âJoe,â Sally cooed. âWelcome to Kiss the Bride!â
The reality TV hostess gestured to Casey. âThe show where you marry the woman of your dreams. Doesnât she look gorgeous?â
Joe opened his mouth, but it took him a couple of tries to get any words out. âShe does,â he managed to say at last.
Relief washed over Casey, restoring her heart to its normal rhythm. Itâs going to be all right.
âJoe, this is your big moment,â Sally said. âAll you have to do is pop the question and you can marry Casey right here.â She beamed encouragement.
Joe hesitated. Casey gave him what she intended to be a loving smile, although she was afraid it might have emerged as pleading. Still he hesitated.
âJoe, arenât you going to ask Casey to marry you?â Sally sounded like a mother addressing a recalcitrant child.
Joe spoke, loud and clear this time. âNo, Iâm not.â
Abby Gaines wrote for five years before she sold her first novel. Fortunately, she got used to the barrage of rejection letters â though she never quite embraced them in the way some people recommend â and didnât lose heart. During those years she worked as a business journalist and also as editor of a speedway magazine.
Abby lives with her husband and children in an olive grove. She says olive trees are perfect to inspire the funny, tender romances she loves to write.
Dear Reader,
Do you find it difficult to say no when someone asks you to help out? Me, too! Of course, helping out is always a wonderful thing to do⦠but sometimes you canât help feeling as if you have Pushover tattooed on your forehead.
In Married by Mistake, Casey Greene decides sheâs finished with being a pushover. Unfortunately, her fight for the no-strings love sheâs always wanted goes disastrously wrong; she ends up accidentally married to Adam Carmichael. Adam might be Memphisâs most eligible bachelor, but he never does anything he doesnât want to. Yet when a reformed pushover and a man of granite go head to head, anything can happen!
I hope you enjoy Adam and Caseyâs story. Please e-mail me at [email protected] and let me know what you think.
If youâre like me, when you get to the end of a book, you wish there was just a little more to read about those characters youâve grown attached to. Well, with this book, there is! If youâd like to see how the romance of minor characters Sam and Eloise came to its happy ending â and how Casey and Adam renewed their wedding vows â visit the For Readers page at www.abbygaines.com to read a couple of special extra scenes.
Abby Gaines
CHAPTER ONE
THE BRIDE WORE a long white dress and a look of utter despair.
Adam Carmichael saw her through the glass wall of the Memphis Channel Eight boardroom, scurrying down the corridor as fast as the full skirt of her dress would allow, flicking furtive glances over her shoulder.
Damn, a runaway bride. Could this day get any worse?
He stepped out of the boardroom, and she saved him the effort of stopping her when she cannoned into him, preoccupied by one of those over-the-shoulder checks. Soft yet firm breasts pressed hard against Adamâs chest; honey-gold hair tickled his chin.
He steadied her with his hands on her upper arms. And saw tears welling in her eyes. Instantly he released her, took a step back.
She brushed at the tears with short, impatient movements. âIâm sorry, I didnât mean toâ¦â She looked behind her again and said distractedly, âAnyway, it was nice meeting you, but I really mustâ¦â
She gathered up her skirt, ready to run, giving Adam a glimpse of slim ankles above a pair of silk shoes.
Overhead, the PA system crackled to life, and Adam recognized the voice of Channel Eightâs senior producer, unusually agitated. âWould Casey Greene please return to makeup immediately. Casey Greene to makeup.â There was a pause, then the producer said, âNow!â more ferociously than Adam had ever heard her speak before.
There was no mistaking the whimper from the runaway bride, nor the flare of panic in her eyes, which were the gray-green of the Mississippi when a storm was brewing.
Adam clamped a hand over her forearm. âSounds like theyâre looking for you.â
âI canât go back.â She tried to tug her arm free.
Fleetingly, he considered letting her go. But much as he hated this wedding show, he wasnât about to sabotage it.
They were due to go live in an hour, so it was a safe bet people would be scouring the building for the missing bride. In her panic to get away, sheâd obviously taken the elevator up instead of down. It might take awhile for the search party to reach the top-floor boardroom, but theyâd get here in the end.
âYou canât leave like this,â he said. âYou look terrible.â Oops, that wasnât the most tactful thing to say to a bride. âI mean, you look greatâ¦fantastic.â He ran a quick eye over her to check if heâd made a fair assessment. She was a little on the short side, around five-four in her shoes, he estimated, but the dress hugged some very attractive curves.