The Sometime Bride

first-class. And Carrie St. John was definitely a first-class kind of girl. Mike would be the envy of every man in that room, he thought with a smile as he stroked his way across the pool. Heck, if only it weren’t such a big illusion, he’d even be the envy of his own former self!

    Carrie turned in the mirror and studied the cellulite on her thighs. What had she been thinking? Telling Mike she might possibly join him for a swim? These thunder thighs weren’t going anywhere except for maybe into a pair of shorts. A pair of very long, very modestly proportioned shorts, Carrie thought, rifling through her suitcase.
    But if Mike was supposedly nothing more than a friend, what was she all hellfire worried about? Friends didn’t dump friends over a pair of weighty thighs. Friendship was based on other things, like mutual respect. Common interests and goals…
    Carrie sat heavily on the bed. She certainly hadn’t known Mike long enough to get a handle on the interests part, but she and the “swim god” definitely shared common goals. Though she hadn’t dared tell him so, the ideal he was after wasn’t really so far from her own. Except for the Cayman Islands part. The Caymans! Ironically enough, an investor’s heaven. One of her business associates in New York had been pressing Carrie to open up a bank there for almost a decade. But Carrie had always preferred to channel her funds into more personal ventures. It was helping out entrepreneurs that gave her the most satisfaction. Small businesses, start-up operations like this country inn here.
    Then again, the Caymans did hold possibilities… Not the least of which stood about six foot two and had the perfect smattering of dark blond hair on its chest.
    Carrie walked to the bathroom and threw some cold water on her face. She was losing her mind! Losing it completely! Actually considering the notion…
    Now, for a vacation, maybe.
    Carrie smiled into the mirror at visions of her and a very oiled-up Mike Davis stretched out on a white-sand beach.
    But that idea was ludicrous too! She and Mike didn’t stand a prayer of a chance starting out the way they had. Besides, the two of them had made a pact. And, despite his occasional flirtation which Carrie assumed was second nature to a man like him, he truthfully didn’t seem interested in being more than just friends. All Mike was after was a way to impress his old high school buddies. But returning to the full-length mirror and studying her silhouette once again, Carrie was uncertain why he imagined she could do the trick. Though Carrie considered herself reasonably attractive, she was well aware she had what the magazines called “figure flaws.” Flaws that Wilson had occasionally been unkind enough to point out—in his own teasing way. A way which Carrie hadn’t found the least bit amusing.
    Maybe she’d just slip on the denim shorts and stroll on down to the pool. It would look odd if she failed to show completely. And she certainly didn’t want Mike thinking she was nervous about facing him. Though she was. Utterly nervous. Mostly because, when she saw the man half-nude, her thoughts ran wild. Straight into the “Mike, Tarzan; Carrie, Jane” jungle! And now that she figured him to be a nice guy on top of the way he looked… Well, Carrie wasn’t quite sure she could trust her own reaction.
    She’d heard of people on the rebound. The rampant bed-hopping that sometimes went on when one wounded partner was getting over the other. But Carrie had never figured herself to be the bed-hopping type. In fact, before Wilson, there’d really only been one other man. The first one she’d thought she would marry and, soon after their break-up, had started referring to as “old what’s-his-name.”
    But even “old what’s-his-name,” her first lover ever, hadn’t stirred her half as much as Mike Davis. But maybe that was what she got for comparing twenty-two-year-old apples to thirty-something-year-old oranges. Very ripe, very succulent oranges. Criminy!
    Carrie sighed and hunted for a belt that would do her waistline justice—meaning suck it in just a tad more than its natural state. Though, of course, a friend wouldn’t notice her waistline one way or another, she told herself, sweeping her hair into a ponytail and arranging her tresses in the mirror. Friends didn’t care what friends looked like, just as long as they kept their word.

    Mike’s eyes popped open when he heard the clack of sandal heels on