Married By Mistake

road ahead.
    “They won’t be there,” she said. “Karen’s not due home until later in the week. And Tuesday morning is Dad’s physical therapy. That’s why I wanted to come today,” she admitted. “I figured I’d sneak in and sneak out again.”
    “What about your brother?”
    “Mike has a summer job in Dallas. But he’s not as demanding as the other two—he’s a typical young guy, caught up in his own stuff. It’s Dad and Karen who are still calling me several times a day.”
    “We’ll have to deal with them,” Adam said. “They’re going to want to meet your husband, so we should invite them to visit, maybe for a weekend.”
    “That’s a great idea,” she said. He knew without looking she’d be beaming again.
    “The sooner you convince them you’re truly out of their lives, the sooner I’ve kept my part of our bargain.”
    “I’ll keep my part, too,” she promised.
    “I was going to talk to you about inviting Eloise over for dinner tomorrow night, so we can put on our happy couple act for her.”
    “That’s what I’m here for,” Casey agreed.
    “Yep,” he said. “I’m using you, you’re using me. That’s what this marriage is all about.”
    * * *
    A LTHOUGH C ASEY HAD NEVER said anything bad about her family, Adam had built up a mental image of her home as an environment of daily drudgery, enlivened only by her girlish dreams.
    So he was surprised when they arrived in Parkvale and she directed him into the driveway of a freshly painted white cottage with a wisteria-draped porch.
    Inside, the furnishings were simple, and obviously not expensive, but the place had been cheerfully and imaginatively decorated. Casey was, as he might have guessed, a good homemaker.
    “It’s nice,” he said.
    She gave him a knowing grin. “What did you expect?”
    “I had no idea,” he lied. “Did you do the decorating?”
    She nodded. “I had a blitz in the spring. I thought the sight of me working might get Dad out of his armchair.”
    “Did it?”
    “Bad call,” she said, with a typical lack of resentment.
    Upon closer observation, he realized everything was coated in a thin layer of dust. In the kitchen, dishes were piled in the sink and flies hovered over a mound of food scraps on the counter.
    Casey headed toward the sink. “I might as well wash these.”
    “No, you won’t.” Adam moved quickly after her and clamped his hands on her shoulders. He turned her around, resisting the temptation to plant a kiss on the lips she’d parted in surprise. “Your father has to learn to cope without you, remember?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Tough love,” he reminded her. He released her to look at his watch. “I have a meeting at two o’clock. We need to get out of here.” He was already looking forward to two and a half hours of peace and quiet, just him and the Aston Martin.
    “You go ahead,” Casey said. “I’ll do a few things then follow in an hour or so.”
    “I’m not leaving you here to get sucked back into this family stuff. You’ve got a job to do back in Memphis.” And when she looked blank, he added, “My stepmother, tomorrow night.”
    “You can’t seriously think doing a few dishes is going to keep me here.”
    “It’s not just the dishes,” he said. “It’s the egg baked onto the stovetop, the crumbs on the floor, the—”
    Casey shuddered. “You’re right, I can’t believe I even thought about it.” She walked briskly out of the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “I’ll get my things together. How about you back my car out? The key’s on the hook in the kitchen.”
    Adam headed to the garage. “What the—”
    Casey’s blue Ford Fiesta might have been a peppy little car once, but not in the past twenty years. It was clean, but there were limits to how well rust scrubbed up. And while you could say the matching dents in both fenders lent it an air of symmetry, that was about all you could say.
    “I didn’t do those.” Casey came into the garage with an armload of files. She stepped in front of one of the dents, as if to shield it from view. “They were both hit-and-runs in the hospital parking lot when I was visiting Dad.”
    “Dangerous places, hospitals,” Adam said. He didn’t ask why she was driving this heap of junk. He knew the answer. Money. So he wasn’t about to wound her pride by suggesting they drop her car at a scrap dealer on the way out of town. “I’m following you back to Memphis.”
    Casey opened the back door