Married By Mistake

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 reached 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.
    It was ironic that despite the differences between them, he and Casey were both struggling with pressure from their families.