The Sometime Bride Read Online Free PDF

devilish smile. Though, in truth, the thought had crossed her own mind once or twice -- she’d never envisioned the absurd notion becoming a reality.
    “Wait a minute! You couldn’t possibly be thinking... That you --”
    Mike nodded. “Darling, I’ve waited forever to meet your family.”
    Carrie straightened under the weight of his arm. “Very funny.”
    “I wasn’t joking.”
    Carrie looked him square in the eye. “But you can’t be serious! Why ever on earth would you do that for me?”
    “To buy you some time?” he said, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. “Hey, I know firsthand how disorienting this type of situation can be. The last thing a nice girl like you needs is having to face her family with the abysmal news -- when you alone haven’t even adjusted to it yourself.”
    Carrie wriggled out from under his arm and set aside the telephone. “Who says I haven’t adjusted?”
    Mike raised his brow and trailed a finger down her tear-stained cheek. “Wild guess?”
    Carrie dropped her head. “I would never accept an offer like that from a stranger."   Even one who sent her stomach all a-flutter like him, Carrie told herself. “Particularly not knowing you well enough to really know what you expect in return.”
    “No problem. I can tell you that.”
    Carrie looked up and arched both eyebrows.
    “Class of Ninety-two.”

     

     
    ****

 

     

     
    Chapter Four

     
    “The plan is impossible,” Carrie said, stabbing into her salad with her fork.
    “Improbable, maybe,” Mike said, biting into his burger. “Nothing is impossible.”
    “But you’re talking about walking into a big group of my relatives and friends and convincing them we’ve been an item for -- what? -- a year and a half now? They’ll see through it in an instant.”
    “Not if we’re convincing,” Mike said, shaking his head. He set down his burger and picked up his bottle of imported beer. “Besides, how much do these people really know about Wilson Haywood anyway? You said the two of you met in New York.”
    “We did.”
    “That your relationship was mainly on weekends.”
    “It was.”
    “Sometimes there, some times here -- right in quaint little Mill Creek.”
    “What precisely is your point?” Carrie asked, sipping from her iced tea.
    “My point,” Mike said, taking a swig of beer, “is that your relationship with Wilson wasn’t exactly...normal.”
    “Oh, and you’re such an expert on normal relationships,” she pointed out with a broad sweep of her knife.
    Mike bolted backwards in his chair. “Watch it with that thing! Don’t slay the messenger. I’m just telling it like it is. People don’t see you all touchy-feely with your fiancé, they might figure, well, that’s just a product of how things developed.”
    Carrie took exception to what he was suggesting. On the one hand, he might just be trying to save her some trouble by playing things cool like she wanted. On the other, he might very well be insinuating that Carrie was a cold fish. Which she certainly was not. And clearly wouldn’t be with a man like Mike Davis standing beside her.
    “And if things were ‘touchy-feely,’ as you put it, between me and Wilson?”
    “Were they?” Mike asked, little crinkles tugging at the corners of his sea green eyes.
    Carrie put down her knife and thought about that. The truth was, no. Wilson had been very business-like in a number of things, including in his relationship with her. She’d even sworn he’d timed their love-making so as to be less disruptive of the professional calls he’d always placed before -- and afterwards.
    “Well?"   Mike pressed, his honey complexion taking on a deeper hue that perfectly complimented his rugged appeal. It was hard to picture him in real estate, when the words outdoors man were written all over his chiseled face. Not to mention his hard-toned body.
    “Well, if you must know,” Carrie began, feeling the slightest bit naughty but not the least bit ashamed of