Married By Mistake

Brodie-Ann’s chair without waiting for an answer.
    A clammy heat dampened Casey’s palms, gave her itchy feet. She’d been fine talking to Brodie-Ann about Parkvale, but now, seeing Joe, she felt her old life reaching out to her with long, bony fingers. She wanted to shrink away from him and sprint after her friend.
    “I should have called you.” Joe read the reluctance in her face. “But after what I did, I wasn’t sure you’d talk to me. I had to tell you how sorry I am.”
    An apology? That’s why he was here? Not to get back together with her? The threat receded, and Casey’s relief came out as a shaky laugh. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I shouldn’t have tricked you into going to the TV studio. It was humiliating for both of us.” She smiled wryly. “Although you might have told me sooner that you didn’t love me.”
    Joe grabbed her hand across the table, leaning forward so his eyes gazed directly into hers.
    “It wasn’t true. You’ve always been my girl, Casey, since we were eighteen years old.” Urgency raised the pitch of his voice. “I panicked, I made a mistake. But you and I are perfect together. Come back to me, Casey.”
    She tried to tug her hand away, but he wouldn’t let go, and it felt as if all of Parkvale was pulling on her in a tug-of-war. “Joe, it’s over between us. It’s too late.”
    He came around the table and hunkered down in front of her, grasping her knees. “How can it be too late?” he demanded. “A couple of weeks ago you were all set to marry me—so you can’t tell me your marriage to this Carmichael guy is the real deal. In your heart, where it matters, nothing’s changed at all.” He gave her knees a shake to emphasize his point.
    Mindful of the curious onlookers at nearby tables, Casey lowered her voice. “Joe, what you did in that TV studio was the exact opposite of chickening out. Until then, you and I were both prepared to settle for something comfortable, a marriage we knew we could live with, rather than risk not finding someone we truly love. You were the one who was brave enough to say that wasn’t right.”
    “It’s not like that.” Confusion clouded Joe’s face. “I do love you, Casey, and I need you. You’re the only woman for me. Wherever you want to go, whatever I have to do to make this work, I’ll do it.”
    Coming on the heels of her realization that Adam didn’t need her, Joe’s words soothed her spirit like a comforting, even tempting, balm. Casey didn’t doubt Joe loved her. She shut her eyes, imagined Adam was here. He’d be mouthing, Tough love, holding her hand tight, pulling her away.
    But Adam wasn’t here. She had to do this on her own.
    She opened her eyes.
    “I’m not coming back, Joe. What you and I had isn’t enough for me, and it shouldn’t be enough for you.”
    It took another few minutes to convince him, but at last he left Casey alone with the remains of her lunch. Exhausted, she gulped down her water, patted some of the cool droplets from the rim of the glass on her temples.
    She’d actively severed her ties to her family and to Joe.
    She was the temporary houseguest of a man who didn’t need her.
    She felt as if she’d cast herself adrift.
    * * *
    C ASEY COULDN ’ T SETTLE back into her work that afternoon, so she headed out into the garden and busied herself dead-heading the flowering shrubs that grew against the wall between Adam’s house and his neighbor’s. The work was calming and satisfying, though what Adam’s gardener would make of it on his next monthly visit she couldn’t be sure.
    “Hello there.” A voice from above startled her out of her absorption in a camellia bush.
    An elderly gentleman peered over the wall, his wrinkled face and blue eyes visible beneath the peak of his orange baseball cap. He had to be standing on a ladder—the wall was about seven feet high. “I’m Bob Harvey,” he said.
    Casey straightened and pushed her hair back off her perspiring forehead. “Casey Gr-Carmichael,” she replied.
    “You must be one of the newlyweds. I saw you on TV.”
    She nodded.
    “I don’t think I’ve met your husband.”
    “He’s very busy with work.”
    He nodded. “Thought that might be it. What about you, do you work?”
    Casey ended up spending a pleasant half hour in conversation with Bob. She was still in the garden when Adam came home, late, around eight.
    The first clue she had of his arrival was the appearance of his polished black shoes in