The Sometime Bride

breakfast anytime soon,” she said with a growl as she leapt from the bed and tackled him to the carpet.

    Mike bit into his bagel with gusto. Apparently, he’d been just as starved as she was. “You know, Carrie,” he said between mouthfuls, “I don’t think this reunion thing is going to be very hard to pull off.”
    Carrie laughed affectionately and ran a tender hand down his face. “No,” she answered, “I think we’ve got that touchy-feely part down pretty well.”
    In between their hours of lovemaking, they’d also done some soul-spilling. Among other things, they’d both revealed how much each one had been itching to get physically close to the other. Carrie had confessed that the whole “touchy-feely” pose regarding Wilson had been a total sham, and Mike had admitted how he’d eagerly planned to take advantage of that idea.
    Well, she supposed they both were satisfied now. Carrie blushed at the thought as the waiter refilled her coffee.
    They were in a small diner a few miles from the hometown university. The place, it turned out, where both Carrie and Mike had secured their undergraduate degrees and Carrie had later gone on to graduate school in pursuit of her MBA.
    Mike still didn’t know about the money. And Carrie still wasn’t sure if she was willing to tell him. There she was, a hopeless, helpless mess. Totally in love with a man she’d known for less than a week but who’d seemed in tune with her soul for a lifetime. Could she really risk messing it all up now? They hadn’t even made it past the hurdle of the reunion and her hidden mission of impressing his friends.
    Not to mention the very pointed fact that, in spite of all of his words of love, despite the way he looked at her and made her feel, Mike still hadn’t said “I love you.”
    “Penny for your thoughts,” Mike said, clinking his coffee cup to hers. “Feeling tired this morning?”
    Carrie lifted her coffee cup to her lips and smiled naughtily over its rim. “Not as tired as I could be.”
    Mike laughed in surprise. “Why, Carrie St. John,” he returned with a sly wink. “You are insatiable.”
    Only with you, she replied in her heart. Only with you.

    “Okay, here’s the plan,” Mike informed her as he stood kissing her good-bye at her car. “First of all, you and I phone in to be sure we still have our jobs.”
    Carrie laughed and mussed his hair. Tuesday had somehow melted into Wednesday, and then Thursday had come along straight out of nowhere. In between it all, they’d gone out to restaurants, called in to their respective offices occasionally with “no show” excuses, and done plenty of dirtying of Mike’s sheets.
    “You probably ought to do the laundry while I’m gone,” she teased with a poke at his chest that had now become a silent joke between them. At one point during their hours of lovemaking, Mike had maintained she’d merely given him her rigid finger as a phallic encouragement. Carrie swore to herself with a grin, she’d never give anyone but Mike Davis that sort of finger again.
    “Hey, baby,” he said, leaning in close and nibbling her neck. “You trying to tell me something with that finger…?”
    “Mike!” she said, swatting him on the backside. “You don’t watch yourself, the two of us will not only be out of jobs, we’ll entirely miss your reunion.”
    “And what a tragedy that would be,” he said, enfolding her in his arms.
    “Okay,” she said, reaching behind her and popping open the driver’s door. “I’m going this time. Really, really going.”
    Mike raised one sexy eyebrow. “Well, personally, I like it better—”
    “Don’t you even say it, you beast!” she said, climbing into her car. “Heavens, I’ve become involved with an animal.”
    “Aw, come on now, Carrie,” he said, leaning in over her door, “you know you love it.”
    The truth was she did. But for now, she decided, the satisfaction of that knowledge would be hers and hers alone.

Chapter Twelve

    Carrie unfolded the tissue and heartily blew her nose. “Oh, Grandma Russell,” she sobbed. “It’s no use. There isn’t going to be any wedding!” She’d decided it was time. Time to tell the truth about the whole sordid affair. Now that she’d fallen in love with Mike, she couldn’t have her grandmother go on thinking he was Wilson. And—with Wilson out of the picture—there was that little matter of a wedding to cancel. Something that she’d been putting off and putting off,