because it was impossible. She wasn't starting to like 'this' Dean. That would be...fickle, on top of stupid, disastrous, and silly.
    The only man she was interested in was the one she'd married and he, apparently, was nowhere to be found. He certainly hadn't tried to seek Kelly out. He hadn't...shown himself at all.
    At that moment, the bushes across the meadow parted. A man incongruously dressed in a three-piece Italian suit and crisp red silk tie proceeded to push through.
    "Dean," Robby remarked, with supreme indifference. He turned back to stare at his line. Dean, meanwhile, began stomping through the wildflowers and down the hill toward them.

    CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Kelly stilled even as her heart raced. She couldn't believe her eyes. Was this Dean, really Dean, marching toward her in the middle of a busy Friday afternoon?
    And if so, just 'which' Dean was he?
    Dean strode up to her position, dropped the cases he was holding, and sneered. "Fishing," he said.
    The usual Dean, Kelly decided, and he wasn't bending here at all. Quite the opposite, it appeared. But her heart kept on racing as she got to her feet. "Yeah," she said, and lifted her chin. "Fishing."
    Dean put his hands on his hips. "You don't have the slightest idea how to catch a fish."
    Kelly arched her brows and tried to calm her pulse. "So?"
    He squinted at her. Slowly, he said, " So . Fishing is about catching fish."
    "Oh, yeah?"
    Only a brief hesitation showed he'd heard her answer. Then he was bending on one knee over his case to snap it open. " This is a real rod."
    "No."
    "Yes." He lifted an impossibly delicate-looking stick from the case. With a supercilious expression, he eyed her. "You have to use the right equipment, learn the correct techniques."
    "Hmm." She'd been right. He wasn't bending. He'd only come to—to organize their fun. "Well, that might be true," Kelly told him, "if fishing were really about catching fish."
    He blinked. "Pardon me?"
    "I said maybe we'd need the proper equipment and the correct techniques if we were actually out here to catch fish."
    She saw his nostrils flare. "You're not out here to catch fish?"
    Kelly didn't dare glance toward Robby, who was staring at his line. "No."
    Slowly, Dean rose. "Then what are you doing?"
    Kelly crossed her arms. "We're...communing with nature. Taking it easy."
    A muscle in Dean's jaw jumped. "I do know how to 'take it easy.' And fishing—fishing correctly—is not all that stressful a sport."
    He wasn't getting it at all. They weren't out here to compete at sports. They weren't trying to achieve anything. Oh, he was utterly hopeless. And yet as she stared into his grim, intense face, Kelly couldn't help feeling something warm and tender grow inside.
    "Sports in general are stressful," she countered, perhaps more sharply than necessary. She didn't want to feel warm inside! "Believe me, I know. And we are not doing any of that here. We are relaxing ." And she was not falling in love with him, she wasn't! But despite it all, the warm feeling inside her grew.
    He tilted his head and gave her a peculiar look. "The hell you say."
    "Excuse me?"
    "Move aside. I intend to show Robby how to fish."
    "No."
    "Yes."
    "A fish!" Robby exclaimed. "I've got a fish!" His words cut through the escalating argument like a knife through butter.
    "What?" Kelly whirled.
    "No." Dean stepped toward him.
    "It's—it's something," Robby said, battling to hold onto his line.
    It was indeed something. Kelly could see Robby's kitchen string line stretch tight. "Hold on!" she called.
    "A net," Dean muttered. "He needs a net."
    "No time!" Kelly exclaimed, and splashed directly into the stream.
    "Oh, for the love of —" she heard Dean growl, but Kelly clomped toward Robby's taut