The Sometime Bride

needing him desperately to believe it.

Chapter Ten

    Carrie made the forty-five minute drive from the country inn to her country bungalow with her top down. The nippy evening air lit up her senses and helped her focus her attention on the issues at hand, as weaving wind whipped fingers through her long, loose hair. At least she’d had her wits about her when Mike had dropped her back at the parking area and had been able to concoct that missing earring story that had allowed her to duck back inside. She’d watched out the window of the inn until a few minutes after Mike had driven away. Though here he’d been insistent about staying and seeing her to her car, she’d fabricated an excuse about also having to settle some business arrangements with Mr. Gilpatrick that might take a while.
    While in looking at his watch, he’d seemed dubious, Mike had finally acquiesced and settled for a formal good-bye on the steps of the inn. The same stone steps where Carrie had first beheld him in his dripping-wet, near-naked glory on that fated night they’d met.
    Carrie’s throat went dry at the recollection as she sailed through the yellow light. Carrie quickly checked her rearview mirror, but saw, with relief, that even the cops in this sleepy berg were already in bed tonight. Carrie felt the spreading heat at her collarbone and inhaled deeply, fighting off the thought of anything that put Mike Davis and beds together in her mind. She was falling for him. Falling badly. And there didn’t appear to be a darn thing she could do about it except for trying to keep this silly illusion from blowing up smack in her face.
    How long did Carrie really believe she could go on like this? A week, a month? In the outstanding event their relationship endured beyond Mike’s reunion, sooner or later he was bound to start asking questions. Already had started asking questions, Carrie reminded herself.
    Criminy.
    Carrie ran a hand along the back of her stiff neck as she wheeled her car onto the exit ramp that led to the isolated country route that would take her home.
    Oh what a tangled web we weave…
    Carrie slowly shook her head.
    All she’d really wanted was for Mike to like her for herself. But now she wondered precisely what that was. A liar? A manipulator? Someone with just as little integrity as Mike’s old fiancée Alexia?
    Carrie blinked hard as hot tears pressed with biting force from her bleary eyes. It was no wonder she’d never found a man. There, without even trying, she’d gone and done it again. Screwed her love life all to heck and back. Love life, ha! she thought, laughing bitterly into the wind. As if she’d ever truly known the meaning of the phrase.

    Mike scurried around his apartment, tossing empty aluminum cans into the recycle bin. Holy cow! He didn’t know why he had so much nervous energy. But whatever the reason, he might as well put it to good use.
    Mike paused in the threshold to his bedroom, mentally trying to calculate when he’d last changed the sheets. Well, if he couldn’t remember, then the likelihood was they needed changing again.
    Mike tugged back the fitted sheet, trying to recall the last time he’d actually had a woman in the place. Alexia, neatnik that she was, had always insisted he come to hers. Alexia had always insisted on a lot of things, like her pleasure first, for example. Not that Mike minded giving a woman pleasure. That aspect, in fact, excited him. But when it was that woman’s pleasure to the exclusion of everything else in the world, including the presence of her partner…
    Mike shook his head and carried the pile of sheets to the washer. He was quite certain Carrie wouldn’t be like that. Carrie was a warm and sensuous woman. Inviting yet giving all at once. It was there in the way she kissed, the way she teased and beckoned with her eyes. The way her tantalizingly womanly curves ached for a masculine touch…all…over…her body…
    Christ.
    Mike looked down at his boxers, realizing he was going to need another cold shower. His second since he’d dropped Carrie off at the inn and come home. And, for crying out loud, their parting kiss had been nothing if not chaste.
    Maybe that was what it was. She was driving him to distraction by holding back. Though, when he was being honest, Mike had to admit that Carrie wasn’t the only one who seemed adept at putting the brakes on their relationship. While their mutual attraction was too strong to deny, there was something