Married By Mistake

and I think we’ll get along fine. But as soon as the annulment comes through, it’s over. I wouldn’t want you to think there’s any chance of a permanent relationship between us.”
    Good grief, the guy had an ego. Just because she’d responded to his kisses like a heat-seeking missile locking on its target... Kisses that had sizzled in a way she’d never experienced with Joe...
    “Ouch.” She’d pierced her thumb with her needle. She sucked at the tiny hole, saw his eyes following her movement. She put down her needlework. “Adam,” she said, “you’re a good kisser, I’ll grant you. But from what I’ve seen, you’re single-minded about your work, you’re resistant to change and you’re emotionally unavailable. So don’t you go getting any ideas, either.” That was telling him.
    “If emotionally unavailable means I don’t want to adore anyone,” he said, “you’re damn right.”
    She wished she’d never mentioned “adoring” to him. It made her sound like a loser. She picked up her cross-stitching, squinted at the green thread she needed to knot. “I don’t know why we’re even talking about this,” she said. “Sure, we’ll be living in the same house for a month, but it’s no big deal. You won’t even know I’m there.”
    Adam watched her as she made some complicated maneuver with her needle. Watched his wife. Through the glass tabletop he observed that her red skirt had ridden up to bare more thigh than he had any right to see. Her navy T-shirt hugged her curves, and she’d pulled her rich, honey-colored hair back into a loose ponytail that made her look like an eighteen-year-old.
    A hot eighteen-year-old.
    He sighed. He’d know she was there, all right.
    * * *
    T HEY TOOK A TAXI from the Peabody to Adam’s home in Germantown, an upmarket district about ten miles from downtown Memphis. Casey peered out her window as the cab drove through wrought-iron gates toward a three-story brick house. Make that a mansion. Yet the impressive pillared, Georgian-style structure had a welcoming look to it, enhanced by rolling green lawns and patches of colorful shrubbery.
    She noted the high stone wall that edged one side of the property, and the thick hedge of poplars on the other. “I’ll bet you never even see your neighbors,” she said.
    No one would be knocking on her door several times a day to borrow something or to ask if she could “mind the kids for an hour.”
    Adam looked alarmed. “No, I don’t. And if I come home and find you’ve arranged a getting-to-know-you party or any such thing, this marriage will be over.”
    The taxi driver’s eyes met Casey’s in the rearview mirror.
    “No neighbors,” she promised, putting a hand on her heart for effect. For the taxi driver’s benefit, and to Adam’s further alarm, she added, “Sweetheart.”
    Adam helped her out of the car while the driver retrieved their bags from the trunk. “I’ll show you around before I head to the office.”
    She preceded him through the front door into a two-story lobby, breathing in the smell of beeswax from the gleaming oak parquet floor. Adam deposited their bags at the foot of the staircase and directed her into the living room.
    Casey guessed the lobby and the living room between them were almost the size of her father’s whole house in Parkvale. Having just escaped her long-time role of cook and cleaner, she shuddered.
    Adam noticed. “Something wrong?”
    She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the Persian rugs, classic furniture and eclectic artwork. “This place is beautiful, but it must be a nightmare to clean. You might want to think about that next time you’re looking for a wife. Any woman who took this on would have to be crazy. Or masochistic. Or...”
    Too late she recognized the warning in his eyes and the signal in the barely discernible tilt of his head.
    Casey turned and realized she’d come face-to-face with his housekeeper. A gray-haired, gray-faced woman in an apron regarded her with pursed lips and open disapproval.
    “—or very well paid. Or a saint,” Casey concluded, with an apologetic smile she hoped would redeem her. There was no answering smile. How dumb of her, not to have guessed Adam would have a housekeeper. She stuck out a hand to the woman, who took it reluctantly.
    “I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I didn’t mean to insult you. The house looks wonderful. You obviously take pride in your work. I’m Casey Greene—Casey