Married By Mistake

her seat.
    “Nope.”
    “No?”
    “No sleeping,” he said. “Definitely no sleeping.”
    She sucked in a breath. “The thing is,” she said, “I don’t do that on a first date.”
    Adam slowed for a red light ahead. He turned to her, saw her anxiously gnawing her lip. “You don’t have a first-date routine,” he reminded her.
    “If I did, this wouldn’t be in it,” she insisted.
    The light turned green and Adam accelerated the car, but without the same urgency.
    “Would you normally do that on a first date?” she asked.
    “We’re married,” he said. “I see you every day. Hell, I’ve probably seen more of you than I did the last six women I dated combined.”
    Casey stared out the window. “Joe is the only man I’ve slept with.”
    Yeah, and didn’t Adam want to punch the guy.
    “You’re scared,” he said.
    “I need some time to get used to the idea.”
    “How much time?”
    “How much time will you give me?”
    He waited until he’d passed an old lady whose Toyota was weaving down the center of the road before he answered. “It’s not about what I’ll give you. It’s about when you think you can decide what you want.”
    “Why don’t you come over to my place for dinner tonight?”
    Suddenly everything looked brighter again. “Second date,” he said. “Great idea.”
    * * *
    C ASEY STARED UNSEEING at her computer keyboard, unable to connect with the words on the screen in front of her, the chapter she’d aimed to finish today.
    The heat of that kiss in the park had seared through her, destroying her focus.
    In her seven years with Joe, Casey had never known the overwhelming desire Adam had ignited in her today. She’d spent three weeks with him, and was ready to make love. To Casey that had to mean she was in danger of losing her heart to him.
    Which wouldn’t be a problem, if he lost his to her in return.
    She tried to evaluate the odds of that happening. Adam wasn’t a lose-his-heart kind of guy. But she knew she hadn’t imagined the deeper connection between them. Maybe if they got closer, if they made love, they could move ahead emotionally.
    Casey looked at her watch. Four o’clock. She’d promised to visit Eloise this afternoon. She would make it quick, then come home to prepare for an evening with Adam—when they would pick up where they’d left off at lunchtime. Her stomach fluttered.
    * * *
    A N UNFAMILIAR CAR was parked outside Eloise’s front door when Casey arrived.
    Eloise welcomed her inside. “Sam Magill is visiting,” she said in a low, vexed voice. “He’s just gone to the bathroom.” She led Casey into a spacious living room, sunlit through a double set of French doors and dominated by a huge fireplace, above which hung an enormous gilded mirror. “He came to see if I need any help dead-heading my roses—though what he thinks I employ a gardener for, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “That man thinks I’m incapable of looking after myself. It’s insulting.”
    Casey felt a surge of sympathy for the lovelorn lawyer. And a rush of resentment for the emotional independence that Eloise and Adam were so determined, each in their own way, to cling to.
    “Most men as good-looking as Sam are too selfish to worry about other people,” she told Eloise. “I’ll bet he has a whole bunch of women after him.”
    Casey had noticed Eloise’s friends eyeing him at lunch last weekend. Sam was tall, in good shape, with rugged features. And he was single, in an age group where men were in increasingly short supply.
    Eloise stopped short. “Is Sam good-looking?” she asked, astounded.
    “I’m told I am,” Sam said from behind them.
    Eloise gave a little scream. “Sam Magill, what are you doing, sneaking up like that? You should know better than...”
    She trailed off as she looked at Sam—really looked at him—as if for the first time. She blinked, then blinked again. Color stole up her neck and over her face, and her hand fluttered at her chest.
    It was obvious Sam didn’t know how to react to the scrutiny of the woman he’d admired so long. He stood there in the middle of the living room, saying nothing, with all the eloquence of a sack of potatoes. Casey longed to give him a nudge, to tell him to jump in and ask Eloise on a date.
    “Well.” Her mother-in-law regained her senses and spoke briskly. “I daresay you’re passably handsome. But that’s neither here nor there.” She turned toward the door in an unmistakable signal that