Marrying the Wrong Man Read Free

Morgan Parrish’s car. He had spent the better part of a year in pursuit of that car and its driver.
    With hands clenched around the wheel, he drove straight at the figment of his imagination. At the last minute, he chickened out and turned the wheel. What if it was real? What if Morgan Parrish came back to town?
    Son of a bitch.
When she’d left town with his baby in her belly, after Justin dropped her cold, Charlie had followed. He’d hoped she would give them a chance to be happy together like they’d been that summer between her freshman and sophomore years in college, before her father stepped in and broke them apart. But once he’d reached her in Connecticut, she’d refused to talk to him except to threaten a restraining order. So he backed down, got sober, and enrolled in culinary school. Then, the baby had been born and he’d received papers to declare paternity. Charlie scratched an itch over his heart. He didn’t fight Morgan’s wish to place the child for adoption. As a newly recovered alcoholic, he’d been the last person on earth who should’ve been a father. And Morgan was no prize, either.
    He touched the gritty surface of the white car—just to make sure it was real—and then he headed straight for Bryce’s office. If she did have the nerve to show her face in this town again, he had a few things to say.
    As he weaved through racks of auto parts and man-sized stacks of tires, the soles of Charlie’s cowboy boots echoed. He needed oil and then he needed to get to the bistro for dinner prep. He
didn’t
need this aggravation. Pushing the Mitchell family to invest in a small restaurant instead of the bakery they’d proposed meant there was a lot riding on his success.
    And it’d been slow to come.
    “Afternoon, Charlie,” Roberta Urlacher called from behind the checkout counter. “What’s on the menu this week? More of that veal? Rudy can’t stop talking about it.”
    “No veal. This week I have duck.”
    She crinkled her nose. “Ew. Duck is slimy and tough.”
    “Only when it’s cooked by someone who shouldn’t be cooking it,” he said. “Is Bryce in?”
    “Bryce is, uh, closing a deal. Can I help you with something?”
    “Oil,” he said without taking his eyes off Bryce’s office door.
    “You use a 5w20 in her, right?”
    “Yes.” He leaned against the counter, wishing it was a bar.
    “Be back in a jiff.”
    A few seconds later, Charlie heard a door click open and the words, “Good luck to you.”
    He met Bryce’s wide eyes as the man exited his office with a woman behind him. Charlie’s heart hammered against his rib cage. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail—something Morgan never did—and the baggy sweatshirt was wrong, too. But he’d have known that face anywhere.
    Her mouth opened when she saw him. Maybe his did, too. He was so numb he couldn’t feel a damn thing except the vicious thrashing in his chest.
    “Well, well, Charlie Cramer, isn’t this a surprise?” Bryce grinned. “I’ll be right with you.”
    Morgan stepped toward Charlie, looking different enough he couldn’t help but stare. It took him a few seconds to realize she wasn’t wearing makeup—not a stitch. For a woman who used to leave smudges of color on his white T-shirts after a hug, it was a shocking change. Was she sick? He used to pray she’d pay for agreeing to that wedding her father wanted and choosing Justin over him, then leaving town the minute they actually got their chance to be together. But he didn’t want her to be ill.
    “Charlie,” she rasped. “I’m … ” her mouth closed, and he watched the muscles of her throat move as she swallowed, “visiting my aunt.”
    Which was weird, too. The high and mighty Parrishes had stayed far away from Kitty’s reclusive sister, Phyllis.
    “5w20,” Roberta said. Her voice ended in a whoop, and the plastic container thudded loudly on the counter.
    He might have things to say to Morgan, but he wasn’t going to say them here in